What does it mean that Boris Johnson is now using woke language
Actually a womanizer: Boris Johnson at Schloss Elmau
Quelle: Getty Images
If Putin were a woman, he wouldn’t have started this war, Boris Johnson speculated in an interview. Is the Downing Street bad boy now in the politically correct camp? No, but Johnson’s speculation says a lot about the language of our culture struggles. And about what it hides.
Mjust imagine the FDP party leader Christian Lindner dismissing the liberal veteran Gerhart Baum in front of the assembled team with “Okay Boomer!” because his opinion on the financial policy course of the federal government went against the grain. Or the Greens Marieluise Beck would describe the philosopher Jürgen Habermas as an “old white man” in order to discredit his attitude to the Ukraine war; to which the 93-year-old would then counter that it was cancel culture par excellence, as well as ageism, i.e. age discrimination. Unthinkable?
Boris Johnson was interviewed in the “Today Journal”. The British prime minister, known more as a womanizer than a feminist, struck an unfamiliar tone: “If Putin were a woman, I don’t think he would have started such a crazy macho war.” Putin is a great example “toxic Masculinity”. One wonders how Nadine Dorries reacts to this woken speech from her employer. Johnson’s culture secretary bursts the hat cord at anything that’s “politically correct.” But his criticism of Putin, who likes to show himself brimming with testosterone while fishing or on horseback, offers an important insight: The vocabulary and symbols of our cultural struggles now seem to be ubiquitously applicable, regardless of the political camp.
Those who scandalize the fact that minorities always feel oppressed and discriminated against, even through small things, and even see this real or supposed discrimination as identity-forming, are often the first to gather under the insult “potato” to the victim community – and talk about discrimination. And Putin himself compared Russian culture, which of course also suffers from the sanctions, with Harry Potter inventor JK Rowling. She is banned for her views on transsexuality. That someone who practices homophobic politics himself, who also denies culture and sovereignty in his neighboring country, sees himself as a Cancel victim would be funny – if it weren’t all so sad.
Because culture war phrases and symbolism obscure reality. Just as nothing changes in the situation of sexual minorities in Hungary when Munich stadiums are lit up in bright colors, so the emphasis on Putin’s cult of masculinity conceals the fact that for his belligerence a situation had to be created in which money was constantly being withdrawn from the flows west into the Russian war chest.
The context for Johnson’s statement was the reasonable demand for food security and twelve years of school worldwide – also for girls. Bitter: Britons are now skipping meals to make ends meet. Assuming that good education would change that for girls is as naïve as believing that the investment giant Blackrock would have contributed to the prosperity of Putin’s “managed democracy” with fewer billions of investments if more women were on the board. After all, we had a chancellor in 2014 – and for a long time one of the driving political forces behind Nord Stream 2 was not called Manuel, but Manuela by first name.