As many of you will now be aware, the novelist Alice Walker has endorsed David Icke in an interview with The New York Times. As part of the interview she was asked what books she had by her bedside. These were Somaly Mam’s The Road of Lost Innocence, Daniel Black’s Perfect Peace, Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou, and conspiracy theorist David Icke’s And the Truth Shall Set You Free. Her choice of the latter has caused approbation due to Icke’s association with antisemitism. I’ll come back to that but before I do I want to make clear what she said and what the response has been. In her words,

In Icke’s books there is the whole of existence, on this planet and several others, to think about. A curious person’s dream come true.

Alice Walker: By the Book

The Guardian responded with a story headlined, ‘Alice Walker under fire for praise of ‘antisemitic’ David Icke book‘; The Jewish Chronicle, used the headline ‘Acclaimed author Alice Walker recommends book by notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke’ with the byline

The Color Purple author Ms Walker called the book by Mr Icke, who promotes antisemitism, ‘a curious person’s dream come true’

Acclaimed author Alice Walker recommends book by notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke

The Washington Post weighed in with ‘New York Times assailed for Alice Walker interview endorsing ‘anti-Semitic’ conspiracy theorist‘; The Tablet with ‘The New York Times Just Published an Unqualified Recommendation for an Insanely Anti-Semitic Book‘; The Huffington Post with ‘NYT Criticized For Allowing An ‘Unqualified Endorsement’ Of Anti-Semitic Book‘; and so on.

Just in case anyone missed it, Alice Walker is a very highly regarded author who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 for her bestselling novel, The Color Purple and has gone on to publish further bestsellers and win more awards and plaudits (American Humanist Association named her as “Humanist of the Year” (1997); Lillian Smith Award from the National Endowment for the Arts; Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters; Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, the Merrill Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship; Domestic Human Rights Award from Global Exchange (2007); The LennonOno Grant for Peace (2010) among others). She’s a big deal.

But what of David Icke? Conspiracy theorist, yes. Anti-Semite? Well, the jury’s been out and returned with a conclusive ‘Yes’ verdict. If he is not then he treads many paths that are well-worn by certified anti-Semites. He is, nonetheless, careful in attempting to deflect criticisms and this is evident in the book that Alice Walker recommends, …and the truth shall set you free.

He directly refers to Jewish beliefs, to the Jewish community and to Jewish individuals. Only a few pages into the book he makes reference to the plural use of Yhwh as part of his evidence that the God of the ‘people of the book’ was extraterrestrial in origin. The ‘God as ancient astronaut’ trope has been doing the rounds for generations within circles drawing on what Michael Barkun calls ‘stigmatized knowledge‘. He goes on to weave a tale of secret knowledge withheld from humanity by a mystery cult he refers to as ‘the Brotherhood’. This is composed of an elite composed of Jews, among others, and it ‘generates and feeds upon negative energy’ (p.8). Having discussed what he describes as ‘the Rothschild infleunce’ (p.38-42) he attempts to defuse ant accusations of antisemitism:

I stress here that to highlight the part played by the Rothschilds is not to cast aspersions on Jewish people as a whole, the vast majority of whom have no idea what is happening and certainly would not support it if they did know. Many of the members of families I will name, like the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and others, do not know the game plan, either. It is those who control those empires that I am seeking to expose, not everyone whose name is Rothschild, Rockefeller, or whatever. I believe that researchers over the years who have blamed the entire conspiracy on the Jewish people as a whole are seriously misguided; similarly, for Jewish organisations to deny that any Jewish person is working for the New World Order conspiracy is equally naive and allowing dogma or worse to blind them to reality.

David Icke, …and the truth shall set you free. (USA, Bridge of Love: 2004), 48

He goes on to cite Rabbi Marvin Antelmann who claimed that an inner clique of Marxist Jews was hellbent on destroying Judaism from within – yes, another conspiracy theorist. Antelmann made the news in the early 1980s for a mass excommunication of left-leaning Jews. The Washington Post’s contemporary report gives some indication of how seriously Antelmann was taken, ‘The mainstream Jewish community reacted with laughter.’ Icke maintains this line and seeks to separate the conspiratorial Rothschilds from the Jewish community who he aligns with everyone’s free floating conspiracy signifier, the Illuminati.

So, anti-Semite? On the evidence thus far he falls short enough of the line to allow fans who would prefer to believe otherwise to hold on to the belief that he’s not peddling anti-Semitic ideas. But, on the other hand, he’s damned close to it and the Rothschild/Illuminati conspiracies he discusses are certainly repeated and feed into fully-fledged anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. However, he continues, relaying details of secret Illuminati plans uncovered when an Illuminati courier was struck by lightening at some point in the 1780s. These, Icke declares, ‘These revealed the plans for world revolution and the New World Order and they had a remarkable resemblance to the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion,’ to which he cryptically adds, ‘of which more shortly.’ (Icke 2004, 49-50).

As most people reading this will be aware, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a notorious forgery that is claimed to be a document providing evidence of a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. It is, of course, hogwash. They were first published, in Russia, in the right-wing newspaper Znamya in 1903 (In the same year, the publisher of Znamya, Pavel Kusheven stirred up anti-Jewish feeling that resulted in the Kishinev Pogrom.) In 1920 The Protocols were translated into German and English and published in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.A. In America, Henry Ford published the newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, as a vehicle for anti-Semitic articles inspired by The Protocols and went on to publish The Protocols under the title ‘The International Jew: The World’s Problem’ in the pages of The Dearborn Independent. It is also at this time that The Protocols were first exposed as a hoax – by Philip Graves in The Times (16,17, & 18 August 1921). The Times had treated them as a genuine text the previous year. Nonetheless, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion continued to be a treated as a genuine document throughout Europe. This is how Adolf Hitler referred to them in Mein Kampf,

To what an extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. What many Jews may do unconsciously is here consciously exposed. And that is what matters. It is completely indifferent from what Jewish brain these disclosures originate; the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims. The best criticism applied to them, however, is reality. Anyone who examines the historical development of the last hundred years from the standpoint of this book will at once understand the screaming of the Jewish press. For once this book has become the common property of a people, the Jewish menace may be considered as broken.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. See https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/excerpts-from-mein-kampf

The Protocols have, for more than a century, been explicitly linked with the most virulent and hate-filled antisemitism. So, in the following extract from …and the truth shall set you free, Icke’s claims strike a hollow note and, in the most charitable reading possible are disingenuous but, ultimately, should be treated as straightforward mendacity.

In the very late 1800s, a controversial document came to light called the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion. I call them the Illuminati Protocols and I quote many extracts from them in The Robots’ Rebellion. Some say they were a forgery made public only to discredit Jews,and I use the term Illuminati Protocols’ to get away from the Jewish emphasis. If they were a forgery, something that is quite possible, what were they a forgery of, and by whom? The authors of the best-selling book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, conclude that the original Protocols were indeed authentic. They suggest that they were the work of an elite group called The Priory of Sion, the inner, controlling, core of the Knights Templars. They believe that this original document was changed to make it appear as a Jewish plot. I certainly would not dismiss such a conclusion. It is the manipulation they describe that interests me, not who has been blamed for it. I believe their origin lies with the Illuminati, as does Rabbi Antelman.

David Icke, …and the truth shall set you free. (USA, Bridge of Love: 2004), 51-52

Turning again for support to his Trojan horse, ‘reds under the beds’ conspiracy theorist, Rabbi Antelman, Icke attempts, once again, to deflect accusations of antisemitism. But it is no longer ambiguous. The Protocols have been used as part of the justification for one of the most obscene acts in human history, the Holocaust, by its chief architect. The Protocols are forever stained by this loss of life and their continued use in anti-Semitic propaganda only deepens this association. For Icke, a self-described ‘researcher’, to continue to use them ‘neutrally’ only serves to reveal the perniciousness of his claims. He may attempt to neutralise them but only muddies the waters in the interchangeability of the terms ‘Jews’ and ‘Illuminati’ in his book. This is gateway conspiracy theory. Superficially couched in New Age positive energies and a desire to ‘reveal the truth’ about the – very real – inequities in this world, he pulls a bait and switch and opens up a portal to a world of hate and genocide by placing The Protocols at the heart of his ‘evidence’.

So, what’s Alice Walker playing at? Well, this is not the first she’s drawn fire for her support of Icke. After a similar incident in 2013, she posted a clarification on her website in which she makes clear that she stands with Icke,

Recently I’ve taken a few knocks for my liking of David Icke. Well, I can’t help liking him, he’s got cojones for days. Seen many of those lately not backed up by missiles and tanks? Actually and happily, yes, as more silenced people speak and folks on their knees rise, but he’s still special. Anyway, last night it occurred to me what it is I like and I wanted to put it in one sentence: David Icke’s work is a feast for the imagination. [Emphasis in original]

http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2013/07/david-icke-we-are-change/

It’s an illusory feast, promising milk and honey for all but poisoned by the sustained use – and signposts to – some of the most dangerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in circulation. There is no excuse and Alice Walker has made clear where she stands. We need to be ever more vigilant for the way in which gateway conspiracy theorists like Icke use ambiguously ‘neutral’ readings of long-established anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to further circulate their deadly fictions.

Yes. We live in increasingly uncertain times in which conspiracy theories have become less concerned with questioning the extent to which centralised power can manipulate accounts of its interventions and are more likely to give succour to extremists. Anti-Semitism has become rife on both the political right and left and is supported by nonsensical canards like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in one of its many guises. Similar fictions circulate regarding other persecuted communities. The opportunity for rational discussion of any topic of current concern becomes undermined by the blurring  of the terms of discussion by ‘alternate facts’, ‘fake news’ and conspiracy theories.

The world is increasingly complex. Within a generation digital technologies have transformed what we know of ourselves both individually and as nations, societies, economies and cultures. I wrote the following elsewhere whilst discussing the use of memes in conspiracy cultures on 4chan:

This is a bleak and frightened response to a world of change: a retreat from and surrender to the complexity of the kind of subjective becoming that digital global capital demands of us. The alt-right have intuited the end of existing order and have used tactics of confusion and irrationality to build a wall made of conspiracy, paranoia, magic and memes around themselves. – https://randomforest.site/dissecting-pepe/

Initially, I set this WordPress site up to host a call for papers for a conference and edited collection I’m organising/editing but it makes sense to me to use this site for more than that. The purpose for this blog, then, is to undo these tendencies and expose the nature of the conspiracy theories that circulate in these times.