Conversion disorder

Published 06 September 2007

The Fallout: How a Guilty Liberal Lost his Innocence Andrew Anthony Jonathan Cape, 320pp, £14.99

Andrew Anthony was a left-leaning Observer journalist who underwent a right-wing political conversion after 9/11. This is his tale of how he went from being a “passive, defeatist, guilt-ridden” liberal to someone who opened his eyes and saw “what was real”.

Despite the rather nauseating premise, and despite expositions on race that come close to some of the arguments made by the BNP, parts of the book are engaging. The chapter on Nicaragua, where Anthony spent time during the 1980s, is balanced and insightful. And he rightly ridicules the pomposity of those on the left in Britain who claim they are assailed by “establishment forces”.

Like most polemicists, he’s often guilty of double standards: he rejects “number crunching” when it doesn’t suit his argument, yet is heavy on statistics when it does. But this almost doesn’t matter. Whether he’d admit it or not, his book is a kind of Bildungsroman. As a young man, Anthony wore the liberal badge without questioning what it meant. As he matured, he came to realise that his views didn’t conform to the label he’d affixed. His mistake, however, is to assume that everyone else who considers themselves liberal is as shallow and blinkered in their thinking as he once was.

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3 comments from readers

zhaomafan
02 March 2008 at 06:12

what a shallow review. What is "nauseating" about his premise? And how can FItzgerald say that his positions on race come close to those of the BNP? Or is she employing an old tactic from the internecine strife of the Left, and claiiming that his positions are "objectively" close to those of the BNP, irrespective of whether he actually IS close to such positions?!

I read Anthony's book very carefully and have not detected any racism in it. These accusations are not to be made lightly - I therefore challenge Mary Fitzgerald to show where this is the case.

A superficial review of this nature doesn't really tell us anything -- and completely fails to come to grips with the issues Andrew Anthony raises and discusses.

A. Halper

London

maryftz
15 April 2008 at 14:22

Dear A. Halper,

Having been the only journalist to attend the BNP's press conference just before the last local elections, and having interviewed Nick Griffin for over an hour afterwards, I feel I can speak with some authority on this subject. Some of their positions are plainly racist, and some are not. The BNP advance a number of arguments against multiculturalism, some quite similar to mainstream conservative opinion, others considerably more extreme and distorted.

While the substance of Anthony's book does not of course echo the BNP's racist politics - and, as I have pointed out, parts of the book are indeed interesting and convincing - I did think it worthwhile to point out some of the similarities in the anti-muliticulturalism line. I was careful to say Anthony's views "come close to" rather than "are the same as" - an important distinction to make.

As for my choice of the word "nauseating"; it's a personal thing really - I always find it offputting when someone puports to lecture on "what is real", regardless of their political orientation. In my experience I've found those on the left to be as fond of using this expression as those on the right, often more so.

Yours,

Fitzgerald

AndrewAnthony
25 April 2008 at 10:31

Interesting. I was writing a foreword for the paperback version of my book and I wanted to check again on what Mary Fitzgerald had written. I knew that it was libelous the instant I first read it but as a believer in free speech and an opponent of our restrictive libel laws I left it at that. However, I note now that she is saying that her equating of my views with those of the BNP was to do with multiculturalism. In fact her review reads 'expositions on race that come close to some of the arguments made by the BNP'. That's pretty clear: race, not multiculturalism. She then says she thought it was 'worthwile to point out some of the similarities in the anti-multiculturalism line'. Well, yes perhaps it would have been if she did. But she did not (and, of course, she could not). She just said that my thoughts on race were similar to that of the BNP. What a disgrace.

As it happens, I've spent a good deal more than an hour with Nick Griffin, and I've travelled the country investigating the BNP, interviewing its members, while getting into some tricky circumstances along the way, so as to expose its ongoing racist and anti-semitic agenda. I have been a steadfast opponent of the BNP and its predecessors for 30 years. And I'd be interested to know how my thoughts on race (a concept I don't really believe in), or indeed multiculturalism, are close to those of the BNP. It's true that in my book I expressed reservations about a number of aspects of multiculturalism – faith schools, for example, and the tendency to privilege reactionary self-appointed 'community leaders' – but there are plenty of people across the political spectrum that would agree with this. I also stated that I believe in the benefits and preferability of a multiracial society (yeah, very BNP) and in a mulitculturalism that allowed for the free exchange of ideas and criticism.

No, to compare me with the BNP was nothing more than a nasty propaganda scare tactic of which Fitzgerald should be ashamed. Instead she just changes her story and slyly backs away from her obvious and, in this case, genuinely nauseating insinuation.

Andrew Anthony