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Griffin torn apart, but not literally unfortunately

IMCista | 23.10.2009 09:42 | Analysis | Anti-racism | Other Press | Birmingham

Yesterday, Thursday the 23rd October saw unprecedented protests outside BBC television centres across the country over the planned appearance of the fascist BNP party leader Nick Griffin on the current affairs programme Question Time. Numbers eclipsed even the protests sparked by the BBC's refusal to air a Gaza aid appeal last January. Crowds gathered to hear the usual speeches and chant the usual slogans, but after a car entered the television centre a large crowd surged forward towards the main gates to be met by police. Soon enough the cops were overpowered and pushed aside with officers climbing over the gates to escape. The gates were forced open, officers on the other side struggling to hold them shut. Seconds later the crowd stormed the gates and headed towards the BBC entrance with dozens of activists entering the building. Protestors were seen being dragged outside by security. As the evening wore on the scene became moody with reports of police using CS gas. Inside the television studio the scene was not much calmer.

I saw a rather succinct review of Question Time: "Griffin came across as a blithering idiot while the other three politicians acted like a bunch of kids fighting over a bag of sweets, Jack Straw seemed to drop most of his sweets on the floor when asked about immigration. Bonnie Greer was hilarious". This about sums up what happened, but here follows a more in depth analysis.

As the panel walked on stage there was a mixture of booing and reluctant clapping from the crowd. Griffin was joined by Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Chris Huhne, Conservative Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion Sayeeda Warsi, Labour Justice Secretary Jack Straw, and the black playwright Bonnie Greer. Throughout the programme Griffin's body language will become more awkward and his simpering to the audience more contrived.

The first question to the panel: was the BNP's hijacking of the image of Churchill fair? Jack Straw points that the nazis were a party which discriminated based on race just like the BNP, that asian people fought in the war, and that other political parties have a "moral compass". I could not help but think of the bombing of Dresden, over 1,000,000 dead Iraqis, and tortured Muslim civilians when he said this.

Next, a black man from the audience asks Griffin to justify why he does not recognise any of the cultural benefits that black and asian people have brought to the country. Griffin does not respond, but goes on to accuse the Daily Mail of outrageous lies. No, not outrageous lies about asylum seekers and migrants, but outrageous lies about the BNP and himself. "Which ones?" asks Dimbleby, "..your denial of the holocaust? Or stating that you want Britain to be 99.9% white? And why are you smiling, this is serious?" [audience jeers]. Griffin states that he does not like the fact that the holocaust is abused but does not elaborate on what this means. Next Sayeeda Warsi points out that Griffin's forefathers would have celebrated Hitler as a hero, and that Mark Collett said that "Churchill was a fucking cunt who led us into pointless war with other whites." Bonnie Greer stated that Churchill would not have been accepted into the BNP as his mother was American and had Mohawk Indian ancestry which would have prohibited his entrance, and that the ideal of "indigenous people" in a country which has had centuries of immigration does not exist.

Chris Hume notes that the BNP's tactics for increasing racial tensions are about peddling fear and hatred, and finding people to blame for societal problems. He then quotes Griffin as saying that "if the BNP had control of broadcasting then the people of Britain could be convinced that every last one must go". He then quotes Griffin as saying "Hitler went a bit too far". "Which bit too far? Bombing British towns and cities? Gassing jews?" asks Chris. He then asks Griffin why he appears on a YouTube video with the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffin states "he did not know it was him", and Dimbleby facetiously states "ah, you didn't recognise him [wearing that hood]" which provoked laughter among the audience. Griffin ludicrously went on to claim the Ku Klux Klan are a "non-violent group" much to the astonishment of Bonnie Greer and people shouting from the audience, and that he was attempting to "win over the youngsters who would otherwise be lead astray by the Ku Klux Klan leader". Griffin claims he is changing the views of many of the far right in his party. For once this is a candid admission that people in his party do hold extreme far right views, but for some reason he does not count himself one of those. Presumably he means he is better at disguising his racism. Jack Straw confronts Griffin about the "BNP languages and concepts discipline manual" which asks all party members to counter claims that the "BNP is a racist party", and on an Orwellian note, "not to talk about the BNP's past". Dimbleby also takes the opportunity to confront Griffin on the BNP's cryptofascist rhetoric, putting it to him that the party is putting on a friendly face as this approach is more likely to be successful, but their long term goal remains to rid the country of anyone who is not white.

Next a white man asks Griffin: "if the BNP are not racist why has it taken a legal action to change the entrance policy". A white woman asks Griffin "how the BNP defines minority races when humankind began in Africa", and a Jewish adolescent challenges Griffin over his claims that the murder of approximately six million Jews was a myth. Griffin says he "can't say why I thought those things", or "why I have changed my mind" because "EU law prohibits me from saying so". Jack Straw says there is no such law and given that he is the Justice Secretary he can confirm this. Griffin is seen squirming in his seat and simpering.

A Muslim man in the audience asks "why is Islam a wicked and vicious faith?" Griffin claims that woman are second class citizens, women convicted of being raped are stoned to death, and it condones the murder of Christians and Jews, but then strangely commends Islam for outlawing usury, and claims he wants a "truce" with Muslims where they accept that Britain is fundamentally a 'Christian' country. This is presumably a thinly veiled attempt to convince the audience that he is tolerant, a very example of the crytofascism Dimbleby highlighted minutes before. A Muslim mans speaks out quoting a passage of the Old Testament where all non-Christians are destroyed, presumably to make the point that Griffin's interpretation of the Qur'an is not generally shared by British Muslims.

A member of the audience then asks Jack Straw if the success of the BNP can be put down to the immigration policy of the Labour government. Jack Straw completely avoids the question and rambles on about their attempt to control immigration numbers, points based system, blah, people disturbed by change, blah. Sayeeda Warsi turns this into an immigration crack down points scoring contest; protest vote, blah, issues for BNP voters, blah, poverty, blah, not enough resources blah. Chris Huhne interestingly points out that the government only counts people in, but not going out of the country so the statistics are completely skewed. Griffin rants that the 'indigenous people of Britain' are the "aborigines here" and successive generations have committed genocide against our own race by celebrating multiculturalism. The audience boos in disbelief of his interpretation of genocide. Next an asian man says Griffin should be deported to the south pole and he hopes it is white enough for him there. A woman in the audience talks of an unemployed doctor from Africa who works as a cleaner at her workplace, and states that there are crap jobs which people in this country do not want to do. Jack Straw states that the far right peddles myths about immigration, however I cannot help but think the Daily Mail, the Sun, and the Labour government have been far more successful at this than the BNP. Jack Straw continues to outline how "we could all find ourselves in a minority at some point, so we need to respect each other's rights". Presumably this does not include the rights of Muslims who were demonised and harassed by the state throughout the early stages of the 'war on terror', with Jack Straw infamously stating he would not talk to Muslim women whilst they wore a veil.

Next Griffin was asked about civil partnerships, stated that he "finds the sight of two grown men kissing in public creepy". This is a strange answer because he was asked a question about civil partnerships, not about men kissing in public. I wonder whether Griffin is in denial about something.

Finally, a member of the audience asks "might this programme be an early xmas present for the BNP?" Bonnie Greer says no, people have got too much common sense and they have been exposed for what they really are. Griffin tells us that the BBC is an "ultra left, nasty organisation", which is an interesting insight into how far right he and the BNP actually are. I am sure the BBC are revelling in the unprecedented viewer ratings they will receive, but this challenge to fascism was inspite of the BBC not because of it. Despite their vetting procedures, almost every single person present wanted to challenge the fascist BNP. There was little difference between the people inside the studio and the people outside the studio; albeit with different approaches they were both there to make a loud and direct challenge to fascism.

The mainstream politicians are surely high fiving one another at their attempt to stifle a further exodus of protest votes to the BNP. However the Question Time programme was noted not by the questions which were asked, but by those which weren't. Every member of the panel was an enemy of the working class, particularly Griffin. None of the questions highlighted how the state and corporate media laid the ground for the rise of fascism through years of scapegoating migrants and demonising Islam, or that all political parties serve a powerful corporate elite. The fascist ideology does not recognise the class struggle, opting instead to divide people across racial and cultural boundaries. For these ends Nick Griffin is a useful idiot for the mainstream political parties; whilst people are divided they are not recognising that the real enemy is the elite who have caused the massive increase in wealth disparity over the past 30 years.

However, the fact that they need Nick Griffin to make them look good highlights how fucked things are for parliamentary 'democracy' right now. The mainstream political parties are still as corrupt as ever and people know this. Until the next membership list is leaked, it is important for the radical left to make the most of this crack which has opened.

IMCista

Additions

Straw got off lightly

23.10.2009 10:37

Straw was Home Secretary in 2000 when 58 Chinese migrants died a horrible death in the back of a lorry trying to smuggle themselves into Britain. He was Foreign Secretary in 2002 and 2003 when Britain invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries. He allowed the murderous Chilean dictator General Pinochet to escape extradition, vetoed the publication of documents that could have proved the illegality of the Iraq war, refused to call for Guantanamo prison camp to be closed and covered up the British government’s collusion in torture. As Minister of Justice, he now presides over a prison system which has never been so full and an immigration service which boasts of deporting one person every eight minutes.

The BNP (see their webite under immigration policy) calls for deportation of illegal immigrants and anyone not British who commits a crime, financial incentives for immigrants to return to their countries of origin, an end to all new immigration except in exceptional circumstances and the rejection of the applications of all asylum seekers who have passed through safe countries to get to Britain. But all these have already become law during the Labour administration in which Jack Straw has played a leading role.

But the only serious criticism of him or Straw government last night was made by the bigoted racist homophobe Griffin, who said:

“My policy on Islam is a truce with Islam. I’m not the one with the blood of 800,000 Iraqis on my hands after an illegal war, whereas Jack Straw is. I have never hurt one single Muslim, I believe that the West should stop trying to de-Islamify the Middle East and should leave those sovereign countries to run their own affairs. We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq, we should never go into Iran, despite the fact that’s where the Tories will take us in due course.”

communist


Comments

Display the following 10 comments

  1. enemy of the working class — IMCista
  2. Question time — NO BNP
  3. . — Jenny Taylor
  4. STOPPING THE BNP — NO BNP
  5. what a joke! — anarchist
  6. A bit of class — bruisedshins
  7. BBC were fools! — Green & Black
  8. UAF = Uneffective Against Fascism — Fashbasha
  9. The Victim Mentality — A Former BNP Member
  10. UAF — -
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