The New British Totalitarians

Of all the countries I have monitored over the past few years, Britain is certainly at the top of my list. It seems on a weekly basis a new case of idiocy and coercive utopianism emanates from this nation. It has so quickly and so extensively rejected its Christian roots, and so thoughtlessly and cavalierly embraced every moonbeam PC fashion, that it is well nigh on the verge of collapse.

That is why I keep recalling the words of Arnold Toynbee: “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder”. And the wise counsel of another historian also comes to mind: “From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day” (Will Durant).

To witness in one’s lifetime the decline and fall of a once great nation is as breathtaking as it is demoralising. Alexander Solzhenitsyn felt the same way about his beloved Russia. And he was well aware of the reason for the decline of the nation: “It is because we have forgotten God. That is why all this is happening to us.”

While many just accept the death of Britain as a fait accompli, as something that simply is, other voices ask whether this ought to be, and what can be done to turn things around – that is, if real change is still possible at this late stage.

One such voice of reason in a world of unreason is Hal G. P. Colebatch. Writing in today’s Australian he rightly ponders the fate of a nation quickly going over the edge. From his vantage point, things are not looking too good. Indeed, this may well be a terminal illness.

He begins with these words: “Britain appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely. There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.”

He finds some historical precedents for all this: “Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution’s principal tasks was ‘to alter people’s actual psychology’. Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people’s psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.”

And like this website, he features a host of mind-numbing examples of this new totalitarianism. They make for depressing reading, but the world must be warned. Consider a few of the cases he brings to light. The story of a young schoolgirl sets the scene:

“In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher’s first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: ‘It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police!’ Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: ‘An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form’.”

Yikes! What in the world is wrong with this country? Just how much more bent out of shape can it become before it turns into one big asylum? But wait, there’s more. Consider this tale of squashed free speech:

“Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government’s anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: ‘If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.’ Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: ‘If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings.’ It took him five years to clear his name.”

Let me offer one last example: “Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member. ‘What would Nelson have said?’ is a British newspaper cliche about navy scandals, but in this case seems a legitimate question. Satanist paraphernalia is also supplied to prison inmates who need it.”

Colebatch finishes with these words: “This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner. Any one of these incidents might be dismissed as an aberration, but taken together – and I have only mentioned a tiny sample; more are reported almost every day – they add up to a pretty clear picture.”

As a new Dark Ages settles upon Britain, observers from afar can only shake their heads in amazement and grief. But if nothing else, such folly and self-immolation can at least serve one useful function: it can serve as a warning to other nations that the path Britain is on is not a path to be followed, but a path to be avoided at all costs. Whether other nations heed the warning remains to be seen.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25361297-7583,00.html

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9 Replies to “The New British Totalitarians”

  1. Britain – land of hope and glory, now land of dhimmitude and totalitarianism; royal Family party animals; insipid Archbishop of Canterbury; weak political leadership.
    Watch Britain as it will betray Christians and Jews. “Mene, mene tekel, uppharsin” – it has been found wanting and is in the balance.
    Wayne Pelling

  2. Wow, this is off topic sort of but very interesting:
    For the past few weeks our local church (as many others across the country) in Stellenbosch, South Africa intercedes for the nation and the elections being held tomorrow (22 April). We do this early every morning and when I woke up this morning I silenced my alarm clock and the word “Solzhenitsyn” jumped into my mind and I kept saying it over and over. I thought he was some philosophical or political figure but weren’t sure at all, I’m not really familiar with who he is but am familiar with the name – I found it weird that I kept saying the name over and over though.

    We are not really praying for a specific party or candidate’s victory but praying for repentance among God’s people(for the church to be made pure and holy again) and against strongholds over the country, idolatry etc.

    Then, when I read this article now, I saw Bill quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn saying: “It is because we have forgotten God. That is why all this is happening to us”. It is so true for so many countries around the world today, also for South Africa.

    So tomorrow is election day and we’ll meet on the town square for a final time at 05h00 before the voting booths open at 07h00. It is time for the people to turn to God again!

    Servaas Hofmeyr, South Africa

  3. Bill,
    This is for me just the last straw: you may not have given up on the West, and Britain in particular, but I’m afraid I have. We are witnessing a once great country and world power, a cradle for Christianity and a power-house for world missions, just self-immolate in an orgy of sneering atheism and ribald immorality.
    In all this the judgment of God must be seen: God has given them up to their vile affections, to their folly masquerading as the latest wisdom, to unreason, and to callousness. Read Romans 1:24, 26, 28. God raised up this nation, now He is just as surely bringing it down to Hell, see Jer.18:1-10. See also the parallel of Egypt and the nations of antiquity in Ezek.32:17-30 – all in the pit of Hades! That’s where Britain, Europe, Canada and America are headed, and ourselves too unless at this 59th minute of the eleventh hour the nation repents, but I don’t see any sign at all of that happening.
    All we can do, I believe, is remain faithful, keep untarnished by the world, continue to testify to our Lord, and most of all look up, for our redemption draws near.
    Murray Adamthwaite

  4. Bill, as an expatriate Brit I am torn between my desire to return to England and be closer to my family, and my dismay at the picture of Britain I get from many sources, including you. Yesterday I listened to a BBC source detailing the fall in the number of marriages and the corresponding rise in the number of children born out of wedlock. Personally, I think that the reason Britain’s turning pagan so fast is that the “old religion” never really went away – an apt illustration of why God kept saying that the Baals and the Astoreths had to be completely destroyed.

    I have also heard rumors of the stirrings of a Christian revival in the country – I would love to hear something about this from you. If I do go back there to live, it may be as a missionary venturing into the deepest jungle… of wrongheaded ideas.

    Jane Steen

  5. Thanks Jane

    I will sniff around for info on the revival. In the meantime, yes, you will have to go back as a missionary. But bear in mind that this has happened before. Back in 1890 William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) penned his famous book, In Darkest England and the Way Out. Britain was in pretty sad shape back then as well, but Christian workers, like the SA, really helped to turn things around. We certainly do need more of the same today. We need revival and reformation.

    And by the way, there is a great quote from Booth. He once said, “God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.” Britain today is in the impossible category, as is much of the West. But this is the chance for God’s people to shine. To God be the glory.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  6. Bill, looks like you wrote your article before THIS came out:

    http://boingboing.net/2009/03/24/london-cops-reach-ne.html

    “The London police have bested their own impressive record for insane and stupid anti-terrorism posters with a new range of signs advising Londoners to go through each others’ trash-bins looking for “suspicious” chemical bottles, and to report on one another for “studying CCTV cameras.”

    It’s hard to imagine a worse, more socially corrosive campaign. Telling people to rummage in one another’s trash and report on anything they don’t understand is a recipe for flooding the police with bad reports from ignorant people who end up bringing down anti-terror cops on their neighbors who keep tropical fish, paint in oils, are amateur chemists, or who just do something outside of the narrow experience of the least adventurous person on their street. Essentially, this redefines “suspicious” as anything outside of the direct experience of the most frightened, ignorant and foolish people in any neighborhood.

    Even worse, though, is the idea that you should report your neighbors to the police for looking at the creepy surveillance technology around them. This is the first step in making it illegal to debate whether the surveillance state is a good or bad thing. It’s the extension of the ridiculous airport rule that prohibits discussing the security measures (“Exactly how does 101 ml of liquid endanger a plane?”), conflating it with “making jokes about bombs.”

    The British authorities are bent on driving fear into the hearts of Britons: fear of terrorists, immigrants, pedophiles, children, knives… And once people are afraid enough, they’ll write government a blank check to expand its authority without sense or limit.

    What an embarrassment from the country whose level-headed response to the Blitz was “Keep Calm and Carry On” — how has that sensible motto been replaced with “When in trouble or in doubt/Run in circles scream and shout”? ”

    Pictures of posters here:

    http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/counter_terrorism/street_chemicals_poster.jpg

    http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/counter_terrorism/street_chemicals_cctv.jpg

    Actual police announcement here:

    http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/counter_terrorism/index.htm

    I think our world leaders have gotten a bit confused. 1984 was meant to be a warning, not an instruction manual.

    Paul Harry

  7. Thanks Paul

    But we have been through these debates before. I am not a libertarian as you are. I am a conservative. Conservatives believe in limited government. Libertarians don’t like government at all, and want either no government or the absolute bare minimum of government. While the degrees of difference between limited government and no government may be hard to delineate, they do still exist. Biblical Christians cannot argue for no government because God created the institution of the state. In a fallen world it is vitally needed. It can easily be abused, like anything else God has ordained can be abused, but that is no excuse to seek to get rid of it altogether.

    And in times of crisis, a trade-off between personal liberties and the national good will always have to be balanced out. In the war on terror, we all put up with unpleasant restrictions on our liberty, including going through detailed searches at airports, etc. We are all willing to pay a certain price to maintain other goods, such as relative freedom from terrorist attacks.

    I don’t know anything about the example you have raised, and it is not my intention to defend it. But you are mixing apples and oranges here. I do not begrudge legitimate government actions to protect me and my family from terrorism, or from paedophiles as well (another group you seem quite blasé about).

    The examples I have raised are mainly those of a secularist state trying to squeeze out the Christian faith. The examples you raise (both here and in past comments, as in drug legalisation) are often the legitimate actions taken by governments for the common good. I do happen to think governments should keep a close eye on terrorists and paedophiles. I do think governments should keep dangerous drugs illegal.

    So I am afraid I must call your bluff here. Your contribution does not add to the debate, it simply confuses it.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  8. As a Brit, I have been becoming more concerned about the state of my country and the intolerance of intolerance. It seems that those who have absolutes are ridiculed when those who have no meaning to life are raised up.
    But – this does not mean I have lost hope for Britain, or, in fact, for the West as a whole. There have been many times in history when an attempt has been made to drown out or extinguish the Christian voice, but none has been completely successful. It is this sort of news that inspires me to become more involved in my culture, not less. There is a growing need for there to be Christians in our governments, our schools and our hospitals. I thank God for those who see it as there ‘calling’ to get up on a Monday morning and go to work ‘for the glory of God’. We have so much hope to offer this world and yes, sometimes it looks like the world is going to pot, but I believe that God has not given us a hopeless task but has put us each in a certain place for a reason.
    Sarah Williams

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