The War on the West – How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason - review by Graeme Kemp
Douglas Murray begins his most recent polemic with a blunt, clear opening. It is both a warning and a lament for the state of the modern world and contemporary politics:
“In recent years it has become clear that there is a war going on: a war on the
West. It is not like earlier wars, where armies clash and victors are declared.
It is a cultural war, and it is being waged remorselessly against all the roots of
the Western tradition and against everything good that the Western tradition
has produced”. (Page 1).
Yet Murray’s book is more than simply a defence of Western culture, it is a plea for democracy, reason, rights and the “universal principles” (Pages 6 and 7) that are endangered by the rampant, unreasoning culture war unleashed by Critical Race Theory (CRT), he claims. It is a cry for the genuine liberal principles of colour-blind anti-racism, a successful strategy endangered by the ideological fantasies of the CRT mob who trample on human achievements from the past. Art, literature, buildings, statues and philosophy in the West are all now suspect. The suspicion is that everything is tainted by white racism.
Far from being a nationalistic defence of the West, the book is actually sympathetic to a genuine cosmopolitan, liberal outlook. As Murray points out:
“Such people, ideas, buildings and cities of the West are worthy of respect
not because they are the product of white people but because they are the
inheritance of all mankind” (page 212).
Murray sees the West at its best: taking an interest in and even embracing other cultures and ideas from outside of Europe – not always appropriating, stealing and repressing other cultures. And Murray makes it clear that he understands why people flee war-ravaged nations and dictatorships to seek safety in the West. It is because the West still has a lot to offer.
So, what is Murray’s charge against Critical Race Theory? His answer is that it has led to a resurgence of racialised thinking that sees everything through the lens of race and racial identity. According to Murray, CRT and the culture wars have led to a renewed obsession with ethnic identity and perceived threats to minorities.
And worse, this paranoia is really a remorseless witch hunt against anyone suspected of being linked to the British Empire or slavery. Witch hunts – unsurprisingly – rapidly get out of control. Douglas Murray cites the example of the award-winning poet Ted Hughes (born 1930), suspected of having “connections to slavery” (page 225) by the British Library, because an ancestor Nicholas Ferrar (born 1592) was involved with the London Virginia Company, which set up colonies in north America. It later turned out that Nicholas Ferrar was not even directly related to Ted Hughes and had actually written a pamphlet attacking slavery! Unsurprising this resulted in some embarrassing backtracking from the British Library.
Even the anti-slavery poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge came in for suspicion – for having a nephew who worked on slave estates in Barbados. You couldn’t make it up – but clearly you don’t need to.
Murray explains how there have been attempts to “decolonize” (page 222) the plays of Shakespeare. Indeed, a teacher at a school in Michigan claimed that: “teachers must “challenge the whiteness” of the claim that Shakespeare’s works are “universal”. (Page 223). Murray notes how, curiously, many non-Western cultures are often celebrated uncritically though.
And this highlights a real problem: for Murray, the ‘universal ‘is increasingly seen as a bogus claim that is itself part of a particularly Western discourse. The universal is simply the perspective of the West. And needless to say the Enlightenment comes in for some stick from those who wish to ‘decolonise’ and critique the West; Douglas Murray quotes Kehinde Andrews in a public debate in 2021. Andrews says:
“…a defence of liberalism is the worst possible thing you want to do. Because
liberalism is part of the problem. It is Enlightenment values that really cement
racial prejudice..So we take someone like Immanuel Kant’s universal values of
human rights – which is deeply racist – and then we wonder why the world is
still racist.” (page 171).
So, behind ideas about universal values can lurk Western and white racism, it seems. Yet, as Murray points out, the Enlightenment was a massive step forward for the concept of objective truth and the value of reason. Yet the focus today, Murray notes, is on ‘my’ truth (and my ‘lived experience’ as many put it). Yet, it was the Enlightenment that helped unleash a way of thinking that would undermine illogical racist thinking.
Some Enlightenment thinkers did, sadly, reflect ideas about other cultures that few would share these days. Yet the history of the Enlightenment and associated thinkers is also more complex that some would admit.
And it is here that Murray makes some interesting points about a hero for many who proclaim their opposition to racism, slavery and Empire: Karl Marx. A man who ‘Inspires’ contemporary anti-capitalists today. Surely Marx was a die-hard anti-racist who hated Empire? His headstone stands largely undamaged in Highgate cemetery today – none have pulled it down. Yet, as Murray notes Marx was clearly:
“…antiblack, Anti-Semitic, anti-Indian , pro-colonialist, and racist both in public and in private” (page 178) “
Indeed, he quotes Marx’s words on slavery in America:
“Without slavery North America, the most progressive of countries, would be
transformed into a patriarchal country. Wipe North America off the map of
the world, and you will have anarchy – the complete decay of modern commerce
and civilisation. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off
the map of nations.” (page 179).
Indeed, in 1853 Marx wrote this for the ‘New York Tribune” about the Balkans, which Marx claimed had:
“..the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and
nationalities, of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for progress
and civilisation.” (page 177/178).
And yet, as Murray notes, it is the statue of Winston Churchill in London that seems to attract the fury of the progressive mob. Even Labour politicians can quote Mao’s little Red Book in the House of Commons and Diane Abbot can state – wait for it –that “on balance Mao did more good than harm” because “he led his country from feudalism” (page 127). That’s the Chairman Mao who was responsible for the deaths of millions, by the way….not much talk of reparations for that mass slaughter…..
Douglas Murray doesn’t hold back…..
So, Murray asks – why is Marx (or Mao) exempt from criticism, when other European thinkers aren’t? Why has no-one ‘cancelled’ those thinkers? Why are Marxist groups and parties not tainted by all this?
If there’s one thing Murray can’t stomach, it is hypocrisy.
And yet – as ‘The War on the West’ highlights - hypocrisy abounds in many so-called anti-racist or anti-colonial campaigns, not least concerning the history of slavery and the claimed need for reparations, even for those not directly impacted by slavery.
As Murray points out regarding the British Empire – Britain wasn’t the only country to have one. And Britain wasn’t the only country to be involved in slavery:
“…very little attention is paid to the fact that between the sixteenth and nineteenth
centuries Barbary pirates (that is, Muslim pirates from mainly North Africa)
carried out constant raids not just on European ships but against coastal towns and
cities across Europe…Over the years…it is believed that they stole as many as one and
a quarter million Europeans from their homes.” (Page 115).
As Douglas Murray notes – the silence on this history is damming. Nobody is suggesting reparations for that particular example of slavery, mentioned above. Sadly, slavery, like racism, is a global phenomenon. It’s found in many different cultures and countries, in both the past and the present. So why the constant fixation with the West?
These double standards, according to Murray, can be traced back to discussions on race and identity, as well as ‘whiteness’. The book opens with an exploration of how ‘whiteness’ is seen by Critical Race Theorists as the source of all contemporary evils. Indeed, (successful) colour-blind efforts to defeat racism are seen as part of the problem. Murray highlights the issue at stake here regarding the aims of Critical Race Theory:
“The hallmarks were there from the beginning. An absolute obsession with race as
the primary means to understand the world and all injustice. The claim is that
white people are in their totality guilty of prejudice, specifically racism, from birth.
The racism is interwoven so deeply into white-majority societies that the white
people in them do not even realize that they live in racist societies. Asking for proof
was proof of racism.” (Pages 19/20).
And Murray provides ample evidence to back this up, detailing the views of Robin DiAngelo and her book ‘White Fragility’. All too often Critical Race Theory relies not on hard evidence for the oppressive nature of something called ‘whiteness’ - but vague generalisations. You can say things about white people that you can’t (rightly) say about other groups, claims Murray. And yet governments as well as corporations uncritically lap up CRT and its vague and paranoid tenets. It is spreading and making an impact in the workplace, too. It affects most of the main political parties. CRT is creating a new obsession with race and racial categories. Yet, it’s ultimately regressive, not progressive.
‘The War on the West’ by Douglas Murray is a hard book to criticise. The examples seem sound, relevant and shocking. The book will, however, be criticised for being ‘too right-wing’ or dismissed as just another example of a right-wing ‘culture war’ effort. I think that’s unfair, for the reasons I’ve outlined above.
Of course, racism hasn’t completely departed from Western societies and maybe Murray could have emphasised that a bit more. The book could have explored further, perhaps, claims and disputes around ‘Islamophobia’ and identity, as well. That would have been interesting – but it would have made it an even heavier book!
And it’s probably better to use terms like ‘humanity’ rather than “mankind” (page 212)!
We have a great deal to be proud of in the West – as Murray explains – with a need for some determined pushback against Critical Race Theory as well as some so-called anti-colonial and anti-racist thinking. In many ways it’s actually an optimistic book, as well as a despairing one. Murray believes a better future can be fought for and won. The examples and ideas in ‘The War on the West’ should give people – of all ethnic groups – the confidence to fight back, for a genuinely free, post-racial democracy where the past is evaluated accurately and where we have confidence in ourselves, the West and universal, human values.