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| Peter Hitchens watches as protesters 'take the knee' at Oxford University |
Mail On Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens has been keeping a close eye on events in Oxford. The campaign to bring down the statue of Cecil Rhodes from the Oriel College building was reignited recently after the mob tore down the Colston statue in Bristol. A protest was organised the very next day and Peter Hitchens was there to observe. A photograph of him standing while the protesters 'took the knee' made him an instant target.
He was back in Oxford again on Tuesday as the protesters marched again. This time they singled him out and gave him the loudspeaker treatment. The following video was posted online yesterday showing Hitchens being followed by the mob while they chant "Peter Hitchens has to go".
The person who posted the video made several outlandish claims about Hitchens, saying he was there to "goad the protesters" and was spouting "racist shit". Aaron Gabriel, who describes himself as a 'professional trans person', said he asked Hitchens to leave as "his presence was upsetting". Gabriel's assessment that the protesters made Hitchens "look so small and insignificant" is clearly not what most people see in the video. The way in which the journalist strolls so nonchalantly and carefree as the mob follow him and chant his name shows a man of great integrity. He looks ten feet tall, stoic and effortlessly dignified. Hitchens even defended many of the protesters in a tweet, saying: "Most of the crowd were very good-natured. I had interesting conversations with several of them". Big man.
Conversely, once he obtains his PhD in French philosophy, Hitchens' antagonist Aaron Gabriel will clearly go far in life!
The political journey of Peter Hitchens is yet another example that bodes well for the future. He was himself once on the left and briefly a member of the Labour Party in the 1970s. It's highly doubtful that many of those trying to intimidate him will be quite as Marxist-oriented by the time they get to his age. Once they have departed the hard left arena of further education and spent a few years in the real world, they will begin to learn that the doctrine they currently promote spells disaster in practice.
