As I know from my own career, charting social trends for more than thirty years, I have frequently been labelled ‘right wing’ and even ‘alt-right’, mainly by people who have no idea what right wing means, conjuring up spectres of the Ku Klux Klan and the tottering (not trotting) figure of Eugene Terreblanche.
What to me seems a rational matter can suddenly be turned into a matter characterised by hatred, rampant selfishness and a terrifying repudiation of reason by people who have never heard of Edmund Burke, let alone read him. I had no idea when I first wrote of my sadness at the destruction of Notre Dame that I would be labelled as someone who preferred buildings to people.
When I say anything even vaguely supportive of Steve Hofmeyr, I immediately lose followers, as the Tamboerskloof Afrikaner tracks back into their meisie laager with its Stellenbosch HQ and papa’s trust fund.
I have discovered after years of witnessing the extreme pillorying of Steve, who is just another Afrikaans singer who runs a slick operation, that the reason he is so disliked by the Tamboerskloof Afrikaner is because, I suspect, he reminds them of where they come from – face brick, braais, a radio turned to rugby and sentimental lyrics.
The left has no compunction in crudely insulting anyone who dares challenge its shibboleths. It uses this taunt to shut down debate by bullying its targets and labelling them as extremists, bigots, or other enemies of humanity.
When I mentioned my admiration for Elon Musk on social media, he came under the same suppurating dislike; turned out this was because he allowed Trump back on Twitter, now X.
I always believed in the duty of a journalist to uphold truth over lies, follow the evidence where it led and fight abuses of power wherever they were to be found. I gradually realised, however, that the left was not on the side of truth, reason, and justice, but instead promoted ideology, malice, and oppression. Rather than fighting the abuse of power, it embodied it.
Demonising its enemies
Through demonising its enemies in this way, the left has undermined the possibility of finding common ground and all but destroyed rational discourse.
The result has been a retreat from reason and a polarisation of political debate, with each side circling its wagons and striking ever more inflexible, dogmatic, and adversarial positions. What I have been trying to do is to break out of those absurd caricatures to reconnect politics to the world of reality.
Despite the epithets hurled my way, I am not ‘right wing’; I am a Conservative and believe in self-discipline, order and kindness to each other and focusing on what is achievable rather than on what is desired. I believe it is time to rescue the political language from its left-wing hijackers who follow each other like sheep. It is surely here that the centre ground truly lies. Left, of course, is not the right word; cult would be better. Of course, I am aware that there are many left-wing thinkers who are brilliant and almost sane.
If I am not allowed to mourn the destruction of a beautiful church or allow a pop singer the opportunity to sing because he is thought to be right wing, and not allowed to use certain words because they are not PC, what is the use of my thinking at all?
There is no doubt that I have been ostracised because of my political thinking, which to me has always seemed like common sense. As it is, I feel like sewing my mouth shut, so that no words that have not been vetted by the malignant left can be swallowed and become kidney stones because come what may I will never digest them.
Is it not perfectly possible to combine a belief in healing society, fighting oppression, and looking after the vulnerable – ideals associated with the left – with a more hard-headed commitment to making moral judgements between good and bad behaviour, distinguishing between truth and lies, and focusing on what is achievable rather than what is desirable only in theory – attributes associated with ‘the right’?
Social ostracism
The result for me has been a kind of social ostracism. Gradually I noticed that I was no longer being invited to join friends, no longer part of that ‘caring’ lefty circle whose thoughts were jolly but tracked along one line on which it was easy for me to stumble, saying I supported Israel or making an effort to debate multiculturalism or capital punishment in certain cases, believing the Coligny young men might be innocent or that a lot of Human Rights is bollocks.
Few pictures of the burning Notre Dame appear now without a tearful slum (not sure I am allowed this word but taking the risk) child next to it with accusations of money given to rebuild Notre Dame while people starve.
For me the problem is that one can be caught unawares, not even knowing that you are causing offence, an emotion that has become very uppity, another word I understand is thought to be ‘racist’.
A friend has breast cancer. I said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, cancer has become a chronic disease’, which to some extent is true but more than that, it was something I would like to hear if I had breast cancer. She was deeply offended. I sent flowers for which I was not thanked, and soap for which I was not thanked. What did she want, that I take the knee in front of her?
The upshot is that one has become fearful of venturing beyond mere pleasantries. I have brushed past gender issues, although for years I lived with a mathematician who liked to slip into a frock and high heels. His life was hell and it is sad he did not live to see this anguished syndrome, experienced by so few but celebrated by so many, become fashionable.
Very girly handbag
I recall the tragic way he would hold my very girly handbag as if it was a life buoy when we went out.
When I stay with a friend in North Oxford I have a hard time. First, she signals to the whole area that I am ‘difficult’ or ‘tricky’. This is shorthand for ‘probably votes Conservative and might not agree with everything you say’. North Oxford is Lib Dem with a leader who says she is ‘pan sexual’, enough to put me off ever voting for them.
In North Oxford the word woman is more a situation than a mere noun, slipped into conversations as a sort of rallying cry for feminism, like a package with torn edges in need of mending. The architecture is lovely. ‘Yes and it was done by a woman, a single parent,’ another irritating phrase.
Migrants are always a chewy subject because one is far enough away from the coast never to see one. However, during my last visit a woman with dulcet tones that spoke of private education yelled into a radio talk show to say she was deeply ashamed of being English and could not believe the cruelty of putting illegal (my word) migrants on a barge, the Bibby Stockholm, off the Dorset coast.
Visiting another acquaintance in her pretty flat off the Woodstock Road, I asked about her burglar alarm. She became very skittish when I said, ‘Do you have armed response?’ Her arms flapped around, she was totally distraught, distressed, raddled with something that made her so uncomfortable that she walked around the room, saying ‘No wonder your sister says you are difficult.’
A nice Mr Plod
I had forgotten that no one has a gun in North Oxford unless they intend to shoot themselves or are Russian. Was she imagining a visit from a nice Mr Plod carrying an old fashioned truncheon and some pepper spray?
My real difficulty with this type of thinking is how all-enveloping it has become and how it can nip you while you are stroking it. Tolerance both in Britain and South Africa seems to have led to more violence and crime. In London some big stores have a policy of non-interference, which has led to people thinking they can get away with low-level crime, another ridiculous expression.
In a world where the paint has dried on humour and where someone like ex-Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille is called a fascist, it is easy to stop talking altogether.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend