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Reflections: University lecturer branded `racist' for weblink by Simon Aronowitz simon at thoughtcrimenews dot com 10th September 2003 I want to update my thoughts on Dr Queen's website and why I am defending him. My views on this apply to all the news right now. Dr Queen is a lecturer at the University of Birmingham and he has come under fire from Jewish organisations for one link on his webpage. It started with the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) taking offence to the linked-to website and presumably deeming it anti-semitic and therefore also Dr Queen by association for having linked to it. Lets put events into perspective here. The UJS want to have someone change their personal website because they are offended by one link. A personal website! There are no reports of Dr Queen going around and making accusations against Jews, or about the state of Israel. There aren't even any reports of him inciting violence or repression. And certainly he's not shooting protestors in the head or running them over with mechanical diggers. What we have is a story making the news about one link on someone's website. Before the news coverage, what difference did it make to the world what Nat Queen had on his home page? Especially one link that a few might take offence to because of their close-mindedness? Very little. Before anyone gets irate about Dr Queen's apparent rabid anti-semitism, let's consider how events unfolded. Take a look at Dr Queen's homepage. Under the heading of `Scientific', Dr Queen has the following links:
From his webpage it is apparent that Dr Queen has a background in physics and mathematics. He's a scientist. If you read a lot into those links, you might presume that he believes there is no God. He's not saying that though, I merely presumed it. Under the heading of `Human Rights' is the offending link:
Since Dr Queen said he refuses to change his website just because the one he linked to has been updated, we must make the assumption that he put it up in the format you would now see. Since he added it, the `offending' material must have gone further in challenging peoples' preconceptions of America and perhaps now Israel. Did the website mention Israel before it was changed? I don't know. But the point is that Dr Queen linked to it to demonstrate AMERICAN state terrorism. He wasn't having a pop at Israel with that link. The website has changed and until the the UJS started its campaign, it would seem that Dr Queen was not aware of this. Meanwhile the UJS was already helping to sway the thinking of students on campus into believing that Dr Queen was against Jews in some way. Absent an ongoing national advertising campaign by Dr Queen to plant in the public consciousness :
what chance would he have? Sure the links were on his website, but who would even know that unless they had been there? Who else would this have been except fellow academics, students, seekers of information on maths, physics or PGP. I missed one; maybe people with absolutely nothing better to do with their lives than hunt down people with links on their website that they, the viewer, may have a problem with ie the Thought Police. I suppose what could have happened was that a Jewish student of Dr Queen's saw his website recently, clicked on the link in question and then disengaged their brain. Maybe the student was a member of the UJS. Once the campaigning starts however, it can only get fuel in the mainstream press and from interest groups who polarise the issue and push it further. We need to ask what UJS campaign organiser, Danny Stone, hopes to achieve by pushing this issue? I would bet that he would respond `to counter-anti-semitism'. For those who are able to appreciate that this whole thing is being blown out of all proportion, they can see that Dr Queen is being unfairly targeted for condoning thoughtcrime. For those who don't appreciate how this all unfolded, they will believe, absent stimuli for opening their minds, that Dr Queen is anti-semitic, racist and therefore an `undesirable'. The result of this campaign is not a reduction in anti-semitism. Rather it will lead to an increase in anti-semitism because it will demonstrate to some how Jewish interest groups manage to get news coverage which colours the way people think. It also shows how they target people who attempt to stand up for the right to make criticism when it is Israel which is criticised. Jewish groups seldom seem able to distinguish between criticism of the State of Israel and criticism of Jews. I still don't understand why Jews aren't allowed to be criticised, but Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jehova's Witnesses and anyone else I've forgotten are all fair game. Anti-semitism has become an industry. The dominance of coverage in the news about people like Nat Queen doesn't prompt thought about the issues. It brainwashes people into believing that Queen and others are anti-semitic, that anti-semitism on campus is `a problem' and serves to stifle debate about what objectionable activities Israel or the USA may undertake. Rather than give the same degree of coverage to more important issues like the criminality of the US and Israeli governments they instead let people know about this apparent prejudice and racism. What they don't tell you in the news is often more important than what they do say. I'm still waiting for the BBC, Sky News, The Times, The New York Times and other media institutions to tell us how the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. Of course they won't do. If they gave the same coverage to the problems with the official 9/11 story rather than parrot it, they would educate the public and help shape a more realistic paradigm rather than the fiction they convey on a daily basis. The same goes for these allegations of racism. It fuels racism rather than diminish it. In some ways we really do live in the Matrix. People get most of their ideas of the wider world from the media - what they read, what they watch, what they hear. The voice of media institutions seems to carry more weight than those who are not in the business of selling advertising to promote press-releases to the public, such as human rights groups, internet-based journalism or so-called `conspiracy theorists' who in fact are often dedicated and detailed factual researchers. People are heavily influenced by the corporate media and we are constantly bombarded with it. To deny this is to put one's head in the sand. The general public are so busy running around in their day-to-day lives that they don't have time to think about the news, never mind realise how it subconsciously shapes the world around them. Very few take the trouble to investigate whether governments or the media are telling the truth. The death of Rachel Corrie as a result of being mowed down by a mechanical earth digger driven by an Israeli soldier received very little press attention. However when a lecturer has a link on his website that says things that threaten the squeaky clean image of Israel in the minds of of some Jews, they'll do all they can to make a big deal about it. What ever happened to "love they neighbour as thyself?" Can't they just open their eyes and their minds beyond their indoctrination? Dr Queen is being used to promote an agenda of controlling our minds. For this reason I am defending his actions. If anyone has a problem with this, deal with it.
University lecturer branded `racist' for weblink TotallyJewish.com's coverage (London Jewish News)
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