Andrew Neil — Daily Mail.com March 17, 2023
Oxfam apologised for the English language this week, describing it as ‘the language of a colonising nation’. It also counselled against using the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ because they ascribed ‘gendered roles’.
Thus, in this charity’s right-on eyes, has the language of Shakespeare (hiss) and Churchill (boo) — the most successful language the world has ever known — become a matter for regret and embarrassment, while simple, clear words that have stood the test of time are to be abandoned. Oxfam says it’s only offering guidance not prescription. Fair enough. But I wouldn’t fancy the career chances of any Oxfam staffer who cared to flout it.
Oxfam has come a long way since it was founded 81 years ago. There was a time in the dim and distant past when its primary purpose was to raise money from well-meaning, relatively affluent folks and use their donations to assuage the hunger pangs of the poor and downtrodden across the globe. It was a worthy cause.
Those days are long over. For some time now it’s been more associated with Left-wing agitprop than famine relief. Indeed, you almost get the impression feeding the famished is now seen by some in Oxfam as an annoying diversion from the far more important work of political activism.
Hence all the effort that’s gone into its 92-page ‘Inclusive Language Guide’. It won’t fill a single empty belly but it will sure warm the cockles of its increasingly woke staff, with its insightful injunctions to avoid using words like headquarters (‘implies a colonial power dynamic’), aid sector (‘cements’ idea of those with ‘resources’ giving ‘charitable aid’ — which I stupidly thought was the founding mission of Oxfam) and, incredibly, field trips (‘reinforces colonial attitudes’).
The logic of that last one escaped me until I remembered that, after a teenage geography field trip (sorry) to the Scottish Highlands, we were all pretty fired up to retake India (or not — recollections vary).
Oxfam is especially obsessed with colonialism saying it is seeking to ‘decolonise our ways’. Somebody should tell it the British Empire hasn’t been a force in the world for quite some time. It’s easy for people to scoff at such woke nonsense (by the way don’t use ‘people’ which the charity says is synonymous with only men — who knew?) and Oxfam isn’t even in the vanguard of such efforts to subvert language and meaning.
Universities have been at it for years. The University of Southern California beat Oxfam to the punch by banning ‘field’ earlier this year (not just field trips) because of its ‘racist undertones’ for descendants of slavery. The university seems to think only slaves have ever worked in fields, which suggests you should avoid its history department.
The media is at it too. Politico, a major presence in Washington DC and a growing force in political reporting on this side of the Atlantic too, advised its journalists over a year ago to avoid words such as mankind (sexist), biological woman (exclusionary), third world (‘derogatory’), peanut gallery (apparently seats usually occupied by ethnic minorities) and, whereas Black should always be capitalised, white should not ‘in any instances’.
Released on Monday, the Oxfam publication tells staff not to say they ‘stand with’ people they support because it ‘potentially alienates people unable to stand’
The Oxfam guide copies many of these injunctions. So does big business, which has embarked on a race to be woker-than-thou. This has fertilised the rise of a new breed of hucksters, charlatans and snake oil salesmen (sorry, persons), aka consultants, all bidding to advise business on how to use the correct, inclusive woke language.
For a fat fee, of course. Company CEOs are queuing up to pay, apparently indifferent to the fact that — as soon as they comply — the consultants will come up with even more rarified language rules (their business model depends on it). Even Nato has its own 36-page ‘gender-inclusive language manual’ with such pearls of wisdom as the need to call waiters and waitresses ‘servers’. I’m sure Ukrainian forces on the frontline are inspired by leafing through it as they wait for Nato arms to arrive while the Russians pummel them with another artillery barrage.
The European Union, naturally, published its own guide two years ago. But, not surprisingly given the number of languages involved, it made such a Horlicks of it that it had to be quickly withdrawn.
As I say, easy to scoff. But wrong. This is not the passing fad of a lunatic fringe obsessed with gender issues, race and colonialism — and the chance to virtue signal at every opportunity.
This is a cultural sea change brought about by the infiltration of the university campus into newsrooms, boardrooms, charities, media, civil service and public agencies.
It started in America and is now happening everywhere in the West, including Britain, as the Oxfam case so clearly illustrates. It will get much worse before it gets better, if it ever does.
For over a decade now, university graduates, especially those from the most elite universities, have left the campus for the labour force imbued with the latest nostrums and language of wokery and fired up by the latest trendy teachings on race, colonialism and gender issues.
They have done so in sufficient numbers to be feared by their bosses, who regularly capitulated to their demands. And as this generation climbs the greasy poll, they increasingly are the bosses.
Why the obsession with language, with demands for changes in usage which might be thought trivial, irrelevant, even pathetic? Because if you control the language, you’ve gone a long way to dominating the debate in this new age of identity politics.
By outlawing words with even the merest tangential link to race and colonialism — or, in reality, none at all — you are establishing that racism and colonial repression are the defining hallmarks of our society, as critical race theory mandates, and far more important than social class or social mobility or economic growth.
By insisting that biology can never take precedence over gender self-identity, and that the use of language must reflect that, you’ve pretty much handed over the argument to the transgender lobby. It’s long been a conceit of those most active in the culture wars that there’s no such thing as a culture war, that it’s just a myth promulgated by the Right, and that to be woke is just to be concerned about social justice (and who can object to that?).
It’s a clever tactic. But we shouldn’t fall for it.
The aim of today’s culture warriors is to change the face of society by replacing the concerns of the majority (prosperity, growth, opportunity) with their newer priorities (race, gender, anti-colonialism). They hope to do this not just by determining the language but by closing down debate. In offices and shop floors across the land, people are already walking on eggshells, terrified of saying what they think lest it offend those with the power and predilection to make the lives of any deviants miserable.
Robust debate is already being strangled as folks (an Oxfam-approved word, by the way) take refuge in platitudes and pablum so as not to upset the snowflakes. That’s how the new woke generations plan to win the war.
In the Budget, the Chancellor complained about the large number of over-50s who had left the labour force during the pandemic and not returned since. He proposed some measures to entice them back.
It did not dawn on him that one reason might be the spread of Oxfam-style language and behaviour manuals, which have made the workplace an alien, even dangerous place for older workers. It is safer to work from home — or not at all.
The truth is most people (sorry again) on the Right and Left do not share the cultural identity obsessions of Oxfam and its ilk. They’re more worried about paying the bills, keeping a job, getting the kids into a decent school.
They’re not racist and couldn’t care less about the British Empire. But they see the levers of power controlled by a new generation with a different agenda. They fear there’s nothing they can do about it. Or perhaps they can.
Within an hour of Oxfam taking to Twitter to defend its guide, it was forced to turn off the ‘reply’ function, such was the volume and vituperation of the responses.
Perhaps there’s hope for us yet.
About twenty years ago, when I still thought Oxfam was run by volunteers, I heard that the executives were on corporate pay levels, so I was put off Oxfam: if they will capitalise “Black” but not “White”, it means they do not think Whites are human. We put the capital to differentiate the word from another word which means merely a colour; the words with capitals refer to two Races, which are European and African. We do not really have a word for brown/Brown people, and it would not correspond to one Race if we did. As a child I would hear the word “half-caste”, and I now call those people Kalergis. To make my disapproval of multiracialism clear at the start, I use the term “wog” for brown people, but it is not an accurate word
ALL the major charities are a money making scam anyway being private entities that are non-profit and un-taxed means they can pay their executives huge salaries without being questioned .
As vaccinations are meant to xxxx people’s bodies up while incentivising those that deliver the poison, the “woke” agenda is meant to fuck up people’s minds while paying many agents to deliver this psychological poison.
This psychological poison seems designed to deliberately create friction between people. One can only think that this apparent inclusiveness is designed to deliver the exact opposite. Society is deliberately being divided against itself. An alienation above and beyond the grafting of different ethnicities upon each other.
When people are divided from each other, they look more towards government. The demise of unions, pubs, and homogenous communities facilitates this. When people look towards government, government becomes bigger and needs greater funding. An increase of government means more public funded employees who will further extend this woke agenda while small business and independent enterprise are marginalised. As vaccination damages necessitates further public spending then so does the mental overload of unbearable cognitive dissonance necessitate increased mental health interventions.
TPTB have completely inverted once noble concepts of “equality”, “equity”, and “sustainability” etc. along with the beauty of the rainbow…
“The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to Orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them …” – words of Frodo from Tolkien’s “Lord Of The Rings”)
Daily Fail,
Andrew Neil says, “its time to punish antivaxxers!”
Oxfam recycles everyone’s useless old junk and turns it into corporate salary…
lt also recycles empty corporate acronym platitudes such as DlE (whitey) and ESG (or bust) so that terminally stupid graduate imbeciles can get a job that even an idiot couldn’t fuck up.. and get paid very well..
this also enables them to feel less worthless… to feel good about themselves and their ‘privilege’…because they are generally repugnant individuals.. only tolerated briefly… as a form of charity…
Oxfam is Fake and should be sent to Africa on a rubber ring escorted by the RNLl.. it is a giant fraud..as is the toad-like and loathsome hunch-backed Scott’s dwarf.. and wife of Anne Robinson..
.. Andrew Neil..
A tiresome old hack lampooned in the Satirical comic Private Eye every issue for about twenty five years (and may still be)…
Photographed sweating.. drugged and bloated.. his fat arse attired in a string vest and reverse baseball cap…
… corpulent soft arm greedily clutching a teenage girl…. at the ‘Society’ knocking shop Stringfellows ‘nightclub’…
dear dear..deary me.. what a charity case…
NB: Yup…still going strong…
So….. here’s the photo of the imbecile journo Andrew Neil (and Oriental ‘friend’ Hi Go Long)..it seems he was probably born white washing establishment crime and looking 70 years old..
yup…
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/andrew-neil.jpg
Thanks for posting this. Didn’t know much about Oxfam. Seems most all charities these days hae gone woke. Being an author (https://omegabooksnet.com) it concerns me about screwing the English language and esp. in elementary schools or kids shows on TV that, say, my grandkids, will grow up with a screwed English language and nonsense “literature”…I mean, they’re even banning Shakespeare? Yikes!
Eric Blair (George Orwell) in “1984” points out language controls thought. It is one of the devices used to change humans, to make them unable to express feeling, ideas with meaning and clarity. For example “double ungood” means really bad in NEWSPEAK. The Ministry of Truth is the Ministry of Lies. The Ministry of Love is the Ministry of Torture. Such deceptions exist today. The Cabal is changing our language to make us forget our past. He/She, Mom, Dad are verbotten. A man is a woman and vice versa. These influencing techniques are found in the famous “Protocols” along with other ways to enslave humanity.
Waiting for the next OXFAM money collecting Idiot…
jewish communist instigated diversion
to stimulate racehate + racewar . all those
leftist + jews should be shot by lone wolfs
in the night (WHITES painted black) .
OXFAM we all know how corrupt oxfam is
Tony Blair is a shareholder
Every hollywood movie has a white man with an English accent
as the bad guy.
Similarly white men have ben eradicated from TV adverts.
We have a situation here in the UK
where if a white man hurts a black man its called a serious hate crime
but if a black man hurts a white man, it often does not even come to court.
Positive discrimination its called here for oportunities jobs and housing etc
Black folk come before us in our own country.
Now we learn from Dr David Cohen’s speeches
that the covid jab given to white folk in the UK
was called ” The Grand-killoff” and the death toll, not from Covid but from
the vaccine is very high indeed.
Migrants being people trafficked in by government do not have to have this Kill-off vaccine.
White English folk have become very much second class citizens in their own land
excatly as Enoch Powell said and before him George Orwell and Oswald Mosely.
Various governments have filled our land with foreign nationals to our detriment
and they have taxed us to the hilt to pay for them, Boris Johnson gave £300 milion of our money
to Ukraine, stuff Ukraine, ! what about the white English people Boris stole the money from
many living hand to mouth, sleeping on the streets and siting idle as jobs are allocated out to migrants, and now this same Government is advertsing for folk to join the army
to fight the war for Ukraine ?
GET LOST YOU CORRUPT RACIST BASTARDS
it is very simpel + known by the jews :
when every years elections more + more foreign +
coloured politicians come into the system they
bring in their different contrary aims . its nothing
else like the old building tower of Babel + god
(the jew himself) will confuse their languages +
cultures + will disperse them to all wind directions !
and because of their sins (sodomi etc) god JHWH
(the jews themself) will send them atomar fire .
after it they will write into their always expanding
holy books how JHWH (they themself) punished
Amalek Edom (GOYIM) and jew will continue to
be the holy chosen .
Further to my observation about cognitive dissonance and mental health I came across this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOjCgiFJspA