A recent study commissioned by The Times has suggested that around half of Gen Z believe Britain is racist and only 11 per cent of the age group would be willing to fight for the country, a significant drop from 20 years ago.
Back in 2004, The Times conducted similar research which found that 80 per cent of 18 to 27 year olds were proud of their country, while only 41 per cent of that age group would say so now.
So-called experts have claimed that economic pressures are part of the reason the young have fallen out of love with their country. Basic historical knowledge proves this to be false. The working classes of Britain were not living lives of luxury in the early 20th century, yet they signed up in their thousands when the First World War broke out.
The real issue is culture. If the media and the education system keep telling young people that Britain is an evil and racist country, there is a good chance that many of them will believe it. Who would wish to fight and possibly die for a country that is cast as evil and racist?
The ‘woke’ ideology that pushes this viewpoint is doubly poisonous on this front. For those who believe in it, they would in no way wish to fight to defend what they see as racist white supremacy. On the other side of the coin, those young white men who are derided as the source of all evil are not going to defend a society that they feel actively despises and demonises them.
The armed forces have not always helped themselves in this regard. Two years ago, the RAF was forced to pay compensation to applicants who were turned down because, internal emails showed, they were “useless white male pilots”. Why were they useless? Was it that they could not fly aeroplanes? No. They were useless, because they would harm the RAF’s ability to hit diversity targets.
The bottom line is that for people to be willing to fight and die, they need to feel they are part of something greater. A community, a nation bound together by common custom and interests.
In a multicultural society, this is harder to achieve. It becomes almost impossible if in that multicultural society, the majority indigenous people (the white English in this case) feel like they are being abused and treated as second class citizens in their own home.
Would a young man from Rotherham or Rochdale want to fight to defend the system that allowed his sisters or daughters to be raped and abused by migrant communities? Why should he?
Even someone as evil as Joseph Stalin realised that people will generally not fight and die for abstract ideals. They will, however, defend a family and nation they love to the death.
Instead of doing everything they can to make young people despise their own country, our institutions and elites ought to be doing everything in their power to make the people of this land love the nation that – for all its faults – has given them so much. Or we may all soon find out that the alternative is much, much worse.
