Almost every nation has a national poet. The Russians have Pushkin. The Persians have Ferdowsi. The Albanians have Gjergj Fishta. But it would be a very odd thing if any of these peoples had their national poet taken away from them or were forced to have their national poet insulted. Indeed, it might be considered rather bad form if someone told the Russians that the author of Eugene Onegin should be held accountable for the era of serfdom. Or told the Persians that the author of the ‘Shahnameh’ should be as nought because his era did not have all our views on gay marriage.
Yet the English. Ah – the English. We are allowed to be treated with a unique type of disrespect. And so naturally that disrespect can even be levelled at our national poet.
This reflection follows the news this week that Stratford-upon-Avon is to be ‘decolonised’. The impetus for this modern vandalism comes from ‘concerns’ that the birthplace of Shakespeare could be used to promote ‘white supremacy’.
Why Stratford-upon-Avon should be seen to be a wellspring of this great bogeyman of our age is slightly unclear. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust owns a number of buildings associated with the playwright. Its archives include parish records relating to his birth and baptism. But now a research project between the Trust and someone called Dr Helen Hopkins, of the University of Birmingham, has agreed that the Trust must be ‘decolonised’.
For anyone lucky enough not to have come across this pseudo-academic term, ‘decolonisation’ pretends to consist of an effort to ‘move away from western perspectives’.
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