FAIR organiser is a racist - praises apartheid

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Saturday March 04, 2006 22:07

by James Reilly

Wants return of “civilised white rule” to the African continent

Un-FAIR face of Love Ulster

One of the Love Ulster campaign organisers praises old South African system

Ciarán Barnes Daily Ireland March 4 2006

Jim Dixon:

“Under apartheid, the black man was better paid, they had better jobs, better everything.”

“I couldn’t care less if people call me
a racist. I couldn’t care less what they think. Apartheid meant the black man was better treated and respected."

Racist, Sectarian and Unionist - Jim Dixon joins the dots

One of the organisers of the Love Ulster campaign can be exposed today as a racist.

In an interview with Daily Ireland, Jim Dixon praised apartheid, called for an end to immigration into Ireland, and insisted on “other races having their own schools, hospitals and buses”.
In 2001, Mr Dixon stood as an independent unionist candidate in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency, in an election that was eventually won by Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew.

The Democratic Unionist Party withdrew from the poll to give Mr Dixon a better chance of victory. In the 1998 Stormont elections, Mr Dixon stood for Robert McCartney’s UK Unionist Party, narrowly missing out on winning an assembly seat.

Mr Dixon is chairman of the Ely victims’ group, which is based in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh. He was severely injured in the IRA’s 1987 Remembrance Day bombing in the market town.

Daily Ireland learned recently that Mr Dixon had been made honorary life president of the ultra-right-wing Northern Ireland Springbok Club.

The organisation wants to see the return of “civilised white rule” to the African continent.

Representatives of the Springbok Club distributed thousands of leaflets at the Love Ulster rally on west Belfast’s Shankill Road last October. Mr Dixon led the rally, which was supported by both the DUP and the Ulster Unionists.

Speaking to Daily Ireland yesterday about his role in the Springbok Club, Mr Dixon extolled the virtues of apartheid.

“Apartheid is what blacks want. It’s the same as in Northern Ireland. Catholics don’t want a united Ireland like blacks didn’t want a new South Africa. Both groups prefer to stay as they were,” he said.
“I’ll be travelling to South Africa in two weeks. I’ve travelled there extensively in the past. The black man wants segregated schools. The black man hates the white man. I can support apartheid without being a racist.

“I am not trying to do down the black man. He should have his own space to do his own things.”

Mr Dixon told Daily Ireland that black people had benefited under apartheid rule in South Africa.

“Under apartheid, the black man was better paid, they had better jobs, better everything. He was treated better than anywhere else in the world. Under apartheid, the white and black man got on well.
“Learn the history of South Africa. The black man didn’t live there. He doesn’t belong to South Africa. The country was originally inhabited by the Bushman. Blacks came to South Africa to find jobs.”

Mr Dixon also blasted immigration laws in Ireland and Britain.
“It’s wrong that blacks are coming to Northern Ireland,” he said.
“I couldn’t care less if people call me a racist. I couldn’t care less what they think. Apartheid meant the black man was better treated and respected.

“Immigration is a recipe for trouble. It shouldn’t happen anywhere. Each to their own. Other races should have their own schools, hospitals and buses.”

Mr Dixon’s racist views caused fury in his home county of Fermanagh. Local SDLP assembly member Tommy Gallagher said the public would be shocked.

“We have people of other races living in Fermanagh and they are made welcome by the vast majority of people,” said Mr Gallagher. “Some have been the victims of racism, and Mr Dixon’s remarks will only encourage those responsible for disgusting racial abuse. Under new legislation, Mr Dixon’s comments can viewed as inciting hate crime.”

Sinn Féin equality spokeswoman Caitríona Ruane also condemned Mr Dixon’s comments.

“They are outrageous, racist and completely unacceptable,” she said.

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EDITORIAL

Little tolerance in Love Ulster man

Daily Ireland March 4 2006

There has been a lot of deliberate misinformation about the nature and intent of Love Ulster, the group which announced yesterday that it intends to try again to march through Dublin. Last Saturday saw appalling acts of violence in the capital as the proposed march was called off following a riot in O’Connell Street.
We’re told by some that the group only wants to remind the people of the Irish Republic of the dreadful suffering inflicted on innocent Protestants by the IRA. Doubtless there are some people within the organisation who have a genuine desire to let the world know of what happened to their loved ones, but as our front page story today on Jim Dixon shows, the group has some very unsavoury people in senior positions.
It was bad enough that Willie Frazer refused to guarantee that a picture of loyalist mass murderer Robert McConnell – said to be responsible for the Dublin/Monagahan bombs – would not be carried at the march. It was bad enough to read of some of the utterings of Mr Frazer in the past, including his regard for Billy Wright and his belief that no loyalist paramilitary should ever have seen the inside of a prison. But the manic outpourings of Mr Dixon underscore the reality that the group contains some people with reactionary and extreme loyalist views.
Today, Dublin is a cosmopolitan and multi-racial society which is home to many thousands of people from ethnic backgrounds who supply the extra labour needed to power the country’s economic growth. Of the entry of black people into Ireland, Mr Dixon said yesterday: “It’s wrong that blacks are coming to Northern Ireland. I go along with what Enoch Powell said. I couldn’t care less if people call me a racist. I couldn’t care less what they think.” Of the disgusting apartheid regime in South Africa, Mr Dixon said: “Under apartheid the black man was better paid, they had better jobs, better everything. He was treated better than anywhere else in the world.”
If Love Ulster is serious about this second march it should require Mr Dixon to apologise for his outrageous remarks.