Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong has discovered that while playing the colonial guilt card might work well with left-wing audiences, the use of such finger-wagging on the international stage may be a diplomatic failure.
Why Wong thought publicly shaming Britain over colonialism in London would be diplomatically sound is unclear. But unsurprisingly her call for Britain to share stories of its “uncomfortable” past with its former Pacific colonies was not well received.
In her speech, Wong portrayed her family as a victim of colonialism with her Chinese grandmother being a servant for British colonialists in Borneo.
Yet Britain’s foreign secretary was quick to respond pointing out that he was of African heritage, and that the United Kingdom’s prime minister and home affairs secretary were both of Asian descent.
It is noteworthy that during a parallel meeting in Paris, Wong did not attack France over its colonialism. Perhaps she thought the tactic worked better in Anglo societies where “woke” ideologies have proliferated, especially on university campuses.
The way she delivered her speech gives us an insight into how she has personally internalised many progressive ideologies around decolonisation, victimhood, and guilt.
She is after all from the left faction of the Australian Labor Party, which embraces many of these beliefs including simplistic villain-victim narratives.
Vladimir Lenin actually said convincing people they were victims was an effective way to make them angry.
Activists and politicians could then promise to rescue these (angry) victims by fighting the “villains.”
Once successful—normally using violent revolution—they can claim that they ended the people’s victimhood and achieved “social justice.”
Nowadays, saving victims has become an industry unto itself with taxpayers footing the bill.
And today there is an ever-expanding plethora of “victims” who apparently need to be rescued by an expanding cohort of activists and left-wing politicians, including those that need saving from colonisation (Indigenous peoples), from the patriarchy (women), racists (ethnic minorities), or greedy capitalists destroying the planet (all of the above and more).
What Do Activists Today Want?
Today’s activists are concerned with “decolonising” the West itself.They want to decolonise Australia, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Britain to “free” our minds from the lingering effects of imperialism, colonialism, and racism.
We are to be re-educated and made to “think properly.” We are to be taught to feel “guilty” so that we can recognize the need to recompense victims of colonialism.
This involves treaties, recognising sovereignty for the Indigenous, and possible reparations for imperialism and slavery.
It’s Time to Stop Living in the Past
Wong’s victimhood story is based on how British colonialists brought Chinese labourers to Malaya, which resulted in her grandfather working in British mines, while her grandmother worked as a servant.On a personal note, my victimhood story is a bit more intense.
My ancestors were caught up in the Boer Wars where their farms were burned to the ground and 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died in concentration camps built by the British Empire.
My point is, we can choose to live in the past and claim victimhood over incidents that occurred 100 years ago ... or we can recognise that history cannot be changed and that good things did come from the British Empire.
Indeed because of how the British developed many societies and economies, while also altering the local demographics—millions of people like me and Wong only exist because of colonialism.
We are products of the Empire whether we like it or not, so why not just get on with it and build on the good legacies that are already in place?
