Written by Classical Liberal
UK universities are at the centre of a bitter culture war between those who wish to ‘decolonise’ them and make them woke and those who still believe in academic integrity. Advocates of decolonising the curricula at UK universities say traditional courses have been ‘colonised’ by white thinkers and BAME students need to ‘see themselves’ in all subjects, including history, English, and even maths. Otherwise, they will feel alienated. The movement to decolonise has led to curriculum changes at many universities, including Oxford.
Balliol College’s website says it has changed its history and international relations courses to tackle ‘Eurocentrism’. One of the most fervent decolonising campaigns was the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ campaign at Oxford, which demanded removing a statue of the nineteenth-century imperialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College.
Campaign leader Ntokozo Qwabe claimed ‘explicit exclusion’ of ‘marginalised groups’ in reading lists. Students demanded the curriculum be changed in all subjects to include more ethnic minority thinkers. They said maintaining a ‘Eurocentric’ viewpoint sent the message that non-white students were not welcome at Oxford.
Oxford University declined to remove the statue because of the high legal costs involved in getting permission for the move, which was a very clever way of ducking the issue without seeming un-PC.
In 2017 Cambridge University announced plans for its English faculty to ‘ensure the presence’ of ethnic minority writers.
Last week it emerged that universities were now being rewarded with a Race Equality Charter ‘badge’ for decolonising the curriculum. Not surprisingly, a recent study by the Higher Education Policy Institute shows little public support for the ‘removal of Western-centric viewpoints’ in academia. A poll was taken on 19 July 2021 which showed that less than a quarter of adults support decolonising UK university courses. The survey of 2,000 people found that just 23% support decolonising UK University courses, 31% are against, and 33% are undecided.
In response, the think-tank adopted a pragmatic and progressive position and advised universities to frame the issues ‘in a more neutral way’, to allow students to choose between Western and non-Western texts: Our advice is to move away from slogans which the public either do not generally understand, or are hostile to, and present activity in a way which seeks to build broad coalitions of support.
Indeed, when asked about ‘broadening the curriculum’ to take in materials ‘from across the world’ without removing anything, 67% approved, and just 4% were against it. The report concluded: ‘People are more inclined to support progressive changes when they are framed as a broadening of perspectives rather than the removal of Western-centric viewpoints or decolonisation’.
This willingness to accept a broader curriculum with materials from other cultures without removing anything from our culture shows that the British public is not as racist as the de-colonisers like to keep telling us.
However, the report provoked anger from the University and College Union, which represents lecturers. General Secretary Jo Grady claimed the ‘hostility’ of the general public toward decolonisation showed ‘how far we have to go to tackle systemic racism’. She said:
“Decolonising curricula benefits students from all backgrounds, but this activity is about more than just diversifying the material students are exposed to, and it should not have to be sanitised in order to win support.”
When we compare Grady’s attitude to that of the moderate progressivism of the Higher Education Policy Institute, it becomes abundantly clear that she is a dangerous cultural Marxist zealot on a mission to wreck UK higher education.
This matters because whoever controls the past controls the future and whoever controls the present controls the past. This is why, according to George Orwell, repressive states seek to rewrite history for cynical political ends. A similar process is happening in UK universities today, as activists demand the ‘decolonisation’ of academic curricula.
For example, in English Literature, it’s out with ‘white, male and stale ‘writers (regardless of merit) and in with a more ‘woke’ and ethnically diverse canon. History itself is viewed through the negative prism of slavery and colonialism. European expansion is seen as irredeemably wicked and the great empire-builders as contemptible tyrants. Slavery was terrible and bad things were done in the name of empire. But for better and for worse, this is our history.
And, other non-white cultures did equally bad things. Anyone who focuses on the ‘evils’ of Western civilisation, while ignoring the ‘evils’ perpetrated by other societies is racist against white people.
To deny or cancel inconvenient parts is an insult to academic study. The public see that. Why don’t universities?
Is it because the UK higher education sector is dominated by cultural Marxists: who bully all those who oppose them into toeing the party line or at the very least keeping their heads down and staying quiet about the damage being done?
Marx was only interested in economics, he hardly ever considered gender or racial issues. So I don’t know if “cultural marxism” is the right term. Also once our civilisation has collapsed thanks to its hollowing out from inside by these cultural termites, I cannot see any Marxist parties or organisations standing ready to jump in and fill the void that will have been created.
I fear rather that the Islamists, who already have an operational ideology with millions of adherents, networks and organisations covering every area of social life, bases and nuclei, with cells in every part of society from Parliament to the police, will step in and take over.
The leftists who support them are acting as their “useful idiots” – and are really idiotic in the extreme since Islamic sharia law stands for everything that the left is supposed to abhor – the severest possible repression of women, homicidal suppression of gays and every kind of sexuality that does not have Koranic approval, judicial brutality (amputations, floggings), etc etc
Today’s students/graduates, tomorrow’s powers that be. I dread to think what will happen when it does all implode. The problem is they have no life experience and are incapable of independent thought. It’s group-think all the way.
We may have arrived at a point where the majority of British people are prepared to swallow the lot if that is what it takes to ‘get on’.
Academia knows this and so why make a song and dance about it if they know their is no public activism to challenge their capitulation to the demands of the cultural Marxists. Same for the Tory Party too, they don’t need to make a stand on this either because they know that the vast majority of their supporters will still vote for them.
What is the origin of Marxists’ insane hatred of our genius Western civilisation. Can you un-brainwash people. How can you proof young people against brainwashing or does it start at primary school age where they’re discouraged from thinking for themselves. . Are most graduates really brainwashed or do they just play along to keep jobs. Even if we went on a taxpayers strike the Soros Open Society would still fund these lousy academics. Is it too late to turn things round, or do we wait for civilisation to implode taking down with it, all the lousy stuff and the excellent stuff alike .
Beats me mary. I’m sure Classical Liberal is right in what he says in this article but how the hell we stop this rot is beyond me.
When I read Philosophy at Sheffield University, graduating 1971, I was fortunate in having only 2 lecturers who were incompetent.
But that was the last course designed by Professor Cousins who then retired. I hate to think what might have happened since.
Mary I really do despair.
Marx dictated a class struggle, so individuals were not sgnificant: Marxism is atheist so there is no God. With no identity and no personal value the Ego must rusticate in Infantilism. The expression of infancy is primarily destructive.