What is it with Britain’s cultural custodians and their hatred of everything British? National self-loathing drips from curators and directors alike, revealed in a Tourette’s-like compulsion to blurt out ‘Decolonise!’ at everything they see. They are currently getting hot under the collar in the sleepy town of Stratford-upon-Avon, where they have Shakespeare’s birthplace in their sights.
Where normal people admire timber-framed houses and marvel at the schoolroom where Shakespeare learnt the classics, our cultural elites see ‘white supremacy’. Where you and I see genius in plays like King Lear, Hamlet and Othello, they see a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’. They seem to imagine that racist thugs have swapped sharing memes on Telegram for watching Macbeth at the local theatre. Labelling the Bard as a vehicle for white supremacy really is that insane.
With hatred comes flagellation. As such, Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust – the charity tasked with preserving Shakespeare-related heritage sites in historic Stratford-upon-Avon – is now ‘decolonising’ its vast collection. This means that, just as in practically every other museum and art gallery across the UK, exhibits will be labelled to make clear ‘the continued impact of Empire’ or the ‘impact of colonialism’. In Stratford-upon-Avon, the special twist will be to show how Shakepeare’s legacy has allegedly played a part in this litany of sin.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust has also warned visitors that some items in its collections may contain ‘language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise harmful’. Of course they will. The past was a different time, with different attitudes and values. Shakespeare was not subjected to training in diversity, equity and inclusion. Nor was he presented with a style guide advising him as to the correct pronouns to use for his many crossdressing characters. Thank goodness.
It’s just so tedious. And negative. But the philistines running our cultural institutions seem determined to continue with these mad endeavours until every last artefact that might inspire pride in Britain’s past achievements is done down.
Whether the decolonisers like it or not, Shakespeare is an integral part of what it means to be British. To speak English is to utter phrases first conjured up by him. That ‘the lady doth protest too much’ may have been said of Margaret Thatcher, but Hamlet’s mother got there first. We’ve all been on a ‘wild goose chase’ and got ‘in a pickle’ or angrily insisted upon a ‘pound of flesh’. And if you’ve never seen a Shakespeare play because you think ‘it’s all Greek to me’, then you are using his words without even knowing it.
For once, the Englishness is not what the decolonisers find ‘problematic’, to use their favourite word. They would, it seems, be happy to write Shakespeare off as a quirky but unimportant dead Brit. What troubles them is the perception of the Bard as a ‘universal’ genius. According to the fevered imagination of our cultural elite, a belief that Shakespeare’s plays represent the pinnacle of human achievement for all time and across all continents ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy’. Shakespeare’s fans can’t win. Celebrate the Bard for being British and you’ll be accused of nationalism. But celebrate his universal appeal and you’re in the firing line for promoting white supremacy.
Just as Shakespeare is integral to being British, his work also absolutely has universal value. He portrays emotions such as joy, grief and anger, and experiences like being young, falling in love and growing old that are fundamental not to being British or even European, but to being human. This is why his legacy endures. His genius is to transcend racial, national and generational differences and point to what we have in common, rather than what divides us. That Shakespeare is English is incidental to the common humanity in his work, but it is entirely relevant to the historical circumstances that made his prodigious talent possible. To boil all this down to ‘white supremacy’ is ridiculous.
The Birthplace Trust’s real concern is to stop British people taking pride in Shakespeare and seeing his work as a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’. It wants him to be viewed not as the ‘greatest’, but as ‘part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world’. But if academics and curators really cannot say that Shakespeare’s plays are better than a Nigerian soap opera or a Brazilian drag-queen performance, then we really are in trouble. If even Shakespeare’s custodians cannot say that his work is the pinnacle of human achievement, then the Bard has no need of enemies. The barbarians are not at the gate, they are sitting in the stalls.
