The idea that Palestine should occupy the precise centre of modern intersectional grievance theory wasn’t conceived by Palestinians. It was rather by septuagenarian English boomers, who indignantly took to the streets the very weekend Hamas butchered innocent Israeli citizens back in October 2023.
One grievance, they said, to unite all others: through Palestine one accesses climate change, neurodivergence, queer theory and de-colonial studies. Let’s go ballistic.
We aren’t talking about overindulged arts students locating expression or meaning, but retired professionals with marriages and mortgages and grandchildren and hobbies like Sunday pub cricket. Every weekend in the UK for the last two years, the superannuated “centrist” grandad-profile emerged, to scream and swear and condemn and in some fleetingly rare cases, be arrested. On occasion, the scenes have resembled admissions riots at South African universities, with groups going at each other while observed by hopelessly terrified police, calculating – in their heads – whether what they’ve just heard constitutes hate speech.
Why this two-year period included so much boomer protestation leaves one curious. Coupled to the circumstances this generation inherited from its own parents – real estate and easy money – an examination of the last 730-odd days becomes frustrating. But it doesn’t end there: if we look at how this group has behaved since Monday and the signing of the peace agreement in Sharm El Sheik, we may be resigned to exploring corporal punishment when it comes to these people opening their mouths in public again.
I’d be up for that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with bending an old man over your knee and tanning him with a slipper. In fact, I think it looks to be a divine calling: one that could spawn a generation of slipper hawkers in public transport terminals: an industry that could yet save the UK economy from oblivion.
If that’s a bit kinky for you, then you could always stage a fake-ish kidnapping, where you blindfold a protesting boomer and strap him to the tattooist’s chair, warning him that his little Home Counties shrew of a wife is going to see an enlarged Pepe the Frog in full colour on his back later, or that cute photo of JD Vance smiling, where they’ve made him look fat and bald.
Askari spree
On Monday night, no sooner had Donald Trump embarrassed the UK’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Canada’s Mark Carney (again) than the rebels at Hamas and associated militias went on a little askari spree in Gaza, machine-gunning people they suspected of espionage or collaboration. No charges or trial. Just dirt naps. Among their victims was the Gazan influencer and Hamas-fan, Saleh al-Jafarawi, known as “Mr. FAFO”.
The absence of any condemnation from previously outraged quarters, including irate boomers and countries which recognised the state of Palestine, was predictable. Immediately pundits, skeptical of the BBC’s twisted narrative throughout the war, seized the moment that had eluded them for two years: these middle-class protestors, keyboard people, suburban keffiyeh folk, social justice neurotics and countries like South Africa and Ireland, never actually cared about Palestinian lives after all.
Despite their presence at the ceremony, the leaders of the UK, France and Canada have been comprehensively emasculated – and now must suffer the humiliation of being caught volunteering within that thin layer of ice separating civilization from savagery (Werner Hertzog’s immortal line). Then there is Ireland.
That the Emerald Isle read the Middle East so wrong is testament to the fortuitous, boomer-esque conditions the country has enjoyed over the past decade, where generous tax arrangements have allowed American tech to flourish in its capital, as its European headquarters. Unchecked, this kind of surprise prosperity can breed luxury beliefs and strip the hitherto worldly and inquisitive from their senses. This model of decadence and decline is captured in its former Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar.
But while Starmer, Macron and Carney were not recipients of the same bounty, just like Varadkar they have a management style that thinks it can “out-compassion” and “out-empathy” demonstrably successful concepts, such as the US’s peace through strength. Seen from far, all they have accomplished is contnuance of the boomer status quo – despite respective pledges for change, leveling-up and commitments to patriotism.
Demented
If you conclude that the Middle East has revealed much of the Western boomer generation to be demented, not useful, lost – then you’re in for a nasty surprise: what comes from these awful two years is much worse.
A repurposed Greta Thunberg, New York mayor hopeful Zohran Mamdani, insufferable musicians Bob Vylan and Kneecap, the soon-to-be former Head of the Oxford Union, countless Hollywood stars and baying United Nations. On the weekend a dweebish-looking nazi at Balliol College, Oxford (and he is an actual nazi) made headlines when he led a protest shouting, ‘Put the Zios in the ground’. Oddly, he was arrested.
Following the example set by boomers and taking advantage of the effete leadership for most Western nations, the future – as it concerns grievance archaeology, interpretation and subsequent application – looks profoundly grim.
We won’t just have inherited rotten infrastructure or predatory capitalism from the most spoiled generation in living memory, but also the inversion of known and tested truths, where things like tenderpreneurism and price gouging are accepted by elitist classes as forms of reparation; where war and permanent emergencies are necessary…and where peace is, actually, racist. Heaven help us.
[Image:https://pixabay.com/photos/peace-peace-sign-stone-7850130/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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