Don’t dismiss ‘Woke 1.0’ – young people’s activism should be encouraged | Letter

I can’t help feeling that Nesrine Malik’s critique of “Woke 1.0” was more nuanced and focused than the published responses suggest (Letters, 24 August). Yes, it could be puritanical, dogmatic and wrong-headed at times, but to dismiss it on these grounds is to ignore Malik’s entreaty not to “trivialise and dismiss movements that resonated globally, and which had safety, dignity and equal opportunity at their heart”.

Far from being “crazy”, so called “Woke 1.0” was the roar of the grandchildren of the radical “permissive” generation – on both sides of the Atlantic – using voices they were always encouraged to believe could change the world. They were schooled in human rights like no others before them, and inducted into activism through historical precedent, armed only with just cause and integrity. They were unashamed to wear conviction on their sleeves and prepared to face the inevitable backlash as readily as their often-celebrated countercultural forebears.

Malik argues, persuasively and correctly, that how we “frame” this activism conditions how we appreciate its aims. And it has been comprehensively framed by rightwing reactionaries making space for the recrudescence of attitudes and proclivities which an older progressive generation fought tooth and nail to bury.
Paul McGilchrist
Cromer, Norfolk