Culture wars Archives | Page 8 of 16

The deep bigotry of those screaming racism

August 1, 2019August 1, 2019 MelanieMeghan Markle, racism, Vogue

Along with several other commentators, I had harsh words to say in my Times column (£) about the choices made by the Duchess of Sussex, the former actress Meghan Markle, in listing 15 female impact-makers in her guest-edited issue of British Vogue. Like others, I found these choices shallow and meretricious, amounting to little more than politically correct and deeply divisive virtue-signalling that seemed to me disrespectful of both the monarchy, which is above all an apolitical and unifying force, and the country of which it is the symbol. People…

Britain Culture wars

Meghan’s “woke” Vogue is shallow and divisive

July 31, 2019July 31, 2019 Melanie"woke", Duchess of Sussex, Meghan, Vogue

Who knew that, among her many accomplishments, the Duchess of Sussex would exhibit an unparalleled talent for excavation? When in a hole, she doesn’t just keep digging. She keeps going until the earth caves in on top of her, and she doesn’t stop even then. The duchess, the former actress Meghan Markle, has been criticised for high-handedness and for failing to grasp that, as a member of the royal family, she now needs to be apolitical and no longer make herself the centre of the story. Failing to acknowledge this,…

Culture wars USA

The real racism behind the Trump/Omar furore

July 19, 2019July 19, 2019 MelanieIlhan Omar, racism, trump

There’s always something ugly and disturbing about an enormous crowd being roused to mass emotion by the words of a charismatic orator. So it was when Americans chanted “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign in response to then candidate Donald Trump’s repeated claims that she had committed crimes for which she should be prosecuted. And so it was again during this week’s Trump rally in North Carolina when a section of the crowd started chanting “send her back” in response to President Trump’s attack on…

Culture wars USA

In Trump v the “Squad”, American Jews have picked the wrong target

July 19, 2019 MelanieAmerican Jews, racism, the "Squad", trump

In the showdown between U.S. President Donald Trump and “the Squad” of four far-left minority congresswomen, Jewish organizations in America have overwhelmingly condemned Trump’s remarks. Trump tweeted that certain “progressive congresswomen,” widely assumed to be Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), should go back to the “totally broken” countries they had come from and sort them out before telling America how to run its own affairs. Jewish organizations, which are overwhelmingly liberal and anti-Trump, reacted viscerally, accusing the president of “echoing the racist…

Culture wars Global conflict

The dangerous equation of Islamophobia with antisemitism

June 28, 2019June 28, 2019 Melanieantisemitism, Ilhan Omar, Islamophobia, UN

The Somali-born congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has made a number of antisemitic remarks, is currently embroiled in controversy over her marriage history. When claims against her of bigamy and immigration fraud first emerged in 2016, Omar accused the journalists involved of “Islamophobia.” Omar has also made a claim being heard more and more: that Muslims are called antisemites only because they are Muslim. In other words, anyone who calls out Muslim antisemitism is Islamophobic. This twisted claim is a way of making Muslim antisemitism unsayable. The claim is being…

Britain Culture wars

Acting out of vanity when all the world’s a stage

June 25, 2019 MelanieBP, Mark Rylance, virtue signalling

The actor Sir Mark Rylance has resigned from the Royal Shakespeare Company because it accepted a subsidy from BP to support £5 theatre tickets for young people. BP’s sponsorship, he said, allowed it to “obscure the destructive reality of its activities” as a major oil producer that threatens the future of the planet. Virtue signalling has become the default position among the “luvvies” of the arts world. Based on their belief in their own ineffable rightness, it often makes them look absurd, as when in April the actress Dame Emma…

Britain Culture wars Europe

Europe starts to fray at the seams

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 MelanieBrexit party, Europe, nationalism, populism

The European parliament elections last week have provided further graphic evidence that Britain and Europe are in the throes of a profound political and cultural upheaval. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party pulverized both Labour and the Conservatives by winning many more seats than either to become the largest single party in the European parliament— within just five weeks of being created. Since Farage’s party stands for Britain leaving the European Union with no withdrawal deal, many Conservatives rightly believe that whoever they elect as their new leader (and therefore…

Britain Culture wars

Schools are becoming a battle of the zealots

May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 MelanieMuslims, Parkfield primary school, relationships education

In Birmingham, Parkfield Primary School has been under siege. Hundreds of Muslim parents protested against its No Outsiders programme, which taught pupils about LGBT relationships. Similar protests have erupted at other Birmingham schools and spread to other towns and cities. This is a collision between two forms of intolerance. From September next year it will be compulsory to teach primary-school children to respect different types of families, relationships and sexual identities including same-sex relationships and transgender people. The policy is said to reflect the fundamental British values to which everyone…

Culture wars

Jewish conservatism is the key to our survival

May 28, 2019May 29, 2019 MelanieConservatism, David Brooks, hyper-individualism, jews

In his new book The Second Mountain, the American writer David Brooks says something that shocked me. After a long night of the soul Brooks, a distinguished New York Times columnist, has realised that what should drive us is not worldly ambition and achievement. What’s more important is to live a moral life and put others first. Accordingly, he’s also come to realise that the hyper-individualism now dominating the west, the ideological pivot of left-wing politics, is inimical to human flourishing. This is all part of his moral and religious…

Culture wars

The World Turned Upside Down: you read it first here

May 17, 2019May 17, 2019 Melanie

In our current fevered times, there is much anxious discussion about the west’s all-too obvious existential crisis – the erosion of its fundamental moral and cultural values; its repudiation of national identity and attachment; its consequent embrace of mass immigration and Islamisation; the hollowing out of conservatism and the eruption of shameless antisemitism. I have been writing about all these things for many years. I’m pleased that others are now finally discussing them. In today’s debates, I hear in particular many echoes of what I wrote in my 2010 book…