Thursday 2 October 2014

Keep off our worms? No, keep off our walls ...

The United Kingdom, like any modern multiracial and multicultural society, takes great pains to protect minorities from the hostility and prejudice of others.  The same jurisdiction is also accused of being the bastion of unthinking and self-defeating political correctness.  Bearing this in mind, readers are invited to draw their own conclusions regarding the following item on the BBC website:
A new Banksy mural showing a group of pigeons holding anti-immigration banners has been destroyed following a complaint the work was "racist". The mural in Clacton-on-Sea -- where a by-election is due to take place following the local MP's defection to [the politically incorrect] UKIP [whose policy on immigration and border control can be found here] -- appeared this week. It showed four pigeons holding signs including "Go Back to Africa", while a more exotic-looking bird looked on. The local council, which removed it, said it did not know it was by Banksy [Obviously the council was fooled by the style and the content. Maybe they thought it was a newly-discovered fresco by Leonardo]. 
 
Tendring District Council said it received a complaint that the mural was "offensive" and "racist".  
... 
Nigel Brown, communications manager for the council, said: "The site was inspected by staff who agreed that it could be seen as offensive and it was removed this morning in line with our policy to remove this type of material within 48 hours. We would obviously welcome an appropriate Banksy original on any of our seafronts and would be delighted if he returned in the future." ...
Now why would be want to do a thing like that?

This blogger must confess that, when he saw the offending artwork, he thought it a brilliant way of poking fun at what he suspects as being the artist's view of the social attitudes and voting intentions of the good folk of Clacton-on-Sea and that, if anyone was going to be offended by this message, it should be them.

Presumably a banning order should also be placed on "The Ugly Duckling", which has presumably upset and humiliated generations of swans.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do think that pigeons have a legitimate gripe though - this Bansky artwork just reinforces attitudes such as "pigeons are vermin" by further tarring them with the brush of racism.