OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | ‘Wokery’, diversity face rising attacks; Bard’s Stratford is being ‘decolonised’ | Farrukh Dhondy

“She killed Hyperion

And went for the Goat

--Hey! It’s not about you--

It’s merely a quote

From a very famous play

About love’s antidote

And if memory recurs

Does it bring lumps to your throat…?”

From The Wilderness of Longing, by Bachchoo

No earthquake yet, but rumblings, like truth turning in its grave? I’ve now read three unsubstantiated contentions that Kamala Harris’ non-election to the presidency of the United States was, as Donald Trump would say, “stolen”: “fixed” voting machines in swing states, cancellation of millions of votes on fabricated criteria, illegally discounted postal votes… etc. These remain matters of opinion, but the writers predict that a proper investigation will find proof of extreme rigging and indicate that Ms Harris should now be in the White House.

Wishful thinking? Maybe! What remains a mystery is why the majority of American voters cast their ballots for a dimwit, lying crook? His first, much-publicised gesture was, with Elon Musk, an assault on the ideas and policies of “Diversity”, “Equity” and “Inclusion”. They declared their hatred for “DEI” in the government and civil institutions. Donald Trump even attributed the plane crash over Washington to DEI, implying that people employed through DEI blundered at the air traffic control. That’s not a great distance from an explicitly racist or misogynistic statement.

Is this attack on DEI Mr Trump’s trump card? It’s an attack on wokery. As sure as the Pope is a Catholic, every MAGA voter is a hater of wokery and believes that a crackdown on it, or its complete and even violent obliteration, will restore America to greatness.

These are people who are viscerally against any doctrines and policies which originated in moves towards equality, fairness and the elimination of insults to race, gender and class. Of course, some of “wokery” is, in my humble opinion, just laughable, ridiculous and even a waste of time and energy -- such as the enforced choice in some institutions of “your preferred pronoun”. (I have regularly, in answer to the demand, said I’d like to be addressed as “It” -- as I insist on being objective!).

And, gentle reader, some wokery, if indeed the following prejudice is deemed to be a part of it, is plain nasty, as when the writer J.K. Rowling is subject to death threats because she said she doesn’t believe that individuals can change from the gender they were born with. She has never said that transgender people don’t have the right to say and think as they do and she and others of the same opinion, who have been dismissed from university posts for asserting these opinions, are victims of an unsupportable viciousness.

That being said, some wokery is certainly -- how shall one put it? -- over the top? Recently the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which owns and administers several historic buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon associated with the Bard’s life, declared that they are, through an initiative of Prof. Helen Hopkins of Birmingham University, setting out to “decolonise” the Trust.

This is the sort of declaration that could be classed as wokery. It’s fairly harmless. I think it means that they intend that the inheritance of Shakespeare should not be viewed through a “Western perspective”.

I am not aware that this universal genius had any part to play in colonialism. He lived and died before the birth and colonial spread of the East India Company. He was alive in 1607 when the first British settlement of Virginia in America took place, but through my acquaintance with his work, I can see no trace of apologies or support for “colonial” conquest. That Shakespeare had “Western attitudes” is unsurprising. He wasn’t born and brought up in Hong Kong!

So, what then have Prof. Hopkins and the Trust done to “decolonise” Stratford and the inheritance of the playwright whose work every culture in the world respects as universally expressive of human emotion and motivation, comic and tragic?

Answer: They have sponsored an event celebrating the work of our own Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Great! That this takes place in Stratford doesn’t, to my mind, seem significant in any way. If it took place in Birmingham or in Brick Lane in London it would be just as welcome, though it couldn’t be said to “decolonise” those locations.

Prof Hopkins and the Trust, in their efforts towards that goal, also introduced in Stratford a Bollywood-themed dance class. That sounds like fun for the natives, but how it contributes to “decolonising” Shakespeare’s legacy remains a mystery.

Nevertheless, in the wake of this effort by the Birthplace Trust and Prof. Hopkins, the right-wing press, in what has become a characteristic cry-baby fashion, have written articles denouncing the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Prof. Hopkins for this policy. The Spectator, a weekly right-wing magazine now edited by the ex-Tory minister Michael Gove, led the thrust in an article by columnist Douglas Murray. Mr Murray is constantly carping about every aspect of wokery he can unearth.

Apart from the completely unacceptable threats to the life of J.K. Rowling and the dismissal of perfectly competent and brilliant academics by trans-gender supporters, wokery does very little harm to anything. It tries to ban words such as “whitewash” and “blackmail”. Big deal!

Of course, attacking it wins votes for the Trumpeteer and the Musketeer, but the writings of Mr Murray are to me like the fellows with boards around their necks at Hyde Park saying “THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH”. Er… just relax!