The dismal reality of living in an intensely ideological age such as ours is that the past is fair game for political extremism and is consequently arraigned, despised, altered, incessantly denounced and apologised for.
Many people, outside the grasp of ideology, dream of the lost and loved dead. Many study and revere the figures of the past. There is a caste however of contemporary British society who enjoy great influence, marvellous affluence, even opulence and ease as a result of their dead. These people have accommodated the prevailing ideology and its associated anti-thought to such an extent that they intrude onto the media stage with grotesque denunciations of their ancestry: Enter the descendants of William Gladstone.
Being the descendant of one of the greatest of Britain’s Prime Ministers in history- and Britain has a very long history, one would imagine would be a great source of pride and satisfaction, humility even. One would imagine that this heritage would inspire the offspring with imagination and fascination, and even a desire to further magnify the knowledge about this utterly fascinating man. Not a bit of it.
We no longer live in a normal world ( normal is not an adjective that can be deployed anymore I am informed without great prudence and reservation and caveats) Ideology is a ruthless overseer of normality, and of European history because everyone now knows, or will have to pretend to know, that Europe is the source of every conceivable evil afflicting the world now, previously and in the future. This ideology is ruthless, insatiable and determined to eradicate ny sense of pride, satisfaction or alignment with British or European history.
With hackneyed cliches galore and insincere self enmity the grandsons of this great man grovel to the world about their own family’s historic misdeeds. They pou forth their invective against their own great, great grandfather because he was a slave owner, and consequently the legacy and the influence of William Gladstone is nullified and displaced.
To lavishly demonstrate their mea culpa the family are travelling to Guyana to say sorry for John Gladstone. Presumably, by plane and undoubtedly with the funds that, according to their own flowery self flagellation, came from a deeply immoral source. In Guyana they will decorously stick the boot into their own family. One wonders why they didn’t express their self loathing in a more modest, economical way – by Skype or Teams perhaps? Perhaps the Guyanans have symbolic stocks set up to pelt these repentant rich with ?
Who knows. What is known is that slavery is the peremptory issue. No equivalence, no alternative, no degradation and no achievement must be permitted to encroach upon that altar. Of course this besmirches an entire nation, an entire population and epoch and the ideology is victorious and the Gladstone’s are the useful idiots to achieve this. Slavery is the premier and the finalising issue, nothing else will suffice. The astonishing nuances of William Gladstone’s career and intellect are demolished. There will be no knowledge nor discussion nor honour in recalling how Gladstone stood for the voiceless massacred of Bulgaria, Bosnia and Armenia. How he stood for Ireland, how he was beloved by all classes of this nation. That he was revered by Bulgarians and Armenians and other nations for his commitment to peace and freedom. He spoke for those bedevilled by tyranny, he fought tirelessly for the innocents of Armenia- even as he was approaching death himself. He was supremely gifted and immensely complex but none of this will be known because of the prevailing ideology. He is excised from history, and our history is defaced and deformed. The curious phenomenon of wealthy and renowned and influential scions of British society hastening to mad self denunciation and thus exculpation is boringly familiar. It is narcissistic and anti-historical as a form of behaviour. It is engaged in by those with a surfeit of shame and to appease those harpies of the ideological age – our beloved media- this self recrimination is an utter thrill for them. As the ex- Bolsheviks once cast themselves as traitors, saboteurs and enemies of the people and pledged that they had recognised and accounted to themselves for their crimes so do the Gladstones abase themselves for favour; though without the fear of expropriation or execution.
Nonetheless, the purpose is fulfilled. The purpose is satisfactorily executed, the same purpose which has been the motif of all ideologies always ; restrict the debate, establish the issue most propitious to the cause- slavery, never deviate from this message.
The mind of Gladstone, the mind which has defied full characterisation by historians due to its complexity, genius and sheer range of knowledge is degraded and tossed aside. Gladstone, in every casual history reader’s mind is successfully, propagandized and associated not with greatness and humanitarianism and being a staunch defender of imperilled Christian innocents, rather he is a sordid profiteer, and Britain moves further along the impossible line of appeasement of those who wish for the eradication of its history.
William Gladstone’s family apologises for role in slave trade – BBC News
