Against Decolonisation: Campus Culture Wars and the Decline of the West - Review by Graeme Kemp

Everything must be done to stop the reproduction of ‘whiteness’ it seems

Doug Stokes has written an explosive new book that comprehensively demolishes, I believe, the claims of not only Critical Race Theory but also the moves to ‘decolonise’ culture and society in the UK, particularly in higher education. In just 150 pages, Stokes is able to explore in detail the central tenets of ill-thought-out ‘decolonisation’ theories, concluding with a warning of what may occur if these dangerous ‘progressive’ ideas are not tackled. He also argues that we have the power to decide whether we defend (or not) our heritage of free speech and rational thought against the onslaught of ‘decolonisation’:

“Our future has yet to be made and will be shaped by the choices we make today. As the world returns to a state of great power competition and the West heads further down a path of philosophical deconstruction and decolonisation, we must be careful what we wish for. Failure to grasp the importance of this means that the precious flame of freedom may be fully extinguished. It remains to be seen whether we still have the will to blow the almost extinguished embers alight again.”

 (Page 150).

Against Decolonisation is both a warning to us today about developments in higher-education – and a spur to action. Doug Stokes (a director of the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter) has written in UK newspapers and magazines on the dangers posed to academic freedom today – and explored the ‘culture wars’ that seem to dominate political discussions. This book will be a valuable contribution to those debates, even if the book will prove controversial with some.

So, what does Doug Stokes argue in Against Decolonisation?

As Stokes notes, the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the rapid spread of the Black Lives Matter movement saw a major cultural change in the West that placed a renewed emphasis on tackling racism. While it once seemed that progress towards racial equality had been real and tangible, now racism came to be seen as still deeply embedded in institutions and wider society, including culture. How could something so wrong, like racism, still create misery for so many black people? The answer for some anti-racist activists seemed clear: Western societies were institutionally racist – and history and culture were still dominated by something called ‘whiteness’.

The pessimism regarding racial progress has enabled previously marginal radical theories, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and ‘decolonisation’ to gain prominence – and even dominance – in the UK and USA especially. This new, cynical approach to tackling bigotry has a sinister edge; as Doug Stokes explains:

“The new anti-racism openly advocates the importance of identity over the individual and, increasingly, the collective guilt of white people. Yale’s Claudia Rankine explained that those in the West are ‘inside a culture that’s dedicated to whiteness and its dominance over other people because white people have been socialised to believe that they are superior, better-looking, smarter’.”

(Page 2).

Hence the need, it is argued, to ‘decolonise’ our way of life and institutions in the West. It is culture and language that maintains racism and represses ethnic minorities. Yet, the rhetoric here is different to previous colour-blind anti-racism arguments and often seems strange, with ‘whiteness’ often never clearly or fully explained in a convincing way.

The media increasingly focused on news stories about racism. Stokes quotes a report that found a massive increase in terms like 'racism' and 'white supremacy' in UK media between 2010 and 2020.

Yet, paradoxically, many surveys also showed that the UK, for example, was less racist than ever. A 2019 European Union report argued that the UK was one of the least racist countries in Europe. A 2016 European Agency for Fundamental Rights Report also presented evidence that among the twelve countries focused on, the UK had lower levels of racial harassment and violence. Indeed, as Doug Stokes points out: there has been real progress in education and employment among ethnic minorities in UK society. Indeed, the Office for National Statistics recently showed often higher median hourly pay for those of Chinese or Indian heritage, than white British people. Indeed, the ONS revealed (2019) that many ethnic minorities often had a higher level of confidence in the police than white citizens.

So, how could such apparent progress for ethnic minorities be reconciled with opposing claims that racism was still pervasive, widespread and institutional in the UK and other Western societies? The answer, Doug Stokes seems to argue, is found in the success of critical theories such as CRT and decolonisation ideas in universities and places of higher education. These theories and their advocates have been highly successful in spreading their pessimistic thinking, despite often lacking the facts or figures to justify all of their radical or sweeping claims.

How did we get to such a position? The radical Left in the West, since the era of the Cold War and the 1960s, has arguably lost faith, Stokes argues, in the ability of the working-class to overthrow the capitalist system – and has instead placed greater faith in third-world revolutionary movements to create opposition and change. Change would come from those on the margins, globally and locally. There was a need to go beyond just political decolonisation, it was said.

There was also now an increased focus on identity and the politics of culture, with a reduced emphasis on social class as a relevant factor. The ideals of the West and the gains of the Enlightenment needed to be deconstructed and challenged, not least for the allegedly racist outlook of our societies and the inequalities found in them. As Doug Stokes summarises such viewpoints:

“One of the ways to address these alleged unequal outcomes is to undergo a decolonisation process and decentre white, Eurocentric curriculums from our centres of learning. By doing so, universities and European civilisation more generally can begin to atone for slavery, colonialism, and the legacies of these forms of historical oppression.” (Page 13).

Such thinking, rooted in poststructuralist and postmodern thinking, was rapidly gaining ground in the higher-education system. Western societies were often seen as impacted by the dominant discourses of the powerful. Language it was argued, created our sense of reality. Rational, objective fact-seeking was seen as problematic, a reflection once again, of brutal power relations between competing groups – neutrality was difficult when analysing society.

All the above influenced the discussion of race and ethnicity in universities, as Stokes points out:

“Whiteness is thus said to be a social discourse. To use postmodern phraseology, it helps structures a hierarchal binary between white and non-white groups that privileges the former, becomes naturalised and thus reproduces unequal outcomes between groups in institutionalised settings and contexts.”

(Page 30).

White people are therefore seen as being conditioned into a white supremacist worldview as part of the foundation and bedrock of our society and its institutions. Oppressed ethnic minorities are victims of unequal and racist, power systems.

Such thinking means that the curriculum (e.g. English Literature) needs to be decolonised. However, decolonisation in higher education was much more than just advocating greater diversity (e.g. of reading lists or texts) but is instead a more deep-rooted effort to radically change intuitions – and decolonise minds. Knowledge itself would need to be decolonised.

This, arguably, is where a lot of this decolonisation rhetoric starts to sound quite sinister. Doug Stokes explains how many universities have introduced reporting systems to monitor ill-defined and highly subjective micro-aggressions. Ideas such as unconscious bias training can be used to detect racism - but is flawed. As Doug Stokes points out, at the University of Leicester, this decolonisation process saw an end to the teaching of medieval literature. Everything must be done to stop the reproduction of ‘whiteness’ it seems.

As he rightly points out – all the above is highly illiberal. Indeed, it is time to reclaim history and return to valuing the benefits of Enlightenment rationalism, he says. Science, truth and objectivity are possible. The advocates of decolonisation often present a one-sided view of Britain’s history – something we should challenge, while never ignoring the dark side of our past. Racism can still exist today and must be challenged.

Against Decolonisation is an excellent book that can shock as well as inspire. It is detailed and factual, highlighting well the challenges we face today – and the threats from decolonisation and Critical Race Theory to the real achievements of the West, including the free-thinking nature of universities. I recommend it as one of the best ‘culture war’ books I have read in recent years.

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Graeme Kemp is a former teacher and civil servant who currently lives in the Midlands. He is an English and Cultural Studies graduate of several universities in England and Scotland. He has also contributed book reviews to the Don't Divide Us website and 'Bournbrook' Magazine.