Wednesday 26 May 2004

Confessions of a racist

Yes, it’s time to own up. I have just been watching the BBC’s Reporting Scotland programme. Tonight they were covering the “fringe” parties contesting the elections for the European Parliament.

I almost fell off my chair when I heard this about the British National Party: “The BNP is no stranger to controversy or protest. It maintains that it isn’t racist, though it’s opposed to immigration, the Euro and the European Union."

So there we have it. According to the taxpayer-funded BBC, opposition to the Euro and the EU is racist. I wonder how "neutral" the rest of their election reporting will be.

You can watch the segment here (about 16 minutes into the programme), although I think that tonight's broadcast is only available until this time tomorrow. I have of course made a tape recording.

2 comments:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Andrew Ian Dodge (195.137.124.152)
Triticale the left uses these term whenever they are losing an argument. What they are suceeding in doing, of course, is watering down the impact of such a word.

4 June 2004, 12:57:29 GMT+01:00
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triticale (169.207.137.16)
Could be worse. Here in Milwaukee (Wisconsin, USA) those of us who oppose the construction of an inflexible, capital-intensive light rail system are labeled as racist by its supporters.

4 June 2004, 04:31:28 GMT+01:00
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Neil (195.93.32.7)
Izetbegovic's remarks were made in a speech in the 1960s & reprinted by him in a book published shortly before the war started. It was thus a cause not a result of the war. 
 
Your memories of the media's treatment of our Croatian nazi friends is different from mine. It is certainly the case that they were given favoured status by the EU while the Yugoslavs got sanctions & that, at the shindig to celebrate the defeat of the Nazis in WW2 that particular nazi was seated beside Paddy Ashdown - matters which did not noticeably cause a press uproar.

1 June 2004, 22:49:04 GMT+01:00
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john b (194.81.20.74)
Splutter! Tudjman's vileness was one of the main reasons why we didn't get involved in ex-Yugoslavia until after a large proportion of the massacring was done, and I've never seen him portrayed positively in any mainstream British media outlet. 
 
I don't know much about Izetbegovic, but his comments (unlike Franjo's antisemitism) might well come out of the experience of seeing his co-religionists slaughtered by the thousand by Serbs and Croats alike...

1 June 2004, 13:17:32 GMT+01:00
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Neil (195.93.32.7)
People like Hader, Fortuna & the BNP (who are at worst slightly dodgy) have been tagged by the BBC with the label neo-nazi whereas scum like Franjo "Hitler's new European Order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews" Tudjman, our Croatian friend & Alia "there can be neither peace nor co-existence with non-Islamicists" Izetbegovic our Bosnian Moslem friend are specifically described by the BBC as "moderate" & "multiculturalist" & have the remarks that they were "careless" enough to make censorsed by BBC reporters. 
 
Nazi scum the pair of them & all their friends Clinton, Kohl, Major & Blair (without wishing to sound immoderate).

30 May 2004, 23:56:37 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer said...




Verity (213.36.45.211)
Steve Shackleton - I too think the EU is too confining and too closed shop. Like you, I have a much more expansive view of the world than the stuffy, provincial view from Brussels and the hobbled world of the EU. I believe in absolutely free trade. (That means I would also dynamite the CAP and destroy all records of this obscenity ever having existed.) Let's let the African producers - who grow tasty produce - unlike the EU, where you only know what you're buying by the shape and colour - not the taste - have a look-in. If they can produce delicious produce and sell it cheaper than the extortionate sums taken for granted in the EU - great! 
 
Anyone (the EU; the BBC) calling a free trader a racist is himself a Little European and should be viewed with contempt.

30 May 2004, 16:18:14 GMT+01:00
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Gawain (83.134.32.116)
The normal form for bad organisations or people as it generally appears in conments and press releases over here in Brussels goes like this; "Rascist, eurosceptic and xenophobic". So the Beeb were being quite fairminded in comparison. Normally we are straddled, compounding the sin.

27 May 2004, 11:30:39 GMT+01:00
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Steve Shackleton (212.117.228.125)
I know you cannot be a little englander, what is the scottish equivelant?, but I thought you would have realised by now that being against the EU and Euro is Xenophobic and BAAAAAAD. 
 
Seems strange to me that I can be classed as fearfull because I am supposed to want an insulated UK (when my real position is belief in global free trade) when the euro fanatics are the ones who are scared that we cannot survive outside the umbrella of french german control.

27 May 2004, 08:47:46 GMT+01:00
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David Ellams (62.136.239.254)
The EU policy known as Europe of the regions is racist. 
 
Under that policy, England will be broken up into nine separate regions. However, the other three nations of the United Kingdom will each be a separate region. 
 
This is a blatant attempt to destroy one of the world's most successful and productive countries.

26 May 2004, 22:10:26 GMT+01:00