Bolt’s fans understand what he means

A month ago, Andrew Bolt used his Herald Sun column (“We’re paying for the teaching of Marxist politics”) to attack a number of academics who had the temerity to be speakers at the Marxism conference in Melbourne this Easter.

It contained the usual defamatory gems, and his regular inability to get basic facts right – even the name of the organisers of the conference, Socialist Alternative.

Bolt has been playing the victim in recent weeks after being called out as a racist by Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton. Sydney Morning Herald columnist Richard Ackland’s comment was particularly apt: “If he can’t stand the heat, Andrew Bolt shouldn’t fan the flames of public opinion.”

Those of us named in Bolt’s anti-Marxism diatribe have received a taste of the public opinion that Bolt fans. In the week after his column, mysterious envelopes, crudely addressed merely with our names and the name of the university Bolt had associated us with, began to arrive in the mail.

Some of us received the same Islamophobic diatribe not once but twice in the following weeks.

Racist hate against Muslims is one of the key forms of racism on Australian university campuses. Given our consistent opposition to all forms of racism, it is unsurprising to find Islamophobic slurs being used in attacks against the left.

Bolt’s rantings do nothing but encourage his followers to emerge from under their rocks, with potentially much more damaging consequences for the targets of their racism than the few letters we have received.

For more information or comment, please contact Diane Fieldes, (former lecturer, University of NSW 1989-2010).