No wonder mummy cancellation at Kelvingrove has been mocked

Last week, visitors to the Museum expecting to see the Egyptian mummies were instead greeted with an empty coffin (I’m presuming it was empty). On this rather sinister casket was the following statement: “We have removed human remains from this display as a mark of respect.”

Among the delinquent limbs and appendages were a right hand that once belonged to a priest called Nekht and a male head and right foot of unspecified origin.

Responding to reasonable concerns that ‘respect’ in this case was a ship that had sailed a very long time ago, the museum dug something of a hole for themselves large enough to accommodate several old Egyptian sarcophagi from that Valley of the Kings, (occasionally reputed to have inspired the naming of High Valleyfield in West Fife).

They explained that their Human Remains Policy dictates that mummified bodies will only be displayed if there is “documented and informed consent” from the deceased individual. And that in appropriate circumstances, their descendants can also lend approval.

We’ll leave aside the fact that some of those mummies - dead though they may be - still look more animated than Celtic’s midfield.

Last week, I wrote a rather jocund column poking fun at the SNP’s attempts to dismiss those PISA pupil assessment tables that consistently place Scotland’s attainment levels in key subjects below England’s. Somewhat facetiously, I’d suggested that we shouldn’t place too much emphasis on the teaching of history and all the great popular societal and geo-political convulsions that had brought us to this place. I didn’t imagine that this was actually becoming policy at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

Scottish satire?

SCOTLAND is fast becoming the land where what we once deemed to be satire is becoming lived experience.

You’re tempted to make satire by imagining what other daft cultural excursions and alarums that Scotland’s dismal LinkedIn thought-leadership panjandrums might soon propose.

Stock image of an Egyptian mummy (Image: Agency)

Right now, I can guarantee that an entire department, buried deep within the folds of Scotland’s arts and culture sector will be tasked with identifying other reprehensible artefacts. “Do we have any dinosaur bones? Did anyone stop to think of the distress caused to the Pterodactyl and Tyrannosaurus Rex community if they’d hand an inkling that their loved ones would be excavated and hung up to be gawped at by cruel humans?

“And while we’re at it, those woolly mammoths were sensitive big creatures. How dare we put their loved ones on display? What message does that send to our sensitive young people? Surely we can do something with Artificial Intelligence here.”

Witches’ consent

AND what about all those battle honours on display at military museums and in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral? Shouldn’t we be re-assessing these? The Cathedral owns a memorial plaque that commemorates British soldiers who died during actions in Ceylon and India between 1884 and 1900, at the height of Britain’s brutal colonial rule.

This week, thousands of children will be wandering the streets dressed up as ghouls and ghosts. Many of their costumes will have been influenced by current zombie apocalypse and vampire flicks. Imagine the pain you would feel if one of these urchins pitched up with a death mask that looked uncannily like old uncle Tam’s coupon just before he died (uncle Tam wasn’t looking his best just before he croaked).

We’re literally encouraging the little ones to dress up as dead people, any of whom could be one of our beloved lately departed. Did anyone ask for their consent? Aye, I thought not.

And what about all those young girls who like to cut about the streets masquerading as witches. That’s not very progressive, is it? We now know that most of the witches we burnt and drowned were probably just a bit belligerent and sporting. Has anyone tried to reach out to their far more contactable descendants to seek their consent?

And then there’s poor old Guy Fawkes who was burned to death not that long ago for trying to blow up the British establishment who were all engaged in the common enterprise of killing and torturing yon Catholics. Some of his descendants must still be around. Yet every year, they must re-live their beloved ancestor’s brutal death as they watch him burn on some village greensward.

The Kelvingrove custodians’ act of posthumous cancelling has been ridiculed across the world: especially that bit about failing to get the consent of the relatives. Yet it should also be observed as part of the counterfeit culture, currently suffocating Scotland.

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As society currently tries to come to terms with the reality of AI and what’s actually real, the political elites who run Scotland have been constructing an elaborate, many-headed deception for several years.

Having lost the will to improve life for our most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, they’ve instead crafted a belief system that proceeds purely on slogans, flags and a fraudulent nexus of cultural misrepresentations. Genuine casualties of brute capitalism and societal inequality have been replaced by a shape-shifting squadron of phoneys.

Mediocrity

FAR easier for a government hollowed out by mediocrity to Protect the Charlatans than to make smart policies advocating for the genuinely needy. And then to compel all forms of civic government to bend the knee to the new ideology rather than risk losing their pensions and promotions.

To enable this cultural lie to take root and quicken, two bigger lies must proceed. The first one is pretending to strive for Scottish independence while having no intention whatsoever of delivering it or even trying to deliver it. The second is to convince yourself and others that you are left-wing and progressive in your ideas and practices.

In that way, you can annexe the trade union movement whose artisan executives can easily get on board with a collection of beliefs requiring little more than weekly protest marches; a spot of flag-waving and a psychotic tendency to cancel and suppress dissent.

This grand delusion is most sharply evident in the Scottish Greens, with its antipathy towards Jewish communities. And whose activists want to encourage the dangerous belief that men should be permitted to possess a harem with all of its attendant sexual and psychological patterns of exploitation.

Welcome to the Scottish Matrix where showing cultural solidarity with Cleopatra and Tutankhamun is the pinnacle of progressiveness.