February 06, 2006

American Renaissance’s 2006 Conference: A Gathering of Thought Criminals

By Jared Taylor

[Previously by Jared Taylor: American Renaissance’s Conferences: Talking About The Taboo]

As James Fulford reports in his Feb. 3 dispatch, Nick Griffin, chairman of the British National Party, has beaten two charges of "incitement of racial hatred"…but must go back to court to be retried on the two other charges on which his jury could not agree.

Mr. Griffin’s trial is only the latest in the sorry spectacle of the criminalization of dissent that is eating away at Europe’s freedoms.

Before his next trial, however, Mr. Griffin will join a number of other distinguished "thought criminals" at the American Renaissance conference to be held just outside Washington, DC in Reston, Virginia from Feb. 24 to 26.

A great deal of what is likely to be said at the conference could land you in jail in Britain, Canada, France, Spain, and several other allegedly "advanced" countries. Indeed, practically every speaker at the conference—from France, Australia, Canada, and South Africa as well as Britain—has either an outright criminal record or a history of hair-raising legal fights over the right to express an opinion.

Take Guillaume Faye, one of the most prolific and prominent writers of the French New Right, who has worked as a radio and television personality, and has written five highly-acclaimed books. Like Mr. Griffin, he has freely expressed his views on Islamic plans to conquer Europe. In 2000, this landed him in court, along with his publisher, where he was relieved of a considerable sum for having "incited racial hatred." Four years later, when Mr. Faye needed a passport for a trip to the United States, it was touch and go whether the French would even let this notorious criminal leave the country.

It’s particularly easy to "incite racial hatred" in France. Brigitte Bardot has been hauled into court and fined five times for speaking her mind on the subject of Muslims.

(Sorry, she is not speaking at our conference.)

J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario is another speaker who is no stranger to accusations of hate crime. Even though he is recognized as one of the world’s foremost scholars of racial differences, it took him four years to fight to a standstill a charge with the Ontario Human Rights Commission that he was "infecting the learning environment with academic racism." In a parallel action, the Ontario attorney general spent months investigating Prof. Rushton’s work before announcing, at a widely attended press conference, that it was "loony but not criminal."

Andrew Fraser, formerly a professor of public law at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, is something of a newcomer to thought crime, having become a pariah only last year. When he argued publicly that increasing non-white immigration was turning Australia into "a colony of the Third World," he was run off the Macquarie campus, a peer-reviewed journal rejected a major paper it had already accepted, and two different groups of Third-World colonists launched human rights suits against him. Australia has joined the ranks of countries that once had free speech.

It is less of a surprise that our speaker from South Africa, Dan Roodt, is also an accused "hate criminal". Africans have a long tradition of muzzling the opposition—permanently, if possible. One of the country’s best-known defenders and promoters of Afrikaans literature and culture, Dr. Roodt was formally charged with "hate speech" for pointing out that most violent South African criminals are young black men. His most recent offense, a book-length indictment of the government called The Scourge of the ANC, is likely to get him into even more legal trouble.

Dr. Roodt has become such a controversial figure that, just last year, he had to be surrounded by bodyguards when he spoke at the annual Afrikaans literary festival, Woordfees. Such is the state of free speech in Nelson Mandela’s new South Africa.

The American speakers—Atlanta lawyer Sam Dickson and myself—cannot (yet) be charged with thought crimes, but plenty of people hope for that day to come. One "watchdog" organization, One People’s Project, says Mr. Dickson’s views on race make him the equivalent of a terrorist. "Dickson and his ilk should be regarded—and treated—as such," they add, and I suspect they have in mind something more than a lawsuit.

As for your servant, it was so long ago that I have forgotten when the Southern Poverty Law Center first called me a "race hater." In 2003, I was on their list of the 40 most loathsome people in America, so I’m sure if we had laws against "incitement of racial hatred," they’d see to it I was charged.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, I peddle "intellectualized, pseudoscientific white supremacy." If anything ever deserved a jail sentence, that surely does.

This may soon cease to be a joking matter. On Feb. 3, the US State Department unbosomed what appears to be official American policy on the Danish Mohammed cartoons that have so riled Muslims: "Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable," intoned State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper.

If a series of tame cartoons amounts to incitement of hatred, surely what I write about low black IQ or high Hispanic crime rates is worse.

If it’s "unacceptable" in Denmark, it’s "unacceptable" here, too.

It may be that if you want to see thought crime in action—and maybe even dabble in it a bit yourself —you had better come to an AR conference while you can still show up and not be arrested. "Sweet land of liberty" is beginning to ring about as hollow as "land of the free and home of the brave."