Dishy Rishi and the Hindu hullabaloo; Russell Brand the alt imperialist and his cultural appropriation

When is a Hindu not a Hindu? When Russell Brand ruddy well says so, that’s when!

And when is a “conspiracy fact” actually a hateful racist conspiracy theory? Er, when Russell Brand doesn’t spend much time looking at his sources?

Hello, you awakening cultural appropriationists! You purveyors of neo-colonial chauvinism! Lest we forget that any aspect of colonial wealth is liable for repatriation back to the European homeland, even if that wealth is cultural! And just as the Lord Dalhousie brought the Koo-I-noor diamond back to jolly old London for her maj’ Queen Vic, so too does Russell imbue fresh worth and value on 1,000s of years of religious heritage when he, and he alone, decides who, or what, is a Hindu, from atop his throne as the venerable Squire of Henley on Thames!

In his video posted to YouTube on November 4th, 2022, titled “This is f*cking Concerning”, Russell Brand asks the question, “is Hinduism Rishi Sunak’s true religion, or are his ties to the WEF and billionaire class more important?”

WTF Russell? You might want to tone that down a bit, it really is concerning.

Attacking someone on religious grounds because you don’t like their politics is just super ugly and pretty vile.Public figures sometimes invite scrutiny of their faith if they use religion in a prominent and cynical way. A politician playing up their bonafides to religious groups for votes, but displaying an embarrassing lack of basic knowledge, repeatedly, may expect some criticism. Or religious figures presenting as moral authorities to harvest cash from their parishioners who fall WAY short of the standards they profess (and here, and here, and here, and here, etc).

But there is an ugly history of unprovoked attacks on politicians on religious grounds; that they fail to meet some kind of religious test. Barack Obama was famously accused of being a “secret Muslim”, JFK felt the need to go on national television to protest his loyalty to country over the Vatican. Hillary Clinton had her religiosity frequently dismissed and the pope had to intervene when political activist US bishops tried to deny Joe Biden communion.

In Britain, A country with an established church, the status of minority religions in political life is worthy of note. Tony Blair felt he had to leave office before converting to Catholicism, and it was left to Boris Johnson to become, after his conversion in 2019, the first Catholic prime minister since Henry VIII’s reformation and establishment of the Church of England. Prospective labor pm, Ed Miliband, who Russell once supported, suffered multiple dog whistle attacks on his Jewish origin - from two kitchens (some Jewish people have separate public and family kitchens) , to bacon sandwiches (look! A Jew eating pork!), to “north London geek” (traditional Jewish area of London). And, of course, not being Jewish enough.

The UK’s first Hindu prime minister is an important moment, even if not elected in a general election, it still represents a minority group breaking through to the highest echelons of a very structured and rigid class-based society, which has also spent the best part of the last 500 years ranking people on a racial basis in order to maintain a maritime empire. It is a breakthrough.

There are dozens of reasons to dislike Rishi Sunak’s politics and policies. His tremendous personal wealth is a red flag that he will harbor opinions antithetical to helping the poor and disadvantaged. His apparent dependence on the wealth of his foreign father-in-law is a potential concern, although I do wonder how much attention or concern this would be given had both men been white and British.

We really don’t need more rich oligarchs in positions of power, but I don’t understand why people like Russell feel the need to denigrate Asian millionaire Rishi Sunak while elevating billionaires of European descent like Donald Trump, as somehow being in tune with the common man, or Elon Musk as a champion of free speech. What could be the difference?

But why question Sunak’s faith? I must admit to being largely unaware of his faith, I’ve since learned that he considers himself a devout Hindu, but I very much doubt he’s campaigned on this fact.

This isn’t a first for Russell, however; in a video posted on YouTube on December 17 2021, he read from a story posted on the news-site Common Dreams. The text below is an excerpt that he read; the text I’ve underlined are the portions that Russell skipped over…

“Over the course of several months, which included a brutal winter and a devastating Covid-19 surge, farmers continued to agitate for full repeal of the three laws. Repression from Modi's right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party resulted in hundreds of deaths.”

I mean the COVID stuff, fair enough! That’s just par for the course for Russell Brand, fearless campaigner for truth and transparency. But why skip over the Hindu bit? I mean, the whole point of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is that he’s a Hindu nationalist; removing the Hindu part removes a WHOLE lot of context.

And why just Hinduism? He’s hardly been kind to either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, so why not jump on the bandwagon and question the depth of their personal faiths?

Thing is, although not a publicly declared adherent, Russell has long since had an affiliation with the Hindu Hare Krishna cult.

He credits them with helping in his drug recovery, has chanted the Hare Krishna mantra when confronted by baying mobs and at the end of stage performances, and is a frequent visitor to one of their compounds in England.

So Russell’s denial of Hindu status to his perceived enemies is looking increasingly like the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. This is a rhetorical technique and logical fallacy that seeks to protect a central idea by arbitrarily excluding facts that threaten to undermine it. A Scottish chauvinist coming across some vile act committed by an Englishman declares “no Scotsman would do such a thing!”, when confronted by a similarly vile act committed by someone who is undeniably Scottish, he declares “no TRUE Scotsman would do such a thing!”. And so Russell declares that Rishi Sunak and Narendra Modi are not TRUE Hindus.

And if anyone can think of anything more on message for our current moment than a rich, over-privileged, white, stay-at-home yoga parent defining the terms of an ancient Indian mystical system to actual people from India or of Indian heritage, I’d like to hear it. Listen, Karen, just because you do two sessions of hot yoga a week and say “namaste” to the barista as you collect your chai latte does not mean you get to lecture Mr. Patel down the road on how his Diwali decorations are not up to scratch and letting the neighborhood down.

But Russell’s emotional investment goes much deeper than a bit of lazy cultural appropriation (although it is that as well) because spiritualism is at the core of Russell’s vision for the world, a vision that places Russell in the role of a great spiritual leader or messiah.

Russell is a libertarian. He personally chafes against authority and believes, like all good libertarians, it would be better for everyone if the whole world were remade in a way that suits him best - no authority, ultimate personal freedom. He is also aware of one of the major setbacks for libertarianism; how do you stop people from using their freedom to do bad things to other people? Russell’s answer is a great big, worldwide spiritual “great-awakening” where everyone achieves a religious epiphany that renders them all good and loving beings incapable of doing harm unto others. Of course, Russell sees himself as the harbinger of this great awakening, hence the greetings to his YouTube followers as “awakening wonders” and his entreaties that we should all “journey together” with him, our messiah!

Russell’s whole worldview, then, is threatened if genuinely spiritual people are capable of doing things he considers bad. Even more so if they are adherents to his preferred spirituality - Hinduism.

So, Russell’s hostility to Sunak’s and Modi’s religious faith is born out of his own spiritual beliefs. He is a religious bigot.

But if that isn’t enough, we’ll see how Russell’s spiritual vulnerability combines with his conspiratorial mindset to produce a much darker bigotry.

The stated reason for Brand’s hostility is Sunak’s proximity to the WEF and the billionaire class. The WEF being the World Economic Forum, a group of very rich, self-important elites who meet annually in Davos, Switzerland, in order to figure out how to make the world more capitalist. Yay capitalism!

They have become a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists because of narrative similarities between the WEF and old-school conspiracy fictions such as The Illuminati or The Elders of Zion. The WEF, however, forgoing the secrecy of those mythical organizations by holding a massive conference every year, and publishing reams of material on their glossy website. Those bastards!

They are also the target of far more rational anti-capitalism protesters who feel that a bunch of rich neo-liberals plotting how to inflict their economic whims on the world is worth protesting.

As we shall see, Russell is leaning much more heavily into the former camp. He bestows upon the WEF apparently limitless power and ascribes an agenda to them that exceeds the one openly stated on their website and media output.

Russell, reading from an article in the National Pulse “news” site titled “Would-Be British PM Rishi Sunak’s Family Runs A China-Linked, World Economic Forum Partner Company Pushing Digital ID and Social Credit Scores.” goes on to explain that the “father of Sunak’s wife is the founder of Infosys, a company that is listed as an official partner of the WEF, which has been accused of seeking to develop the technological infrastructure to implement a global social credit score system.”

Russell then boldly declares, “this isn’t conspiracy theory, it’s conspiracy fact!”

So, let’s just recap. Get your cork board out, pin a photograph of Rishi Sunak to the board with a thumb tack, now use some red twine to join that thumb tack to another one that you’ve used to pin a photo of Sunack’s wife to the board. Continue on with red twine and loop it around a tack pinning a photo of Rishi Sunak’s wife’s father to the board and then on to a tack securing a logo of the company founded by Rishi Sunak’s wife’s father in 1982, Infosys, to the board. Now pin a postcard of the Davos resort to the board to represent the WEF, extend the twine from the thumb tack holding the logo of the company founded by Rishi Sunak’s wife’s father to the tack holding the Davos postcard, and extend it to a cover ripped from the novel by Sax Rohmer, “The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu” to represent the sinister “social credit” system developed by communist China.

Hey, presto! Not conspiracy theory, conspiracy fact! And only five degrees of separation between Rishi Sunak and social credit scores! Where’s Kevin Bacon when you need him? Actually, Olaf Swantee, the CEO of communication company “ee” is listed as a contributor on the WEF website, and ee hired Kevin Bacon to appear in their TV adverts in the UK. By my count that’s seven degrees of separation from Sunak to Bacon via the WEF!

But is it a conspiracy theory? let’s look at the conspiracy facts!.

First, Sunak’s proximity to the WEF; why the extended connection from Sunak to his wife to her father to his company to the WEF? Former British PMs Blare, Brown , and Johnson all attended Davos before they became prime minister. Cameron and May attended as prime minister. Poor Liz truss never got the chance. And Donald Trump, Russell man crush, spoke at Davos twice as president. Professor Jeffery Sachs, charity grifter, disaster capitalist, and exporter of neoliberal economics to the developing world, who Russell touts as a future interviewee at the top of this video, is a WEF contributor, and Sachs’ travel companion and fellow connoisseur of misery, Bono from U2 is a frequent attendee at Davos.

I don’t recall anyone denying these individuals their religious beliefs on the grounds they worship the WEF, despite their greater proximity to and involvement with the organization. So what is it about someone of Asian origin whose loyalty can not be trusted despite the tenuous connection?

Second, let’s look at Sunak’s wife’s father’s company’s status as a partner to the WEF. The source article contains a link to a page on the WEF website (those fiends with their transparency!) listing “partner” companies. Dozens of them, if not hundreds. Including such sinister outfits as the American Association of Retired People (AARP) - oh no! Paw-paw and maw-maw are globalists! And the Lego Group -just like the Jesuits, get ‘em when they’re young! And both Coke AND Pepsi are listed. Come on now, globalists, you can have one, but not both! Are those who resist you condemned to forever drink off-brand cola?

I’m not sure how you achieve this "partner" status; sponsor the lanyards and badge holders for the attendees at the Davos conference? The tote bag? Turns out, being a partner company to the WEF is pretty meaningless. Unless, of course, you’re a company distantly related to Britain’s first brown Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak! Weird that.

And what of the connection to Chinese social credit score?

Well, the headline to the source article suggests that Infosys is directly involved in developing social credit scoring for the Chinese regime; the text of the article, however, suggests that the link is actually between WEF and social credit scoring. Although, it provides no link or reference to support either position, so it’s off to google we go!

And, yikes! A quick search of “Rishi Sunak social credit” immediately reveals as its top result an out and out racist cartoon posted on the Cartoon Movement website depicting a very dark-skinned Rishi Sunak as a cymbal clashing clockwork monkey chanting “Social Credit”, being wound up by Infosys. I’m not going to amplify this hatred by even linking to it. I really can not overstate the racism, it would be like repeating the n-word.

The search also throws up a breathless YouTube video from “WTX news”, from April 2022 that presents a clip of Sunak mentioning digital currency when he was UK chancellor and then expands this into a massive conspiracy where paper money is replaced in the UK by a Bank of England issued crypto that the government can then program on an individual citizen basis to allow, or restrict, certain purchases as part of a Chinese style social credit system. This currency, WTX News states confidently, setting their tin-foil hat to a jaunty angle, will be rolled out in the summer of 2022.

In case you missed it, that didn’t happen. Also, this conspiracy theory, sorry fact!, completely ignores several very important issues:

Firstly, the constitutional hurdles of a single centralized Bank of England issued currency for the entire UK. Independent Scottish banks still issue their own bank notes, forcing Scotland to accept a centralized bank as the sole issuer of currency? A struggle. One with “England” in the name? Erm, good luck with that! I believe this would induce a constitutional crisis.

Secondly, the UK government has repeatedly shown itself to be completely incompetent at anything resembling an IT project. The record is truly woeful. If the UK government were to attempt to create a cryptocurrency starting today, you’d be lucky to see anything before the end of the century. And if they did try to incorporate limits on purchases based on social credit, glitches would ensure that one half of the population could only buy tinned goods and the other half could only buy corkscrews. The entire population would starve while trying to establish a barter system between baked beans and corkscrews long before they even figure out how to open tinned goods with a corkscrew.

The British love the fantasy of that sceptered isle descending into an authoritarian dystopia; from Brave New World, through 1984 to V for Vendetta. But, truth is, Britain lacks the competency to do pretty much anything successfully. Remember Brexit? And Britain’s last populist leader Boris Johnson? One part Mussolini to three parts Mr Bean.

Thirdly, these are the Tories! They are pro-business. They want people spending money, it’s what they want more than pretty much anything else. They want you to fatten the wallets of their donors.

And so does the WEF - they are uber capitalists. Laissez faire. That they take any interest in social issues is only because social collapse might impede the flow of money into their bank accounts.

But this video is interesting because it establishes a conspiracy theory around Sunak and social credit scores that predates the current one - Sunak’s Wife’s father’s company’s connection to the WEF are just further embellishments in the evolution of this prior conspiracy theory.

Back to our google search and we get a word-for-word reposting of the National Pulse source article on the website Kreately, which has been described as a “factory of hate and misinformation”. Which is nice.

We also get several search results debunking conspiracy theories linking the WEF and social credit scores and describing how social media users were duped by a fake WEF Twitter account celebrating Rishi Sunak becoming PM (to which the social media users then added their own conspiracy memes).

Because that’s precisely what this is; a conspiracy theory, NOT a conspiracy fact! Rishi Sunak has fewer links to the WEF than any British prime minister who held that post for longer than the life expectancy of a fairground goldfish. He has fewer links than Donald Trump and Bono from U2. Given Russell’s recent interview with WEF contributor Jeffery Sachs, Brand has closer links to the WEF than Sunak!

The WEF has no interest in a global social credit score. Why would they be interested in restricting the flow of money? They’re free-market capitalists. The free flow of cash back to the global elite is precisely what they are all about!

So what of Russell’s source - the story posted on the National Pulse website? It has two authors on the by-line, one of whom is National Pulse editor Raheem J. Kassam, a click through to his bio reveals that he’s a former senior advisor to Brexit leader Nigel Farage and author of the book 'Enoch Was Right', praising the 1968 “rivers of blood” anti-immigrant and anti-race relations screed of UK MP Enoch Powel.

Remember in 2014 when Russell called Nigel Farage a “Pound shop Enoch Powell” on BBC’s Question Time? Now he’s elevating Farage’s strategic mastermind who promotes Enoch Powel’s hateful racism.

And that’s what lies at the heart of this conspiracy theory, isn’t it? Sunak’s loyalties can’t be trusted because he’s not proper British; he’s not white. He has greater loyalty to his family and to shady foreign organizations. Like the Yellow Peril or the Wandering Jew, we can’t trust the Asian interloper and must question his loyalties.

Is Russell racist? I’m sure he’d say he wasn’t, but he continually propagates racist conspiracy theories.

But he likes Hare Krishna, and does yoga! How can he be racist? He’s just like one of those Billy-Britain types, bald head crowning through a white Fred Perry, a roll of neck fat spilling over the back of the collar “I can’t be racist, can I? I go to the Indian restaurant every Friday. Always have the vindaloo - hottest fing they’ve got! We even ‘ave nick-names for each other; I call them Gunga Din, they call me Gandu. I ‘ad a sag-aloo once, ain’t got no meat in it. Practically makes me an Indian! I’m one of ‘em! Still, wouldn’t ‘ave one in the fackin’ house though, there are limits. ‘Ere, you going to eat all that keema naan?”

But what do you think? Is Russell Brand a yoga Karen laying claim to eastern culture like Clive of India laid claim to the sub-continent? Or is he merely browsing at the cultural all-you-can-eat Indian buffet? Or is he a Billy Britain who thinks Enoch Powell was right all along and all these brown people should be sent home? Whatever you do think, be sure to like review subscribe below. cling-a-ding-ding!