Letters

24 April 2010

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Delingpole’s victims

Sir: In his most recent column (You know it makes sense, 17 April), James Delingpole suggests that ‘even as the wall is pushed on top of’ me by anti-gay Islamists, I ‘will be squealing with [my] last breath that it’s all the fault of Western imperialism and white heterosexist Islamophobia.’ I found this slightly odd, since I am so critical of Islamic fundamentalists that I have received a substantial number of death threats from them. I worked undercover at the Finsbury Park mosque after 9/11 to expose Islamists; I have debunked Hizb ut Tahrir as a bunch of theocratic fascists on live television; and after I wrote an article criticising the ‘Prophet’ Mohammed for having sex with a pre-pubescent girl when he was 53 years old, there was a three-day riot by over 3,000 people in Calcutta calling for me to be imprisoned or killed.

At no point did I blame ‘Islamophobia’ for this lunatic behaviour. On the contrary: I was highly critical of the people who put this case. Out of interest, what risks has James Delingpole ever taken to oppose Islamic fundamentalism?

Johann Hari
London E1

Sir: I agree with almost every word of James Delingpole’s very amusing article on gays and victimhood. Just two little points. First, although gay victimhood is indeed largely ‘over’ in the UK, the Conservative party resisted liberation. It was Labour that gave protection from prosecution for homosexuality in 1967 (England and Wales only), and Labour that fully decriminalised homosexuality in 2003. The Tories opposed gay partnership, and gave us Clause 28. Spectator readers admire the Conservatives as the party that believes the government should not stick its nose into our private lives unnecessarily; gay people know better.

Second, his comparison of Jews with gays is misleading. After centuries of sporadically horrible oppression, Jews can now live freely in dozens of countries, and even have a country of their own to live in if they choose; but, after centuries of equally horrible oppression, only a handful of countries give gays exactly the same rights as their heterosexual fellow citizens. The UK and Channel Islands, to their shame, are not among them.

David Jones
Amsterdam

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