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You are here: Home / DDU Newsletter / Newsletter 2021-08-20: AWOL over Afghanistan / Protecting racial slurs / Cynical business / Kate Clanchy / US police division / Professing to Madam Butterfly / Drake canards

August 21, 2021 By Nico Macdonald

Newsletter 2021-08-20: AWOL over Afghanistan / Protecting racial slurs / Cynical business / Kate Clanchy / US police division / Professing to Madam Butterfly / Drake canards

What We’ve Been Up To

CALLING PARENTS: We’d love to hear from parents who have experience of their children’s schools promoting a one-sided view about racism/anti-racism. 

Has your child been taught that all white children have ‘white privilege’, without any question, for example? Or, if you are a parent from an ethnic minority background, has your child been told that non-white children are victims of oppression as if it were an incontrovertible fact? 

DDU would love to hear from you for a project we are working on. If you have an experience you would like to share,  email us in confidence, putting ‘Parents’ Voices’ in the subject line. And read more about the project in our recent mailer. 

News Nuggets 

As the tragedy of the Taliban take-over in Afghanistan unfolds, reports the Telegraph, women and children, men who have supported western values, and those who are minorities, such as Christians, reports the Spectator, wait in trepidation for an expected orgy of oppression, violent reprisals and a return to the dark ages, according to the Guardian. Where then, are the voices crying out for justice for those who live with fear in Afghanistan, on who the i newspaper reports? Why are so many of them silent on the plight of these people? Some, reports the Daily Express, have even gone so far as to suggest that the Taliban deserves reparations – for what? For killing, for beheading, for stoning and for raping? 

After months of moral outrage from people happy to berate the Western world and ‘white people’ for the sins of their fathers – the expensive footballers, the champagne-guzzling theatrical luvvies, the smug academics with their backsides adhering to their comfy chairs, and the posturing, infantile students – they are now strangely silent. While Lord Dannatt in the London Evening Standard, and other military commanders, urge the government to show more generosity of spirit in protecting Afghan people who have helped British forces, and whose lives, and those of their families, are likely to be in danger, the Telegraph reports so-called ‘anti-racists’ in Britain’s academia are calling for protection of racial slurs! As Calvin Robinson points out in the Telegraph, racist insults, it seems, are acceptable to our new race-obsessed ideologues, as long as they are directed at Conservatives or individuals whose views are deemed to be compatible with Conservative views. Whose values would you trust to contribute to making a better world?

When a company such as Coca-Cola or IKEA  lectures you on your morals, remember that what they really want from you is your money. In The Times, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy presents a trenchant, and cynical, view of woke-signalling capitalism. And, if virtue is your object, just remember that Coca-Cola is bad for your health, argues James Kirkup in The Times, and that IKEA’s ethics are a bit of a moveable feast, starting with its founder Ingvar Kamprad’s dubious associations with Nazism, about which further questions have been raised by claims in a new book, reports BBC News. 

The writer Kate Clanchy has been heavily criticised for using ‘racial’ tropes including by fellow author Monisha Rajesh in the Guardian. Having apologised profusely, she is now removing the offending phrases – but who has been offended? However, rather than taking offence, reports The Times, some of the people she has described have gone on record to approve her use of phrases such as ‘almond-eyes’. Perhaps the cultural warriors should also question whether they have the right to speak for others, or even whether they too are pretty offensive sometimes? 

In America the police are fighting back, reports the Telegraph. A BLM activist policewoman is being sued by some of her colleagues for creating an ‘us-versus-them’ attitude by her racially divisive comments. Focusing on racial grievance to gain status or resources is unlikely to improve work conditions anywhere, let alone in US police forces.

 According to the Telegraph, the Welsh National Opera Company is offering its customers the chance to attend lectures by University of Cambridge professor Priyamvada Gopal which will explain the colonial and sexist aspects of Puccini’s opera, Madam Butterfly. So, we will have an Indian academic explaining a story written by an Italian about a Japanese Geisha and an American sailor and that is being performed by a Welsh company. Japan was not an American colony and the Geisha tradition is considered an honourable profession in Japan. Surely this is an act of cultural appropriation by Professor Gopal and the WNO? Maybe the WNO is having an identity crisis and mistakenly thinks its job is one of moral education, a job usually associated with the Church or maybe schools? One to miss. 

Our Dummy of the Week award goes to Tavistock Town Council in Devon, which, in true democratic spirit, has decided to add an ‘explaining’ plaque to the statue of Sir Francis Drake, a move that has been supported by just one member of the community. To say that their grasp of history is limited would be too kind. If they are going to detail his cruelty, for example, shouldn’t they mention that the Spanish burned English people alive, including English sailors, for their religious beliefs? God forbid that we should mention that African tribes also indulged in slavery or used cruelty against others. Some still do, for that matter. Now, why isn’t that on the plaque? The planning documents say the aim is “to provide understanding to residents and visitors”. We think it sounds more like providing a heap of patronising platitudes.

DDU Updates

We shall not be meeting every week in August. There will be a Monday meeting (August 23rd) and we look forward to seeing those who are able to attend  – drop us a line if you would like to take part.

View the newsletter as emailed

Filed Under: DDU Newsletter Tagged With: Black Lives Matter, foreign policy, history, performing arts

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