GALLOWAY: ‘THEY ARE STUPID, IGNORANT AND OFFENSIVE. BUT NOT RACIST’
George Galloway says bullying in the Celebrity Big Brother house of Shilpa Shetty is not born out of racism, but out of ignorance, stupidity and jealousy of her fellow housemates. Speaking to Adrian Durham on Drive Time, Galloway said: “I would not myself say that it is primarily a racial dispute that is now running between these ‘three witches’ as they have been called and the ‘princess,’ Shilpa. I think it’s more of a class thing than a race thing. I have the dubious benefit of having watched far too many hours of Celebrity Big Brother this year, and like everybody else I am appalled but not surprised at some of the ignorance and some of the boorishness from some of the participants. I think they hate this woman because she is beautiful, because she’s classy, because she’s haughty, because she speaks English better than they do. If you were to provide translation for any of the people in the house it wouldn’t be for Shilpa, the Indian person, it would be for several of the British participants and I think that people have reacted in too knee-jerk a way and I think that a lot of these complaints are therefore misplaced.
“The comment from Jo[O’Meara] that the Indians are thin because they undercook their food and they are always sick, is a monumentally stupid, ignorant and offensive comment. But whilst I cannot climb inside Jo’s head I doubt it stemmed from a BNP mindset. The statement from Danielle [Lloyd], who by the way makes Chantelle look like Simone De Beauvoir, that ‘is it Indians that eat with their hands or is it the Chinese?’ is from a woman who has obviously never seen a pair of chopsticks and never eaten a Big Mac with her hands after a night in the boozer. That too emanated from stupidity, from sheer ignorance and the bigger problem for us is that there appears to be a lot of young people in our country who are so ill-educated that they genuinely think these kinds of things. But then again, I really don’t think that it stemmed from a sense of racism. I think that it stemmed from stupidity and dislike. There is no doubt that these girls really hate Shilpa. But it’s my take that it’s really much more to do with class and behaviour than to do with race.”
Asked by Durham if he thought ignorance was an excuse for racism, Galloway said: “It’s not an excuse. But it shouldn’t be confused for racism. For example, Jermaine Jackson is more black than Shilpa. But there is none of this hatred being directed towards him. Not a single comment about race has been directed his way. Additionally, he’s a Muslim who has been praying five times a day. But there’s not been a single remark about that from any of these three fools and there would be if there was a generalised problem of racism amongst the participants.”
Asked by Durham what he would have done he if were in the house, Galloway said: “I would have intervened at a much earlier stage. I think that the men in the show have been less than manly. They ought to have stood up to this petty minded hatred much earlier. Ian ‘H’ Watkins for example, has been regularly bleating about it in the diary room. But has said nothing about it to the people concerned and I like to think that if I had been in there I would have got these people around a table and said ‘listen, this hatred has gone far enough. Not only is it deeply offensive, it will be shaming you on the outside world. But it’s making life in the house, which is already tough, all but unbearable.’”
Asked by Durham if it was appropriate for Celebrity Big Brother to be raised at Prime Minister’s Question Time, Galloway said: “It probably is justified if Parliament is to be a sounding board for the country. This is a subject that the whole country is talking about it.”
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