Don’t erase history -let’s learn from the mistakes of the past instead

ONE supposes that the last thing we expected was The Spanish Inquisition but it appears we are caught up in a modern Auto De Fe without the Trial by a rigged Jury. Writers and movie makers, comedians are being condemned, if not as heretics and apostates, in the religious sense, then of being guilty of sinning in the past. They are being found guilty in a Court of Political Correctness for events in the past. Fawlty Towers finished being made over forty years ago. Gone with The Wind eighty years ago. Rather than discuss issues and perhaps learn something, we try to erase them from history..

We are but a small step away from burning books and paintings, start with Rubens Judgement of Paris and continue with the many depictions of naked males and females in Classical and modern art. Ban ‘Jane Eyre’ as it appears Rochester made his fortune in West Indies sugar plantations.

Please allow me to jump on the bandwagon which is calling for the banning of what is considered, by a vocal minority, to be morally wrong.

Let me offer in evidence: The popular ballad ‘Monto’ glorifies prostitution and the exploiting of women who menstruate for the gratification of the non-gender fluid heterosexual male. There is even a verse which appears to encourage under age sex. ‘Raglan Road’ is a beautiful poem and song dealing with unrequited love. Yet it is also a song about a much older man stalking a young female student. As these songs were made famous by Luke Kelly, Socialist or not, all statues to this singer of misogynist songs should be removed. ‘Boolavogue’ sectarian, ‘God save Ireland’ obviously a Christian God, ‘Lock Hospital’ obviously a frequenter on Monto.

‘ The Quiet Man’ should be banned as in one scene a woman presents ‘ Trooper Thornton’ with a weapon ‘ To beat the lovely lady’. Patriarchal themes are central to the story. ‘Rock on Rockall’ advocates the colonising of the property of avian settlers. Birds have Rights though those rights are not being considered by the statue topplers. ‘Far and Away’ banned for mocking the Irish accent, ‘ The Flight of the Doves ‘ because it exists at all.

The list is endless but banning and erasing history is a slow process. We will create a brave new world. A fruit eating Eloi herded by the Morlocks of Ingsoc. Let the Obliteration of the Self be our new Mantra.