Quote of the day 1st June 2020
"The paradox of emancipation for the left is that the more victories it wins the less relevant it becomes. In theory, it should bank the victories and move on to the serious business it said it always wanted to concentrate on once it had swept aside irrational prejudices. In practice, it unwittingly shows that prejudice can flourish as easily on the left as the right."
"The attacks on the Tory descendants of east African Asians echo the attacks of white racists."
"They are no longer from refugee families, who were robbed of everything they owned by Idi Amin and the other African dictators of the 1970s but the tainted descendants of the British empire’s “subcolonial agents” in Africa."
"Across the west, the centre- and radical left are suffering endless defeats. I wait for the moment when their supporters ask what they are doing wrong. One item on a long list would be the notion that the left owns minorities. As morality, it is an affront to individual liberty. As strategy, it is worse than useless."
Exerpts from a Guardian article by Nick Cohen a few weeks ago in response to some of the attacks from the left on ethnic minority members of Boris Johnson's cabinet and on a contender for the US Democrat party's presidential nomination, Pete Buttigieg whose leftwing opponents said he should not be the Democrats' candidate because he was "the wrong type of gay."
The article was called "How repellent to damn minorities for not having the ‘right’ politics,"
and had the subtitle "It’s absurd to accuse people of betraying their ethnicity or sexuality because of their views."
It's a good article although naturally, while "I agree with Nick" that Conservative attitudes to minorities have changed out of all recognition in my lifetime, the idea that in the past all Conservatives were bigots and all socialists were tolerant was not more universally correct than it is now.
And in that respect I will make one more points against the idea that members of minority groups are traitors if they don't support the left.
How can it possibly be reasonable to insist that gay people should vote today on the basis of who voted for and against Section 28 thirty years ago and that members of ethnic minorities should note on the basis of a narrative about who looked out for their interests in the past, and then damn the descendants of Ugandan Asians for remembering who took them in and gave them refuge in this country when that murdering tyrant Idi Amin seized their homes and assets and deported them?
(And for those who don't go that far back and have not worked it out, Ted Heath was not a member of the Labour party,)
"The attacks on the Tory descendants of east African Asians echo the attacks of white racists."
"They are no longer from refugee families, who were robbed of everything they owned by Idi Amin and the other African dictators of the 1970s but the tainted descendants of the British empire’s “subcolonial agents” in Africa."
"Across the west, the centre- and radical left are suffering endless defeats. I wait for the moment when their supporters ask what they are doing wrong. One item on a long list would be the notion that the left owns minorities. As morality, it is an affront to individual liberty. As strategy, it is worse than useless."
Exerpts from a Guardian article by Nick Cohen a few weeks ago in response to some of the attacks from the left on ethnic minority members of Boris Johnson's cabinet and on a contender for the US Democrat party's presidential nomination, Pete Buttigieg whose leftwing opponents said he should not be the Democrats' candidate because he was "the wrong type of gay."
The article was called "How repellent to damn minorities for not having the ‘right’ politics,"
and had the subtitle "It’s absurd to accuse people of betraying their ethnicity or sexuality because of their views."
It's a good article although naturally, while "I agree with Nick" that Conservative attitudes to minorities have changed out of all recognition in my lifetime, the idea that in the past all Conservatives were bigots and all socialists were tolerant was not more universally correct than it is now.
And in that respect I will make one more points against the idea that members of minority groups are traitors if they don't support the left.
How can it possibly be reasonable to insist that gay people should vote today on the basis of who voted for and against Section 28 thirty years ago and that members of ethnic minorities should note on the basis of a narrative about who looked out for their interests in the past, and then damn the descendants of Ugandan Asians for remembering who took them in and gave them refuge in this country when that murdering tyrant Idi Amin seized their homes and assets and deported them?
(And for those who don't go that far back and have not worked it out, Ted Heath was not a member of the Labour party,)
Comments