Free Life Commentary,A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 180
8th February 2009
Linking url: http://www.seangabb
Available for debate on LA Blog at
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tcher-golliwogs-
On Golliwogs, One-Eyed Scottish Idiots
and Sending Poo Through the Post
by Sean Gabb
In England, one of those weeks has just ended that define an entire
period. This is no consolation for those who have suffered, and who may
yet suffer worse. But I have no doubt that it is worth describing what
has happened and trying to explain what it means.
Let me begin with the facts.
First, it was reported on the 3rd February 2009 that Carol Thatcher,
daughter of Margaret Thatcher, had been dismissed from her job as a BBC
presenter for having called a black tennis player a golliwog. She did not
say this on air, but during a private conversation. Even so, the BBC
defended its decision on the grounds that any language of a "racist
nature" was "wholly unacceptable"
Second, demands are rising at the moment for Jeremy Clarkson, another
presenter at the BBC, to be dismissed for having called the Prime
Minister a "one-eyed Scottish idiot who keeps telling us everything's
fine". Various Scotch politicians and spokesmen for the blind let up an
immediate chorus of horror that has resulted in a conditional apology
from Mr Clarkson, but may not save his career.
Third, it was reported on the 2nd February 2009 that the comedian and
Labour Party supporter Jo Brand was being investigated by the police for
allegedly inciting criminal acts against her political opponents. While
presenting a BBC television programme on the 16th January 2009, she
rejoiced that the membership list of the British National Party had been
stolen and published on the Internet. Her exact words were: "Hurrah! Now
we know who to send the poo to". The natural meaning of her words was
that it would be a fine idea to look up members of this party and send
excrement to them through the post. The British National Party put in an
immediate complaint, using the hate speech laws made during the past
generation. According to a BBC spokesman, "We do not comment on police
matters. However, we believe the audience would have understood the
satirical nature of the remarks". It is relevant to note that Mrs Brand
was present when Carol Thatcher made her "golliwog" remarks, and may have
had a hand in denouncing her.
Fourth, In The Times on the 6th February, someone called Matthew Syed
wrote how personally oppressed he felt by words like "golliwog", and how
good it was that "society" was taking a stand against them. Two pages
later, someone called Frank Skinner defended the employers in the north
of England who prefer to employ foreigners on the grounds that foreigners
are "better looking" and "less trouble". The possibility that he has
broken one of our hate speech laws will probably never be considered.
This is a gathering of facts that occurred or were made public during one
week. But if we relax the time limit, similar facts pour in beyond
counting. There was, for example, the pillorying last month of one of the
Queen's grandsons for calling someone a "Paki". Or, to give myself as an
example, there was my BBC debate of the 16th February 2004 with Yasmin
Alibhai-Brown, an Asian immigrant who seems incapable of seeing any issue
except in terms of white racism. During this debate, I asked her:
"Yasmin, are you saying that the white majority in this country is so
seething with hatred and discontent that it is only restrained by law
from rising up and tearing all the ethnic minorities to pieces?" Her
answer was "Yes". It is possible she did not understand my question. It
is possible she would have clarified or retracted her answer had the
debate been allowed to continue. Sadly for her, the BBC immediately
switched off my microphone and threw me into the street. Mrs Brown was
allowed to continue uninterrupted to till the end of the programme. The
hundreds of complaints received by the BBC and the Commission for Racial
Equality were all either ignored or dismissed with the assurance that
nothing untoward had taken place in the studio. I accept that Mrs Brown
might not have meant what she said. Had I made such a comment about
Asians or blacks, however, I might have been facing a long stretch in
prison.
But let me return to the most recent facts. The most obvious reason why
these broadly similar incidents are being treated so differently is that
Jo Brand and Frank Skinner are members of the new ruling class that
formally took power in 1997. They can vilify their opponents as freely as
Dr Goebbels did his. Any of the hate speech laws that might - objectively
read - moderate their language will be regarded as nullities. The police
had no choice but to investigate Mrs Brand for her alleged offence
committed live on television before several million people. But they made
it clear that no charges would result. According to a police spokesman,
"The chances of this going further are very remote. The idea that the BNP
are claiming they are the victim of a race offence is mildly amusing, to
say the least". It may be amusing. The statement itself is interesting,
though, as a formal admission that law in this country now means whatever
the executive finds convenient.
Carol Thatcher and Jeremy Clarkson are not members of the the ruling
class. They have no such immunity. Mr Clarkson may get away with his act
of hate speech because he is popular and clever, and because the main
object of his contempt is only the Prime Minister. Miss Thatcher may not
be allowed to get away with her act. She used a word that borders on the
illegal. And she is the daughter of Margaret Thatcher. She is the
daughter, that is, of the woman elected and re-elected three times on the
promise that she would make the British State smaller and stop it from
being made the vehicle for a totalitarian revolution by stealth. Of
course, she broke her promises. She did nothing to stop the takeover of
the state administration by politically correct totalitarians. But there
was a while when the people who actually won the cultural revolution in
this country thought they would lose. They looked at her rhetoric. They
noted the millions of votes she piled up in her second and third general
elections. And they trembled. As said, they won. Mrs Thatcher herself is
too old to suffer more than endless blackening at the hands of the
victors who now comprise the ruling class. But they still tremble at the
thought of how her shadow darkened their 1980s. And if they can do
nothing to her now, her daughter can be ruined, and that will now be
tried with every chance of success.
It might be argued that what Miss Thatcher and Mr Clarkson said was
offensive, and that they are in trouble because we have a much greater
regard for politeness than used to be the case. Perhaps it is offensive
to say that a black man looks like a golliwog. Perhaps it is offensive to
imply that Scotchmen are idiots or that people with defective sight also
have defective judgement. It might be. But it might also be offensive to
millions of people that the BBC - which is funded by a compulsory levy on
everyone who can receive television signals - broadcasts a continual
stream of nudity and obscene language; and that it pays the biggest
salary in its history to Jonathan Ross, whose only public talent is for
foul-mouthed buffoonery. The British ruling class - especially through
the BBC, its main propaganda outreach - has a highly selective view of
what is offensive.
And it is worth replying that the alleged offensiveness of the statements
is minimal. Let us forget about golliwogs and implied sneers at the
blind. Let us take the word "nigger". Now, this has not been a word
admitted in polite company in England since about the end of the
eighteenth century. Anyone who does use the word shows himself a person
of low breeding. Whatever its origins, its use for centuries has been as
an insult to black people. Any reasonable black man, therefore, called a
nigger, has cause to take offence.
This being said, only moderate offence can be reasonable. Anyone who runs
about, wailing that he has been hurt by a word as if it were a stick
taken to his back, and calling for laws and social ostracism to punish
the speaker, is a fool or a villain. And I can think of few other
epithets that a reasonable person would greet with more than a raised
eyebrow - "poof", "paki", "papist", "mohammedan"
Anyone who finds these words at the very worst annoying should grow up.
We can be quite sure that most of the Asian languages now spoken in this
country contain some very unflattering words to describe the English -
for example, goreh, gweilo, and so forth. There is no pressure, internal
or external, for these to be dropped. And we know that there are any
number of organisations set up by and for non-whites in this country from
which the English are barred - for example, the National Black Police
Association.
However, the highly selective use of speech codes and hate speech laws
has nothing really to do with politeness. It is about power. The British
ruling class may talk the language of love and diversity and
inclusiveness. What it obviously wants is the unlimited power to plunder
and enslave us, while scaring us into the appearance of gratitude for our
dispossession. Because the tyrannised are always the majority in a
tyranny, they must be somehow prevented from combining. The soviet
socialists and the national socialists kept control by the arbitrary
arrest and torture or murder of suspected opponents. That is not
presently acceptable in England or in the English world. Control here is
kept by defining all opposition as "hatred" - and by defining all acts or
attitudes that might enable opposition as "hatred".
I am the Director of the Libertarian Alliance. Not surprisingly, my own
opposition to the rising tide of despotism is grounded on a belief in
individual rights. I may occasionally talk about my ancestral rights as
an Englishman, or about how my ancestors fought and died so I could enjoy
some now threatened right. I may sometimes half-believe my rhetoric.
Ultimately, though, I believe that people have - or should be regarded as
having - rights to life, liberty and property by virtue of their human
status. Anything else I say really is just a rhetorical device. This is
not the case with most other people. For them, opposing the encroachments
of a ruling class is grounded on collective identity - "they can't do
that to us". Now, this sense of collective identity may derive from
common religion, common loyalty, common culture, but most often and most
powerfully - though these other sources may also be important - from
perceived commonality of blood.
Now, this collective identity is not something that is seen at times of
emergency, but otherwise is in abeyance. It is important in times of
emergency so far as it is always present. People work together when they
must because, at all other times, they have a mass of shared rituals and
understandings that hold them together. These shared things often define
a people in terms of their distinctness from others. Jokes beginning
"There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotchman" or "What do you
call a Frenchman who...?" are part of what reinforces an English
identity. So too are comments and gestures and assumptions that assert
the superiority of the English over other peoples. To change my focus for
a moment, take the phrase "Goyishe Kopf" - Gentile brains! This is what
some Jews say when they do something stupid. It can be taken as
expressing hatred and contempt of non-Jews. More reasonably, it is one of
those comments that reinforce the Jewish identity.
What Carol Thatcher said was part of this reminding of identity. Her
exact words, so far as I can tell, were: "You also have to consider the
frogs. You know, that froggy golliwog guy". The meaning she was trying to
convey was: "let us consider how quaint and absurd outsiders are. Is it
not nice that we are members of the same group, and that we are so clever
and so beautiful?" I am not saying that I approve of what she actually
said. Indeed, she would have done better for herself and the English in
general had she kept her mouth shut. Calling someone "froggy" is neither
here nor there. Calling him a "golliwog" is moderately hurtful. Saying
this on BBC premises, and in front of people like Jo Brand, shows that
Miss Thatcher is stupid or that she was drunk. Her words, as reported, do
less to reinforce English identity than make the whole thing an
embarrassment.
However - her name always aside - she is being punished not because her
words were crass, but because they fell into the category of actions that
must at all times be discouraged. Powerful or crass to the point of
embarrassment, nothing must be tolerated that might tend to promote an
English identity. I say an English identity. The rule does not apply to
Scotch or Welsh or Irish nationalism. These are not regarded as a danger
to the ruling class project of total enslavement. They are controllable
by subsidy. More usefully, they are anti-English. The various ethnic
nationalisms and Islamic identities are likewise allowed or encouraged.
They are not perceived as a danger to the ruling class project of total
domination, and may be used against the English. It is English identity
that must at all costs be repressed. The English are still the largest
national group in these islands, and will remain so at least until 2040,
when there may be a non-white majority all through the United Kingdom.
English national ways are the raw material from which every liberal
doctrine has been refined. The English are an unpleasantly violent nation
when pushed too far.
This explains why words and expressions are defined almost at random as
"hatred", and why names of groups and places keep changing almost at
random. The purpose is not to protect various minority groups from being
hurt - though clever members of these groups may take advantage of the
protections. The real purpose is to hobble all expression of English
identity. It is to make the words and phrases that come most readily to
mind unusable, or usable only with clarifications and pre-emptive cringes
that rob them of all power to express protest. Or it is to force people
to consult their opponents on what words are currently acceptable - and
whoever is allowed to control the terms of debate is likely to win the
debate.
And look how easily it can be done. Also during the past week, we have
seen working class demonstrations in the north of England against the
employment of foreign workers. "British jobs for British workers" they
have been chanting. A few raised eyebrows and warnings from Peter
Mandelson about the "politics of xenophobia", and the trade unions have
straightaway sold out their members and are preparing to bully them back
to work. Better that trade union members scrabble to work for a pound an
hour, or whatever, than that they should be suffered to use words like
"Eyeties" or "Dagoes".
I should end by suggesting what can be done to counter this strategy. I
suppose the answer is not to behave like Carol Thatcher. We must accept
that certain words and phrases have been demonised beyond defence. Some
of them are indefensible. These must be dropped. Others that are just
about permissible - Scotchman, for example - should be used and defended
on all occasions. We should also at all times bear in mind that political
correctness is not about protecting the weak but disarming the
potentially strong, and it must be made clear to the ruling class that
its management of language has been noticed and understood and rejected.
A strategy of apparently casual offence, followed by partial and
unconvincing apology - of the sort that we may have seen from Jeremy
Clarkson - may also be appropriate.
Another strategy worth considering is the one adopted by the British
National Party. In a free country, Jo Brand would be at perfect liberty
to incite criminal acts against unnamed and reasonably unidentifiable
people. But we do not live in a free country. There is a mass of laws
that criminalise speech that was legal even a few years ago. The response
to this is to invoke the laws against those who called for them. As said,
people like Jo Brand and Yasmin Alibhai Brown are unlikely ever to be
prosecuted for crimes of hate speech. But the authorities will
occasionally be forced to go through the motions of investigating, and
this can be made a form of harassment amounting to revenge. Otherwise, it
is useful to establish beyond doubt that the laws are not intended to be
enforced according to their apparently universal working.
There is much else to be said. But I suppose the most important thing is
not to behave like Carol Thatcher. It will be unfair if she is broken by
her words. But if you stick your head into a lion's mouth, you cannot
really complain when you feel the teeth closing round your neck.
All told, this has been an interesting week. Understood rightly, it may
turn out to have been a most productive week.
--
Sean Gabb
Director, The Libertarian Alliance
sean@libertarian.
Tel: 07956 472 199
Skype Username: seangabb
http://www.libertar
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Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back" -
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