MSU group cancels appearance by racist British leader

EAST LANSING — British National Party leader Nick Griffin — known for his denial of the Holocaust and his advocacy of throwing all non-whites and non-Europeans out of the British Isles — has canceled several speaking engagements this week, including a scheduled appearance at Michigan State University on Thursday.

Griffin was invited to speak at MSU by a new student group called Sons of Liberty. The group’s president and founder, Jordan Zammit, issued a press release late Tuesday afternoon blaming the cancellation on “left-wing agitators” who “relentlessly threatened with violence and death the organizers of the events.”

British National Party Leader Nick Griffin, flanked by American white nationalist Preston Wigginton (in the white sweater), speaking at Michigan State University in October 2007.

Griffin was to speak at three events this week – at MSU on Thursday from noon to 1:30, then at Kenyon College in Ohio later that day, and finally this weekend at the biennial American Renaissance conference in Virginia.

The appearance at Kenyon College had already been canceled on Monday afternoon. Taylor Somers, leader of the Robert A. Taft Society at Kenyon College, announced he was rescinding the invitation to Griffin to speak because they feared violence, reports One People’s Project.

The possibility of violence, or at least unintentional injury, to Kenyon students at such an event outweighs, we feel, any contribution that could be gained from having Griffin speak. Never have we intended to incite violence or to otherwise provide an atmosphere in which it becomes at all likely. With Campus Safety’s advice in mind, and as members of the Kenyon community, we must take it upon ourselves to do the right thing and ensure no one is injured. It isn’t worth the possibility of violence or the further pain that will almost certainly be caused, so with those concerns in mind we have canceled.

It’s not clear who would be responsible for this hypothetical violence. Somers’ announcement came after he posted on his Facebook a call to others to “retaliate” against those who were opposing Griffin’s speech.

“The antifa[cists] thugs at the One People’s Project are hounding me,” Taylor Somers wrote on his Facebook recently, providing a link to the article in question. “Would anybody care to retaliate against them?”

One of Somers’ Facebook friends then responded, “Yes, let’s have some violent reaction to it. I live near D.C.” The same person then commented, “Smash the reds. White power!!!!”

When asked if there had been any threats aimed at Griffin’s appearance at MSU, Zammit told the Michigan Messenger that he had “not received death threats or threats of violence.” He also said he did not have any evidence or documentation for any such threats being aimed at the Kenyon College talk, and said only that he’d been “informed that the hotels that canceled the AmRen conference did so out of fear for their employees safety.”

That all of this talk of racism and white power involves Griffin and American Renaissance is not surprising. American Renaissance is the magazine of the New Century Foundation, a white nationalist organization founded by Jared Taylor.

This group has often been described as presenting a more genteel, academic-sounding version of old-fashioned racism. The magazine often features articles arguing for racial separatism and for the genetic inferiority of blacks. They prefer to call themselves “race realists.” Griffin has spoken to their conference before, in 2002.

Coincidentally, it was on the AmRen website that Zammit chose to announce Griffin’s speech at MSU and its cancellation, saying that the AmRen conference had to be canceled due to alleged threats against several hotels that had agreed to host the event.

“Griffin could not afford to spend time in the U.S. to only speak at MSU and at CPAC when he could otherwise spend his time campaigning for a seat in the U.K. Parliament,” Zammit wrote in his release.

But on Tuesday night, AmRen announced that the conference was back on because they had found a hotel near Capitol Hill that would host it. It’s not clear whether Griffin will still be appearing at the event.

Griffin’s appearance at MSU, however, remains canceled. “Mr. Griffin will not be making his way to MSU if he does come to the States,” Zammit said.

This would not have been Griffin’s first appearance the East Lansing campus. He spoke in October 2007, when his appearance was greeted with protests and turned in to a tense argument between Griffin and his audience.

“Muslims gang rape women in Norway and other cultures. Only Muslims do this,” he told the crowd. He spoke out against race mixing, saying, “We don’t believe in integration. Integration is extermination.”

During his Q and A with the audience, Griffin called protesters stupid, accused them of being bused in from Detroit, and of being lesbians. He also told protesters he would “shove” homosexuals back in the closet and “kill them.”

And while there was a cantankerous give and take between Griffin and the audience in October of 2007, there was no violence or arrests during the event. Following the event, however, several members of YAF were chased into a nearby parking ramp by protesters. No charges were ever filed over the incident.

For his part, Zammit stated several times in emails exchanged with the Michigan Messenger that he does not share Griffin’s views on race.

“My motivation for hosting Mr. Griffin was that I was presented with the opportunity, and although I do not agree with his views, I believe he has the right to speak, and therefore, since he was already coming to the United States, I believed it would be beneficial to the University if he came here,” Zammit said. “Again, I reiterate, I do not agree with Mr. Griffin’s views or his party, but I was very much looking forward to hearing him speak and his views on things. No harm could ever come from listening.”