Today we are no longer living in a free society. Instead, we are ruled by those who try to enforce their extreme views by shaming and ruining those who think differently.
It is not far-fetched to compare the methods of this ‘woke movement’ to those of Chairman Mao’s Red Guards, who terrorised the Chinese people half a century ago.
The so-called ‘cancel culture’ – publicly shaming and trying to undermine the professional standing of anyone who deviates from ever-more extreme standards of political correctness – is simply the latest expression of this intolerant, baying movement.
Such behaviour was once confined to virtue-signalling celebrities. However, it has now insidiously taken hold in most of our national institutions.
From universities, the Church, big business, schools, broadcast media, the police, local authorities, publishing houses and even in some newspapers, woke ideology is now being actively promoted.
This is a terrifying development.
Anyone who departs from the new orthodoxy is deemed evil and beyond redemption.
By ganging up together on social media, activists are on a mission to get such people sacked from their jobs and silenced forever.
Historically, the far-Left tried to shut down debate. But today’s woke crusaders go much further.
Today, our universities are bastions of Left-wing, woke orthodoxy. Any dissenting voices – however mild in their beliefs – have to be silenced. And a growing number of schools are now joining universities in propagating this ideology.
‘Critical race theory’ – a sub-Marxist ideology in which ‘white privilege’ is invoked to explain all kinds of injustice – is increasingly being taught as part of ‘decolonising the curriculum’.
Indeed, no subject is immune from this re-education campaign in our schools and universities.
Academics at Birmingham City University have proposed that Mozart be eliminated from music teaching and replaced by the rapper Stormzy. Eton College has announced it will change the teaching of history, geography, religion, politics and English, along with school assemblies and societies, in order to ensure that ‘decolonisation’ is enforced across the board.
All the while, there is a witch- hunt which has seen leading figures driven from American institutions.
Last week, the senior curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art resigned, accused of ‘white supremacist language’ after he stated that refusing to collect white artists would be ‘reverse discrimination’.
And an opinion editor and writer at the New York Times resigned, citing ‘constant bullying by colleagues’ who attacked what they called her ‘forays into Wrongthink’. This reference to George Orwell’s novel 1984 – where people are punished for ‘thought-crime’ – is very telling.
What’s more, major American news providers and magazines are now operating a system in which staff are encouraged to snitch on their colleagues and denounce one another on Twitter.
This hounding of people is strikingly reminiscent of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which convulsed communist China from 1966-1976 and wrecked much of what remained of the country’s ancient civilisation.
The only way someone accused of thought-crime could escape punishment was through public confession, ‘re-education’ and abject apology in so-called ‘struggle sessions’, in which they were humiliated and tormented by their accusers.
Tragically, the woke movement has reinvented this vile ritual, with teachers, journalists, professors and others seeking to hang on to their jobs by desperately begging forgiveness.
In some ways, today’s Twitter Maoism is worse than the original Chinese version. Mao’s Cultural Revolution was unleashed by a communist dictator, who used the upheaval to consolidate his power.
Conversely, in Britain and America today, our leading institutions have shamefully surrendered their own authority to a destructive ideology.
It is vital that this ideological rampage does not rage on for a decade as Mao’s did in China.
Otherwise we will find our freedom lost to a movement that aims to dictate how we live and think, and British civilisation will suffer irreparable harm.
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