British actor, Sir Ian McKellen, known for his roles in countless Shakespeare productions (among many other plays, TV and film work), performed a 400-year-old pro-immigrant monologue, from William Shakespeare, in response to the unsettling U.S. immigration policy. The speech, supporting immigration, was delivered during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Protests and opposition have been growing in the U.S.A, in response to the use of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis, and across other cities and states. Minneapolis, in particular, has been targeted with increased operations due to the policy on immigration enforcement. The city does not enforce immigration laws, instead committing to the safety of all residents, no matter their immigration status.
Discussing ICE raids, the legendary actor, Sir Ian McKellen, drew parallels from the modern anti-immigration policies to a scene in the Elizabethan play Sir Thomas More.
Speaking first to Colbert about his 1960s run in the play, McKellen said: “It’s all happening 400 years ago. In London, there’s a riot happening, there’s a mob out in the streets, and they’re complaining about the presence of ‘strangers’ in London, by which they mean the recent immigrants that arrived there.
“They’re shouting the odds and complaining, they’re saying that the immigrants should be sent back home wherever they came from. The authorities send out this young lawyer, Thomas More, to put down the riots, which he does in two ways – one by saying ‘you can’t riot like this, it’s against the law, so shut up, be quiet.’ And also, being (written) by Shakespeare, an appeal to their humanity.”
McKellen then delivered Thomas More’s soliloquy, which includes lines such as: “Imagine that you see the wretched strangers, Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage, Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,” and “would you be pleased, to find a nation of such barbarous temper. That, breaking out in hideous violence, would not afford you an abode on earth.”
The full interview with Sir Ian McKellen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert can be watched on YouTube (below), however, if you wish to hear just the Thomas More monologue, then this can be found at 23:12.
