A perfect example of the reflexive cringe some people feel when they see a rather straight-forward unmoderated example of Western Culture – from Britain, of course:

“Dorothy Glenn decorates her home in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, with hundreds of festive lights every year, including a giant tree and a 4ft Santa Claus.

“But this year she was astonished when an employee of South Tyneside Homes called at her house and informed her that the decorations she was displaying might be offending her neighbours.”

The neighbors weren’t offended, which must make Constable Killjoy all the more annoyed; they’re not helping matters at all. We’re not going to get to the perfect world unless the right people are as irritated as their civil shepherds, and pitch in. No one felt excluded? Not one of you felt like an outsider? How stupid are you, really? There it is! Someone else’s culture – the old dominant culture presented without apologies or footnotes, and all you can do is say “how pretty.” The damned ingratitude of it all.

If it were left up to the official who made the complaint, the ideal holiday decoration would consist of white lights – well, no, that privileges one color over the others. If you had all colors in equal numbers it would suggest that there was an equality in society where no such thing exists, so perhaps colors could be assigned by the first letter of people’s names, arbitrarily chosen, and then presented in the appropriate proportion. The lights could be displayed with a snowflake, and individual expressions could be achieved by varying the size and design of the snowflake. This avoids the religious connotations of a star or a tree, the offensive presentation of human form inherent in the snowman – no Muslims have complained about that, but we’re working on reminding them – and the other iconography that suggests a particular historical genesis, sorry, origin for this season.

Bully for Mr. Khan:

“Independent councillor Ahmed Khan, who represents Mrs Glenn’s ward, condemned the employee’s actions.

“He said: ‘Every year this woman puts her Christmas lights up and I know how popular they are. It’s great when people make an effort to decorate their houses.

“‘It’s this kind of nonsense that sets race relations back 20 years. That woman did nothing more than decorate her house to celebrate Christmas.’”

It would, if it were Muslims who were complaining. But since it’s the government, it should set government relations back 20 years. But it won’t.  The housing association apologized, and “started an investigation,” as if there’s some strange shadowy secret group in their midst that can only be uncovered by a legion of pipe-smoking men in deerstalker caps. I expect to hear nothing more on the story, least of all the identity of the pinch-souled miscreant who upbraided the lady for an inflatable snowman and an excess of reindeer. In a way, it’s a heartening story, because the lady got to keep her snowman, and the neighbors who turned out for the supportive photograph were reassuringly diverse; it would have been different if they’d all been yobbos from the local staring at the lens with defiance. That would have sent a chill up some spines, perhaps. Get some lagered-up lads in front of a snowman, and the next thing you know they’ve formed a chapter of the BNP.

The most telling aspect of the story, though, is that the display appears to be entirely secular, but it’s still presumed offensive. The very act of asserting the symbols of your particular culture and history – however denatured they’ve become – strikes the Eurocrat as exclusionary, unless it has the requisite apologetic footnotes.  The historical cultures have no place in the great grey continental smear of egalitarian glory, no matter how much they mean to the citizens. The future may be the undiscovered country, but the past is the inconvenient one.