We must depoliticise life in the West otherwise we will turn into a totalitarian society where nothing is personal anymore

 

Neil Clark

is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66

24 Jan, 2021 07:56

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A child is seen with a placard during a planned protest for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford © Reuters '/.] ?>'/.

A hallmark of totalitarian societies is that there’s no escape from politics and the dominant state ideology. Recent events demonstrate that we’ve now sadly reached that point in Britain, the US and other Western countries.

In 1938 the great Irishman William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called ‘Politics’. It could perhaps, more accurately have been entitled ‘Anti-Politics’. War is looming, everything is political, “And there’s a politician That has both read and thought” in the room but Yeats reminds us there is something much more important. In reference to “that girl standing there,” he writes “But O that I were young again, And held her in my arms.”

In the choice between the personal and the political, between lis+,/ing to the politician, or romancing (even if only in his imagination), the poet chooses the personal. He is right to do so. Totalitarian societies come about when people do the opposite. When they put politics before the personal. When they betray old friendships for ‘the cause’, or put ‘following the party line’ before family and loved ones.

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A decade or so after Yeats, the Tory philosopher Quintin Hogg continued in a similar vein. “Conservatives do not believe that political struggle is the most important thing in life… The simplest among them prefer fox-hunting, the wisest religion.”

The point here is not whether or not we approve of fox-hunting, but that we need ‘no-go’ areas where politics and ‘political struggle’ is kept out. We used to have the balance right in Britain, (when old-school Tories like Hogg and genial Gilbert & Sullivan-loving , pipe-smoking Labourites like Harold Wilson held sway) but no longer. Things that used to be apolitical have become completely politicised. There is no ‘ring-fencing’ any more. I have to say, even as someone who makes my living as a political commentator, I’m absolutely sick of the way politics has infected every aspect of our lives.

Take New Years Eve fireworks displays. I’m old enough to remember when a fireworks display was er…just a fireworks display, and not a means to reinforce the dominant ultra-woke monopoly-capitalist Big-Tech billionaire-sponsored globalist ‘Great Reset’ ideology. But London’s displays under Mayor Sadiq Khan get more political with each passing year.  In 2018-19 Khan used the occasion to stick a big two fingers up at Brexiteers, with the London Eye lit up in the colours of the EU flag. “As the fireworks went off along the Thames, the words ‘London is open’ were said in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Spanish just after midnight,” the Guardian reported.

This year, with London actually closed (oh, the irony), it was even worse. There was some very preachy messaging on climate change, BLM and coronavirus. Happy New Year? Don’t you dare be happy! The point is not whether or not some of these causes are worthy but the fact that the powers-that-be think we have to be bashed over the head with them every minute of the day and night, including right at the start of a New Year, (when we should be getting tiddly on champagne, doing the Hokey Cokey, and kissing – and hugging – fellow humans).

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In the ‘politics is everywhere’ Britain of today there really is no let-up from the ‘right-on‘ lecturing. Watch a bit of light-hearted TV comedy for some respite?  In the return of The Vicar of Dibley last Christmas, the title character was seen ‘taking the knee’ and delivering a sermon on racism. Watch some sport? You will have seen players ‘take the knee’ at the start of football matches, several months after the tragic death of George Floyd. How about some good old Agatha Christie crime drama? Surely some escapism there? Don’t bank on it. A recent (and absolutely dire) BBC adaptation of The A.B.C. Murders – a story set in the 1930s – shoehorned in contemporary concerns over Brexit and Donald Trump and the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot suffers racist abuse, with Mosley-ite fascists lurking around every corner, which was not the case in the original novel. A brilliant murder mystery (one of the Queen of Crime’s best books), was spoiled by making it political.  

The cult of Covid has of course made things a hundred times worse. Drive out anywhere and you‘ll see boards with the state instruction: ‘Stay at Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives’. That’s rather strange as I thought the aim of the NHS was to protect US, not the other way round – and that's why WE pay for it. Covid messaging has taken over daytime TV, as well as Google. Record numbers (more than six million in England) are on antidepressants. Is it any great surprise seeing how much of the joy has been sucked out of everyday life by lockdowns and making everything political ?

This past week depressing 5pm UK government ‘pressers’ on Covid-19 (where ministers either announce new restrictions or threaten them as part of the ongoing campaign of psychological warfare) have been mixed with saturation coverage of the US presidential inauguration. ‘President Biden: The Inauguration’ was shown live on both BBC1 and ITV on Wednesday at 4pm UK time.  Contrast that with what happened in 1977 on the day (January 20) Jimmy Carter was inaugurated. The ceremony was shown (from 4.30pm to 6.15pm) on BBC2 but BBC1 carried on with its usual children’s programmes (including Play School), in the afternoon and it wasn’t until 11pm that there was a programme on the day’s events in the US.

Doesn’t that tell us everything?

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To counter this relentless politicisation, we don’t need new political parties, but a new anti-politics movement. In Britain just about the most revolutionary thing one can do today is not to discuss politics. We need to ignore politicians – particularly the globalist ones robotically mouthing the WEF‘s ‘Great Reset‘ slogan ‘Build Back Better’ at every turn. We need to avoid being sucked into tedious ‘left-right’ debates, and indeed start rejecting the artificial ‘left-right’ paradigm entirely. We should turn off television programmes masquerading as ‘drama’ or ‘comedy’ that are really political sermons dolled up in entertainment’s clothing and provide no enjoyment whatsoever. In short, we need to reclaim our lives from politics and politicians.

While the US presidential inauguration was being televised, and viewers were no doubt being told repeatedly what a ‘great day for democracy’ it was, I was doing a jigsaw puzzle. Believe me, it was far more rewarding.

 

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.