Britain's Great Self-Loathing Crusade
American and European liberalism rightly campaigned against ethnocentrism once upon a time, but both versions ultimately went way too far
From the BBC, in a story about the murder of college student Henry Nowak by 22-year-old Sikh Vickrum Digwa:
Under UK law, it is illegal to carry most knives in public… But the law does provide exemptions for religious reasons as potential lawful defenses… The CPS said Digwa chose to carry two ceremonial knives and that the judge’s finding of fact made clear he agreed with its assessment that the weapon used was a kirpan.
The crazy Nowak story is a reverse-George Floyd moment for the U.K., but coverage here, when there’s been any, has been a dull “Republicans pounce” caricature. A Sunday BBC headline centered on Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy criticizing J.D. Vance for blaming the murder on the “politics of self-hatred,” which is exactly what it was. The bodycam footage alone came off as tasteless sketch comedy, with British cops genuflecting before a murderer whose brother told them had been “racially abused by some white person,” while handcuffing and ignoring Nowak, the person actually bleeding to death. When Nowak gasped, “I can’t breathe, call an ambulance,” and said he’d been stabbed, an officer said, “I don’t think you have, mate.”
Making things worse were two bizarre distortions. British citizens are generally barred from carrying knives, but Sikhs can carry ceremonial blades for religious reasons. Digwa was carrying two sheathed blades, one being the murder weapon. Second, British police under an insane “Anti-Racism Commitment” guidance not only directed officers to be “sorry for the damage racism has caused and continues to cause” and to pledge that “it is not enough for us to not be racist,” but told them their “commitment to racial equity” does “not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality).” In England, justice is no longer allowed to be blind!
This dictum to do policing as historical apology had to be a factor in Nowak’s death, as police appeared more concerned with combating theoretical racism than real murder. This is the great Illiberal Bait-and-Switch in action, with “equity” fully, lethally substituted for “equality.” The British went so far in the direction of redefining fairness that they not only achieved unfairness, they’re still defending the suicidal policy, calling any criticism of it “right-wing” and “ethnonationalist.”
Western countries have been building to this moment for a long time. A decisive turn came with the 2015 terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, when erstwhile defenders of natural rights suddenly announced Je ne suis pas Charlie, saying Western ideas about civil society shouldn’t trump Islamic religious beliefs. When I wrote something mild in objection in Rolling Stone, a distressingly high number of colleagues told me in private it was “too much” to expect Muslims to keep their guns stowed in the face of a provocation like a cartoon of the Prophet, and that Hebdo and its staff weren’t the right “hill to die on.”
I remember the shock I felt at this. Either I had a lot of racist friends who believed Muslims mentally incapable of comprehending the basics of French citizenship, or those same friends were joined in a suicide pact, having decided Western civilization is so fundamentally corrupt, it wasn’t worth defending even against mass murder. I’m now convinced they believed both things in earnest, and had for a while. Even I was taught the setup forty years ago, via a cartography lesson:
