In an essay titled ‘Woke, Racism and the Great Reset’,[i] Simon Elmer argues that woke politics in all its complex facets has eroded White British culture and that “in many respects the British are now a colonised people, much like India was under the British Empire”. In the process of setting out his stall, he has, in my opinion, succeeded in alienating non-White second-generation immigrants by adopting a hostile stance, rooted in ethnic identity, towards a group of politicians from this background. His argument seems to be that these politicians represent a colonisation of Britain primarily owing to their ethnicity and religion, and their ability to weaponise their identity. He is therefore implicitly scapegoating a wider group of ethnic minorities for whom these politicians serve as a proxy.
One of the reasons why Simon Elmer, or anyone else for that matter, would go down this blind alley is that they believe something is awry with reference to immigration. And it's true that huge amounts of people, even immigrants, are concerned that immigration is too much, uncontrolled, will lead to a worse situation for them, their country, or continent, whatever. Whether they have anything to be worried about is neither here nor there, people get used to things as they have been and change is not what everyone wants. They think that something, anything, must be done to push back and this ties a few things together at once such as why people would seem to support the significantly stronger/more armed party in a "war"; not very "British". To be fair to Simon Elmer he has kept up support for the "underdog" in the middle-east but many people, uncomfortable with the growing presence of Muslims in the west, assume it must be a good thing to bash them whenever the chance arises, little realising that for instance the refugee immigration levels (at least) should be lowered if we would leave them a little peace in their own countries. So in that particular case they can't see that their actions are counterproductive probably lacking the clear thinking that some others do have.
I would say that "race-wars" have been deliberately seeded with "Woke", BLM, etc, being the most recent examples, constantly promoted yet at the same time highlighted as corrupt, logically unsound, unjust, keeping people at each others' throats and not looking for the real enemy: has Simon Elmer partly fallen for that old trick?
Agreed. Wokeism occupies a fairly big chunk of Elmer's thought and work. I think he is so consumed with hatred for it that he actually can't think clearly when he attacks it directly...which is precisely one of woke's side effects, whether you're with it or against it! It's meant to be incredibly divisive. The thing we have to keep coming back to is that woke is a manipulative psychological tool designed to lubricate the main agenda. E.g. Coerced vaccination is a main agenda; therefore the woke element is "do it to save granny." Carbon rationing and population control via climate change policies (along with the trillion dollar wealth transfer that will spawn) is another main agenda; the woke adjunct is "lock yourself up in a 15-min city to save the planet". We have to devote your energy to fighting the main concrete agendas and the woke element will fall, because you're never going to convince people that they're being silly about saving granny or the planet. They'll think you're evil! You have to just stick with: "There is no climate crisis because...logical reasons...and mandating vaccines and digital ID is bad because...logical reasons.
It is also possible to attack some (probably most) forms of wokeism from the perspective of universal human values. Much of wokeism just flies in the face of basic values, so let's shoot it down on that basis. But Elmer's piece was devoid of basic decency and values. If you had to present what he wrote to a woke audience, not only would he never win the debate, they'd lynch him. That would be a victory for woke! That's what it wants. In a way, as I tried to point out, Elmer's piece is like fighting woke with woke because of its emphasis on identity, especially the identity of the politicians he hates. You can't beat woke with woke because it's fundamentally irrational.
I wrote a long comment then lost it because I made the mistake of trying to do it on my phone!
The gist was thank you for bringing Elmer's article to my attention. I too had thought he was one of the more progressive 4IR critics. I agree with you, his hatred of woke is blinding him to the instrumental role of the real perpetrators, those who sit above and use the political class, that is, in our case in the West, the captains of 21st century industry and finance, who are also the warmongers determined to keep markets open for Western capital.
I was astounded by his unsubstantiated claim that non-white politicians and bureaucrats hate the white British working class and British culture. He doesn't even articulate this culture except here: "Monye said rugby had to tackle its culture of ‘heavy drinking’ and ‘laddishness’ in order to attract Muslim and homosexual players." It seems he laments any loss of unhealthy liver-destroying behaviours, sexism and homophobia... There is a whole layer of elites who run the system and provide and reinforce its rationalising ideologies and narratives, via the parliament, media and academia (and increasingly the unions) who stoke division by looking down on the 'uneducated' masses. The offence Elmer takes shows he has been sucked into taking a side, as you say, with his own brand of identity politics, rather than stepping outside of their terrain and exposing the limits of their narrative.
We can also deduce that migrants are more likely to be in lower paying jobs, as per his employment stats, but instead of showing empathy for their predicament, help them call out the sham and hypocristy of their self-appointed representatives, and encouraging class-based solidarity with white workers to together resist attacks on living standards, health and freedoms, he prefers to use racial scapegoating to put an unreasonable burden of blame onto the shoulders of the non-white section of the whole corporate and political classes that threatens us. In Australia, it was a white PM and all white state Premiers who implemented covid lunacy and continue to invoke wokism to push profit agendas.
His piece also contains historical errors e.g. colonialism requires replacement of indigenous rulers with foreign ones. This only occured in settler-colonial states. In most cases, colonial powers co-opted or coerced local rulers to assist their rule.
And what's with all the lamenting about loss of sovereignty? Anyone freedom advocate worth their salt in a country like Britain, a former colonialist and now imperialist country, needs to FIRST acknowledge and oppose, preferably with actions, the way their country's ruling class destroyed the sovereignty of other nations, and continues to subjugate them economically and all-too-often militarily.
And the complaint about reducing "the [British] native population to a subject people"! It's classless politics like this that lead us nowhere at best and onto the dangerous territory at worst. Since class division began with the dawn of civilisation, as if the ordinary people of the British Isles were ever not a subjugated people! Elmer needs to reconsider where his sympathies lie and with whom he can find genuine and effective solidarity.
With misrepresentations like these, the foundations of his argument melt away.
One of the reasons why Simon Elmer, or anyone else for that matter, would go down this blind alley is that they believe something is awry with reference to immigration. And it's true that huge amounts of people, even immigrants, are concerned that immigration is too much, uncontrolled, will lead to a worse situation for them, their country, or continent, whatever. Whether they have anything to be worried about is neither here nor there, people get used to things as they have been and change is not what everyone wants. They think that something, anything, must be done to push back and this ties a few things together at once such as why people would seem to support the significantly stronger/more armed party in a "war"; not very "British". To be fair to Simon Elmer he has kept up support for the "underdog" in the middle-east but many people, uncomfortable with the growing presence of Muslims in the west, assume it must be a good thing to bash them whenever the chance arises, little realising that for instance the refugee immigration levels (at least) should be lowered if we would leave them a little peace in their own countries. So in that particular case they can't see that their actions are counterproductive probably lacking the clear thinking that some others do have.
I would say that "race-wars" have been deliberately seeded with "Woke", BLM, etc, being the most recent examples, constantly promoted yet at the same time highlighted as corrupt, logically unsound, unjust, keeping people at each others' throats and not looking for the real enemy: has Simon Elmer partly fallen for that old trick?
Agreed. Wokeism occupies a fairly big chunk of Elmer's thought and work. I think he is so consumed with hatred for it that he actually can't think clearly when he attacks it directly...which is precisely one of woke's side effects, whether you're with it or against it! It's meant to be incredibly divisive. The thing we have to keep coming back to is that woke is a manipulative psychological tool designed to lubricate the main agenda. E.g. Coerced vaccination is a main agenda; therefore the woke element is "do it to save granny." Carbon rationing and population control via climate change policies (along with the trillion dollar wealth transfer that will spawn) is another main agenda; the woke adjunct is "lock yourself up in a 15-min city to save the planet". We have to devote your energy to fighting the main concrete agendas and the woke element will fall, because you're never going to convince people that they're being silly about saving granny or the planet. They'll think you're evil! You have to just stick with: "There is no climate crisis because...logical reasons...and mandating vaccines and digital ID is bad because...logical reasons.
It is also possible to attack some (probably most) forms of wokeism from the perspective of universal human values. Much of wokeism just flies in the face of basic values, so let's shoot it down on that basis. But Elmer's piece was devoid of basic decency and values. If you had to present what he wrote to a woke audience, not only would he never win the debate, they'd lynch him. That would be a victory for woke! That's what it wants. In a way, as I tried to point out, Elmer's piece is like fighting woke with woke because of its emphasis on identity, especially the identity of the politicians he hates. You can't beat woke with woke because it's fundamentally irrational.
Good point, you literally can't fight woke with woke.
I wrote a long comment then lost it because I made the mistake of trying to do it on my phone!
The gist was thank you for bringing Elmer's article to my attention. I too had thought he was one of the more progressive 4IR critics. I agree with you, his hatred of woke is blinding him to the instrumental role of the real perpetrators, those who sit above and use the political class, that is, in our case in the West, the captains of 21st century industry and finance, who are also the warmongers determined to keep markets open for Western capital.
I was astounded by his unsubstantiated claim that non-white politicians and bureaucrats hate the white British working class and British culture. He doesn't even articulate this culture except here: "Monye said rugby had to tackle its culture of ‘heavy drinking’ and ‘laddishness’ in order to attract Muslim and homosexual players." It seems he laments any loss of unhealthy liver-destroying behaviours, sexism and homophobia... There is a whole layer of elites who run the system and provide and reinforce its rationalising ideologies and narratives, via the parliament, media and academia (and increasingly the unions) who stoke division by looking down on the 'uneducated' masses. The offence Elmer takes shows he has been sucked into taking a side, as you say, with his own brand of identity politics, rather than stepping outside of their terrain and exposing the limits of their narrative.
We can also deduce that migrants are more likely to be in lower paying jobs, as per his employment stats, but instead of showing empathy for their predicament, help them call out the sham and hypocristy of their self-appointed representatives, and encouraging class-based solidarity with white workers to together resist attacks on living standards, health and freedoms, he prefers to use racial scapegoating to put an unreasonable burden of blame onto the shoulders of the non-white section of the whole corporate and political classes that threatens us. In Australia, it was a white PM and all white state Premiers who implemented covid lunacy and continue to invoke wokism to push profit agendas.
His piece also contains historical errors e.g. colonialism requires replacement of indigenous rulers with foreign ones. This only occured in settler-colonial states. In most cases, colonial powers co-opted or coerced local rulers to assist their rule.
And what's with all the lamenting about loss of sovereignty? Anyone freedom advocate worth their salt in a country like Britain, a former colonialist and now imperialist country, needs to FIRST acknowledge and oppose, preferably with actions, the way their country's ruling class destroyed the sovereignty of other nations, and continues to subjugate them economically and all-too-often militarily.
And the complaint about reducing "the [British] native population to a subject people"! It's classless politics like this that lead us nowhere at best and onto the dangerous territory at worst. Since class division began with the dawn of civilisation, as if the ordinary people of the British Isles were ever not a subjugated people! Elmer needs to reconsider where his sympathies lie and with whom he can find genuine and effective solidarity.
With misrepresentations like these, the foundations of his argument melt away.