WARNING - THIS IS A LONG COMMENT THAY MAY OFFEND.
Absurd is the only word I can think of for some WOKE revisionists who want to re-write history, rather than learn from proven history and then actually get off their "woke" arses to prevent past atrocities that are still going on today; instead of trying to find/fine/annoy/pillory/embarrass/harass and even endanger living people who are not responsible for past atrocities, be that those were committed by their country, their race, their tribe, their war, their gang, their parent, children or relative. For God's sake give us all a break and go get yourselves a real life; hopefully a productive, happy life, instead of trying to be "right-on" all the time.
Here's an absurd example of how some wokes seem to think.
I think Italy should pay ME, or my people, compensation for the years of duress and actual suffering that my forebears must have suffered by being enforced gladiators; furthermore, I expect the Colosseum to be completely removed from its public space as it continues as an insult and affront to the descendants of the aforementioned gladiators, "their people" if you like, and I want an apology and payment for the suffering of "my people". I'm only asking that Rome and Italy atone for the misdeeds of earlier Romans!
A little foolish, greedy or naive don't you think? But are you getting my drift?
A bit of very reasonable word substitution makes my stupid statement above sound like many woke statements, also stupid.
Let's substitute Britain for Italy (or Spain, Portugal, Benin or Ghana, to name too few), substitute slave for gladiator (someone who in theory could earn or become "free men") and substitute Bristol dock or Liverpool dock (or indeed both cities) for colosseum (or Rome). I think you see how I feel about (some) WOKEs relationship with history.
So, let's stop asserting that by being WOKE, or pretending to be so, you are somehow special or deserving of media attention and that to demand changes to history for past discretions and atrocities by people, races, places or countries, may be foolish, because it is only history left "unspun" that can (and should) teach us about the need to avoid such historical atrocities in the future.
It is good to be truly woke (a contraction predominantly espoused by black Americans, intimating they have become awakened/woken to current and past racial iniquities), but to be truly woke you first have to study and rationally educate yourself, not just jump on a media bandwagon and then feel people should have to listen to you because you are "right-on" and that the media may love you.
WOKEs come in all shapes and sizes, colours (ethnically and politically) and degrees of rationality and extremism, but WOKEs should, I believe, truly understand the historical context of those bits of history they wish to re-write, before shouting their head-off. I am not awoken to much history because I am relatively uneducated and unaffected by history (as I see it), I am not awoken (by experience) to racial or ethnic abuse, though I can relate to being called "a fat spaz" on many occasions, but I will never call upon the children of my bully for an apology and financial compensation?
By now you are probably still with me, or about to leave, thinking me a bigoted fool; but as you and I have the right to write or flight (hopefully), let me continue.....
I feel a bit odd at times because I can advocate against a topic for discourse and then suddenly find myself sympathising, or at least agreeing with the "opposition"; for woke protagonists who do not espouse populist, right-on, "listen to me I'm important" self-aggrandisement, there are definitely sensitivities about which we could/would both agree.
Let's get it out there: Factual history is sacrosanct, but should be open to review and correction if proved to be wrong or mis-recorded (often by "the victor"); history must not be eradicated or twisted or manipulated, for history must be a continuum of truth from which humankind should learn things.
Can we agree "the holocaust" happened, but so often an example of manipulation of history to serve a separate agenda possibly. The holocaust happened but it is a subset of global suffering during WW2. The NAZIs killed Jews, the Japanese slaughtered Chinese, Russia eliminated millions of their own people and death camps were not exclusive to NAZIs; Jews were not the only target of WW2. (In truth Britain invented concentration camps during the American independence war.)
Continuing with another ongoing manipulation of history, black slavery was a business, possibly surprising to some, undertaken not only by "whites" but often in collusion with the black indigenous people(s) of Africa at the time. To put it impolitely, neighbours sold neighbours into slavery and mostly "whites" took them away, though some whites became slaves themselves. Some WOKEs may choose to ignore this in their calls for people(s) of today to somehow right those wrongs, by "paying-up" or grovelling for forgiveness for something they had nothing to do with. What ever your view of slavery (then and now), you may find this interesting or at least informative; though the British are pilloried and humiliated today for their long gone slave "trade", they are never acknowledged by Wokes for their effective global ban on slavery.
I know, I know, I've just walked into murky waters, but we can learn something from this history, yet not keep dragging it up for further media polishing. Let sleeping dogs lie, as we British would say, for no-one should have to apologise for historical facts if they did not commit them or were not there; they don't have to apologise to anyone.
FINALLY (I can imagine you muttering)
Where there are visible reminders of events or people (Statuary) so reviled by many who live in their public domain, my woke sensibility agrees with those who believe such statues and such insignia or objects of former public reverence should be peaceably remove to places of unseen security; possibly for destruction. After all, I wouldn't want to walk past a statue of Hitler on my way to work, nor want swastikas left on public buildings, or a hammer and sickle anywhere near me if I lived in Ukraine. Russia may be blamed for that problem, but not all of the Russians yet to be born.
Please remember that accurate history is sacrosanct.
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| Woke revisionists in action in Bristol |
ADDITIONS AFTER ORIGINAL ARTICLE
I came across this short comedic exploration of being "woke".
WOKE in trouble - Quote from Nigel Farage (political columnist )
'Stripped of its original meaning of a person being awake to progressive issues, “woke” has been appropriated from the Black vernacular and turned into a political lightning rod in the West’s culture wars. It is now used pejoratively by lawmakers and pundits from both left and right, criticizing the perceived excesses of social and racial justice movements.'
Motivated by money but I doubt the UK will pay anything smelling of a surcharge on history.
To be truly WOKE yo need to know and understand this
Get your head around cultural slavery
A couple of weeks after writing this article and calming my self down, I came upon this; an example of WOKE in action, without any objection, but on the other hand I do object to this sort of WOKE. I do feel like a conflicted soul at times.
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| I would not apologise for what I had not done, they should apologise to me for tarring me with their brush. |
I'm not quite sure why anyone would attack a statue of explorer Captain James Cook (of Whitby, England) who didn't buy, sell or kill "natives" on his journeys, nor instigate models of subsequent repression or racism; but some righteous people did attack it, cutting him down at the ankles to protest about what you may ask, in a resurgence of (now) minority people(s) going on in Australia, such that they even wanted back some 18th century Aboriginal hunting spears, freely given and hardly rare there then, but what they will now do with them is moot.
WOKE seemed to undermine WOKE again when an elected (Vic. State) person of distant Aboriginal origin protested to King Charles of the UK, on an official Australian visit, shouting he was guilty of genocide and "you are not my King", as if she/they are actually subjugated in any way by him! I'd call her action self-publicity, a rather common attribute of many Wokes, to impress her "supporters", though even they have said she has merely shown disrespect to the office to which she was elected, for which she was later censured. Most others showed indifference to his or her presence, such is the nation-wide acceptance of their de-facto republican society. The real problem in Australia is people are getting fed-up of giving ground (literally) and political clout to "Abbos" (their language, not mine), whilst the other side insist on wearing their dereliction and poverty badge(s) as proof of their perceived continuation of institutional and national subjugation. They should begin to live in this world and not a past when the Brits/Aussies could be brutal. On a positive note this protest was soon forgotten and one Aussy said to me, "get rid of the Monarchy? - jeez mate it'd be like putting your favourite dog down".
Finally (I hear you say), the UK has many, many current social issues as the pride, confidence and relevance as a world player leeches away, but as this Facebook post tries to remind us, Britain broke many eggs to give the world many good omelettes. Even Eric Cantona would be proud of that analogy.
