Rory Stewart, Turquoise Mountain and the fall of woke colonialism
Oh no, how will the women of Afghanistan cope without lectures about Marcel Duchamp’s urinal? They’ll have to find a way. For it’s been revealed that Turquoise Mountain, a batty British charity that has lectured Afghan women about the wonders of conceptual art, has had its USAID funding slashed. I hope you’re happy now, Donald Trump and Elon Musk – no more will the tyrannised women of Afghanistan enjoy the sweet relief of a plummy Brit telling them about the time Duchamp put a porcelain piss station in an art gallery.
This neo-colonialism is crumbling now. The raid of USAID is liberating foreigners from America’s ideologies, and liberating America’s workers from having to fund the globalisation of their ruling class’s faddish beliefs. As to the women of Afghanistan, they have more to think about than Dadaism. Like the fact that the misogynist tyrants of the Taliban are expelling them from virtually the entirety of public life and even restricting their right to speak in public places. They need our solidarity, not lessons from a rich podcaster’s wife on how to make a mat.