THE British Museum has been slammed for releasing a “self-loathing” poem about racism in the UK.
To mark National Poetry Day, actor Elander Moore performed his poem The Ballad of Joe Bloggs, which was shared on the museum’s social channels.
5
5
The Sun’s editor-at-large in the US pulled up the choice of poem on his YouTube show Harry Cole Saves the West yesterday.
He said: “Why do the West have to continually flagellate, apologise and dismiss the past – and play these woke videos?
“It’s not just in Britain, it’s in America as well – the Smithsonians ripped up displays and inserted all sorts of caveats into their collections.”
He added: “It’s obvious the controversy this is going to cause and the anger.”
Mr Cole asked: “Is this a helpful debate to be having? Using rape and pillaging and stealing, and chavs and gammons.”
The poem ironically takes the perspective of an apparent typical Brit, referring to chavs, housewives and bankers, and describes “foreigners falling from the sky” who come to “scrub our toilets and rob us blind”.
It says such immigrants have come to “take what’s rightfully theirs”, arriving on “orange boats”, adding: “Invasion is their master plan.”
Such statements are made while the narrator also speaks naively of Britain having never done anything wrong in its history, exclaiming: “Never meant to pillage, rape and steal”.
John Woodcock, Lord Walney, the Government’s former adviser on extremism, told Mr Cole: “I think you can always have the odd bit in there to generate controversy but the trend is, as you say, relentlessly doing down our own country.”
American political commentator Adrienne Gray said: “It’s also art for art’s sake, but when does it go too far?
“We see this in American culture a lot too, with a lot of the American brands (re-branding to not cause offence) who end up getting a lot of publicity out of it.
“We’re kind of over it, these culture wars are pushing it really far.”
Peer Ed Vaizey said of the bosses at the British Museum: “Sometimes when middle aged men want to be hip and trendy, they can sometimes miss the target.”
However, he went on to say: “The British Museum has one big presence in the UK in terms of celebrating world civilisation, but there are other perspectives.
“It was perhaps being brave to allow that perspective to be aired.”
Times journalist Ian Martin said: “I’m going to surprise you, I kind of broadly agree with him (Lord Vaizey).
“I think there’s a bit of a problem for the populist right, as it’s Britain marching towards power.
“I think it’s sometimes got to have a sense of humour about it… Was the poem that terrible?”
Laughing, Mr Cole said: “I wasn’t necessarily critiquing the standards, I was critiquing the content.”
Commenters praised the poem and performance on the British Museum’s Instagram channel.
One said: “Superb. Eloquent, witty and satisfying. Your essential point was made really well.”
Another described it as a “powerful piece of work”.
5
5
