Kipling, Racism and Political Correctness

 I don't often find myself ahead of the news, but it's remarkable how the fuss caused by the painting over of Kipling's "If" at Manchester University followed my last post, discussing whether or not it was right to describe Kipling as a warmonger. For those who do not know, the poem was painted as a mural on a wall in the Students' Union, and replaced by a poem by Maya Angelou. Frances Perraudin, in The Guardian, quoted Sara Khan, the union’s liberation and access officer as saying:
"“We, as an exec team, believe that Kipling stands for the opposite of liberation, empowerment and human rights – the things that we, as an SU, stand for..."
She went on to say that Kipling was:
 "Well known as author of the racist poem The White Man’s Burden, and a plethora of other work that sought to legitimate the British empire’s presence in India and dehumanise people of colour".
There is not a racist line in "If", pictured above, and it is arguable whether "The White Man's Burden" is racist or not, but I would not deny that Kipling shared the racist ideas of his time, inasmuch as he said that Indians would never rule India. However, as Andy Zehner has said: 
"Kipling never shied away from observing the oddities and perplexing ways of India and its many people groups. But he respected them, and admired many of them. His greatest admiration appears in “The Head of the District,” where he contrasts the virtues of the Muslim tribes of the northwest frontier against unworthy British administrators."
Ironically, as George Orwell said of Kipling in India:
 "...because of his dark complexion he was wrongly suspected of having a streak of Asiatic blood". 
The actions of the SU executive at Manchester University are clearly hasty and ill-considered.
As might have been expected, by painting-over of the mural, the SU officers drew severe criticism of themselves, and, unfairly, all Manchester University students. Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, criticised the Manchester students saying:
 ‘This is outrageous cultural vandalism. Kipling is a much beloved poet".
 Nick Ferrari, on LBC said:
 "Don’t take this the wrong way but if there was war you wouldn’t worry about these damn stupid things".

As ever, the accusation of "political correctness" raised its head, and I think it's worth discussing. The term is defined as being:
 "... used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society."
It is also used in a pejorative sense by right-wing pundits when they wish to ridicule what they see as irritatingly petty leftist or minority activity such as the Manchester students' action. The fact is, though, the term PC might be new, but the activity has always been with us, albeit in a different form. In Kipling's day, it was PC to admire the Empire; in Ancient Rome, it was PC to own slaves; in Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR, it was definitely not PC to criticise the current regime. The political right has its own ideas of what is PC, despite criticising the left for theirs.
The problem with actions like that of the Manchester students is this: once you start censoring the works of a long-dead writer, where do you stop? Professor Janet Montefiore of Kent University, has said:
"Dickens said dreadful things about black people in the Jamaica rebellion. Does that mean you don’t read Dickens?”
The same question could be asked of Joseph Conrad, who wrote a book with what some might consider a racist title: "The Nigger of the Narcissus". Presumably, he should be banned also. Then there is Shakespeare, with his derogatory views on women in "Romeo and Juliet":
 "Women may fall when there's no strength in men".
Another prime target for banning would be the Christian Bible. From the Old Testament, we read:
 "Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." (Eccles. 25:22)
And from the New Testament:

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)

"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)
Added to this blatant chauvinism, there is a definite Zionist influence on Biblical writers. Here is just one example:
Genesis 17:8: "I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee...all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God".
This is highly offensive to all Palestinians and is clearly intolerable.

How do the students at Manchester restrain themselves from destroying every Bible they can find? Should they ban Christian speakers from the Students' Union? Should they ban Christians?

It is possible to find equally misogynistic quotes in the Qu'ran, but banning the Muslim holy book would be Islamophobic.

And why confine your censorious efforts to literature? Music, also, deserves to be banned if it is racially or sexually offensive. Back in the 70s, when I was at University, a female IMG member told me that the now classic rock anthem "Brown Sugar" by The Rolling Stones should be banned, as it was: "...racist and sexist at the same time". Happily, the music industry was not swayed by her opinion, and the song rocks on. Still, if the Manchester students have started a trend, The Rolling Stones (and many others) could be banned from every juke box in every British Students' Union. Guns N' Roses would almost certainly be banned. Consider this lyric, from "It's So Easy": 

"Turn around, bitch, I got a use for you/ Besides, you ain’t got nothing better to do"

Very un-pc! And what about The Beatles. Consider this from "Getting Better":

 "I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved"

And there are many others...

Yes, the PC zealots in every student union will have plenty to do, banning, purifying and fighting sexism on the jukebox. They will not ban misogynistic rap music, of course, as that would be racist.

Do I really expect this to happen? Well, no, I was deliberately exaggerating - something I have been told to stop doing millions of times. But the fact is that the painting over of Kipling's poem has set a precedent, and some, perhaps all, student union bodies will follow their example. Fascists are not the only totalitarians.

Rudyard Kipling the Warmonger - a Charge Examined

The picture above shows the writer, Rudyard Kipling (RK), speaking at a recruiting rally in my home town of Southport, Lancashire, in 1915. I discovered this photo on the Facebook page of a Southport history group, where Kipling received some harsh criticism. I cannot now locate the link, but as far as I can remember, one group member dismissed RK as being one of those people, like Tony Blair, who send others (not identified by the member) off to war while remaining safely at home. 

Now, it is undeniable that RK supported Britain's war effort in WW1, but, to fully assess the charge of warmonger against him, we really should examine the historical context. 

First, we should remember that Kipling was an influential writer in his day, writing many books, short stories and poems about the British Empire and Britain's manifold destiny as an imperial power, in which he passionately believed. As this viewpoint has long since vanished along with the Empire, it is only too easy to sneer at RK, misquote him, or quote him out of context. Just one example will suffice: "Lesser breeds without the law". This is usually interpreted as flagrant racism, but it is the wrong interpretation. It is taken from his poem "Recessional" and almost certainly refers to Germany, for which country RK had an abiding aversion. This is not to say that RK was without the imperial prejudices of his time. As George Orwell observed in his 1942 essay on RK:
"It is no use claiming, for instance, that when Kipling describes a British soldier beating a 'nigger' ...in order to get money...he is acting merely as a reporter and does not necessarily approve what he describes".

Orwell is right, but Kipling was more than the author of "Gunga Din" ("I've belted you and flayed you"). Although he never fought in a battle, he wrote with sympathy of the fate of the ordinary British soldier, and he wrote a penetrating critique of expat life in late 19th century India in a book of short stories called "Plain Tales From the Hills", which is emphatically not a glorification of British India - even though RK approved of "The Raj". 

Returning to the warmonger charge, we need to understand the international political situation before and during WW1. The arms race between Britain and Germany was a constant cause for concern to political conservatives such as Kipling. When war began in 1914, the German invasion of France and Belgium must have seemed a vindication to Kipling of his anti-German views. If we dismiss him as a simple warmonger, we forget that he was not alone in his anger over German aggression and (admittedly exaggerated) atrocities in Belgium. Professor Peter Simkins has said of recruitment in 1914: 

"In all, 478,893 men joined the army between 4 August and 12 September, including 33,204 on 3 September alone – the highest daily total of the war and more than the average annual intake in the years immediately before 1914".

Kipling supported the recruiting effort wholeheartedly, although it is difficult to say how many men joined the army in 1914 because of his efforts. He is thought to have been the first person to refer to the Germans as "Huns", further expressing his hatred in lines such as this:
"There are only two divisions in the world, human beings and Germans".
This view is shocking to us nowadays, but it was widespread in the early years of WW1, and Kipling cannot be blamed for his views in isolation. This is not to say he was right, but we have to allow for popular sentiment at the time. There was widespread support for the war in every combatant nation, and did not decline for several years. We forget, also, that political personalities of all shades of opinion supported the war. One notable left-wing supporter of the conflict was trade union leader, Ben Tillett. As Spartacus International says:
"Unlike many socialists, Ben Tillett fully supported Britain's involvement in the First World War. His enthusiasm for aerial bombardment of German civilian centres and his views that pacifists should be severely punished, made him unpopular with many people in the labour movement. Tillett travelled throughout Britain and helped to recruit a large number of industrial workers into the armed forces."
As a recruiter, Kipling was only one of many celebrities of the day to assume this role. We are familiar with the impact of Lord Kitchener's poster, and the influence of the popular press at the time. This is now thought of as the start of the age of "spin". But there is another factor to be included here, and that is the music hall. In an age without cinema and TV, the music hall provided popular entertainment for the masses, reflecting and reinforcing popular attitudes. Hours after war broke out in 1914, songs supporting Britain's entry into the war were being composed and sung. As John Lewis Stempel has written:
"Music Hall’s support for the war effort is sometimes interpreted as a ruling class conspiracy to “sell” the war to the workers, but the British elite was never that organised. Music Hall reflected and enlarged popular attitudes. Where Music Hall did consciously “sell” the war it did exactly that; it made money from it. Music Hall was always good at cashing in. In the August 13, 1914, edition of the trade newspaper, The Encore, songwriters advertised they would add “a war verse” to any given song: For a fee".
The cross-dressing singer, Vesta Tilley, would invite young men on stage and invite them to join the forces; those who refused were handed a white feather. The music hall legend, Marie Lloyd, sang to young men a song called " I Do Like Yer, Cockie, Now You’ve Got Your Khaki On". The double entendre would not have been missed!
In short, if Rudyard Kipling was a warmonger, he was not alone in this, and can hardly be singled out for vilification. He shared popular sentiment, but did not create it. If he is to be condemned, what are we to make of Ben Tillett and Vesta Tilley?
Kipling did not serve in the front line. He was too old and had poor eyesight, like his son, Jack. John Kipling should never have been allowed to join the infantry because of this, but RK pulled strings to get his son a commission in the Irish Guards. John was killed at the Battle of Loos in September, 1915, shortly after the photograph above was taken. Like thousands of other families, the Kiplings were victims of the First World War. Instead of hatred, Kipling poured his grief into his poem, "My Boy Jack":
"Have you news of my boy Jack? Not this tide When d’you think that he’ll come back? Not with this wind blowing, and this tide."

Vesta Tilley