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THEM: Adventures with Extremists

From The San Diego Union-Tribune

THIS REVIEW COURTESY OF THE ILLUMINATI; Hanging out with extremists, Jon Ronson found the common ground among 'Them'

John Wilkens is a staff writer for the Union-Tribune.

It takes a funny man to see humor in all the conspiracy theories that float hatefully across the land, and Jon Ronson is a funny man.

It takes a brave man to chase that humor right into the belly of the beast, and Jon Ronson is a brave man, too.

What we get as a result is this book, an insightful and amusing romp out there along the lunatic fringe. He goes to a cross-burning with the KKK. He tracks the Secret Rulers of the World to Portugal. He eats a rat in Africa. Fortunately, in Ronson's hands, the extremists come across as more hapless than dangerous. This is no small comfort in these post-Sept. 11 days.

Ronson didn't spend any time with Osama bin Laden, but he did hook up with Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Muslim fundamentalist intent on overthrowing the Western way of life in Britain. At a rally in Trafalgar Square, his followers hauled out thousands of black helium balloons. They attached postcards announcing their Holy War. But when the ballons were released, they wouldn't fly.

"The cardboard/helium weight ratio had not been accurately calculated," Ronson writes in a deadpan style that serves him well amid so much absurdity.

The KKK cross-burning was more successful, although even that incident had its moments of hilarity when the befuddled klansmen couldn't decide whether they should soak the cross with kerosene before they raised it, or after.

"You can't raise it before you soak it," their leader snapped. "How you going to soak it after you've raised it?"

"We thought you'd have a ladder," one of the others said.

No wonder they run around in hoods, hiding their faces.

In the book's preface, Ronson explains that he conceived this project as a series of sketches about extremists. "I wanted to join them as they went about their everyday lives," he writes. "I thought that perhaps an interesting way to look at our world would be to move into theirs and stand alongside them while they glared back at us."

But the more he stood alongside them, the more he realized they shared one belief: The world is run by a small group of elites who meet in a secret room, controlling everything from monetary policy to the types of films Hollywood makes.

Ronson decided it was his job to find these rulers, known by the conspiracy theorists as the Bilderberg Group. He traveled with one of the true believers to Portugal, where they tracked the group to a resort.

Soon enough, Ronson and his cohort found themselves being followed by men in dark glasses. Paranoia set in. Ronson, who is English, called the British embassy for advice.

"I am a humorous journalist out of my depth," he says to the embassy aide. "Do you think it might help if we tell them that?"

Happily, he escaped the clutches of Bilderberg for further adventures. All are relayed here with a masterful touch for scene-setting and dialogue that belies Ronson's youth (he's 34) and inexperience (this is his first book).

Long may he wander, back and forth, between us and them.

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