RECENT events prove how destructive and widespread cancel culture is and how intent neo-Marxist inspired activists are to rewrite history and undermine and denigrate what is best about Western civilisation and societies like Australia.
The most recent example involves Adam Smith, the renowned 18th century economist and philosopher whose highly influential book The Wealth of Nations revolutionised the study of commerce and who many consider one of the leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment.
- Cancel culture is a neo-Marxist inspired movement hell-bent on rewriting history.
- They aim to destroy statues, rename university buildings and rewrite the school curriculum.
- Quick to denigrate western civilisation, they won't recognise the origin of African slavery.
In its endeavours to appear Woke and appease the Black Lives Matter brigade the Edinburgh City Council has formulated a list of monuments and sites associated with historic racial injustice and slavery. And Adam Smith’s grave is included in the list.
The only problem, apart from judging the past according to what is now considered politically correct, is that Adam Smith is on record apposing slavery. As argued by Matt Kilcoyne, the deputy-director of the UK based Adam Smith Institute, the Scottish economist clearly condemned those guilty of being involved in the slave trade.
In relation to slavery Smith wrote “nothing was to be heard but the cries of slaves whom their masters were punishing” and clearly was sympathetic when stating what “miserable life the slaves must have led; their life and their property entirely at the mercy of another, and their liberty, if they could be said to have any, at his disposal also”.
COLONIAL
Other examples of cancel culture include a statue of the great war time leader Winston Churchill being defaced, university buildings renamed, the school curriculum rewritten to expose alleged white supremacism and even science being condemned as racist and guilty of supporting colonial oppression.
Academics at the University of Sheffield are happy to argue “UK science is inherently white, since the discipline developed from the European scientific Enlightenment. Crucially, science was both a fundamental contributor to European imperialism and a major beneficiary of its injustices”.
In addition to being historically inaccurate when it comes to accusing the West and figures like Adam Smith of racism the BLM ideologues are also guilty of being selective by never acknowledging the fact that the Islamic empire was based on military conquest and slavery for hundreds of years. The origins of the African slave trade originated with Muslim traders – never mentioned by Woke activists or Australia’s national curriculum.
While there is no doubt many historical figures associated with the West, such as the 19th century mining magnate Cecil Rhodes, were guilty of exploiting and mistreating blacks and the British Empire was involved in the slave trade it’s also true the British led the campaign to abolish slavery across the globe.
ABOLITION
During the 19th century the Christian William Wilberforce along with religious groups like the Quakers led the campaign to pass anti-slavery legislation in the British parliament culminating in Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. The act made it illegal to purchase or own slaves within the British Empire. Something the British navy was used to enforce.
As detailed in David Kemp’s The Land of Our Dreams, given the campaign in Britain to abolish slavery and the rise of Enlightenment ideas about all deserving liberty and freedom, it’s also true Australia was not founded on slavery.
Kemp writes in relation to Governor Phillip “His expectation and desire, and the direction of the British Government, was that the laws of England would apply in the new land”. As evidence Kemp includes a quote from Phillip’s journal where the leader of the First Fleet writes “there can be no slavery in a free land and consequently no slaves”.
Another of the early colonial governors Lachlan Macquarie also opposed slavery and while sometimes responding to Aboriginal violence with equal force did all in his power to help and assist the indigenous population by providing education and welfare.
There’s no doubt there is much about Western civilisation and Australia’s evolution since the establishment of the penal colony in 1788 that merits condemnation and criticism, at the same time it is essential to get the history right and to stop interpreting the past through what is now defined as politically correct and ideologically sound.
Based on freedom indexes and surveys Western countries like Australia top the list as our political and legal systems inherited largely from the United Kingdom are based on concepts like popular sovereignty and the separation of powers, the inherent right all have to liberty and freedom and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
We only need to look north to communist China, Laos PDR, Cambodia, North Korea and Vietnam where authoritarian dictators rule based on fear and violence to realise we are indeed the lucky country and that our ancestry is worth celebrating.PC
– Dr Kevin Donnelly is a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University and editor of Cancel Culture and the Left’s Long March.
Worse still, the Australian taxpayer (who is afforded no say in the matter) funds the ABC to spread and enforce this awful creed, some of whose operatives have poor intellect, are semi-illiterate, and can’t spell. They are terrified of extreme islam, so being the obsequious, craven cowards that they are, grovel to these practitioners, who monster our decent moslems, and whose collective insanity is only matched by that of the leftist swill averred to in the subject article, who seek to re-write history by detaching from reality.
If the western world’s citizens want to remain free, then the growing like threat occasioned by this totalitarian left segment requires spotlighting and subsequent eradication. Just as our forefathers fought for our freedom, we are likewise duty bound to protect our children and grandchildren from these forces of darkness.