Posted on 01/13/2007 2:39:40 PM PST by Pharmboy
In this file photo Simone Clarke (L) adjusts her ballet
shoe ribbons as she stands beside a guard before at
Buckingham Palace in London, December 14, 2004.
Protestors staged a noisy protest on Friday outside a
London theater where Clarke is performing. The English
National Ballet's principal dancer was named
in a newspaper last month as a member of the
British National Party (BNP), a minority anti-
immigration party. (Ben Gurr/The Times/Pool/Reuters)
Around 50 protesters shouting the slogan "Ballet not bigotry!" staged a noisy protest on Friday outside a London theater where a ballerina and member of a far-right British political party was performing.
The demonstration outside the Coliseum threatened to upset the genteel world of pirouettes and arabesques as Simone Clarke prepared to play the lead in the romantic classic "Giselle."
The performance itself was briefly interrupted by a handful of protesters in the audience, but they were quickly bundled out of the auditorium and the show continued.
The English National Ballet's principal dancer was named in a newspaper last month as a member of the British National Party (BNP), a minority anti-immigration party.
Campaign group Unite Against Fascism called for Clarke, 36, to stand down, saying she has been used to "promote and prettify extreme right-wing politics."
"There is no place for fascist ideas in the arts," said Donna Guthrie, 36, a campaigner for the group. "We're calling on her to resign from the party or leave the company."
Thirty police lined the street outside the theater as ballet-goers arrived for the afternoon show. Most patrons expressed support for Clarke, calling the protest undemocratic.
"They talk about their freedom, but what about ours?," said secretary June Mitchell, 58. "She shouldn't stand down because of her political beliefs."
But one patron returned her 20 pound ($39) ticket to the box office in protest at Clarke's membership of the party.
"I couldn't go in there and clap and enjoy the performance, knowing that she is a member of a fascist organization," said Judy Chan, 62. "I'd rather lose the money."
With the approach of curtain-up, protesters drifted away, leaving fewer than 20 outside.
NO REGRETS
Clarke has refused to back down.
"I will be known as the BNP ballerina. I think that will stick with me for life," she told the Mail on Sunday newspaper. "I would rather it wasn't like that but I don't regret anything. I will stay a member.
"I have been labeled a racist and a fascist because I have a view on immigration -- and I mean mass immigration -- but isn't that something that a lot of people worry about?"
She said her partner Yat Sen-Chang, a dancer with Chinese-Cuban roots, had urged her to join the party. Clarke could not immediately be reached for comment.
Immigration has become one of Britain's key political issues, with mainstream parties pledging to tighten the borders. Political opponents say the BNP is racist. Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron has said its members "thrive on hate."
BNP member Richard Barnbrook was outside the theater, where he was greeted with shouts of "racist dog" and "Nazi scum."
"There's no reason why she should be ousted," he said. "She supports a legitimate political party."
The English National Ballet said it "fully supports the democratic right of people to mount a legal protest."
"Any personal view expressed by one of our employees should not be considered as endorsed by the company," it said.
(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White)
LOL! You are likely correct...
It's the British Klan.
F'em.
Why does freedom of speech only apply to the speaker and not to those with opposing points of view?
Considering this is Rueters, this "anti-immigration" view is no more than what most of us Freepers feel: secure borders with legal immigration. It's good to see there are still some in the Arts(high-culture, at least) who haven't gone off the deep end.
"There is no place for fascist ideas in the arts," said Donna Guthrie, 36, a campaigner for the group. "We're calling on her to resign from the party or leave the company."
I read their site and found nothing objectionable. No white superiority stuff--just their right to maintain their heritage. Sounds fine to me (and I am not an Anglican).
I think the irony of her statement might be lost on Ms. Guthrie...
That's how it should read.
So they hide their actual program behind a media friendly front.
Just think where David Duke would be had he done the same.
Oh, wait. He did.
The BNP is just Aryan Nations, with a cup of tea.
Source?
Now, if she starts shreiking "No more!" when she assumes the arabesque, I'm with you, she's outta there....
Well, if it is, then I sure want no part of it, but the Aryan Nations site is no where near as benign. And, even in the Reuters article (certainly no right wing source), they only speak of it in terms of immigration.
The NAACP, La Raza, and CAIR must be racist, becuase any organization for white Western culture is racist, too.
You cannot get two paragraphs into the AN site without "jew" this and "ZOG" that.
As the Geico caveman says: "Do some research next time."
Pharmboy's recon, coupled with a knowledge of the history of the leadership of the BNP, which was founded by one John Tyndall.
What is the BNP? I don't like anti-immigration folks here in the US, because they're mostly anti-Catholic and anti-Hispanic (although Latin Americans share Western values and make good immigrants unless the Dems get hold of them first and turn them into aggrieved leftists). I am very opposed to accepting any more Muslim immigrants here, however, because they have no intention of adapting to American society.
Is this just a group that feels anybody who comes to England should adopt English values (a good idea, IMHO, except that the English seemed to have abandoned their values for Socialism), or are they racists? I don't know, I have seen the initials in posts from GB, but I haven't really followed it.
Here are their points of view from their site:
IMMIGRATION - time to say ENOUGH!
On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years. To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question. We will abolish the 'positive discrimination' schemes that have made white Britons second-class citizens. We will also clamp down on the flood of 'asylum seekers', all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries.
EUROPE - back to British independence!
We are opposed to the Single European Currency, and support the overwhelming majority of the British people in their desire to keep the Pound and our traditional weights and measures. At the same time, we are for the best possible relationship with our European neighbours and believe that the nations of Europe should be free to trade and cooperate whenever it is mutually beneficial, though without being forced into a political and economic straitjacket - political unification. Accordingly, we stand for British withdrawal from the European Union. In place of the EU, we intend to aim towards greater national self-sufficiency, and to work to restore Britain's family and trading ties with Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and to trade with the rest of the world as it suits us. Following our withdrawal from the EU, the BNP will use the £43 million per day net contribution Britain at present makes to the European Union to fund many far more useful projects at home.
LAW AND ORDER - crack down on crime!
The BNP will crack down on crime and restore public safety and confidence. We will free the police and courts from the politically correct straitjacket that is stopping them from doing their job properly. The liberal fixation with the 'rights' of criminals must be replaced by concern for the rights of victims, and the right of innocent people not to become victims. We support the re-introduction of corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals, and the restoration of capital punishment for paedophiles, terrorists and murderers as an option for judges in cases where their guilt is proven beyond dispute, as by DNA evidence or being caught red-handed.
ECONOMY - British workers first!
Globalisation, with its export of jobs to the Third World, is bringing ruin and unemployment to British industries and the communities that depend on them. Accordingly, the BNP calls for the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports. We will ensure that our manufactured goods are, wherever possible, produced in British factories, employing British workers. When this is done, unemployment in this country will be brought to an end, and secure, well-paid employment will flourish, at last getting our people back to work and ending the waste and injustice of having more than 4 million people in a hidden army of the unemployed concealed by Labour's statistical fiddles. We further believe that British industry, commerce, land and other economic and natural assets belong in the final analysis to the British nation and people. To that end we will restore our economy and land to British ownership. We also call for preference in the job market to be given to native Britons. We will take active steps to break up the socially, economically and politically damaging monopolies now being established by the supermarket giants. Finally we will seek to give British workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises whose profits their labour creates by encouraging worker shareholder and co-operative schemes.
EDUCATION - discipline, standards, achievement!
We are against the 'trendy' teaching methods that have made Britain one of the most poorly educated nations in Europe. We will end the practice of politically correct indoctrination in all its guises and we will restore discipline in the classroom, give authority back to teachers and put far greater emphasis on training young people in the industrial and technological skills necessary in the modern world. We will also seek to instill in our young people knowledge of and pride in the history, cultures and heritage of the native peoples of Britain.
AGRICULTURE - quality before quantity!
We see a strong, healthy agriculture sector as vital to the country. Britain's farming industry will be encouraged to produce a much greater part of the nation's need in food products. Priority will be switched from quantity to quality, as we move from competing in a global economy to maximum self-sufficiency for Britain. We will ensure a major shift to healthier and more sustainable organic farming. We are pledged to ensure the restoration of Britain's once great fishing industry with the reimposition of the former exclusion zones around our coast.
HEALTH - first-class healthcare for all!
We are wholly committed to a free, fully funded National Health Service for all British citizens. We will revitalise the Health Service by boosting staff and bed numbers, slashing unnecessary bureaucracy and by addressing the root cause of low recruitment and retention - low pay. We will see to it that no money is given in foreign aid while our own hospitals are short of beds and the staff to run them. More emphasis must be placed on healthy living with greater understanding of sickness prevention through physical exercise, a healthier environment and improved diets.
TRANSPORT - time to invest!
Increased investment is needed in Britain's public transport system to bring it up to the highest standards in the world. The fiasco of rail privatisation with different companies running services and track leading to higher fares and lower safety also needs to be resolved. Congestion of our towns and cities must be eased by the provision of greater incentives to use rail and bus transport instead of private cars. The first step is to end the crime and squalor that puts so many people off public transport. Motorists must not be made the scapegoats for government failure. Fuel tax should be cut, motorway speed limits raised, and hidden speed cameras should be banned. Far more must be done to encourage the development and use of cleaner fuels.
ENVIRONMENT - a cleaner, greener future!
Our ideal for Britain is that of a clean, beautiful country, free of pollution in all its forms. We will enforce standards to curb those practices, whether by business or the individual, which cause environmental damage. "The polluter pays to clean up the mess" must become a fact of life, not an electioneering slogan. In towns we would work to replace the brutalist modernism of 1960s-style-architecture with a blend of traditional local styles and materials and ensure that developments take place on a more human scale.
FOREIGN AID - time to spend our money on our own people!
We reject the idea that Britain must forever be obliged to subsidise the incompetence and corruption of Third World states by supplying them with financial aid. We will link foreign aid with our voluntary resettlement policy, whereby those nations taking significant numbers of people back to their homelands will need cash to help absorb those returning. The billions of pounds saved every year by this policy will also be reallocated to vital services in Britain.
PENSIONERS - pensioners before asylum seekers!
The conditions in which many of Britain's old people are forced to live are a national disgrace. We are pledged to ensure that all our old folk are able to live in comfortable homes, and will restore the earnings link with pensions. Elderly people who have paid a lifetime of taxes and reared families should not have to sell their homes to pay for care.
NORTHERN IRELAND - an end to sectarianism!
Britain has shamefully allowed the terrorists in N.I. to come close to winning when the IRA could have been destroyed years ago. Government weakness has led to hundreds of deaths and given those same terrorists a share in government. We would end all attempts to force the people of Northern Ireland to accept foreign interference in their affairs and deal with terrorism - from whatever side - once and for all. No one with links to a terrorist organisation that refuses to lay down its arms should be allowed to enter government. We would abolish state-supported segregation in education. In the long run, we wish to end the conflict in Ireland by welcoming Eire as well as Ulster as equal partners in a federation of the nations of the British Isles.
DEFENCE - no more cuts!
Successive cuts in defence spending have left Britain's armed forces perilously weak. We will boost Britain's armed forces to ensure that they are able to deal with any emergency, and defend our homeland and our independence. We will bring our troops back from Germany and withdraw from NATO, since recent political developments make both commitments obsolete. We will close all foreign military bases on British soil, and refuse to risk British lives in meddling 'peace-keeping' missions in parts of the world where no British interests are at stake - a position of armed neutrality. We will also restore national service for our young with the option of civil or military service.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Britain's interests first!
Britain's foreign relations should be determined by the protection of our own national interest and not by our like or dislike of other nations' internal politics. We would have no quarrel with any nation that does not threaten British interests. We will maintain an independent foreign policy of our own, and not a spineless subservience to the USA, the 'international community', or any other country.
DEMOCRACY - letting the people decide!
The British people invented modern Parliamentary democracy. Yet in recent years the British people have been denied their democratic rights. On issue after issue, the views of the majority of British people have been ignored and overridden by a Politically Correct 'élite' which thinks it knows best. On immigration, on Capital Punishment, on the surrender of British sovereignty to the EU and in numerous other areas, democracy has been absent as Labour, Tories and Lib-Dems conspire in election after election to offer the British people no real choice on such vital issues. The BNP exists to give the British people, that choice, and thus to restore and defend the basic democratic rights we have all been denied. We favour more democracy, not less, not just at national but at regional and local level. Power should be devolved to the lowest level possible so that local communities can make decisions which affect them. We will remove legal curbs on freedom of speech imposed by successive Governments over the last 40 years. We will implement a Bill of Rights guaranteeing fundamental freedoms to the British people. We will ensure that ordinary British people have real democratic power over their own lives and that Government, local and national, is truly accountable to the people who elect it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.