Will it be said one day that the climax of the British Culture War, i.e. the beginning of its end, was reached on June 8, 2021?
On this warm, sunny Tuesday, the senior semesters at Magdalen College in Oxford voted to remove the portrait of the Queen from the institute.
The painting, which Elizabeth II shows at the coronation in 1952, was "not welcome" because of the connection to "more recent colonial history", it was said to justify.
The university management had the painting removed and sanctioned the head of state as the ultimate victim of the Cancel Culture.
Jochen Buchsteiner
Political correspondent in London.
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Before that, it had hit real slave traders like Edward Colston, whose statue was dumped into the sea off Bristol, or a few governors of the Bank of England whose portraits had to give way because they at least had their fingers in the ugly business.
But the queen?
If this queen has left a political message in her long life, it is that of inclusion.
As the highest representative of the Commonwealth of Nations, she always met the rulers of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean on an equal footing.
In the 1980s she even quarreled with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when she refused to give up the apartheid government in South Africa.
First it hit Prince Philip
It was inevitable. The iconoclastic storm of the Woke movement had worked its way unstoppably towards Buckingham Palace in the past few months, into the heart of the kingdom. With Winston Churchill, at least his monument on Parliament Square, the rebels already dared to paint over a national hero last summer and paint “Racist” on it.
Then, with Prince Philip, it was the turn of the first member of the royal family. When King's College sent a circular to remind the sponsor of the university with a photo shortly after his death, employees of the university went into custody. They did not want to be confronted with a man who had attracted attention with "sexist and racist statements". The university management then apologized for the "pain" that the Duke's photo had inflicted on those affected. So it was only a matter of time before the whole thing landed with the Queen.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the big outcry did not materialize.
Of course, some government politicians spoke of "absurd" attacks on the Queen, but the country's conservative newspapers only revolted weakly, and the woke-friendly papers no longer even bothered to join the rebels.
The Cancel Culture presented their finest scalp, and the country just rolls its eyes.
Could the movement direct itself?
"An ideology that claims the dead"
"That would be nice," groans Zoe Strimpel. "Unfortunately, the Woke movement is very lively and primarily concerns my generation." Strimpel belongs to the guard of young columnists at the Daily Telegraph, who write not only with relish but also grimly against "Wokeism". Strimpel is a feminist and primarily opposes the gender arm of the movement, that is, the one that, in addition to “decolonization”, has committed itself to the fight against “transphobia”. “Identity politics divide us as a society,” she says.