Racism – a Tool of Globalisation

By Duncan Whitmore

It scarcely needs saying that, to listen to the liberal-leftist claptrap gushing from outfits such as The Guardian, one would think that Britain (and the predominantly white, Western world generally) is a hotbed of racism and xenophobia. Although having been particularly prominent since Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, the issue has again risen to headline news as a result of the so-called “Megxit” – the decision of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to step back from royal duties, with the racism of the British tabloid press being a supposed factor.

While it is easy enough to point out anecdotal examples of racism anywhere, the notion that Britain suffers from either chronic or widespread racism – the kind that singer Lily Allen ascribes to the reason for Boris Johnson’s election victory – is difficult to defend. Academic research into the matter shows that Western countries are among the most racially tolerant in the world when it comes to the possibility of ethnic minorities moving in as next door neighbours. Remainers, who were aghast at Britain’s “xenophobic” decision to “turn its back” on Europe, may be interested to know that British parents are relatively happier for their children to enter interracial relationships than parents on the continent. And the Migration Observatory at Oxford University points out that the vast majority of immigrants to the UK find Britain to be hospitable and welcoming, and that they are able to improve their lives as a result of hard work. Moreover, while blacks are among the lowest earners in the UK, the government’s own figures show that the percentage of households earning more than £1,000 per week is greater among Indians, Chinese and other Asians than it is among British whites. So if racism is an explanation as to why some ethnic groups fail to earn as much as whites then the British people must be remarkably selective with their racism.

Nothing that demonstrates Britain as a relatively open and tolerant society should really come as much of a surprise. Britain has always been a cosmopolitan country, with centuries of experience in trade, relations and diplomacy that has stretched to every corner of the globe. And in spite of having been a supposed “oppressive” imperial power, we have also managed to remain on good terms with most of the former colonies under the aegis of the Commonwealth. The most that can be said for the notion that Britain is a “racist” country is to compare it to some purified ideal rather than to the situation in other countries – much like condemning a nation that has the highest cancer survival rates in the world on the grounds that there are still some natives who are dying from the affliction.

Because genuinely deplorable cases of racism – conscious, seething prejudice that either can or does erupt in hatred for people of other races – are difficult to discover in any statistically significant quantity, the concept has to be redefined in numerous, nebulous ways so as to present it as a problem.

One of these is to condemn people’s more casual, unwitting behaviour (such as throwaway comments, careless observations or subtly different treatment) as “micro-aggressions” or “unconscious bias”. Such behaviour may, of course, be a source of irritation for those on the receiving end, but it is likely to be a vicissitude of minority or “outsider” status based upon any characteristic, not just race. For instance, it could just as easily be experienced by a city dweller visiting the countryside or a council estate resident in posh suburbia (and vice versa). People generally tend to prefer and empathise with what is familiar to them, sifting the unfamiliar into broad categories or “stereotypes” purely as a result of inexperience. In a particular case, a few polite words may resolve the matter, but in general the eventual cure will be increased familiarity and (in the case of race) cultural integration. But even if such “unconscious bias” was a purely racial phenomenon it would hardly mean that a country is akin to a torch brandishing lynch mob.

Another tactic is simply to regard any possible behaviour as racist. For instance, while most anti-racists are concerned with hatred being directed to other races, it also seems to be “racist” to be attracted to someone because of their race. It is “racist” to ignore other cultures (or to celebrate British culture), but including them, imitating them or even celebrating them is derided as “cultural appropriation”. And pointing out any distinction based on a person’s ethnicity is also racist, yet treading the opposite path by trying to ignore racial consideration leads one to a charge of “racial insensitivity”. As if that is not enough, disagreement is shut down entirely by the dismissal of any attempt to define racism in objective terms as “white-splaining”, focussing instead on a BAME individual’s subjective feelings and “lived experience”. This has become legally manifest in so-called “hate crimes”, where the mere perception of the alleged victim is enough to permanently flag an incident as being “hate” related.

The ultimate, of course, is the notion that the mere fact of being white is sufficient to categorise a person as racist purely as a result of his “privileged” birth into an inherently oppressive social hierarchy, regardless of that person’s awareness of this alleged status. This, in turn, paves the way for claiming that any negative discrepancy between whites and ethnic minorities “must” owe itself to racism (in the same way that the gender pay gap “must” result from sexism), and that any critical words directed by a white person against a BAME individual – such as Meghan Markle – is de facto racist rather than based on some other (quite legitimate) complaint. It then, somehow, becomes the duty of the “privileged whites” to “educate” themselves on their inherently racist status rather than demanding their accusers for evidence of actual racist behaviour. This turns on its head the notion that a person asserting a proposition should bear the burden of proving it – which demonstrates, of course, that such proof is probably lacking.

The result of all of this is to rob racism of its moral gravity and its seriousness as a social issue. For if is true that minor, unwitting (but otherwise unmalicious) behaviour is racist, if any choice that could be made ends up being racist, and if white people are automatically racist by virtue of their birth, then racism cannot attract any serious moral culpability. People can be morally responsible only for their consciously chosen actions where they have the option to do good, not for aspects about themselves that they cannot help or for situations where every option is bad. But because any notion of being “racist” attracts such severe stigma, its entrenchment as an undoubted and immutable fact of society means that actual crimes and real problems are permitted to flourish in order to tiptoe around anything that could cause racial sensitivities – such as the Manchester grooming scandal, and the ignorance of the fact that white boys from poorer backgrounds are among the lowest school achievers. And so the irony of defining racism so fatuously is that real racist outcomes result from an attempt to avoid being racist.

Moreover, the whole thing could amount to a self-fulfilling prophecy, as could identity politics generally. By making people more aware of their basic characteristics such as race, gender, sexuality, creed and so on before sifting these into categories of oppressors and oppressed, the latter begin to take on the mantle of victimhood and ascribe all of their personal foibles and failures to discrimination. The result is a mental self-sentencing to a life of destitution at the hands of the white, privileged male, regardless of how hard one might try to escape from it. On the other side, if the aforesaid white, privileged male is going to be automatically condemned as racist, then he is more likely to approach BAME individuals with suspicion and hostility. Thus, antagonisms are stoked and inflamed, rather than resolved.

Much of all of this has been written before, and will continue to be written again by those who do not share a leftist disposition. Less attention, however, is paid to the reason why racism – and wokeism generally – has become such a deafening screech at the forefront of the national political conversation when the open and tolerant nature of British society is not difficult to demonstrate (and, moreover, when there are far more important issues to talk about). Indeed, as election after election has pointed out, it is really a disproportionately loud, minority conversation, perpetuated by middle class, bleeding hearts within the M25 rather than by the country as a whole – let alone any actual “victims”.

The reason for this loudness is not just because, as Laurence Fox suggested, such people need something to get upset about. In fact, the lefty, liberal, metrollectuals – as we argued in a previous essay – are actually being recruited as useful idiots in a project which has more sinister foundations.

We are currently living in a world in which the dominant paradigm is globalisation in the form of the gradual erosion of national sovereignty, open borders, the consolidation and centralisation of states into larger entities, globally managed trade, collective security and perpetual interventionism and warfare. Explicitly supranational outfits such as the EU are an example of such globalisation, but so too is increasing inter-state “co-operation” in order to combat supposedly worldwide problems such as climate change and the elimination of tax and regulatory independence. In order for this globalising project to flourish, its proponents must seek the breakdown of local, national and regional cultures, identities and allegiances, which serve to dilute or even prevent people’s adherence to globalised institutions and orders.

The problem with this programme is that it has been extremely difficult to promote and defend explicitly on account of its woeful unpopularity once its implications become clear. Openly, politicians have managed to turn to some blatantly anti-democratic measures – for instance, repackaging the rejected EU constitution as the Lisbon Treaty in order to increase European integration. More insidiously, however, they have managed to configure the so-called “Overton window” of acceptable opinion by setting up a false dichotomy of progress on the one hand and retrogression on the other. On the progressive side, their programme is associated with openness, tolerance, freedom, and advancement. On the other side, however, any celebration or assertion of national primacy, traditional values and cultures – the kind of elements, such as Brexit, that are at odds with globalisation – is painted as a plunge back to Nazism, fascism and the belligerent nationalism of the 1930s which led to World War II and mass extermination. Thus, by forcing their association with a dark era, any threats to the globalising project are neutered. Cries of “racism” are simply a part of this strategy, and it explains also why anyone a mere inch to the right of centre-left (such as Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage) is derided explicitly as a “fascist”.

All of this is demonstrated by the ways in which the mainstream media has completely inverted the way in which we should examine the record and characteristics of politicians, with serious incompetence and criminality being ignored while relatively trivial matters are given the spotlight. If a Prime Minister or President was to, say, drive his country to ruin, throw millions of bombs at foreign countries, or kill and maim countless innocent civilians, no one bats an eyelid if those actions are more or less in line with globalising tendencies. In fact, he might even be lauded as a great statesman, as those who still carry a candle for Saint Barack of Obama seem wont to do. Yet if the same politician was to, say, utter something untoward about someone’s skin colour, make reference to Muslim women wearing the burqa as “letterboxes”, unwittingly “misgender” someone, or make an ill-judged flirtation with a woman, he is likely to be hounded out of office for being “racist”, “misogynistic” or “trans-phobic”. For instance, Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian general Qasem Soleimani earlier this month is a far more important factor in determining his fitness for office – his respect for international law and diplomacy, his understanding of the limits of his constitutional authority, his grasp of geo-political circumstances, his judgment of cause and effect, not to mention the morality of extra-judicial killing – than anything “racist” he might have said. And yet, because this assassination was broadly within the programme approved by the American “deep state”, it received far less criticism than his supposed “pussy-grabbing” misogyny and innate xenophobia.

In fact, if Trump was regarded as a promoter of the globalising project rather than as a detractor, he could have said and done exactly the same “racist” and “misogynist” things that supposedly make him a terrible president, but we would hear nothing about it. The extent of Bill Clinton’s “misogynistic” record, including allegations of sexual misconduct, assault and actual rape, are worse, or at least no better, than Trump’s alleged affronts against women (and most of the latter, strangely enough, came to light only after Trump became a presidential candidate). Yet because Clinton is a liberal hero no one bothers to mention it.

The liberal-left who cry “racist!” and “fascist!” are simply gullible drones in this globalising project. The focus of our anti-racist political narrative is not on preventing real racism. It is about shaming and embarrassing us into accepting and sustaining a totalitarian world order – an order which we are, thankfully, rejecting.