No article at this blog has ever generated as many comments as the latest in a short series of reflections on the case of Emma West, the Croydon woman now set to stand trial for criminal offences she is alleged to have committed during an aggressive outburst caught on camera, shared on YouTube in November and then subsequently seen by over eleven million people worldwide. The altercation occurred on a south London tram. The nature of the remarks Ms. West made as part of what quickly became known at the My Tram Experience incident have led to her being charged with a racially aggravated public order offence. According to a BBC report, it now seems that a further charge to be levelled at Ms. West is one of "intent to cause fear or provocation of violence".
It was noted here in mid-December that the plight of Ms. West had been adopted as a cause célèbre by a varied collection of avowed racists, 'racialists', 'nationalists' and 'patriots' all seeking to position the south London woman as a spokesperson for a coherent ideology built around opposition to immigration and ethnic diversity. Some scepticism about the validity of representing her in this way was expressed, given that nothing in the public domain seems to suggest that any of the people seeking to claim Ms. West as an ideological fellow traveller have actually ever spoken with her. This might be only moderately problematic were she not facing criminal charges. As it stands, however, some of those purporting to be concerned about the welfare of Emma West and her family might pause to consider whether her case will be helped or harmed by associating her, apparently without her consent, with what many might see as highly unpalatable views and causes. Of course, if their concern is not genuine and the case of Ms. West is simply being used in some ongoing ideological struggle, then some of her putative supporters might actually stand to gain more from a successful conviction than an acquittal. Consider, for example, the possible attitude of anyone keen to allege that Ms. West is the victim of a political elite that seeks to intimidate into silence anyone who opposes a notional 'genocide by assimilation' supposedly deliberately planned as part of a drive to destroy current national identities and white European homogeneity. Anyone passionately committed to such a position might conceivably welcome Ms. West's conviction as proof of their argument.
Although it will continue to be the position of this blog that, in this fundamentally decent and civilised country, public outbursts like Ms. West's are mercifully rare, the only thing that makes her case at all remarkable is that online social media raised its profile with such speed. That aside, this is otherwise just a case of a rowdy person behaving unpleasantly and intimidating bystanders to the degree that the police and courts have become involved. So surely it is pure conjecture to imagine a queue of people keen to portray the incident and its consequences as part of some sinister 'white genocide' plot.
Such people do exist, though, and the numerous comments made here all came from people who adopt broadly that position.
Take Julian Curtis Lee, for example. Lee, the US-based creator of a "white identity web portal for all white European people", has created a very odd set of tributes to Ms. West. On his website, Lee has also created a collage of screen captures from the notorious YouTube clip and added the captions "mother of England" and "mother of Britain" to her name. Sure, she's a mother. Yes, she's from England/Britain. But Lee seems to be positioning Ms. West as some kind of figurehead of British motherhood. One wonders how many British mothers would be inspired by a figurehead whose parenting skills include swearing and shouting aggressively in the company of her young child. Lee has also created a rather strange video of his own, in which he mixed My Tram Incident footage with shots of himself looking at a statue, shots of people boarding a tram in his home town of Portland, Oregon and photographs of children.
Lee's website gives ample evidence of his various beliefs. It is also instructive to notice the URLs he adds to some of the videos he makes. In addition the well-known British National Party and English Defence League, Lee promotes an organisation called the British People's Party, which describes one Colin Jordan as its "spiritual leader". Jordan, a leading figure in British post-war neo-Nazism until his death in 2009, was one of the authors of the 1962 Cotswold Declaration, an agreement between far right movements from a number of countries. One of the stated principals of the declaration is that "Adolf Hitler was the gift of an inscrutable Providence to a world on the brink of the Zionist-Bolshevik catastrophe, and that only the blazing spirit of this heroic man can give... the strength and inspiration to rise, like the early Christians, from the depths of persecution and hatred, to bring the world a new birth of radiant idealism, realistic peace, international order, and social justice for all men."
Julian Lee, apparently an admirer of Hitler, would appear to part company with some of the others leaving comments on this blog's several Emma West articles when it comes to some of his other sources of inspiration. That he promotes the websites of the BNP and the EDL would not meet with the approval of CanSpeccy (Canadian Spectator), for example. One of CanSpeccy's numerous comments here includes the the assertion that the BNP and EDL are quite possibly "agents of the state (not necessarily the British state), serving to discredit anyone who opposes mass immigration". CanSpeccy, then, must presumably be quite suspicious about the BNP's vocal 'support' of Ms. West and quite pleased about the fact that she and her family apparently asked the fringe political party led by Nick Griffin not to hold a demonstration outside the court where she recently had to appear. While the BNP has agreed, with some reluctance it seems, "to take into account the wishes of Emma and her family", the party believes that the request not to stage a demo is "wrong both for Emma and for the wider Cause". No need to worry then, folks. Should you become caught up in a legal case that the BNP decides to exploit for its own ends, you can rest assured that any requests for them to back off will be respected, even if your family's wishes are then described as "wrong" when the party conflates your difficulties with their "Cause". Comforting, huh?
So it seems that Emma West's family have sensed that her own cause may not be best served by appearing to be aligned with nice folks like the BNP who at least conceal their admiration of Hitler, much less with fellows like Julian Lee whose veneration of old Adolf is open and unabashed. Let's see if the family's further wishes in this area are respected or dismissed by the likes of Julian Lee, CanSpeccy and others.
Back to TOP
0 comments:
Post a Comment