Beware racists in liberal clothing

I recently read the most racist, divisive, insulting execration that I have ever seen in a mainstream newspaper. I’m no fan of the Guardian, but I’ve always felt that its content was civilised and intriguing, not barbaric and upsetting. Even the Daily Mail would raise an eyebrow before publishing anything as racist as this ‘opinion piece’ (here), the villainous writer of which is someone called Pankaj Mishra. He needs a mega-dose of Christian love before being allowed near a keyboard again. (He doesn’t deserve the courtesy of my going to the trouble of finding out what his actual religion is.)

Another Guardian commentary here by Nesrine Malik appeared on Halloween, aptly enough, which was equally as eye-rolling but at least the language was more measured. In the interests of (comparative) brevity, I'll focus my ire on Mishra, although both writers are undermining the goal of social cohesion for the sake of a punitive, regressive ideology.

Titled Britain’s first Hindu prime minister is destroying Tories’ pitiful vision of diversity and published in the Guardian at the end of last week, Mishra opens with reference to Britain’s “first Black chancellor of the exchequer” and “first Hindu prime minister” as being scraped “from the bottom of its human resources barrel”. Imagine the brouhaha if a ‘White’ commentator had written that. They would've been called a racist, and rightly so.

Kwarteng messed up the mini budget, but not because he’s Black. Sunak wasn’t a popular choice amongst the electorate (including me) to become PM, but not because he’s Hindu. Why does Mishra, a native of India, opine otherwise?

Sunak’s crime, in Mishra’s eyes, is that he has succeeded in Britain by ‘being British’, elitist British to boot – a top-class education, career in banking and finance, marrying into wealth, and membership of “a traditionally nasty party” i.e. the Tories. Nasty party? It wasn’t the Tories who told abused white girls to keep their mouths shut for the sake of diversity.

He says that Sunak’s “hasty promotion … emboldens insolent racists to present themselves as the purveyor of racial diversity … Hollow notions of social diversity and racial justice are further affirmed by members of a non-white intelligentsia, who have been trained by the ideology of meritocracy to see success and power, no matter how dubiously achieved or brief, as the measure of all things.”

Mishra has a weird problem with the concept of “meritocracy”, a system by which people are chosen and move into positions of power and influence because of their demonstrated abilities. That noise, by the way, is me scratching my head, trying to figure out: a) when did meritocracy become an ideology; b) what’s wrong with being promoted on merit; c) if you’re promoted on merit then how is your success “dubiously achieved”; and d) when did admiring or striving for success and power equate to not admiring and not striving for anything else? Mishra isn’t a writer; he’s a ranter.

Hidden in the midst of his rant is his underlying bugbear: “… collaboration with white ruling classes or political passivity rather than struggles for social justice largely defines the history of the Indian diaspora, especially of its highly educated and upper-caste members.”

According to Wiki, Mishra was born in Jhansi, India. His father was a railway worker and trade unionist after his family had been left impoverished by post-independence land redistribution … 

… Does Mishra want social justice, or revenge?

He sounds as if he resents successful ‘minorities’, just because not every minority person succeeds. Not all white people succeed either. He refers to the coveting of educational achievement and social mobility as “obsessions”.  Mishra should know that social mobility is one measure of social justice, and one of the best ways to achieve this is through educational achievement.

His final paragraph was the final nail in the coffin of respectable discourse when he referred to “the ideological dementia of the Tory party”, thus insulting millions of people – of all ethnicities – who vote Tory, and with a callous insensitivity towards dementia sufferers. He follows that with, “The turd-polishing abilities of centrist-Dad liberalism, … the logrollers of the BBC, Times and Financial Times”, thus insulting just about everyone else.

He ends with, “But we should be in no doubt about what an immoral and inept political class wants us to celebrate: ‘Asian representation’ leading a cruel Tory programme of mass impoverishment.” 

Hang on a sec. Wasn’t it Sunak, for all his faults, who did his best to cushion as many people as he could during Covid with his furlough scheme and eat-out-to-help-out stunt? While not perfect, these schemes don’t sound like they came from a man, or a party, that is happy to see “mass impoverishment”.

There's no doubting that Mishra doesn't like Sunak as PM because of the colour of his skin, which makes him a racist. He prefers to talk down and hold back people of colour to stoke discontent, unhappiness, anger and division. He’s done alright for himself, though, through hard work, a university education and the ability to write guff that the likes of the Guardian want to publish. In other words, he’s succeeded because of meritocracy.

Mishra's key message, echoed by Malik, is that Sunak becoming PM is not a win for diversity because he's a wealthy Tory, so it's actually a step backwards. I strongly disagree. Sunak is just one of many senior Tories of ethnic background. Others include Kwarteng, Badenoch, Cleverly, Braverman, Sharma and Zahawi. To adapt a well-known saying: one coloured senior Tory might be token; two might be coincidence; but this many is on the road to nirvana.

Whereas Mishra and Malik are hung up on categorising and judging people by the colour of their skin, I believe that colour is no basis for judgement because coloureds and whites are equal. There is nothing to stop anyone achieving anything because of their ethnicity. The hardest task we face in this country when it comes to race relations is spreading the message of, to put it clumsily, 'colour blindness' to instill throughout all communities acceptance, confidence and harmony. These concepts are anathema to Mishra and Malik, who prefer to sow malice, discontent and division.

All told, my key message is: beware of racist wolves in liberal sheep's clothing.