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maxonline1971

Listed below are comments made by maxonline1971 between Saturday, 13th June 2009 and Saturday, 13th June 2009.

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'My neighbour is an enthusiastic campaigner for the BNP...' 07:33am on 13 Jun 2009 This interview, suprisingly, made me feel far more sympathetic to Alan than I thought possible, as a liberal leaning voter. Tom's self righteous hectoring tone and patronising, condescending attitude would drive any listener into the arms of the extremist parties.

Whilst I feel the work that anti-facist or anti-racist campaigners do is admirable, I have a deep suspicion of any movement whose whole 'raison d'etre'is to be 'anti...' this or that. This view was confirmed by Tom failing to address any of Alan's concerns that he raised, and was clearly unable to see the world from Alan's perspective. Tom could only rant about racism instead of taking the opportunity to reach out to a neighbour, and dismantle the BNP's argument clearly and logically.

Here was a man from an older generation, working class and a long time resident of the area. He has obviously seen changes in his lifetime, many of which he is not happy about. And he feels that the BNP provides the answers to his problems. Alan raised the issue of the poor treatment of the elderly by the NHS. Here was a point begging to be made, that should the BNP have their way with forced repatriation, half our educated, talented and hard working doctors and nurses would be forced to leave the country, leaving the Service in disarray.

Sadly, it will only entrench the position of the BNP's supporters if they are faced with this kind of debate. The egg throwing, car vandalising and apopletic, incoherent response to the BNP's continued existence will make them feel victimised, martyred, and convinced of their own rightness.

Instead we need to reach out to all kinds of people, people who are different from us, people who have different politics to us, and show by example, by being friendly, by being welcoming, that diversity begins at home. It begins with good neigbourliness, not ostracizing those in the street who have differing views to us. Only in this way will we combat bigotry and hatred, with a bit of peace and understanding.

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