This article is taken from the December/January 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issue for just £10.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”

I read these powerful words just the other day in a motivational self help book by George Orwell. It contains some incredible recommendations about how we ought to run the world. 

One of Orwell’s best ideas is a thing called the “Memory Hole” into which we may consign all the horrific elements of our society and wipe them from history. These could include: the Daily Mail, all the Harry Potter novels, non vegan meals, the Conservative party, Sunderland and Toby Young. 

Over the past two years, brave activists have followed Orwell’s advice and targeted a number of historical monuments for demolition. One of these is the statue in Parliament Square of that repugnant racist Winston Churchill. This is the man who literally forced citizens to travel abroad and shoot at Germans. How can that be anything other than xenophobic?

It’s so typical of a white man to free some slaves and assume we should be grateful

I have been particularly impressed by calls from academics at Imperial College to remove the bust of slavery abolitionist Thomas Henry Huxley. As an evil white male, it’s clear that he was only ever campaigning to end the slave trade as a cynical ploy to disguise his inherent racism. 

And last year protesters in the United States also called for the toppling of statues of Abraham Lincoln in Washington and Boston. Just because Lincoln signed that “Emancipation Proclamation” doesn’t mean he should get a free pass for his white privilege.

Anyway, it’s so typical of a white man to free some slaves and assume we should be grateful. In fact, I think we should reinstate slavery immediately so that it can be abolished by a queer woman of colour. 

So let’s bulldoze Buckingham Palace, tear up the gardens at Kew, and incinerate all libraries that contain harmful words. I also think we should remove that so called “statue of justice” on top of the Old Bailey, because if you squint your eyes it looks a bit like a swastika.

As Orwell explained: “Who controls the past controls the future.” She knew what she was talking about.