In response to Laura Perrins: A war memorial? No, a contemptible symbol of white male privilege, Malcolm wrote:
The quality of too many of today’s university graduates, and their ability to think in terms not defined by their personal political prejudices, is clearly exposed every time someone like this idiot tweets. She doesn’t appear to consider that at the time the painting was completed the population of the UK was overwhelmingly white so, yes, inevitably, those depicted as the victims of that war from her university were all white. She doesn’t seem to comprehend that only men were sent off to fight in that awful conflict, so yes, inevitably, all those depicted were male. She doesn’t even seem able to understand that far from being a painting that glorifies or entrenches the power of the white male, it is a sobering reflection of the sacrifice that saw almost an entire generation of the brightest and best of them slaughtered in the mud and horror of Flanders, ripped to shreds by barbed wire and machine guns. Unlike her, in her privileged, safe and cosy existence, they were denied what she has not been: the ability to complete their studies and reach their full potential. Instead of offering thanks for her great good fortune she sees fit to threaten to destroy a lasting memorial to those who went before her and actually enabled her to enjoy it.
Not only is her public tweet a disgraceful example of the warped and twisted interpretation of the nation’s actual history so popular in our higher educational establishments, and the reality that millions of its citizens suffered in ways that too many of her entitled generation are incapable of imagining, but it is an indictment of the system that sees fit to award degrees to people with such shallow intellectual capacity that they can subscribe to such idiocy and think it a good idea.
