We do not need to over-analyse what Diane Abbott wrote. This whole situation is absurd and cruel

by Martin Odoni

The ‘Labour anti-Semitism’ hysteria of the last eight years is ridiculous, but somehow it keeps refusing to die. The latest shrieking uproar has been triggered by a letter in the Observer Diane Abbott, one of the few remaining Labour MPs from the left, wrote in response to an article on racism.

I have thought a few times what to write in reaction to several days of pompous, shrieking, self-righteous, hypocritical and completely disingenuous condemnation of Abbott by the right wing of her own party, the mainstream media propagandists going with the story without any cross-examination, and the opportunistic chancers dominating the UK Zionist movement. I thought of analysing the original article Abbott was responding to, and Abbott’s reply. I considered mentioning the hierarchy-of-racism issue in the Labour Party. Maybe I would comment on double-standards, with the nauseating Labour Right indifference to anti-Arab racism, as evidenced by their acceptance of immigrant-bashing Tory, Christian Wakeford, into their ranks.

But I realised, why bother? Others have already done it anyway, but also, we are dealing in the very, very obvious.

What a lot of people do not know; what Abbott actually wrote

It is very clear that all Abbott was really saying was that the experience of racism for black, Oriental or Asian people, among others, is often different and more persistent than that experienced by, say, Jews or Roma. I have mentioned that myself in the recent past, and it is only an objective observation, and the reasons are obvious; it is less easy to ‘detect’ the racial background of a Jew or Roma if they are not wearing traditional ethnic garb. Whereas when your own skin colour declares your racial background, there is no hiding place from racists at any time.

Where Abbott is probably wrong

I do question Abbott’s assertion that the prejudices Jews and Roma face are “not racism,” it is pretty clear they are racism, just of a different kind from colour-feeling. But even there, the assertion itself is not racist. Indeed, it is really just a pedantic quibble over nametags. It is even perfectly reasonable, indeed, to question whether the Jewish people, as a genetic racial group, even exists, given the rather arbitrary method by which the matrilineal law was arrived at. But even so, racists who target Jews do so on the assumption that Jews are a race, therefore their prejudice is racism.

But all of this is over-analysis. All that we need to see, and this horrifies me as much as it depresses me, is that once again, the battle against racism has been grossly perverted to suppress people fighting racism. The battle against racism has been corrupted so that it victimises the victims of racism.

The UK’s first black female MP gets no protection from the party from endless racist abuse… and the party now accuses her of racism. How absurd must this get before people say that the Emperor has no clothes i.e. it is a blatant witch-hunt?

Just look at this, and whatever your stance on this hysteria has been to this point, be honest enough with yourself to admit it; this whole scenario is ridiculous. How does destroying the remainder of Diane Abbott’s career help protect anyone from racism? She is the victim of more racist (and sexist) abuse than every other MP put together. Victimising her over something as quibbly as this?

The ‘racists’ are always anti-racists

Look at some of the names of people purged and publicly trashed by this witch-hunt; along with Abbott herself, Marc Wadsworth, Jacqueline Walker, Sally Eason, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, among others. These are not just people who have a long and splendid history of fighting racism, they are also people who have been victims of racism. And now they are being accused of racism, as a pretext for destroying them politically. What good can possibly come of it for real victims of racism when the people defending them are being removed?

This is not only Doublethink of a kind that should make anyone joining in with it feel intellectually ashamed for such obvious illogical, deliberate stupidity. The sheer indifference to truth and objective reality is embarrassing, and the dishonesty required to maintain such a position of attacking-victims-of-racism-to-fight-racism is also cruel and malicious. It is cowardly to attack victims of racism, who usually are already vulnerable people, but doubly so to turn the racism-guilt around onto them. It leaves the victim not only feeling that there is no justice, but that justice is literally impossible because the only recourse against racism ends up being turned against them.

I am saying this from personal experience. I am a Jew who is routinely accused of being a ‘Kapo‘, a ‘self-hating Jew,’ an outright ‘anti-Semite,’ just because I oppose Israel. I know the feelings of powerlessness intimately when your own identity is seemingly being torn away from you, doubly so when it is by people who have never experienced any kind of racism and almost certainly never could.

Amorality holds sway

The indifferent amorality required to co-operate with this fraud has become dominant in Britain. The Conservative Party has long been dominated by it. The Labour Party has been conquered by it. The mainstream media are in thrall to it.

It was bound to happen to her sooner or later.

Who has the courage to fight against it?