It is always satisfying to see the zealots of Woke getting their comeuppance. Inevitably, the politically-correct puritans behind cancel culture are turning on each other in the name of their simple-minded beliefs. The fanatical followers of BLM and XR are already splitting into factions and accusing each other of being insufficiently doctrinally pure. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the history of ideological movements such as socialism knows they will fight like cats in a bag as soon as they gain any power, or even the prospect of power, thereby revealing their true character and motivation for all to see.
The president of the Oxford Student Union has been forced to resign only days after her election after factions within the union accused her of holding unacceptable views – particularly that she has a history of “anti-Semitic, transphobic and racist social media posts”. This is the woman who campaigned on a manifesto to “decolonise the curriculum “, whatever that means. I can only presume that ‘decolonise’ here means to tell lies. She wanted to rewrite history by, for instance, airbrushing Cecil Rhodes out of the institutions he funded[1] and comparing him to Hitler. A slur that somewhat offended Jewish groups. A comment of ‘Ching Chang’ on a post about Chinese food probably didn’t help.
She has scuttled off back to the bosom of her extremely wealthy and well-connected family in Karnataka, where she has been complaining that she is the victim of a “cancel culture mob”. Demonstrating clearly that she has never learnt the meaning of the words Irony and Hypocrisy. She has, via said powerful family connections (and anyone who knows India at all knows how all-important such connections are) enlisted the support, not only of national media but also of MPs and prominent politicians such as the Foreign Minister in the ruling Hindu-Nationalist BJP. Apparently, she is claiming that it was unfair that people dug up the offending posts, some of which dated back all the way to 2019! The minister claims that the outrageous treatment of poor little Ms Samant amounts to a “continuation of attitudes and prejudices from the colonial areas, [sic] especially in the UK” and “cyberbullying”, and promises to raise the matter with the UK government on her behalf. Doubtless, such concern would be extended to any Indian student.
As always, anyone unhappy with whatever happens to them in Britain will claim it is down to racism, a claim the BJP cronies of her family are all too willing to promote. There’s nothing like a grievance against white people to rally one’s supporters. One can’t help wondering, given the horrible suffering of BAME people in this dreadful country, why so many millions of them are so keen to come here that they are willing to take terrible risks for themselves and their children just to get here, even paying substantial sums for the unpleasant ordeal of attending our institutionally racist universities and being elected president of the student body by all those appalling white students – and having got here, why they remain and don’t return to some less awful country. Perhaps it is because, like the People’s Paradise of socialist countries, we maintain armed guards on the borders to prevent them from leaving?
Still, it does my cynical old heart much good to see the clowns who have jumped on the bandwagon of Woke tearing each other apart in this way. If this is how they conduct themselves, then the sensible and intelligent have little to fear from them in the long run.
[1] It is interesting to note that of the 32 American recipients this year of the highly prestigious, not to mention valuable Rhodes Scholarships enabling them to study at Oxford, 23 are black, and seem unbothered by where the money came from.
Past recipients who also have not refused the honour of such ideologically-dirty money include, Norman Manley (Premier of Jamaica 1959–1962), Bram Fischer (prominent Anti-apartheid activist and lawyer), and Mervyn Morris (Jamaican poet and professor emeritus at the University of the West Indies).