By Andrea Widburg
William Shakespeare has long been considered one of England’s great men because of his extraordinary output of timeless plays and sonnets. They that shaped the English language as well as exporting ideas about British culture…not because the Brits foisted his works on others, but because others recognized their beauty and universality.
Now, though, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, as part of the nation’s push for national suicide, which is the premier Shakespeare organization in England, has decided that Shakespeare is just too…English, and that’s bad. In answer to Hamlet’s question (“to be or not to be”), the Trust has determined that Shakespeare is not to be.
Once, every educated person had seen or read at least some Shakespeare plays. His comedies made us laugh, his histories taught us about the nature of power and reminded us that those who are high can be brought low and vice versa, and his tragedies’ continued popularity revealed that the human condition is unchanging and that human folly brings disaster in its wake.
Yes, these plays were set in England (even the plays set in Italy or ancient Rome were still set in England), but they had a universality that saw them rise above time and place. Add in Shakespeare’s exquisite prose, which shaped the English language for centuries after he died, and you had something that made, and should still make, the British very proud.
However, as Shakespeare himself knew, human folly remains constant, and nothing reveals greater folly than the left’s march on Western culture.
Britain definitely did bad things over the centuries. After all, it kicked every Jew out of England for hundreds of years (so Shakespeare had never seen a Jew when he created Shylock) it was one of the major participants in the African slave trade, it was one of the world’s major colonizers, and it treated factory workers badly during the beginning of the industrial revolution. Bad Britain!
But, because events must be understood within the times in which they occur, the entire medieval world was antisemitic, every nation in the history of humankind relied on slavery, every powerful nation in the history of world practiced colonialism, and all Western nations allowed workers to be abused in the early days of industrialism. In other words, Britain was no worse than the nations around her.
When Britain was good, though, she was very, very good. It was Britain’s Great Awakening, a religious crisis of conscience, that led to the abolition of slavery, the end of child labor, and the general improvement of working conditions.
And while Britain was a colonialist, Niall Ferguson has pointed out something fascinating: Former British colonies, wherever they are in the world, have thrived, exceeding nations in their regions that others had colonized (and everyone was colonizing everyone, whether Western, Asian, or Muslim). In other words, while we moderns can rant against the evils of colonization, everyone was doing it, and the lucky nations got England as their rulers.
Here in America, a former British colony that rose to be the most successful nation in the world, we thrived because the British gave us their ideas about individual liberty. Thank you, Britain! We parted ways with you when you abandoned your own principles, but we kept the principles.
In other words, England’s history is a mixed bag but it was better than most—and the British, while they shouldn’t deny the bad, should mostly be proud of the good.
But now, having drowned itself in a sea of leftism, and imported millions of people who believe that their culture (Islam) is infinitely superior to that of their new home, Britain has determined that Shakespeare, who was practically the avatar of the best of Britain, must be jettisoned. To that end, his birthplace will be cleansed of Britain’s “colonialist” stain:
William Shakespeare’s birthplace is being “decolonised” following concerns about the playwright being used to promote “white supremacy”.
[snip]
It is now “decolonising” its vast collection to “create a more inclusive museum experience”.
This process includes exploring “the continued impact of Empire” on the collection, the “impact of colonialism” on world history, and how “Shakespeare’s work has played a part in this”.
[snip]
The process of “decolonising”, which typically means moving away from Western perspectives, comes after concerns were raised that Shakespeare’s genius was used to advance ideas about “white supremacy”.
The claims were made in a 2022 collaborative research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins, an academic at the University of Birmingham.
The problem was that the Trust dared present Shakespeare’s ideas as genius universal ruminations about power, folly, love, and tragedy. Nothing, it seems, could be more evil:
“This idea of Shakespeare’s universal genius ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy’, it was claimed.”
The audacity! What this means is that those who dare admire Shakespeare are guilty of “white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly ‘West-centric’ worldviews that continue to do harm in the world today.” This admiration causes “epistemic violence” (a nonsense phrase meaning it makes leftists sad).
In an interview with Laura Ingraham, JD Vance warned that “Europe is at risk of engaging in civilizational suicide.” He spoke in terms of open borders and totalitarian speech control. He’s right, of course. But those are the manifestations of something deeper: For over 100 years, leftists have brainwashed Europeans into believing that the civilization they built is so flawed that their very existence is evil. Marinated in those beliefs, civilizational suicide is the only reasonable option.
And so, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which once existed to celebrate Britain’s greatest man of letters, must now go out of its way to expose the evil inherent in his work.
What’s happening at Shakespeare’s birthplace is another reason America really needs to pull out of NATO, because there’s nothing left in Europe to defend. We are simply giving money to people who hate the West and America, and who are dedicating themselves to the downfall of both.
The Shakespeare National Trust determines that Shakespeare is ‘not to be’ – American Thinker