Cancel culture deserves to be cancelled but so does Lord Kitchener | Peter Goers

South Australia is the only place on earth that insists on naming this beloved German treat for a British monster, writes Peter Goers.

It’s tempting to cancel cancel culture.

Why are our beloved fairy penguins now called little penguins? But Coon Cheese had to go and, mercifully, did.

Sensibly the Western Australian Government changed the name of the King Leopold Ranges in the Kimberley to Wunaamin Miliwundi because the dreaded Belgian king had no connection with Australia and was the most evil of all colonialists and imperialists. He was responsible for the torture, mutilation and genocide of countless thousands of his subjects in the Belgian Congo.

A Kitchener bun is a beautiful thing. I’ve loved them forever and my last meal must include one. Why is this luscious cream doughnut-esque bun named after a monster?

Twenty-five years ago on these pages, I suggested it be renamed and here we go again. Reactionism rules.

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, helped invent Concentration Camps.

Norwood Bakery Enjoy Cafe worker Stella Glynn one of the beloved buns which deserve better branding in South Australia. Picture: Emma Brasier

This yummy cream bun is part of the rich German heritage of South Australia. It was originally called a Berliner pfannkuchen and brought here by our invaluable German refugees in the 1840s. It was called a Berliner or a cream Berliner until WWI.

Suddenly xenophobia ruled and the German/English royal family changed its name from Saxe Coburg Gotha to Windsor, much to the derision of their cousin the Kaiser who quipped he was off to see a performance of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives Of Saxe Coburg Gotha.

More than 7000 Australian citizens of German descent were sent, without trial, to Australian concentration camps for the duration of WWI.

SA German place names were changed – Hahndorf became Ambleside, Lobethal to Tweedvale and Klemzig to Gaza. Kaiserstuhl became Mt Kitchener but, thankfully, reverted. Sadly, the Kitchener bun (known as that only in SA) remained.

Kitchener was a lion of the British Empire, an appalling warmonger and war criminal.

He subjugated and murdered native peoples all over the empire and desecrated the graves of his enemies.

His dreadful scorched earth policy in the Second Boer War saw thousands of wounded Boers killed and he developed concentration camps (first named by him) in which he allowed 27,370 Boer women and children to perish of starvation and disease.

Even Winston Churchill criticised Kitchener’s “inhuman slaughter”.

He was rewarded for this with every possible gong and his stoic, moustachioed visage was used as the most famous recruitment poster during WWI and encouraged tens of thousands to enlist and die.

“Breaker” Morant and Peter Handcock were following Kitchener’s orders, and he later lied about those orders and had two Australians executed.

Who do we believe, a war criminal or two Australian larrikins? The British have pardoned hundreds of soldiers they hanged for desertion but not Morant and Handcock.

Even Sir Winston Churchill criticised Kitchener’s methods.

Harry Breaker Morant paid the ultimate price for Kitchener’s lies.

Lawyer and former army officer James Unkles has long campaigned for the pardon of Morant and Handcock, and he’s rightly appalled that a lovely bun is named for Kitchener.

Here’s the solution.

Let’s rename the Kitchener bun after Pastor Kavel who led the German refugees to SA. Let’s be proud of them. They were frugal, diligent citizens who gave SA our wine industry and much more. Let’s have the Kavel bun.

Sadly, 97 per cent of South Australians who responded to James Unkles’ plea want to retain the name Kitchener bun. Most of them admitted to having no idea who Kitchener was and his perfidy. So those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Let’s all enjoy a yummy Kavel bun and Field Marshal Lord Horatio Kitchener can be sent afresh to hell.

He, and not the bun, leaves a bad taste in our mouths.