Damning claims by his accusers – and what he really said
SIR Roger Scruton’s alleged remarks were initially recorded by the New Statesman. But a leaked taped recording of the interview was published in The Spectator, which said his comments had been manipulated and taken out of context.
‘RACISM’
New Statesman: ‘They’re creating robots out of their own people... each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing.’ Spectator: ‘There are difficulties around the corner that we are ignoring, like the rise of China. There is something quite frightening about the Chinese sort of mass politics and the regimentation of the ordinary being. We invent robots and they are in a sense creating robots out of their own people, by so constraining what can be done, that each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that’s a very frightening thing.’
Sir Roger also decried the Chinese government’s alleged use of ‘ concentration camps’ to detain and ‘reeducate’ Uighur Muslims.
‘ANTI-SEMITISM’
New Statesman: ‘Anybody who doesn’t think that there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts’ (a reference to Hungarianborn Jewish philanthropist George Soros, condemned as an antiSemitic trope). Spectator: ‘Anybody who doesn’t think that there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts. It’s not necessarily an empire of Jews – I mean that’s such nonsense... If you had a political movement in Hungary which excluded the Jews in some way you’d be damn foolish, because they are the ones with the minds.’
‘ISLAMOPHOBIA’
New Statesman: ‘The Hungarians were extremely alarmed by the sudden invasion of huge tribes of Muslims from the Middle East.’ Sir Roger was quoted as saying it was ‘nonsense’ to accuse Hungarian leader Viktor Orban of antiSemitism or Islamophobia, and to have said Islamophobia was a propaganda word ‘invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to stop discussion of a major issue’. Spectator: ‘I think power has gone to his [Orban’s] head. He’s made some decisions which are very popular with the Hungarian people. Because the Hungarians were extremely alarmed by this sudden invasion of, um, huge tribes of Muslims from the Middle East. And you have to remember that their history of their relation with Islam is not a happy one...
‘Muslims who settle into the Meccan way of life are obviously perfect citizens. They have the inner serenity that the citizen should have. We ought to learn to appreciate that – and encourage it.’