Wednesday, November 23, 2011

St Andrews University probes Tory student group burning effigy of President Obama on a beach, reminds me of the KKK and the burning of black people
















Dear All

The Scottish Tories are in trouble, but then when are they not?

The latest piece of PR implosion is Tory Students at the University of St Andrews burning an effigy of Barack Obama.

Because racism is a serious issue in Britain, this may have not been the wise choice, where as it would not been news to burn an effigy of a white politician burning Obama is.

This smacks of KKK and white power in the minds of ordinary working class people.

If they had burnt Ed Miliband then again because he is Jewish that also would have been problem also but I understand they have already done that in the past.

It appears that Scottish Tory students at St Andrews have a annual Heretic Burning event where they pick someone and get a bonfire going and stick the effigy of that person on top.

The university said there were “very understandable concerns” of burning an effigy of America’s first black president.

It’s all about reputation; if it was an ordinary working class person who had risen up in society then the Professors probably wouldn’t have batted an eye lid.

Senior staff at the institution have asked to meet the president of the association, Matthew Marshall, to discuss the incident, he has already apologised and the university will be keen bury this issue quickly.

Sam Fowles, director of student representation of the Student Association, described it as “puerile behaviour” and added:

“I don’t believe this was a racist act. However, I don’t believe that makes it any less disgusting, regardless of what group it comes from.”

How Mr. Fowles has been able to come to the conclusion this wasn’t a racist act without the benefit of investigation shows how subjective opinion is replacing facts in British society.

I suspect his argument could be that white people have been burnt in the past on top of the bonfire.

Labour Chief Whip and MSP John Park, branded the effigy burning as “gravely offensive” with “unpleasant undertones”.

Park is an opportunist and part of the disastrous team who led Labour to defeat at the Holyrood 2011 election, not one of life’s great thinkers or orators.

In fact not great at anything!

Tory chief Matthew Marshall said:

“President Obama is an important ally to the British Government. It was a stupid thing to do and we apologise for any offence caused.”
He added the association’s annual tradition aims to pick a candidate who has contributed the most to left-wing politics and previous targets have included Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and Alex Salmond.

A website message posted by Mr Marshall after the burning explained:

“Due to the poor performance of left-wing Labour candidates in the UK … the committee voted to adopt President Obama, as there is obviously no debate that he is an influential figure on the world stage, not least of all due to his performance in handling the recent financial crisis. On a personal note, as we were leaving there was a group of thuggish characters shouting abuse at us, amongst other derogatory terms this included ‘gays’ and ‘racists’.

Adding:

“Race is only an issue when people make it an issue. As Conservatives we welcome people of all backgrounds indiscriminately.”

And presumably they also are candidates for burning too.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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