Sunday, January 11, 2004

Kilroy Lies to Protect His Job

Robert Kilroy-Smith has attempted to defend himself from accusations of racism - made after an article published in last week's Sunday Express. In today's Sunday Telegraph he claims :

If I am not allowed to say that there are Arab states that are evil, despotic and treat women abominably, if I am not allowed to say that, which I know to be a fact, then what can I say?

That seems terribly reasonable. Unfortunately for Kilroy, a quick check online shows that his actual comment was :

Apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the west - what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I.

What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors?

No mention of evil governments, just an attempt to portray all members of a race on the basis of the worst examples. (An equivalent would be to hold all Christians responsible for the crimes of Hitler and Torquemada.) Kilroy's comments are blatantly racist, in a very nasty way. The fact that he has lied about what he is accused of indicates he knows this. Never the less, the BBC cannot be associated with such opinions, and has no choice but to terminate his contract immediately. Racists like Kilroy have no place in public life.

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2 comments so far.

RR wrote :

I agree, his comments were incredibly racist. However, he also published them several months ago and nothing was said or done about them then. Have our political values suddenly changed so much? What allows publication of racist comments one month without retribution and a full blown scandal when the same article is published only a few months later? Yet again the media seem to be the tail wagging the dog!

03:49 pm, 11/01/2004

Graham [e] [w] wrote :

Fair point - we can't get upset over what we do not know about, and very few liberals read the Express. This column caused more fuss this time for a couple of genuine reasons. Firstly, they originally appeared during the Iraq war, when the papers were distracted by rather larger battles. Secondly, the whole Gilligan/sexed up dossier/Kelly/Hutton affair has led the BBC to take steps to prevent its staff opening it up to charges of political bias. Kilroy's column is the first case where the BBC has taken action against someone (allegedly) breaking their new rules, making it a slightly bigger story.

Also worth noting that this isn't the first time Kilroy has been attacked for his anti-arab views. Protests go back to at least 1995 (following an article in which he declared that "Moslems everywhere behave with equal savagery" and claimed "they conspired to kill the Pope"). This story isn't as isolated as Kilroy alleges.

05:25 pm, 11/01/2004