“Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.”
Hannah Arendt was a German-Jewish writer and philosopher who had to flee the Nazis to live in Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, France and, eventually, the United States. She is most commonly remembered in connection with the trial of Adolf Eichmann – the man who organised the Holocaust – and the phrase “the banality of evil” that she used to describe how ordinary people caught up in totalitarian systems can be responsible for some truly shocking behaviour.
Collective guilt seems to be back in fashion at the moment. This may surprise some people as for the past couple of decades such ideas have been frowned upon. No self-respecting member of the ‘liberal’ (pfft) wing of the Establishment claimed that all Muslims were responsible for the September 11th attacks in New York or the 7th July attacks in London. The ruling class has tried to silence any discussion of the abuse of Sikh and white working-class girls across the north of England; even to notice the ethnicity of the vast number of perpetrators of this type of abuse can attract accusations of racism. And the attacks on young girls at Ariana Grande’s concert attracted calls not to be angry.
Compare this attitude to the demonisation of anyone who has the temerity to have been born white over the past few weeks. As far as I can tell everyone, left, right and centre, was appalled by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a thuggish and aggressive police officer. But the particulars of this case have been lost in an orgy of protests, riots, attacks on statues and bans on ancient television shows. What has really stood out though is the way all white people have been held guilty for the death of Floyd in a way all Muslims have never been found collectively guilty of the repeated terrorist attacks in the name of their religion.
It is my firm belief that everyone is equal and should be judged according to the same standards. The Same Rules Apply I wrote, echoing the favourite phrase of Irvine Welsh’s anti-hero DS Bruce Robertson. But our lords and masters do not do this. Their racism is so acute and they are so self-unaware that they hold white people to a higher standard of behaviour than non-white people.
I am not responsible for George Floyd’s death. I am not a beneficiary of any privilege and I’m pretty sure that any supposed legacy of British imperialism does not benefit ordinary working people . As Hannah Arendt says in the quote I have shared, “where all are guilty, no-one is.” The attempt to smear all white people with the brush of privilege is designed to distract attention from who really is privileged in our society. And who are these privileged people? Why, the wealthy elite who continue to dominate the media, politics and academia in 2020. I will bet any stakes you like that the people who are rich and privileged today are largely the descendants of the people who gained most from the slave trade and the British Empire.
One of the most sinister aspects of the current frenzy of anti-white racism is the phrase ‘silence is violence’ or sometimes ‘white silence is violence.’ It is not enough for self-hating ‘celebrities’ to make George Floyd’s death all about them by making videos ‘taking responsibility’ for racism. The narcissism of these people is beyond belief. But to demand that everyone parrot your mindless slogans is the very essence of totalitarianism.
Will our oikophobic rulers take responsibility for the way their own privilege has condemned generations of British people – white, black, brown, whatever – to live close to the breadline whilst their ‘betters’ live lives of obscene luxury? Thought not.
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