Latest woke insanity sees Shakespeare’s theatre issue ‘anti-semitism’ warning
Posted by admin978 on February 21, 2022 · Leave a Comment
In the latest pathetic display of woke ‘sensitivity’, Shakespeare’s Globe has issued a warning to theatre-goers that The Merchant of Venice – currently being staged by candlelight at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – “contains antisemitism, colourism, and racism”.
We aren’t quite sure what “colourism” means, but we can be sure it isn’t an apology for the Globe having cast two black men and one Asian women among characters meant to portray 16th century Venetians.
As for “anti-semitism” – can anyone planning to see The Merchant of Venice really be unaware that its central character – the moneylender Shylock – is perhaps the most archetypal Jewish villain in literary history?
If the Globe were really concerned about whether the Shylock image is fair or not, then instead of this pathetic cringe perhaps they would care to sponsor a conference or study day to accompany the production? H&D would be very happy to provide a speaker.
For example we could discuss two statements by one of the greatest figures in British political history, Ernest Bevin, who founded Britain’s largest trade union, took charge of labour relations in Churchill’s government during the Second World War, and was Foreign Secretary for almost six years after the war, when he was the co-architect of NATO.
Bevin told the Trade Union Congress during the 1931 economic crisis: “It is a game of Shylock versus the people, with Shylock getting the pound of flesh every time.”
And at an emergency Cabinet meeting soon after the Second World War, by which time war debt had tightened Shylock’s grip. Bevin said in Cabinet (!) that “we [the British government and by extension the British people] are in Shylock’s hands”. This observation was so incendiary that it was not typed into the official Cabinet minutes, but appears in the handwritten notes of that meeting taken by a senior civil servant.
This was at a time when British soldiers and police were fighting Jewish terrorists in Palestine, and although it took almost three years, ‘American’ pressure eventually forced the British government into acquiescence in the creation of Israel in 1948.
So if the Globe really wants to discuss the question of ‘anti-semitism’ and Shylock in a British context, let’s start with Ernest Bevin and discuss whether his views reflected ‘racism’ or reality.
Or is the Globe interested only in woke posturing rather than scholarship?
