Letter: Valuing Culture Not Racism

Ismail Lagardien badly misrepresented me in last week’s column (Echoes of the global far-right movement, March 5). He calls me a “white supremacist”, though I have no desire for whites to rule over other races and do not think whites are a superior race. By many objective standards, East Asians are superior to whites. Nor have I ever called blacks anything like “a retrograde species of humanity”. This is pure fantasy.

Lagardien writes that the problem with people such as me is that we do not accept “that the idea of the West has come and gone”, or that eventually “the fixed categories of ‘white’ and ‘black’ will cease to exist”.

Fancy that! We have the effrontery not to want our culture and people to disappear!

The Gauteng Opera just announced it is shutting down. Is it wrong for me to regret that part of the high culture of the West is flickering out in Johannesburg? Is it wrong for me to hope that white people will not be genetically swamped and disappear? If I were a Tibetan or a Navajo, Lagardien might have some sympathy for the desire to survive as a distinct people with a distinct culture. But white people? If they are not ready to say goodbye to “the idea of the West” and don’t relish the prospect of disappearing they are wicked “white supremacists”.

I believe in true diversity. I want all peoples to build societies that reflect their unique cultures. For that purpose, Tibet must remain Tibet, Japan must remain Japan and — — yes, Dr Lagardien — the West must remain the West. Anyone who wants to mix is welcome to do so, but no one should criticise those of us who prefer to walk in the ways, cultural and biological, of our ancestors.

[Editor’s Note: Ismail Lagardien’s editorial can be read here. There is a paywall.]