| From the UK:
May 05, 2006
I've always thought the US and UK to be roughly equivalent in the extent to which the mania for political correctness has taken hold in each, but a story garnering only the briefest of mentions in today's Telegraph reveals the latter - or, more precisely, England - to be unique among the world's nations in its capacity for self-abasement, which seems to know no bounds.
From the "In Brief" section (apparently not online):
"Firemen in Barking, Essex have been banned from flying the Cross of St George [i.e., England's national flag] during the World Cup for fear of offending ethnic minorities."
To be quite honest, I was a bit sceptical of this report, so I called the fire station in question in an attempt to get more information. The man that answered the phone said "that was the Blue Watch", which I took as a confirmation, but he wouldn't give me any more detail as that wasn't his watch - he suggested that I call tomorrow, which I will do if there's no more press coverage in the morning.
Further confirmation of the story is to be found in the local Barking and Dagenham Recorder:
"FIREFIGHTERS will not be allowed to support the England team at the World Cup after being banned from flying the national flag at their station.
"The ban was handed out after St George's Day, when Barking Fire Station's Blue Watch put up an England flag to mark the patron saint's day. They were told it might offend certain groups in the community."
Can you think of any other nation in the entire world in which a display of the national flag would be prohibited for fear of causing offence? Is there any society as craven as this one? I am, for once, rendered almost speechless.
Tellingly, and as is often the case, "certain groups" seem not to mind in the least:
"But Ashfaq Siddique, secretary of Barking Mosque, called for the fire brigade to use some common sense and not to be oversensitive.
"He said: 'The World Cup is coming up and I think if you look at the Muslim households around the borough, they will be flying the England flag because many Muslims will be supporting England.'"
As Mr. Siddique's eminently reasonable comments suggest, the issue is not at all one of causing offence. What we're being treated to is yet another manifestation of the cowering cultural cringe so often illustrated by those who feel compelled constantly to apologise for their country and banish its symbols, all the while "celebrating" the "diversity" of other cultures - which, despite all their theoretical claims of cultural equivalence, they clearly find superior to their own (as I've noted, the Anglican church excels at this).
It's all very reminiscent of a passage from this reactionary's favourite socialist, which - like so much of his work - is well worth revisiting:
"England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to s****** at every English institution, from horseracing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but unquestionably true, that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during "God Save the King" than of stealing from a poor box."
(I disagree with Orwell in one respect - I believe that virtually the same analysis applies to American "intellectuals" as well. Perhaps it did not in 1941.)
The symptoms of the pathology are all too clear. But wherein lies its origin? I suggest the following:
We are all shaped - are, to a large extent, created - by the cultures in which we were raised. We are defined by our culture. Those who detest the society that created them are in reality expressing their hatred of themselves, but do so in a way that's ostensibly born of the best of liberal intentions. (This is not to contend that (e.g.) English culture is perfect, or that one should not try to better society, but attempts to explain the psychology of those who seem to see only shame and evil in the culture that produced them).
What teenager has not moaned "I hate myself"? Thankfully, most of those moaners grow up. But the cultural cringers do not. Their behaviour is - along with the curious sort of "rebellion" that demands conformity to the fashionable (Che t-shirts, lockstep moonbattery, etc.) - another manifestation of the developmentally arrested adolescent mentality so often seen in the bastions of the left.
Which would be fine - at least tolerable, and possibly quite amusing - if the juvenile self-loathing were contained within the groups so affected. It's the evident desire to force an entire nation - indeed, all of Western civilisation - to share the shame, don the sackcloth and surrender that's so offensive and so dangerous; in fact, potentially fatal (self-loathing invites self-destruction, after all).
This self-destructive tendency must be exposed, mocked and otherwise resisted whenever it arises - admittedly, the task is akin to slaying a Hydra, but we must persevere. As Orwell put it:
"The Bloomsbury highbrow, with his mechanical s******, is as out of date as the cavalry colonel. A modern nation cannot afford either of them. Patriotism and intelligence will have to come together again. It is the fact that we are fighting a war, and a very peculiar one, that may make this possible."
We may hope, at any rate. | |
