If you’ve just started reading Harry’s Place and are looking for a brief summary of the issues which we’ve been highlighting over the past few years, a quick scan through Anthony Browne’s article in today’s Times should bring you up to date.
UPDATE
By way of context, Newshog points out that Anthony Browne has entered into “friendly correspondence with V-Dare, an online journal of the Center For American Unity where you will find such gems as “black men have on average 3 to 19 percent more testosterone than white men“.
Merely corresponding with racists does not make one a racist. As in the case of Neumann’s correspondence with “Jewish Tribal Review”, what matters is the content of that correspondence. Take this passage, for example:
Reading the emails almost brought me to tears. What came across so profoundly is the deep frustration and anger that people feel about their loss of national identity and the growing social fragmentation of Britain under the weight of Third World colonization, and their utter abandonment by the political class and most of the media which makes any discussion of this all important issue almost a crime.
It is clearly possible to oppose a particular immigration policy without being a racist. Similarly, it is possible to denounce Zionism without being a racist. The fact that racists may oppose either or both immigration and Zionism does not make all those who use such arguments racists.
However bigots usually give themselves away. It is usually a turn of phrase that provides the clue. At some point, the weight of evidence makes it more likely than not that a person is, in fact, a bigot who seeks – as Newshog puts it – to “hide … bigotry under a smokescreen of faux concern”.
I can certainly see Newshog’s point in Browne’s case. The argument which Browne makes about the fascist nature of radical Islamism appear to be part of a broader argument which he is making about “third world colonization“. The case for treating radical Islamism seriously can do without his support.
I am opening comments on this thread.