Meanwhile a BITCH Says…

Katie Hopkins

Just when you think you’ve understood what the term ‘bitch’ means… along comes Katie Hopkins – right-wing Super-Bitch extraordinaire.

She has come under attack for comparing hundreds of desperate migrants dying in the Mediterranean to “cockroaches” and for suggesting that European governments send “gunships” to deal with the migrants instead of rescue operations.

For those of you not in the UK, I’ll explain who Katie Hopkins is: basically she’s a talent-show contestant who became famous for saying ‘controversial’ things and ‘telling it like it is’, and on the basis of this loud-mouth caricature act she has become a newspaper columnist and frequent social commentator who TV and radio programmers keep going to for ratings’ sake.

In essence Hopkins is a living embodiment of the spoilt, silver-spoon Tory type basking in a Colonial-era mentality that still believes in British superiority and the inferiority of other races and cultures (you can tell as much from even just a still of her face – see smug-faced image above; that’s literally the only expression her face ever has on it).

An online petition calling on The Sun (a Rupert Murdoch-owned national IQ-lowerer and the trashiest, lowest-brow newspaper going) to sack Katie Hopkins has had more than 200,000 signatures on Monday after she said gunships should be used to stop migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Hopkins wrote: “Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches. They might look a bit ‘Bob Geldof’s Ethiopia circa 1984’, but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb. They are survivors.”

She went on to say “You want to make a better life for yourself? Then you had better get creative in Northern Africa.”

What ‘celebrity’ Ms Hopkins obviously fails to mention or understand is that the country these migrants are coming through (and many of them from) is Libya – a country our governments (the UK included) methodically destroyed in 2011; a country we destabilised and left without a functioning government. Like most over-privileged white-supremacist commentators, Ms Hopkins either through ignorance or deliberate omission completely avoids the point that *her* government and indeed *her* brand of Imperialist/Colonial mindset is what created that situation in Libya in the first place, which is why all of this mass migration is happening.

As for her suggestion that Northern Africans “get creative”, again through incredible ignorance she avoids the fact that Libya was incredibly “creative” under the stewardship of Muammar Gaddafi, who took Libya from one of the poorest countries in the world to the most successful and prosperous in Africa through various innovations, social and political reforms and building projects. That was until the kind of Imperialist policies that people like Ms Hopkins support were unleashed upon Gaddafi and Libya in 2011, destroying it all and leaving the country in the hands of terrorists and armed gangs.

Katie Hopkins, a dumb bitch if ever there was one, either has no idea about any of that or she simply omits the inconvenient facts to suit her racially-motivated divide-and-conquer diatribes.

 Bodies of migrants attempting to reach Europe from Libya 

But then why bother with ‘research’ when you’re got a big mouth and a nicely-paid platform?

As for referring to hundreds of people trying to flee turmoil or hardship from Libya, Syria, Eritrea or wherever else as “cockroaches”: comedian Frankie Boyle writes an interesting piece in The Independent on that subject of this recurring anti-immigration hysteria. It’s the same everywhere, of course; in every European nation, not to mention America, the Immigration Debate is always dragged out when election time is near to play to the lowest common denominator.

Finally, as a counterpoint to Katie Hopkins’ ill-informed, attention-seeking comments, I refer you to this very poignant article by Zena Agha, in which she talks about her cousin from Syria, who died drowning on one of these ‘migrant boats’ trying to flee the war in Syria. He was one of these “cockroaches” Katie Hopkins talks about. In the piece, she writes; ‘These migrants, dying in their hundreds aboard death-trap boats, are some the most vulnerable people in the world. Yet our media and politicians talk about them like they are dirty, unwanted, or – worse yet – invisible. Newspapers give columns to people like Katie Hopkins, and publish their Neo-Nazi bile. We devote so much less of our time to questioning who these people are, why they would embark on such deadly journeys, and what can be done to alleviate their suffering. And we continuously fail to ask the most important question: why is nothing being done to help them?

She continues, ‘Instead, our politicians – even those on the supposed ‘Left’ – talk about migration in terms of economic gain. Our media has turned “asylum seeker” into a euphemism for “benefit thief”. Far-right groups are on the rise across Europe, and anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other racially motivated hate crimes are on the rise. Our apathy towards those dying in the Mediterranean epitomises this growing intolerance. We are moving inextricably towards a point where we worship borders and security over human life, and where black and brown bodies will perpetually be dismissed as the “Other”.’

I recommend you read her whole piece at the source; it’s worth it.

Finally, on the subject of Katie Hopkins; someone really ought to send her on a trip to Libya. She could take a TV crew with her and everything; let her see what it’s like. Let her see what our governments (and her mentality) did to that country. Let her see some of the “cockroaches” she’s so bothered about.

And if she survives, perhaps then she can write a more informed article on the subject.

S. Awan

Independent journalist. Pariah. Believer in human rights, human dignity and liberty. Musician. Substandard Jedi. All-round failure. And future ghost.

7 Comments

  1. I had never seen or heard of her until I heard the news about the article on the radio … which makes me think I must be quite cool!?

    • NP, you were cool anyway 🙂 But I suppose you can wear your not-having-heard-of-Katie-Hopkins as a badge of honor too.

  2. She does very well for herself as a brand and most likely does more harm than good.

    Scrolling through my twitter feed this morning I saw this post’s hash tag and having not owned a traditional TV for many years thought, “wait, Katie Hopkins? Isnt she that weird ” posh” cunt who was YouTube famous for a spell regarding naming children even though she named her own child, India? ”

    Such curiosity made me then wonder how she was being mentioned in this highly reputable blog, thus leading to my awareness being raised on the importance of Libya and the causational (if that’s even a word) Western governments have played in its demise.

    Made me loosely think that Katie Hopkins is media tool. One that can be used for good as well as evil. Like discussing Hitler. But let’s be real, like Hitler, she’s mostly all about the evil. And is also a complete tool.

    • She may well be a media tool, as you suggest. They probably use her because they know she’s unpopular and is guaranteed to provoke reaction from people and draw publicity. I didn’t know about the YouTube element though.

  3. Reblogged this on Saine Corner and commented:
    Over 200,000 have so far signed an online petition against Katie Hopkins and her xenophobic comments. I’ve signed… will you?

    • I probably will. But the problem is that the sort of people who read The Sun probably share Katie Hopkins’ views anyway…

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