New Zealand: the barbarism of identity politics

The relentless reduction of people to cultural beings is unleashing terrible conflict.

The obscene act of racist mass murder in New Zealand has shocked the world. The massacre of 49 human beings will always be a deeply disturbing act. But the fact that these human beings were shot to death in their place of worship feels especially horrific. Mown down in their religious sanctuary, as they cowered in corners, desperately trying to avoid being murdered, according to press descriptions of the shooter’s livestream of his heinous deed. This is an attack on Muslims, on religious freedom, and on humanity, and every decent person will want to offer their condolences and solidarity to the people of New Zealand.

As we offer our solidarity, we also want to try to understand why things like this happen. Understandably, there has been a rush to locate this barbaric act within a broader political framework. Sadly, this has given rise to a speedy and ghoulish exploitation of the atrocity to make political mileage. Already observers are pinning the blame on certain right-wing commentators, or on the Western media more broadly, claiming that criticism of Muslim immigration or of Islam generates this kind of violent hatred. Already some are calling for clampdowns on Islamophobia and for the expunging from the internet of certain hard-right voices. It will strike many of us, especially those of us who are humanists, as perverse and disturbing that people would so swiftly use a bloody act to further their own narrow agendas of social control and censorship; that they would use a massacre almost as an exclamation point to their already existing demands for the demonisation and punishment of particular opinions. It is cynical and inhuman.

Furthermore, it feels wrong. To fold this barbarism into a narrative about a surging threat of white supremacy or even Islamophobia overlooks what feels terrifyingly mainstream about the ideas that appear to have energised and inspired this racist mass murderer – namely, the politics of identity. To read the killer’s alleged manifesto, as currently being covered by CNN, the New York Times and others, is to gain a horrible glimpse into the cultural fragmentation and racial paranoia unleashed by the relentless rise of identitarianism. Increasingly, it feels like the New Zealand atrocity is what happens when the politics of identity, the reduction of everyone to cultural or racial creatures whose relationship with other cultural and racial cultures must be monitored and managed, comes to be the only game in public life.

The killer seems to see himself as little more than a cultural being. In his seeming manifesto he professes commitment to the warped ethos of ethno-nationalism and continually refers to himself as white. He can see no identity for himself beyond the one he inherited by birth. Strikingly, the killer appears to say that his attack was done in the name of diversity – he says he wants ‘diverse peoples to remain diverse’, meaning identity groups must remain ‘separate, unique, undiluted, unrestrained in… cultural expression’. This sounds chillingly similar to the separatist ethos of the identitarian outlook, in which ‘cultural appropriation’ is a sin and anyone who seeks to speak up for other races or cultures risks being reprimanded with the words, ‘Stay in your lane’. The killer’s belief in cultural purity is of a piece with the identitarian worldview.

Most striking is the manifesto’s hatred for democracy. It describes democracy as ‘mob rule’. Echoing the fashionable contempt of the liberal elite for democratic engagement, it says ‘the mob itself’ is ‘ruled’ by the ‘global and corporate-run press’. It seems very possible that we are dealing with an anti-democracy fanatic, not dissimilar to the Islamist mass murderer of Nice in 2016 who chose Bastille Day, the celebration of the birth of French democracy, to mow down hundreds of people, killing 86. Democracy is anathema to identitarians and Islamists alike for the simple reason that it holds out the promise of an identity that rises above narrow cultural, racial, religious and gender identities. It holds out the promise of an identity based on collective and civic virtues, of commonness over separatism. From the mainstream to the violent underbelly of the terroristic outlook, the unifying dynamic of the democratic worldview is considered a threat to the preciousness of one’s own narrow cultural identity.

The alleged manifesto says one of the worst values in the modern West is tolerance. It says we’re too tolerant. This also echoes an utterly mainstream view that says certain ways of life or ways of thinking should not be tolerated. Indeed, in their speedy, exploitative, post-massacre cry for less tolerance of certain political opinions, the increasingly identitarian mainstream of Western public life echoes what appears to be a view of the mass killer himself: that tolerance, like democracy, is overrated, and all that we really have are identities.

The identitarian impulse has catastrophically divided society. It has nurtured cultural and racial conflict. It has given rise to a grotesque game of competitive grievance. It has had an inexorably fragmentary impact, ripping the social fabric. We are now actively invited to think racially, behave racially, conceive of ourselves as little more than white men or black women or whatever, and to engage with people through a racially and culturally heightened perspective: check your white privilege, watch your microaggressions, stay in your cultural lane, etc. It would be remarkable if such a depraved culture did not help to nurture new forms of violence. New Zealand confirms that identitarianism is now a scourge of the violent right as well as the woke left.

The only person to blame for the massacres in New Zealand is the man who carried them out. No identitarian politician or activist or commentator is responsible for this. But if we want to limit the attraction of such violent identitarian thinking, such vicious cultural paranoia, we must urgently make the case for a new humanist politics in which your character and humanity count for more than your skin colour and your heritage. The war of identities must end, whether it’s in public life or bloodstained places of worship.

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Lord Steel suspended following admission about Cyril Smith

British Liberals are a sort of wishy washy Leftists, usually middle class. They affect a high moral tone.  Leader David Steel appears to have covered up the paedophilia of one of his senior party members

Former Liberal leader Lord David Steel has been suspended from the Liberal Democrats following his evidence to the Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse about Cyril Smith.


Smith

The former Liberal leader this week told an inquiry of a conversation he had with the MP in 1979, in which Smith admitted his behaviour was investigated a decade earlier.

An article in Private Eye had accused him of spanking boys and conducting intimate medical examinations at a Rochdale hostel, but he insisted police took no further action.

Giving evidence at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday, Lord Steel said he “assumed” Smith had actually committed the offences - but mentioned his confession to no-one.

In a statement, the Liberal Democrats said: "Following the evidence concerning Cyril Smith given by Lord Steel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on 13th March 2019 the office bearers of the Scottish Liberal Democrats have met and agreed that an investigation is needed. The party membership of Lord Steel has been suspended pending the outcome of that investigation. That work will now commence.

"It is important that everyone in the party, and in wider society, understands the importance of vigilance and safeguarding to protect people from abuse, and that everyone has confidence in the seriousness with which we take it.

"We appreciate the difficult work that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is doing on behalf of the victims and survivors of abuse, and the country as a whole."

Lord Steel was the final leader of the Liberal Party before it merged with the Social Democratic Party, at which stage he became the first leader of the Lib Dems.

Last year’s report by the inquiry - examining Smith’s activities in Rochdale - said there was an "unwillingness” at the highest level to accept the politician could be a predator.

Lord Steel said he “knew nothing” about the wider allegations at the time, but defended his failure to act on the revelations made by his party colleague.

Pressed on his logic, he told the hearing: “It was before he was an MP, before he was even a member of my party. It had nothing to do with me.”

The inquiry’s top lawyer, Brian Altman QC, replied: “He could, for all you knew, still be offending?”

Lord Steel responded: “I have to admit, that never occurred to me, and I'm not sure it would occur to me even today.”

His evidence came as the inquiry holds three weeks of hearings into alleged abuse committed by the Westminster elite.

Today it emerged dozens of honours had been stripped from recipients in the past decade for sex crimes against children.

Between 2004 and 2018, 29 people were forced to forfeit awards such as CBEs, MBEs and OBEs after being convicted of child sexual abuse and related offences.

It accounted for roughly half of all honours annulled by a Cabinet Office committee and included Rolf Harris, the disgraced entertainer.

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Croatians don't like Muslim "refugees" either

BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A leading rights group has accused European Union states of complacency in the ‘‘systematic, unlawful, and frequently violent pushbacks’’ by Croatian border guards of thousands of asylum-seekers to squalid and unsafe refugee camps in Bosnia.

Amnesty International said in a report released Wednesday that ‘‘European governments are not just turning a blind eye to vicious assaults by the Croatian police, but also funding their activities.’’

The report said that ‘‘in doing so, they are fueling a growing humanitarian crisis on the edge of the European Union.’’

Croatian authorities have repeatedly denied such reports in the past.

In a response to the Amnesty International report on Wednesday, Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said that the ministry has received more than 200 complaints issued by international rights groups of alleged illegal and violent pushbacks of migrants, but that after investigations no foul play was detected.

‘‘Migrants in most cases falsely accuse police officials of violence, hoping that this will help them enter the Republic of Croatia the next time they try,’’ he said in a statement.

In Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said that the EU’s executive body is concerned about the allegations made in the report and is taking them seriously.

Thousands of migrants have been stuck in Bosnia as they seek to move on toward Western Europe.

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LGBTQ Indoctrination in Canada, UK: A Barometer for America–Unless Christians Take a Stand

Unfortunately, all too often, if you want a glimpse of the dark and dystopian future looming on the horizon in America unless there is another great spiritual awakening, look north to Canada or across the pond to England. Once again, this has proven to be all too true.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ordered that a 14-year-old girl receive testosterone injections without parental consent and over parental objection, according to The Federalist. The court further decreed that if either of her parents referred to her using female pronouns or called her by her given birthname, they would be charged with “family violence.”

When this young lady was 13, her school counselor encouraged her to identify as a boy even though she is biologically a girl, and she began taking testosterone injections at 13. Her father objected, believing that her gender dysphoria was more a mental health issue than a biological one. He also believes she should wait until she is older before she began to undergo such irreversible medical treatments.

The court ruled that the 14-year-old daughter was free to begin treatments and continue with them. Her father has appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court. While the case is on appeal, his 14-year-old daughter has started hormone treatments.

Much farther down the road in its post-Christian decline than either Canada or the United States is Great Britain. The latest horror story there? A primary school in Birmingham, England, was teaching children as young as 4 years old about LGBT lifestyles. The brainwashing propaganda was in a curriculum known as “No Outsiders” with children’s books titled “King & King” and “Mommy, Momma and Me.”

The assistant headmaster, Andrew Moffat, who is a homosexual, designed the programs and said the curriculum was “preparing children for modern Britain,” The Christian Post reports. The program has been temporarily suspended after hundreds of parents, many of them Muslims, complained that the curriculum was undermining parental rights and aggressively promoting homosexuality.

A mother of students at the school, Fatima Shah, told the BBC that what was being taught is “promoting homosexuality” and “confusing children.” She explained, “Children are coming home, girls are asking whether it is true they can be boys, boys as young as 4 asking whether it is true we can be girls. There is no need for it.”

The suspension may be only a temporary victory, however. The United Kingdom’s Department for Education is fully behind this kind of emotional and spiritual child abuse and violation of parental rights and has announced that starting in 2020 such curricula will be in all state schools and will be mandatory.

Under these guidelines, school officials can “overrule” parents who would like to opt their children out of such sex education classes. The guidelines apparently also prod the teachers to encourage children to challenge their parents’ religious beliefs about homosexuality. This is a clear violation of parental rights, and it is emotional and spiritual child abuse of young children.

What happens in Great Britain today happens in America in the near future. Great Britain is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” Miners took canaries down into the mineshaft with them. If the canary died, they knew deadly poisonous gas had filled the shaft, even though it didn’t have any aroma. Miners would have to evacuate immediately or die.

In America, we must be very vigilant to stop similar efforts when they appear in our society. Know that there are increasingly radical efforts by members of the LGBTQ community who are trying to coerce parents into having children brainwashed about LBGTQ issues at wildly inappropriate ages.

If you think this is not where the LGBTQ community of activists and radicals want to take America, then you are a human ostrich with your head buried in the sand. This is the future unless we as Christians stand up and call upon God to send a great revival, as well as pray for spiritual awakening and reformation, and that God intervenes to save us all, and especially our children, from this dark future.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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