James Morrow: Tearing down the past is no solution to the pain of present
IF you think our statue controversies have gone over the top, spare a thought for our American cousins, says James Morrow.
Opinion
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IF you think our statue controversies have gone over the top, spare a thought for our American cousins.
Over there, the nation that thought it had left political correctness dead, buried and cremated with the election of Donald Trump is now in the middle of a campaign to destroy any reference to the past worthy of Mao Zedong.
The idiocy peaked (but let’s not speak too soon) last week when American sports broadcaster ESPN pulled a Chinese-American broadcaster from his previously scheduled gig calling a college-football game because his name — Robert Lee — might remind people of the Confederate general of the same name.
It makes about as much sense as shutting down Oxford St’s Stonewall Hotel because it sounds too much like that other Dixie commander, “Stonewall” Jackson.
Or tearing down the Big Banana because it’s a phallic symbol of male supremacy.
People are complicated and history more so.
The effort to pull down statues doesn’t smack of learning, but a new kind of ignorance.
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With a single comment on Monday, Trump set about converting Australian climate warriors into furious defenders of our previously planet-destroying metals and mining industries, writes Tim Blair.
Australia is waking up to the woke and I absolutely love it
People have finally had enough of the self-loathing from our inner-city elites and the usual whingers campaigning to “change the date”, writes Matt Canavan.