The inversion of history. By Douglas Murray.
It is 18 years since the last Colditz drama on British television, which apparently means we need a new one. And the times being what they are, it appears that the drama will have to reflect the values of our little cultural-revolutionary period.
Like most adaptations of already well-known stories, this one will be based on a book by Ben Macintyre. … Last weekend Macintyre told the Hay literary festival that the adaptation of his latest book would dismantle the ‘mythology’ of Colditz. This ‘21st-century narrative’ view of events at the camp will apparently especially focus on the ‘appalling racism’ at the castle. Not the appalling racism of the German guards, mind. Rather, the appalling racism of the British officers imprisoned there. Douglas Bader, for instance. …
No Anglo-Saxons either:
The Colditz news came at an interesting time. Within hours of that story breaking, I learned that there are to be no such people in history as the Anglo-Saxons. Cambridge University has apparently decided henceforth to teach that they did not exist as a distinct ethnic group. It is part of what the university describes as an effort to undermine ‘myths of nationalism’, specifically an effort by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic to make its teaching more ‘anti-racist’ and ‘dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism’. …
Of course the uniting oddity of these efforts to dismantle, problematise and indeed disappear our history is that it is only our own ‘myths’ — and truths — that must be so dismantled. It is only we who must have any heroes who demonstrated extraordinary heroism and stoicism ripped from us.
Anti-white:
Likewise, it is the ‘first peoples’ of these islands who must be disappeared. I do not notice anybody trying this on any other nationalities. It might be thought slightly rude to go to Australia, say, and tell the Aboriginal peoples that they need their ‘myths’ taken away from them and oh, by the way, your ancestors didn’t exist. Try it with some Native Americans and see how far you get. Yet so long as those being robbed of their history are white and British, it’s all fair and good. …
Pro-black:
One sign that it fits into some grander project can be told from the fact that while our own history is being rewritten or erased altogether, we are inventing myths that favour other groups. Consider the recent Netflix series in which Cleopatra was played by a black woman. The doolally, race-obsessed Americans responsible for the series decided that Cleopatra was not a Macedonian, but an African. …
That Cleopatra actually was an absolute monarch and owned many slaves is apparently not the point. We are simply meant to accept the narrative that it is not sufficient to claim black Americans built America — now they must be said to have built the world. Always in a very kind and caring way, of course. …
Identity politics truce?
Naturally all this is an insult to the very idea of historical truth. But it is also a specific insult to the British public…. A certain unfairness seems to be at work. So let me suggest that we right it. Here would be my deal. We are allowed to have our heroes and you are allowed to have yours.
So childish, yet serious.
