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Thursday 23 February 2012

Political Correctness (Not Nearly Mad Enough)

Thursday, 25th November 2010

The decision of the United Nations last week to exclude gays from a special resolution condemning extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions did not receive the attention it deserved.

The United Nations is still the object of wistful and on occasion Utopian hopes from those who do not realise that it can never be a moral force because it is a club without membership rules that allows any tyranny to join. Its best – some would say only – good purpose is to reveal how apparently rival dictatorial ideologies – African Nationalist, Islamist, Communist, post-communist and crony capitalist – will sink their differences and unite in opposition to liberalism.

Among the lackeys of despots who said it was all right to kill queers were the representatives of Iran Algeria, China, Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, North Korea, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. Not one African country voted in favour of protecting homosexuals from extra-judicial murder, including Nelson Mandela’s South Africa, which still gets far too easy a ride in the Western press in my view. At the UN the supporters of dictatorship and dictatorial ideas reminded us once again that what unites them is more important than one what divides them, and that lesson is always worth remembering.

Thor Halvorssen, President of the Human Rights Foundation, tells an anecdote that is as revealing in its own way.

He describes how Kasha Jacqueline, a brave campaigner against the persecution of homosexuals in Uganda, risked reprisals by speaking out publicly at the Oslo Freedom Foundation.

She spoke well.

Thor goes on to describes how:

'Upon arriving in Norway, she was approached by several members of one of Oslo's gay and lesbian organizations who urged her not to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum because they disagreed with our inclusion of several speakers who were outspoken critics of left-wing dictatorships. Sadly, some people in Oslo believe that only those on the left call themselves human rights defenders [but] their double standard usually will manifest itself when they ignore the crimes of the governments they favour.'

I am researching a book on free speech and am coming across stories like Jacqueline’s all the time. The Liberal-left is making a habit of snubbing people from the poor world or Europeans of immigrant descent, who believe in liberalism, and gay and women rights, and have every right to expect its support. Usually radical Islam is at the heart of the hypocrisy. When dissident Muslim liberals are threatened by ultra-reactionary theocrats, leftists will not defend them because they’re frightened of being accused of “Islamophobia” or of being a “neo-con,” or because their political leaders want to appease the brutish “community leaders” they hope can deliver the ethnic bloc vote on polling day.

Don’t think that those on the receiving end of liberal double standards don’t notice what is being done to them. Right wingers accuse the left of “political correctness”. But when it comes to the oppression of people with brown skins by people with brown skins, the Left is nowhere near politically correct enough.

The best and bravest people I have spoken to are on the move. They are rejecting the establishment left with a contempt, which is justifiable in the circumstances. Many are turning towards the democratic Right seeing it as the best protection against neo-Nazism on one hand and Islamism on the other - not that there is much of a difference between the two.I am not sure the Right is ready to receive their support.

As Thor notes:

'Just days later, the inclusion of Kasha Jacqueline in the program of the Oslo Freedom Forum was one of the subjects of public condemnation by an American pro-life activist. The irony was excruciating. Here was a man who devotes his life to what he describes as stopping the mass killings of babies chastising an event for including someone in our program who wants to stop the mass killings of gays and lesbians.
Thus the Left, dear reader, thus the Right. They deserve each other.'

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Commentator

November 25th, 2010 5:22pm Report this comment

Nick, why are you surprised? For starters, the left isn't "liberal". It is and always has been highly authoritarian. In any case, the left believes that only white people can be racist. Hence the rampant racism in Africa goes condoned and unreported.

Fergus Pickering

November 25th, 2010 5:46pm Report this comment

Samuel Johnson a long time ago said, 'Don't cant about savages.' One way to recognise a savage is to ask him if gays should be executed. If he says yes, then a savage he is. If Mandela thinks that (I suspect he doesn't but I don't know) then he too is a savage. It goes with witchcraft and jujus and bloodthirsty religions like ... oh I dunno.

Baron

November 25th, 2010 8:56pm Report this comment

why exactly would you expect the left to condemn the dictatorial bigots and back Kasha when they do not stand up here against the same bigoted views held by a section in our society, ha?

Dave Weeden

November 25th, 2010 10:19pm Report this comment

The full vote is available at http://www.un.org/en/ga/third/65/docs/voting_sheets/L.65.pdf (enormous PDF of 1 scanned page).

The list of "lackeys of despots who said it was all right to kill queers" includes Afghanistan and Iraq, but that would spoil the pet theory, wouldn't it?

Old Slaughter

November 26th, 2010 12:23am Report this comment

Hey! Now we are cooking.

Thank you for brining this to my attention.

As Mark Steyn has pointed out, there is a hierarchy of rights and victims. Brown trumps pink.

Fergus Pickering

November 26th, 2010 3:28am Report this comment

The list includes Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, of course it does. They are muslim, aren't they?

normanc

November 26th, 2010 8:28am Report this comment

I'm completely lost. Are the people who voted against this saying that people should be executed simply for being gay?

Or that if someone is found guilty of eating with their left hand (or whatever) then an investigation into their sexual habits should take place and this should decide whether or not they can be executed?

Also, don't confuse political correctness with liberty, the right are the true libertarians and lovers of freedom, political correctness (and by extension the left) is the antithesis of freedom, trying to straightjacket everyone into their way of thinking.

windter

November 26th, 2010 9:13am Report this comment

Is there any reason why you left Iraq and Afghanistan off the UN list, Nick? I mean it's pretty clear you've deleted them since you've also deleted the comma after Iran...

Also - you're really going to need to corrorborate the claims about this woman being asked to to participate. At the moment it's just an 'anecdote' with nobody named.

Steve Jone

November 26th, 2010 11:19am Report this comment

The term isn't "not being politically correct enough", it's much simpler. It's called being hypocritical. It's hardly the first time - many turned a blind eye to the behaviour of the Stalin and the Soviet Union. Indeed even in my student days in the 1970s there were still those that did the same thing (not to mention China).

Could we please stop this statement that there is single political dimension that runs left to right? The authoritarian - liberal axis does not run neatly down the same line as traditional political definitions of left and right. I've came across many self-describe on the left that I would regard as authoritarian. Life is simply not that simple.

Fergus Pickering

November 26th, 2010 2:33pm Report this comment

Steve Jones, Eysenck has a graph in one of his books with TWO axes. It was recently pinched by someone hereabouts - without attribution, I may say..

Commondog

November 26th, 2010 5:09pm Report this comment

"Among the lackeys of despots who said it was all right to kill queers were the representatives of Iran Algeria, China, Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, North Korea, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe."

And every one of them - possibly excepting North Korea - with a sizeable 'community' planted in our own country; and with them, their mores.

Let's hear it one more time for diversity, pluralism and all the other multikulti bollocks when next we march, comrades.

Dilettante

December 26th, 2010 3:18pm Report this comment

Hey Nick, I'm a long-time fan of your journalism and I'm glad to see you writing for the Spectator. One thing I'd query in this article is whether the 'Democratic Right' - by which I assume you mean things like the British Conservative Party, the Swedish Alliansen or Norway's H�gre - deserve to be lumped in with an American far-right pro-lifer. Other than that, good article.

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