O Tempora, O Mores! (April, 2003)

Victory for ‘Our People’

The Vlaams Blok of Belgium is one of the most successful nationalist parties in Europe. It is the third largest party in Flanders, the Flemish-speaking area where 60 percent of Belgians live, and has the support of a third of the voters in Antwerp, Belgium’s second-largest city. One of its notable supporters is Anke Van dermeersch, a former Miss Belgium and now a lawyer, who often appears at party rallies. By ordinary political rules, the party’s leader, Filip Dewinter, should be mayor of Antwerp since the Blok holds 20 of the city council’s 55 seats — far more than any other party. The other parties have banded together to keep it out of power.

The Blok, whose motto is “Our People First,” wants Flemish independence from French-speaking Wallonia, would establish “a watertight immigration stop,” and send home all non-European foreigners. It would accept asylum seekers only from Europe, drastically tighten citizenship requirements, and deport all foreigners who commit crimes.

This, of course, is much too sensible for Belgium’s Human Rights League and the Leman Center on Anti-racism, which took the Blok to court in 2000 on the grounds that its platform was “racist.” The specific charges were against a 1999 pamphlet in which the Blok called for separate education for Muslims, a special tax on companies employing non-Europeans, and cuts in child support for non-European employees. The stakes in the suit were high. If the court found against the Blok it would lose about $4 million a year in state money, which is the only source of legal political funding in Belgium. Party leaders were right to call the suit “attempted murder.”

In February, a judge kicked out the case, noting that it was a political question far beyond his jurisdiction. The anti-racists are mortified. “In other European countries their laws work to prevent the rise of far-right political parties,” says their lawyer, Jos Vandervelpen; “Ours should too.” In other words, if you can’t beat “racists” at the polls, get the courts to ban them. The losers could appeal, but this would require bringing a criminal case that would be argued before a jury, and chances are the Blok would win again.

The result has been not only a court victory, but loads of excellent publicity for the Blok, and a clear demonstration of the underhanded tactics its opponents use against it. Party president Frank Vanhecke is justifiably pleased. “It’s only in banana republics that judges decide the manifestos of political parties,” he says. The victory should bring a lift at the polls. The Blok won 15 percent of the vote in the last general elections in 1999; it could win 20 percent in May. [Andrew Osborn, Belgium’s Far Right Resurgent, Guardian (London), Feb. 28, 2003.]

Immigration Roulette

Immigration to the United States is like gambling: some people die trying to cross the border, some who come legally are booted on technicalities, and at least one illegal recently got two free heart-lung transplants. Everyone has now heard of Jesica Santillan, the 17-year-old Mexican girl who died on Feb. 23. Not so many people know that three years ago her parents paid a coyote $5,000 to smuggle her across the border in the hope she could get help for a heart condition that could not be treated in Mexico. If the first procedure at Duke University Hospital had not been bungled and then followed by a second heart-lung transplant that failed, virtually no one would know that illegal aliens sometimes get even the most complex and costly treatments. In her case, a North Carolina businessman, Mack Mahoney, founded a private charity to raise money for the operations, but illegals have gotten new organs and even sex-change operations, all on the public tab.

Miss Santillan’s parents have already promised to sue the hospital over her death. However, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, in 2002, 5,542 Americans died waiting for an organ transplant, which means two American probably died because Miss Santillan got the organs they didn’t. Now that the parents are widely known to be here illegally, will the feds do their job and show them the door? [Michelle Malkin, Rolling Up the Medical Welcome Mat, WorldNetDaily.com, Feb. 21, 2003. Rob Stein, Teenage Girl in Botched Organ Transplant Dies, Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2003, p. A1.]

The contrast to the case of Ernst Zundel could not be greater. Mr. Zundel is a German citizen, married to an American. He is notorious in Canada, where he used to live, because he claims the Nazis killed far fewer than six million Jews. On Feb. 5, three INS agents and two local policemen arrested him at his house in East Tennessee. Mr. Zundel was in the United States legally, but — though the details are a little murky — he is said to have missed a hearing of some kind, and the INS says it will ban him from the United States for 20 years. For a 63-year-old man, this is close to permanent expulsion. At one point it seemed likely Mr. Zundel would be expelled to Germany, where he could face five years in prison for “inciting hatred,” something that is fortunately not yet a crime in the United States. Now, it appears he will be shipped to Canada, where he still has permanent residency rights.

With an estimated seven to thirteen million illegal aliens in the country, why is the INS expelling the legal resident spouse of an American citizen because of what appears to be a minor technicality? Although the First Amendment, for now, means we do not officially have thought crimes in this country, this kind of selective law enforcement certainly suggests our rulers believe in them in principle.

Organized Crime

Carole Joy is likely to get an organ transplant, just like Jesica Santillan. She is a convicted murderer doing time in the Nebraska pen, who destroyed her liver with alcohol and heroin. According to a 1976 US Supreme Court ruling, prisoners are eligible for transplants just like the rest of us, and Miss Joy has been conditionally approved to go on the list of 17,300 people nationwide waiting for new livers. Apparently she must lose weight and control her diabetes better in order to become the perfect candidate for the $200,000 operation. Miss Joy would not be the first yard bird to get a new organ. A 32-year old California inmate got a new heart but died last December, 11 months after the operation. In 1999, a convicted murder who had done his time got a new heart, but has since been charged with several crimes, including possession of child pornography. [Convicted Killer Still Sparks Controversy Over Transplant, AP, Feb. 22, 2003.]

African Heroes

The Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s against British rule in Kenya was one of the bloodiest uprisings against colonial rule in Africa. A Kikuyu tribesman named Dedan Kimathi led the revolt, which succeeded in killing 32 white settlers and 100 British soldiers. Kimathi and 500 followers managed to elude capture for more than a year before the British finally caught and executed him.

Kimathi had no mercy for blacks who would not join his uprising, and killed far more Africans than whites. Once his men cut in half the young son of a chief who would not join, and drank his blood. Then they threw the two halves of his body at the boy’s mother and killed her. They hacked to death hundreds of others who would not fight the British.

The Mau Mau specialized in horrible initiation rites. Recruits were made to drink human blood, semen or urine, and in some cases were ordered to eat human brains, sometimes of their own relatives. Others had to eat the flesh of murdered babies.

Mau Mau fighters were best known in the West for murdering whites, especially after they attacked a doctor who ran a clinic for Africans, and hacked her to death along with her husband and six-year-old son. Gray Leakey, great-uncle of the white Kenyan politician and conservationist Richard Leakey, was another victim. His captors buried him alive after eating some of his (unspecified) extremities. His own supporters finally had enough of Kimathi’s torture and murder of fellow Africans, and betrayed him to the British. A black African jury convicted him, and he was buried in a mass grave with other Mau Mau leaders.

The new Kenyan government of Mwai Kibaki that won power in December has announced it will exhume Kimathi’s body and give him a state funeral. It also plans to honor other Mau Mau “heroes” whom it considers freedom fighters. White Kenyans asked the British government to denounce these plans, but that was silly. “We wouldn’t take a stand one way or another,” says a British High Commission spokesman. [Adrian Blomfield, Honour for Mau Mau Leader Who Ate Victims, Telegraph (London), Feb. 13, 2003.]

Eenie, meenie, minie, dough

Two years ago, Grace Fuller and Louise Sawyer, both black, were about to fly out of Las Vegas on Southwest Airlines, when a flight attendant got on the intercom to ask passengers to sit down. “Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go,” said Jennifer Cundiff, who is white. The second line is usually “catch a tiger by the toe,” but Miss Fuller and Miss Sawyer said the rhyme was directed at them, since an older version was “catch a nigger by the toe.” They say passengers laughed — they think at them — as if blacks were too stupid to find a seat.

The women have sued for damages in the US District Court in Kansas City, where Judge Kathryn Vratil has, amazingly, granted a trial date in March. “The court agrees with plaintiffs that because of its history, the phrase ‘eenie, meenie, minie, moe’ could reasonably be viewed as objectively racist and offensive,” she wrote. Miss Cundiff, who was 22 at the time she recited the lines, says she had never heard the “nigger” version, and that she learned the rhyme from a co-worker who used it to encourage passengers to find seats, since Southwest does not have assigned seating. Besides money, the women want Southwest to promise never to use the rhyme again, and to train their employees in racial sensitivity. [Trial Set in Southwest Racist Rhyme Suit, AP, Feb. 10, 2003.]

Family Affair

Last August, a woman from Mastic, New York, showed up at the Poospatuck Indian reservation, also in Mastic, looking for crack cocaine. She had with her only a pair of stolen boxer shorts and her 15-year-old granddaughter. The woman, whose name was withheld and race not specified, found a drug dealer known as “Jo-Jo,” and asked if he would take the shorts for some crack. He said no. She asked for credit and again he said no, but said he thought the granddaughter looked “cute.” The woman agreed to rent her granddaughter out, and after getting the crack, shoved her towards Jo-Jo and told her to “give him a kiss.” Jo-Jo took her about ten yards away, and raped and sodomized her, as she screamed for help. Afterwards, her grandmother made her urinate, in the hope of washing away DNA evidence of the rape, and took her home and scrubbed her in the shower. The woman has a long history of theft and drug problems, and had just moved in with her daughter and granddaughter. She has been arrested and could face 25 years in prison. [Andrew Smith, Girl Raped in Drug Deal, New York Post, Feb. 1, 2003.]

Respecting the Natives

Australian Aborigines have their own rules for conjugal relations that white courts used to ignore but are now respecting as multiculturalism requires. For example, it is common for older Abos to pay for future delivery of young girls as soon as they are born. This practice recently came to light when Jackie Jamilmira claimed a 15-year-old girl on whom he had been making regular payments, took her home and raped her.

He was tried and sentenced for unlawful sexual intercourse, but an appeals judge said Aboriginal custom should prevail, and reduced the sentence to one day. As Mr. Jamilmira’s lawyer explained, “The behavior complained of by the white community is not recognized in this community as unlawful conduct. Rather it is viewed as appropriate and morally correct.” Aborigines do not recognize underage sex or marital rape as crimes.

Judge John Gallop agreed that Mr. Jamilmira was simply exercising conjugal rights Abos have recognized for centuries, that the girl “knew what was expected of her,” and did not need the protection of the white man’s law. The girl herself may think otherwise. She said Mr. Jamilmira beat her, and that when she tried to escape he fired a shotgun into the air. She is now in hiding. [Kathy Marks, Aborigine Insists Tribal Law Gives Right to Underage Sex, Independent (London), Feb. 22, 2003.]

Another Hoax

Nicholas and Tracey Gatlin are a black couple who used to live in a house in Timber Valley in Harris County, Texas. They set fire to the house in December to collect $120,000 in insurance money, painted insulting graffiti on the ruins, and blamed “racists.” Arson inspectors were immediately suspicious when they found the Gatlins had moved all their possessions out of the house before the fire, but included them in the insurance claim. The couple face up to life in prison if they are convicted of insurance fraud and arson. [Darren Lyn, Couple Allegedly Torch Their Home, Then Say it Was Hate Crime, ABC13 Eyewitness News (Houston, Texas), Jan. 30, 2003.]

The ‘Ugly’ Truth

AR editor Jared Taylor appeared on MSNBC’s Phil Donahue program Jan. 22 and Feb. 10, to talk about race. An old-style 1970s liberal, Mr. Donahue appeared shocked that a person like Mr. Taylor could even exist, much less articulate and defend white interests. His “anti-racist” arguments were clichés.

There were the usual attempts to ambush Mr. Taylor with “racist” quotations from American Renaissance, all but one of which Mr. Taylor defended and endorsed. The one exception was the following, which Mr. Donahue read as an example of AR’s mean-spiritedness. “Ugly Mexicans and ugly Haitians come here to live permanently, but we are supposed to be endlessly sensitive to their peculiarities . . .”

Mr. Taylor replied that he did not recall calling immigrants “ugly,” but if that was what was in AR, it must have been what he wrote. In fact, the context gives the sentence a very different meaning:

There used to be much talk about ‘ugly Americans,’ who traveled overseas expecting to find hamburgers and English-speakers, and who ignorantly deprecated the quaint customs of the natives. We were supposed to be deeply ashamed of them — and they were only tourists! ‘Ugly Mexicans’ and ‘ugly Haitians’ come here to live permanently, but we are supposed to be endlessly sensitive to their peculiarities, and revel in the diversity of toadying to their ethnic demands. (AR, June 1996.)

The quotation marks around “ugly Mexicans” and “ugly Haitians” were, of course, inaudible when Mr. Donahue read the passage, and it is hard to think this was anything other than an attempt to give a false impression. Mr. Taylor has published at least a million words, but liberals apparently have to distort them to find something shocking or unreasonable.

For the Feb. 10 appearance, Mr. Taylor was the only guest for the entire hour. Afterwards, the producers said Mr. Taylor had attracted a large number of viewers, and an unusual amount of viewer response — much of it positive. The Donahue staff was frankly surprised by the strong support for Mr. Taylor. AR itself has been swamped with enthusiastic reactions and comments. We have had a sharp rise in subscriptions, and can hardly keep up with the e-mail. The response is proof, once again, that many whites have healthy, common-sense views about race, and are only waiting for leadership.

Incorrigible liberal though he is, we were sorry to learn that MSNBC discontinued Mr. Donahue’s program on Feb. 22. Although Mr. Taylor has been on many television programs, he never before had a national audience for a full hour. This may have been only a desperate attempt to boost Mr. Donahue’s ratings and save a struggling program, but whatever the motive, it was an excellent opportunity.

Sink or Swim

Because the city of North Miami, Florida, is close to the Atlantic, its police department requires that new recruits be proficient swimmers. City Councilman Jacques Despinosse thinks this is unfair to blacks. “We can’t swim,” complains the Haitian councilman; “Most of us didn’t come here on the Mayflower; we came on slave ships,” as if that explained anything. He says the requirement also keeps black officers from other departments from joining the North Miami police. Police Chief Gwendolyn Boyd-Savage, who is also black, has no plans to change the requirement. She says most rejects fail written exams or background checks, and that the department will arrange lessons for otherwise promising recruits who cannot swim. [David Ovalle, Swimming Requirement Called Unfair, Herald (Miami), Feb. 17, 2003, p. 3B.]

Relocation Echoes

During an appearance on a Greensboro radio program on Feb. 3, Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) said he did not think it was necessary to round up Arabs in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks, but said he agreed with President Roosevelt’s Japanese relocation program. “We were at war,” he said; “Some probably were intent on doing harm to us.” He also said the camps kept Japanese away from angry Americans who might have attacked them.

Japanese and Arab activists are in a dither. Ed Nakawatase of Asian Americans United, who was born in a relocation camp, says Mr. Coble is falsifying history. The Japanese American Citizens League wants Mr. Coble to apologize, and resign as chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, terrorism, and homeland security. Tawfik Barqawi, head of the Burlington County, New Jersey, human relations committee, says Mr. Coble owes both Japanese and Arabs an apology. [Remarks by 2 NC Lawmakers Upset Arabs, Japanese, AP, Feb. 7, 2003]

Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-CA), who lived in a relocation center during the war, wants Republican leaders to condemn the remarks, and calls their silence “outrageous.” Mr. Coble’s spokesman Missy Branson says the congressman is sorry if he offended anybody, but stands fast on his original view on relocation. [Wendy Thermos, Honda Seeks GOP Action over Remarks on Internment, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16, 2003.]

Other Democrats are calling for an annual National Day of Remembrance to commemorate the victims of relocation. Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington says America needs a new holiday “because we as a nation temporarily forgot the values of liberty and succumbed to the power of fear.” [Inslee Disputes Claim that WWII Internment Was ‘A Good Idea,’ The Sun (Bremerton, Wash.), Feb. 11, 2003.]

Shortly after Mr. Coble’s remarks were first reported, AR sent his office a copy of the article on relocation that appeared in our January issue. The congressman read the article, and telephoned personally to tell us how useful he had found it.

Snipe Hunt

For more than 30 years American universities have been trying to foster “diversity,” but as a recent article in the New York Times concedes, race relations have not improved: “Decades after colleges and universities across the country began actively recruiting minority students, many campuses are more diverse than ever. But that does not mean that students connect across racial and ethnic lines.”

By the 1980s, colleges had begun to lay on deans for diversity, ethnic studies courses, and even racial and ethnic “affinity houses” where non-whites could bask in homogeneity, and take a break from whites. But still the races don’t mix, and non-whites invariably claim they are “devalued” on campus.

What to do? At Dartmouth, in New Hampshire, the answer is to spend millions of dollars trying to get students to “connect.” Freshman orientation used to mean hiking up mountains or camping on the Appalachian Trail. Now it means a series of diversity pep talks, beginning with the welcoming address by university president, James Wright. Dartmouth requires all non-teaching staff to take diversity training, and recommends it for students and faculty. According to the Times, “Training for staff members includes workshops in which they are asked to think of Dartmouth in terms of classism, racism and sexism, and then to make recommendations for improvements. They are also told to find ways to incorporate those suggestions into their own lives.” Students are subjected to lectures from non-whites who tell them all the things to which whites should be sensitive.

Even the Times recognizes all this could be a wild goose chase: “No one has a formula for success; there is not even a consensus about what success would look like. Experts say that diversity programs on college campuses amount to a constantly evolving experiment, which in some cases in the past may have done more harm than good.”

Predictably, it takes a non-white to point out just how much rubbish this all is. “Racial diversity, which has been an obsession of the administration, has been misguided,” said Chien Wen Kung, 21, a junior from Singapore. “My opinion is that Dartmouth should be focusing on intellectual diversity.” [Sara Rimer, Colleges Find Diversity Is Not Just Numbers, New York Times, Nov. 12, 2002.]

Bad Substitute

David Franklin, 21, used to be a substitute teacher at Horizons Alternative School, a special middle school for refractory children in Fort Worth, Texas. According to police, on Jan. 23, Mr. Franklin, who is black, walked into his classroom and found two boys playing with a 14-year-old girl “in a sexual manner.” Rather than stop the boys, Mr. Franklin reportedly turned off the lights and computer monitors and raped the girl, while six boys watched. Two boys also assaulted the girl. “It was so incredible, we really had to make ourselves try to believe the details,” says Fort Worth Police Sgt. Dave Stamp. “Not only did he not stop the action that was going on, he basically joined in.” Police arrested Mr. Franklin on Jan. 31, and released him on a $75,000 bond. His mother says he told her he’s innocent. The two boys will also be charged. [Teacher Accused of Raping Girl in Class, AP, Feb. 2, 2003. MSNBC.com, Teacher In Custody Accused Of School Rape, January 31, 2003.]

UNAACP

The United Nations is getting ready to recognize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as an official non-governmental agency (NGO). Once so designated the NAACP gains “consultative status” with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO), which would let it propose agenda items and make presentations at UN meetings. Under the leadership of former congressman Kweisi Mfume, the NAACP has emphasized international concerns. It monitored the recent elections in Zimbabwe, and is planning a conference on the Caribbean and the Americas later this year. Mr. Mfume recently met Fidel Castro of Cuba to promote human rights and trade. Percy Hintzen, chairman of the African American studies department at the University of California at Berkeley, says the NAACP may be shifting its focus to international affairs in order to remain “relevant.” [Deborah Kong, NAACP Aspires to Global Role, AP, Feb. 1, 2003.]

INS RIP

On March 1, 2003, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service ceased to exist. Taking its place within the new Department of Homeland security are two new federal agencies: the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, which will enforce immigration law, and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, which will issue visas and naturalize new citizens.

One man who will fortunately not be part of the new INS is Kenneth Elwood, former chief of the Philadelphia district, who retired on Jan. 3. Mr. Elwood is all too typical of the people who are supposed to be guarding our border. He began his career in the enforcement arm, but soon moved to services. “Enforcement . . . hardens you,” he says. “You begin to think they’re [illegals] all law-breakers, but most people are doing it for good reasons. Out of a half-million illegals every year, very few are here to do something bad.”

“People all over the world can look to America and see themselves,” he adds. “Somebody from every nationality, whether Somali or French or Russian, can see images of themselves in America. That’s such a great advantage for the United States.” After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Elwood opposed the government’s efforts to detain Muslims. “I pulled everybody together and said I’m not going down in history like the person who locked up all the Japanese after Pearl Harbor,” he says. Mr. Elwood thinks red tape and xenophobic politics made the old INS fail in its mission, which he believes is to bring in more workers. “The economy is the 900-pound gorilla; it’s going to get what it wants, no matter what we do.” [Thomas Ginsberg, Departing INS Chief Leery of Changes Facing Agency, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 5, 2003.]

Cable News for Blacks

Black-owned Atlanta-based Major Broadcasting Cable Network (MBC), known for televising sports at black colleges, plans to launch a 24-hour cable news network for blacks. MBC News: The Urban Voice will be modeled on CNN’s Headline News, and MBC has hired black former CNN anchor Gordon Graham as a host. The decision comes after Black Entertainment Television (BET) decided to cut back public affairs programming. Last December, BET cancelled the interview show “BET Tonight,” on which Sen. Trent Lott apologized for praising Strom Thurmond. BET also cancelled its Sunday morning news, and a program for teenagers.

BET president Debra Lee doubts an all-news cable channel for blacks will succeed. She says blacks say they like news programs, but don’t necessarily watch them. She also doubts MBC has enough money to succeed. Fewer than a quarter of American households get MBC. It is unavailable in New York, but is in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles. [David Bauder, Black News Channel in the Works, AP, Feb. 12, 2003.]

‘Call to Arms!’

Chris Simcox a former Los Angeles schoolteacher, is now editor and publisher of the Tombstone, Arizona, Tumbleweed. On a vacation in the Arizona desert after the Sept. 11 attacks, he says he came across five separate organized paramilitary groups running drugs. “These were highly organized groups,” he says; “three vehicles, with the camouflage-wearing troops escorting the vehicles on both sides in columns and carrying automatic weapons — AKs, mini-14s, the whole works.”

Mr. Simcox called the Border Patrol, only to be told that they knew all about it, but could do nothing. He also learned that the Park Service has listed the area — Organ Pipe National Monument — as the most dangerous national park because of Mexican smugglers. “That,” he explains, “was when I realized something was really wrong. We’re under attack but we leave the borders wide open. People are coming across in thousands, even as organized military units, and there’s nothing we can do about it — there’s no way of knowing if these people illegally crossing our borders are terrorists. That’s when it occurred to me that I own a paper, and I thought, ‘Wow, if the rest of the country won’t print what is going on out here, at least I can.’”

In October 2002, Mr. Simcox ran a now-famous headline: “Enough is Enough! A Public Call to Arms! Citizens Border Patrol Militia Now Forming!” When responses poured in, he established the Civil Homeland Defense, to run regular patrols: “We are merely putting bodies on the border, acting as a presence, trying to create a deterrent to those who are trying to cross the border illegally. Off the record, the U.S. Border Patrol — the guys on the ground — will tell you that they appreciate our help.” Members of the militia are not required to carry weapons, but must have a concealed carry permit, which means they have passed a background check.

2002 AR Conference speaker Glenn Spencer also runs a civilian border watch. His group, American Border Patrol, uses high-tech surveillance equipment to locate and monitor “suspected border intruders” (SBIs). He posts the information on his website, www.americanborderpatrol.com: “All any American has to do is log on to our website to see what is happening along this border in real time,” he says; “People will be amazed.” “When we find a group of SBIs we tell them this is the United States of America, they have been reported to the Border Patrol and please wait here. They usually just sit down. If they take off we do not attempt to stop them. If they run, they run.”

Americans living along the border say the region is increasingly violent. They say drug smugglers have threatened them and their families, and they will not walk their property unarmed. They want troops on the border.

Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) is the most outspoken politician backing military patrols, but his is a lonely voice. Homeland Security Secretary Thomas Ridge says “cultural and political reasons” prevent use of troops. As a result, says Rep. Tancredo, “Something very ugly is going to happen down there . . . We don’t even fight fires at night in some places down there because of the fear of the drug smugglers. It sounds unbelievable, but it is true, so the cynicism about elected officials not wanting to do anything about the illegal-alien problem is totally warranted.” [Kelly Patricia O’Meara, Civilians Patrolling the Border, Insight, Jan. 20, 2003.]

Armando Lopez Nogales, governor of the Mexican state of Sonora, wants Arizona Governor Jane Hull to put down the Citizens Border Patrol Militia, and says he will ask the US government to stop other militias from “hunting” illegal Mexicans. “We want to address respect for the rights of our countrymen,” he says. [Mexico Governor to Ask US to Stop Vigilantes ‘Hunting’ Immigrants, TheNewsMexico.com, Nov. 20, 2002.]

Madness in Malawi

We reproduce the following newspaper story verbatim and in toto:

MALAWI — Horrifying stories of vampires attacking villagers in the dead of night and sucking their blood have forced Malawi’s government to wage a massive public relations blitz to calm the public. Last week, frightened villagers beat to death a man suspected of being a vampire, attacked and nearly lynched three visiting priests and destroyed an aid group’s encampment they feared was the vampires’ headquarters. [Villagers Suddenly Afraid of Vampires, Santa Barbara News-Press, Dec. 23, 2002.]

Straw Man

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary in Tony Blair’s Labour government, says many of today’s worst international problems are Britain’s fault. “A lot of the problems that we are having to deal with now — I have to deal with now — are a consequence of our colonial past,” he says. In an interview given to New Statesman, he says that in India and Pakistan “we made some quite serious mistakes; bad story for us . . . The consequences [disputes between the two countries] are still there.” In Afghanistan, Britain “played less than a glorious role over a century and a half.” Iraq is a problem partly because “the odd lines for Iraq’s borders were drawn by Brits.” Britain’s role in bringing about the Arab-Israeli dispute was “not entirely an honorable one.” As for Zimbabwe, he says his “huge arguments” with Robert Mugabe are over democracy and good governance. Presumably killing whites and running them off the land is all right, because “when any Zimbabwean, any African, says to me land is a key issue . . . the early colonizers were all about taking land.” In reply to critics of Mr. Straw’s apologetics, Downing Street said the foreign secretary had given “a sensible statement of history.” [Anton La Guardia, Straw Blames Crises on Britain’s Colonial Past, Telegraph (London), Nov. 15, 2002.]

Cooking Up Trouble

In February, Republican students at the University of California at Los Angeles put on an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale,” to show what they think of racial preferences. The cookies were all the same, but they charged different prices according to race and sex: 25 cents for black, Hispanic, and American Indian women, 50 cents for the men, $1.00 for white women, and $2.00 for white men and all Asians. They also wore badges that said such things as “White Oppressor,” “Self-Hating Hispanic Race Traitor,” and “Uncle Tom.”

Chairman of the California Democratic Party Art Torres pronounced himself “deeply saddened and disheartened” by the bake sale, and said, idiotically, that the Republicans must have been emboldened by Sen. Trent Lott’s recent remarks about Strom Thurmond — which cost him his job. Other supporters of racial preferences screeched, too, but as Walter Williams asks in a column, “Why be offended by a money version of racial preferences?” [Walter Williams, Bake Sale of Ideas, Washington Times, March 2, 2003, p. B4.]

Biting the (White) Hand

On October 29, 200 Haitians in a rickety freighter showed up off the Miami coast, jumped into the water and swam for shore. Television cameras whirred, as authorities quickly rounded up the would-be immigrants, who were put in detention to wait asylum hearings. The Haitian Secretary of State for Communications, Mario Dupuy, says the entire incident is America’s fault. The US and other donors held up $500 million in economic aid after the government rigged legislative elections in May 2000. Mr. Dupuy says the resulting hardship has forced Haitians to take desperate steps. Needless to say, he acknowledges no misbehavior on the government’s part, calling the aid holdup “economic sanctions.”

The per capita income of Haiti is $250, which puts it on the same level as the poorer countries of Africa. Last year, the US Coast Guard intercepted 1,400 Haitians on their way to America. Many were foundering and would have drowned if Americans had not rescued them. [Michael Diebert, Haiti Blames Foreign Aid Freeze for Boat People, Reuters, Oct. 30, 2002.