Haters as Saints

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Haters as Saints

Gstaad—I had the rather subversive idea of offering a six-figure sum to Oriel College, Oxford. On one condition: that the college immediately terminate the Rhodes scholarship for the South African Ntokozo Qwabe, the hypocrite who led the campaign to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes, as well as any other recipients of Cecil’s munificence who are blackening his name a century later.

It is the least these hypocrites deserve. Oxbridge has become a joke by trying to emulate the LSE in radicalism and other such ludicrous poses. The group that called Jihadi John a beautiful young man should be allowed to speak at Oxford, according to some jerk who is the warden of Wadham College, Oxford, yet Germaine Greer is banned, illustrating the perversity of our universities. I debated four times at the Oxford Union, winning three out of four, and my only defeat was due to a politically incorrect remark I made when an extremely obese black female student complained about almost starving to death following Hurricane Katrina. (“You could use a bit of a diet, honey.”) I have never been invited back and am rather glad for that. It takes too long to get there, the dinner in black tie is rather sloppy, the wine quite poor, and the students not very respectful. But dim. PC reigns supreme. The only good that’s ever come out of the four trips is that three times out of four I brought some girl students back to London with me. Mind you, that was long ago.

“Radical do-gooders are a pain in the ass. They are driven by moral rage, and PC is their bible.”

Radical do-gooders are a pain in the ass. They are driven by moral rage, and PC is their bible. They are basically fanatics who mask their radicalism in pretend sainthood. Andrei Sinyavsky was such a moral do-gooder, a famous dissident in the Soviet Union until he migrated to Israel and joined the extremist group of settlers who would like to “disappear” the Palestinians on whose land they live. Some saint he. Reducing the world’s suffering is a noble idea, but those who get the most publicity have more often than not terrible double standards. Some American neocon recently wrote how a rational saint would rescue two strangers from drowning rather than one person, his mother, because saving two souls is better than one. Not me. I’d rather rescue my mother any day—I’m not English, after all—and to hell with two or three or four strangers. I guess that makes me a bad guy in the eyes of the moralists.

Can moral sainthood ever be a bore? Of course it can—sinners are much more fun. By this I mean sinners who sin against themselves, that is. I pride myself as being one. Sinning against one’s fellow man is a no-no. Uncle Sam means well, but has sinned against humanity since he was created. American Indians come to mind, not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Vladimir Putin is now portrayed as a very bad fellow, but he’s only looking out for his great country, something the moralists of the West do not seem to comprehend. Which brings me to an article in Tatler magazine about Greek shipowners.

The writer hints that the shipowners in London keep their money out of the home country that is suffering, and enjoy the high life in London’s hot spots while their fellow Greeks sink deeper and deeper into poverty. This is bollocks. The Greek state has always cheated its subjects, and the Greek diaspora took place because of the state’s failure and corruption. Greeks went abroad in order to compete on a level playing field. They took loans from foreign banks, repaid them after hard work, and built fleets having risked everything. And they repatriated their money by building ships in Greece, as well as factories, schools, and hospitals. The Greek flag is one of convenience, which means that taxes are low on Greek-flagged vessels.

Greek sailors support their families by sending their salaries home, Greece being the No. 1 shipping power in the world. Earning their income outside Greece is an advantage only because it allows shipowners to operate without state interference and corruption. Most shipowners I know have houses in Greece, inject millions into the Greek economy, and give generously to Greek charities. The fact that some of us choose to live abroad is a minus for the Greek state, one that passes retroactive laws and operates like a gangster syndicate at times. Greece would be a very poor Third World country without the shippers, but try saying that to the media, who see only what they want to.

Shipping is to Greece what blue-chip companies are to America. Surely if a man takes his chances and makes his money he should be allowed to enjoy it without some hack hinting that the country would be better off if he had stayed back in his village and lived off the handouts of the state. Envy, incidentally, is a mortal sin, and the Western world is full of it. My father shut down his factories at the outbreak of the war in order for them not to be used to help the Axis forces. The commies nevertheless blew them up after the liberation. Go figure. The only ones who suffered were the workers. Old Dad went to America and bought ships, then returned and rebuilt. Did that make him an unpatriotic Greek?

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