Boris Johnson Gets Wikijacked

There is a fine old tradition on Wikipedia of altering entries with every intent to either amuse or fraudulently claim something about the subject at hand. To be expected, given that it's user-generated content -- this allows for the modern equivalent of the old Chinese whisper campaign and general hijinks.

Anonymity just seems to bring out the worst in humans, alas.

Maybe it's my rotten luck, or maybe it's far more common than I imagine it to be (who controls these things?), but often when I'm looking up a conservative politician or famous figure, their entry has just had some funny business done to it.

I call this phenomenon Wikijacking.

In the past, I have been around at the right time for Margaret Thatcher's reputed date of death. Let's not forget the time I posted on Benedict XVI's entry reflecting his reputedly unusual method of election (which Dan Brown should call "Secrets of the Gay Opus Dei Conclave" and make another fortune).

And now, Boris Johnson joins this distinguished list of conservatives who some people simply cannot keep from altering with their dirty typing paws.

Behold, Boris Johnson's Wikipedia entry, of a few moments ago!



Lovely.

Can you imagine if some wag uploaded a photo of Barack Obama like that? My dears, we'd never hear the end of it.

But for the wispy, blond-haired toff Mayor of London, well, he's just fair-game, isn't he?

Actually, knowing Boris as we all do, he'd probably be the first to laugh. I too laughed. Similarly, I am not suggesting someone SHOULD put up a photo of President Obama in such a guise. Only the terminally obtuse would think that.

What I am suggesting is that conservatives are quite often the targets of monkey business, err, so to speak, done to their entries on Wikipedia.

Furthermore, if an exactly similar entry was fudged by someone about say, Fidel Castro's date of death, or putting up a gorilla photo on President Barack Obama's Wiki entry -- that we'd never hear the last of those "hateful, racist conservatives" and their appalling deceitful behaviour.

See, it's not the fact of Wikijacking that bothers me, though as an historian I confess it rather does. It's the double-standard associated with it.

No worries though.

I'll keep posting on this activity so long as I catch it and, as the saying goes, shame the devil whilst I'm at it.

Extra

POPE BENEDICT'S WIKIJACKED ENTRY




MARGARET THATCHER'S WIKIJACKED ENTRY





UPDATE: As of 13:24, almost 20 minutes after I first noticed it, the ape pic is still up. LATER: 13:32...finally rectified.

ADDED: What brought me to Wiki BoJo? Simple, I was watching a BBC series called "Who do you think you are?" -- a genealogical programme which shows famous people's attempts to locate their ancestors.

As everyone knows, Boris is particularly cosmopolitan, being the descendant of a journalist/politician in Turkey, who was executed for daring to oppose their beloved talismanic President, Mustafa Kemal. The programme had just gotten to the part where he uncovered that his great-great-grandmother was the illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg when I said, "Aha, interesting. I think that is Queen Mary's ancestor, wonder if it's the same chap. Maybe Wikipedia has more information?".

The rest, as they say, is bingo what's my name-o.

I'm about to watch the Jerry Springer episode, though you'll be happy to know his Wikipedia entry is virgin. Democratic ex-mayor of Cincinnati, don't you know.

O Party Of Obama

Sundries commenter, Zeb Quinn, paid me a compliment in my recent blogpost, A Dissenting Voice.

You might recall it was about a black American lady saying she wouldn't be voting for Obama, citing one reason that in her opinion, he was a Communist.

I replied in disagreement:

I've been around very genuine, very scary Communists to know the difference between someone merely influenced by Marxism, as would include the majority of politicians in the world today, to a real one.

To which Zeb commented:

That was good. I liked it. Some of us on the right throw around the terms and accusations "socialist" and "communist" too easily. We lose some cred when we do.

And I have to say, I agree.

One's opinions are not taken as seriously by neutral parties if you have a penchant to label people with such terms. That is true whether you are likening President Bush to Hitler and thereto, Fascism/Nazism. But also, if you bandy the word Marxist or Communist about to Senator Barack Obama.

However, I have noticed something about Senator Obama, specifically those in his social orbit.

For a man of his political ideals, he must accept that a certain chunk of his co-idealogues are indeed Marxist or Socialist. At the very least, they are amenable to Marxist ideas, which include visual and audio cues.

(More on this, momentarily)

A politician of the Left with Presidential aspirations doesn't have the luxury to ignore Marxists, or the fringe Left as they are euphemistically called in the USA.

His circle of associates must include people like Bill Ayers, ex-WeatherUnderground terrorist. He must tolerate the Black Liberation rantings of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. If Code Pink wish to meet with him, he cannot say no.

Of course, the crucial difference here is that Senator Obama has shown a willigness to befriend, associate or be courted by such people, in a very puzzling manner.

But there are some gestures that are possibly beyond him.

This past weekend, campaigning in the State of Oregon, the Illinois Senator drew over 75,000 to his campaign rally. It was a riotous success, and he cemented his incredible 16% lead over Senator Clinton, that following primary Tuesday.

It transpired though, that local Portland band, The Decembrists had been the "opening act" for the rally...and, as seems to be common with them, had started their show with the following well-known anthem.



Do you recognise it? Ahh, the Cold War was but a short while ago, but how some of us have forgotten.

That is the national anthem of the USSR, and here are its opening stanzas:

Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!

CHORUS:
Sing to the Fatherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism’s triumph lead us on!

To Communism's triumph lead us on?

Why is it that a modern US politician seeking to run for the Presidency did not have the foresight to inquire about content? If nothing just to avoid misunderstandings with a wider electorate, who are tired of the spin, and just want to know what he values?

But consider this.

Can you imagine if a Senator McCain rally featured a heavy metal act who launched into the Horst Wessel Lied?

It's unthinkable, and will never happen in modern US politics because Nazism is discredited...but Communism lives on, invoked by grunge protest bands without an eyeblink.

Yet, Senator Barack Obama doesn't have that luxury of being especially picky because he's unprepared, and consequently, his message is amateurish, even muddled.

Is it a wonder that when you see the iconography his supporters evoke about him, like this:



And this:



Plus this:



And so there's no doubt whatsoever, in Russian, this:



H/T: Simon

When do the signals become too much for neutral parties? Is it when his supporters constantly evoke Che Guevara or Maoist iconography? Or when they call him Tovarich Obama without a hint of irony?

In a twist of fate, given my recent Wikipedia critique, the following line was removed from The Decembrists' entry:

"The band’s use of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union as an introduction at many concerts has sparked controversy as it is seen by some as an endorsement of the Soviet system.[citation needed]"

Which is factually correct, as you saw. It was deleted by an anonymous user, but is back again after a blog's post on it brought it to Wikipedia's attention.

Why was this statement excised? Was it shame or the realisation that such a song would be harmful to the Senator's campaign?

Perhaps they felt it sent the wrong signals.

But make no doubt of it, the messages are there and this is why that black American lady voter may be forgiven her opinion.

She didn't base it on any of these signals above, she said. But perhaps others are reading them loud and clear.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ron points out a literary analogy and asks a question.

A friend of mine noted even the reason we read Baudelaire as opposed to his German equivalent, Novalis, is that the French writer is perceived as being from 'the left', while the German writer is from 'the right', however false those labels would be! [...]

When will the romance of Communism end?

Certainly not with the death of Old Communists.

Related

Let A Thousand Posters Bloom
The Obama Aesthetic
Obama Appeals To the Far Left
Obama - Cult Leader Imagery?