Frank Furedi on the already well-advanced plan to turn public libraries into safe spaces for progressive indoctrination:

“Robarts Library” by mattclare is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

In recent times, the Library has become the target of what I characterise in my new book, as The War Against The Past. The current project of dispossessing Western society of its historical legacy has gained a powerful influence over the institutions of culture. That is why the Library – a repository of the knowledge and wisdom gained through the past – has become the target of cultural vandalism.

The promoters of the culture war in the Library often justify their action on the ground that their target is not so much the past – but the “racist past”. This is the argument used by the Government backed supporters of a campaign in Wales who wish to reorganise libraries along the lines of anti-racist principles. These racially obsessed cultural warriors insist that Libraries throughout Wales must embrace the goal of becoming anti-racists if the devolved Labour government’s pledge to “eradicate” systemic racism by 2030 would be realised. To ensure that libraries and the “racist” buildings holding their collection are cleansed of the sin of “whiteness”, a £130,000 project designed to indoctrinate local librarians in “critical whiteness studies” has been devised.

The project of racial indoctrination pursued in Wales warns that staff training sessions will be necessary to ensure that libraries align with anti-racist principles. However, it insists that such training sessions should not take place in buildings with a “racist past”. From the standpoint of the authors of the document proposing “critical whiteness studies”, many buildings housing libraries must be avoided because they serve as symbols of racism. Do they presume that the buildings in question can contaminate members of the public with the racist plague? Or are they merely interested in tearing down the walls of racist buildings in order to rebuild them as temples to the doctrine of decolonization?

In a world, where the racialisation of every dimension of life has acquired its own imperative, it was only a matter of time before buildings became demonised as racist. There is now a veritable literature authored by academic racial entrepreneurs who insist that buildings can be racist. One enthusiastic social scientist supporting this thesis offers numerous “examples of buildings being racist”. The racialisation of building and the material properties used in their construction has acquired the character of a veritable fetish. “Concrete, steel and glass buildings are ‘racist'” is the title of one contribution on this subject.

The Welsh Government appears to be consumed by the quest of ridding its nations of racist buildings. As far back as 2021 it published an audit of all such buildings as well as, schools, streets, statues and pubs that it regarded as the product of Wales’ racist past. In effect almost any building, street name or pub whose name was linked with a historical figure was by definition racist. Gone are the days when a pub is allowed to call itself Admiral Nelson or the Duke of Wellington.

The policy of renaming a building, street or a statue is bad enough. What is far worse is when a library is forced to subordinate its book collection to the imperative of racialization. In the name of ridding the book shelves of their “whiteness” and “racist past”, a library becomes a target of officially sanctioned cultural vandalism.

Throughout the Anglosphere. Cultural vandalism is justified on the ground of settling scores with colonialism, racism or white supremacy. For example, school libraries in Australia have removed “outdated and offensive books on colonialism” from their collection[v]. The purge of a school library in Melbourne was guided by Dr Al Fricker, a Dja Dja Wurrung man and expert in Indigenous education with Deakin University. In the course of auditing all 7000 titles on its library shelves. Fricker showed little nostalgia towards the collection. He stated that some of the books removed were almost 50-year-old and were “simply gathering dust anyway”. He stated that “we wouldn’t accept science books being that old in the library, so why do we accept other non-fiction books to be that old, because nothing is static”.

There is something truly disturbing about the idea that a library ought to rid itself of old non-fiction books. In my discipline of sociology that would mean ridding libraries of the 19th century pioneers of the field. In effect the call to reject old non-fiction books constitutes the annihilation of the intellectual legacy of the social sciences and the humanities.