Many readers would know Dr Kevin Donnelly as one of Australia’s leading educators and a prolific author who has been calling out the dangers of political correctness, aka cultural Marxism, since the 1990s.
His latest tome Wake up to Woke: It’s time, Australia, as the title suggests, is a wake up call to all Australians to the fact that insidious cultural Marxism is not just the barbarian at the gates, but it is in fact inside the gates. It’s wreaking havoc everywhere, undermining the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage, a heritage which has given us the most prosperous society the world has ever known, thus putting in grave danger the hard-fought freedoms we take for granted.
The end of the Cold War was cause for celebration and hope in the West and around the world. Seemingly, liberalism had triumphed over communism. The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously (or infamously) at the time acclaimed “the end of history.” However, the war was only half-won. An opponent only gives up when they know they are beaten. The adherents of economic Marxism knew that they were beaten, but there were other forms of Marxism out there.
“Woke” is a word that is used often nowadays in place of political correctness. Dr Donnelly provides the best explanation for it. Woke “denies the ability to reason and be impartial as knowledge, supposedly, is a social construct and all relationships are based on privilege and power,” thus denoting the Woke’s fanatical zeal to impose their worldview on all parts of society, and to crush any dissent.
The book is a compendium of articles the prolific author has written over the years across mainstream newspapers and conservative media outlets across the country and the globe, addressing the dominance of wokeness in the West and its institutions—be it via climate alarmism, gender fluidity, cancel culture, the undermining of Australia’s history, and the rejection of Christianity, to name but a few.
It is any wonder, then, that in our increasingly godless world, with its ever more fractured society, divided along lines of identity politics and an intolerance of “dissenting” views, do we see record levels of anxiety and depression among young people?
However, as Dr Donnelly recounts in the book, while there is cause for doom and gloom, there are also signs of hope. As he tells us, several polls indicate that a vast majority of people have had enough of Woke. They believe it has gone too far, is unduly limiting free speech and having an adverse impact on society,
The Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, offers a thoughtful foreword, dispelling myths and outlining just how the most marginalised in this country were hypocritically exploited for political gain by the Left throughout the process that led to the Referendum on the Voice to Parliament last year.
“The real agenda of the left was a radical change to the Australian constitution,” Senator Price writes in her foreword. “A fundamental altering of our governing document with a view to even more radical and fundamental changes to our country and society … The Yes campaign’s story was, in fact, a negative one. It was a message of emotional blackmail, of gaslighting and guilt, and while it led many Australians to genuinely believe that the Voice was the last hope, that without this change the situations of those who most need our help will not improve, it was ultimately a story of blame.”
Dr Donnelly sees the overwhelming 61/39 defeat of the Voice proposal that as an example of hope, where common sense and sanity overcame woke ideology intent on dividing this country.
The book is divided into four chapters. The first: The Voice Referendum and Why it Deserved to Fail, the second: The Battle of Ideas and Woke ideology, the third—and most substantial chapter—Australia’s Woke Education System: Dumber and Dumber and the fourth: The Road Ahead – In Darkness There is Light.
Here Dr Donnelly points out that the success of leaders in the United States of America such as Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida and Glenn Youngkin, Governor of Virgina, should come as no surprise. However, as far as this country is concerned, he exhorts Australians to shake off their apathy and to continue building momentum following the Voice referendum to ensure the pendulum moves back towards sanity and common sense.
The publication of this book therefore is timely. It serves to arm those who wish to understand wokeness in order to have the courage to fight back against it. And fight back we must. In this regard Dr Kevin Donnelly reminds us of this famous quote from Sir Roger Scruton:
“Rediscover what we are and what we stand for, and having rediscovered it, be prepared to fight for it.”
Rocco Loiacono is a legal academic and contributor to Sky News and the Spectator Australia.
You can find the self-published book, Wake up to Woke: It’s time, Australia available here.