A Pervert’s Guide to Politics

Dieudonne is back, causing controversy and wreaking havoc on our comment feed. This time he’s talking about the state of student politics…


As someone who considers himself somewhat of a solipsist within Warwick, I have always found student politics both fascinating and hilarious.

On the one hand, you have the privileged socialists who are going to change the world, because they could afford to come to the UK and study PPE.

Their time in various positions of various boards within the student political system gives them experience with politics. But, as any feminist will tell you, politics is everything.

The hub of “ridiculous and hilarious” student politics at Warwick…

How so? Well, if I have lived a privileged life, how can I call myself left-wing or a socialist? Am I not simply the rich philanthropist with a Messiah complex, thinking I can change the world if everyone agrees and follows my ideas?

I don’t personally subscribe to any political ideology, since I consider the actual level of political awareness at this uni to be stupidly lacking. I once spoke with someone on the decolonisation of Africa, and the effects that European imperialism had on the African psyche, and the ways in which in many years Africa is still trying to recover from the shock of imperialism.

But this guy would have none of it, he had once read The Wretched of the Earth so he was clearly an expert on the colonial mindset. When I asked him if he had read Black Skins, White Masks, or any else of Fanon’s work, or even African post-colonial literature, I was met with the standard reply one comes to get from a PPE student: which is the idea that progress etc etc. His Niall Ferguson idea of imperialism operating on a cost-benefit system is true in a sense. But it is a perverse idea, for in order to do a cost benefit analysis of imperialism one must be able to place a value on a human life.

It is of course how capitalism operates – I must sell my labour, in return for monetary exchange. Which is great and everything, except that when human beings become dollar signs, that is when the idea of compassion and humility are lost.

If we are to determine each others value based on the amount of money in our wallets, then we should not be surprised when the “good  girl goes bad”.

One needs only think of how many students they know here who come from wealthy background, but must maintain a healthy dose of various illegal drugs just to be able to stand life anymore.

And yet when it’s time for the camera for the Facebook album, they will be a good little girl, and smile.