by Emanuele Mastrangelo and Enrico Petrucci
Wales. We're not censoring, just knocking down statues
For once we don't start in Scotland. This time it is the government of Wales that is trying to catch up on wokeshit by dusting off one of the classics such as cancel culture vis-à-vis statues in the public square. This is the finalization of a program that has been going on for several years and aims to “decolonize” public space to “celebrate the diversity” of contemporary society.
From the Welsh government's perspective, the term “decolonization,” reports the Telegraph's always excellent Craig Simpson (1), extends to the need to move beyond a white, Western representation of space.
The move is not trivial: the culture war is no longer only against historical subjects linked to the colonial phenomenon (thus inherently evil and worthy of cancel culture), but all those who fall tout court into European history. Which - yikes! - is 99.9 percent guiltily white. Then again, Wales aspires to become an “anti-racist nation” by 2030, and to do so may require dispensing with “divisive subjects” such as the British heroes of the wars against Napoleonic France, guilty perhaps of not simultaneously being fervent abolitionists. However, the Welsh regime's guidelines make it clear that no one wants to censor or erase history. Ah, well, let's go to bed peacefully tonight.
United Kingdom. Damn the mentality of the past!
Two more brief ones from the UK: the BCC sit-com "Terry and June", which aired from 1979 to 1987, will receive a warning regarding “discriminatory” language in use at the time (2), while the 1969 BBC "Civilisation" series of documentaries also signed by Kenneth Clark will have a trigger warning because they propagate the mentality of the time (3).
In short, a few more months is we will no longer speak of British humor, but of British trigger warnings.
Germany. Voila the Munchausen Law for “sex change”
Meanwhile, in Germany a new law has been passed to simplify the “change of gender,” i.e., sex, in documents, which have long included a third option in addition to the classic male-female. The law is in the vein of Spain's "Ley trans", so no diagnosis or anything else is required. In this wokeshit, two are the relevant super-wokeshit: from age 14 to 18, parental consent is needed, but under age 14 parents will still be able to make the registry change, unlike other recent legislation such as Sweden's, which provides for it only from age 16. So parents with Munchausen syndrome are literally given carte blanche (4). Also of interest is the presence of a €10,000 fine for those guilty of deadnaming, or the unveiling of previous identity. Calling people by their names is expensive.
Nonetheless, the Germanic shopkeeper mentality of the law (passed with 374 in favor, 251 against, and 11 abstentions) has given life to a rule that will surely not satisfy the most intransigent: gymnasium managers will in fact be able to apply maximum discretion in access to locker rooms... In short, if the Fräulein on the ID card was not actually quite so Fräulein in person, she might be forced to use the men's locker room. Even worse is the fact that if one changes sex and does not opt for the third option one will have to use a name consistent with the desired sex (5). So much transphobic oppression.
Canada. NHS will pay for penis
From Canada the news that the “transitioner” who wished to have both a penis and a vagina will be entitled to the operation covered by the National Health Service. The case involves an Ontario male-born patient who wanted to transition to have a vagina but keep his penis. The man had initially had his request to have the operation covered by the health service, for which only the costs of a “normal” reassignment had been rejected, appealed, and the court ruled in his favor: surgeons will thus have to engineer to create this condition of pseudo-hermaphroditism, which will involve horrific tissue transplants from one part of the body to another in an attempt to construct the vagina imitation required by the NHS patient. (6). Hippocrates, change your business, there is nothing left for you to do here.
Taiwan. The cancel culture you do not expect
To conclude, another case of statuary in the public square and cancel culture that has something paradoxical about it. If the Taiwan issue and the reunification of China are in the news today, it is because Chiang Kai-Shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalists, defeated by Mao's Communists in 1949, fled to the former Japanese island and then ruled it with an iron fist. Yet the father of the island's independence does not seem to be beloved. Not least because Formosa's original natives apparently had a better time under the Japanese colonialists than with Chiang's nationalists, who flocked there in massive numbers after the war. Moreover, like any self-respecting anti-communist dictatorship, the Generalissimo's regime kept the island under martial law until 1987, and an estimated 140,000 opponents were imprisoned, with 3,000 victims of repression. So for the past few years some statues of the Generalissimo have been removed, all of which are preserved in his mausoleum or Yongkang Park, although more than 700 remain in place. The one in the capital's monumental Memorial Hall also enjoys a guard of honor. The Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-Shek's heir party, and the military oppose it, but more voices seem to give credit to the fact that the currently ruling Democratic Progressive Party is about to give the green light to a removal campaign. (7)
As usual, for the mistrustful who do not believe these crazinesses are real news, here are the sources:
(1) – Telegraph – Welsh Government says public art must be ‘decolonised’ or risk being removed
(2) – Telegraph – BBC’s Terry and June given trigger warning
(3) – Telegraph – Acclaimed BBC series Civilisation is given a warning over outdated attitudes
(4) – Linkiesta – Il protagonismo narcisista dei genitori convinti di avere figli trans
(5) – BBC – Germany eases gender change rules
Editor of the Machiavelli Study Center's blog "Belfablog," Emanuele Mastrangelo has been editor-in-chief of "Storia in Rete" since 2006. A military-historical cartographer, he is the author of several books (with Enrico Petrucci, Iconoclastia. La pazzia contagiosa della cancel culture che sta distruggendo la nostra storia e Wikipedia. L'enciclopedia libera e l'egemonia dell'informazione).
Essayist and popularizer, among his publications Alessandro Blasetti. Il padre dimenticato del cinema italiano (Idrovolante, 2023). With Emanuele Mastrangelo Wikipedia. L’Enciclopedia libera e l’egemonia dell’informazione (Bietti, 2013) and Iconoclastia. La pazzia contagiosa della cancel culture che sta distruggendo la nostra storia (Eclettica, 2020).
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