waterstone's interview | jonronson.com

THEM: Adventures with Extremists

Dominic Kennerk interviews Jon Ronson

DK: Your book, features an eclectic group of people, Islamic Fundamentalists, Klansmen, David Icke, Ian Paisley and many others linked by the notion that a small power elite runs the world from a 'secret room'. Were you surprised that such disparate groups have this in common?

JR: I was surprised at the time, but now I'm not. They all share the experience of being on the very edge of society - hated or feared or ridiculed by people like us - so it is no wonder that they envisage powerful secret globalist Cabals conspiring against them. The other thing they have in common, as I say in the book, is that they all really hate being called extremists. In fact they often tell me that we are the real extremists. They say that the western liberal cosmopolitan establishment is itself a fanatical, depraved belief system. I like it when they say this because it makes me feel as if I have a belief system.

DK: Was it your intention with the book to show a complicated, human side to people who are often stereotyped?

JR: Yes. I wanted to de-demonise the demons. I also wanted to try and see ourworld through their eyes. This is why the 'them' in the title refers as muchto 'us' as it does to 'them'. My other intention was to write a basicallyfunny book, because there aren't that many of them about and you can't go on re-reading Holidays In Hell forever.

DK: I was particularly moved by the story of the Weaver family, the separatist Americans who got caught in a horrific gunfight with US Marshals and were then vilified by the media. Did you find yourself identifying with people you would normally not expect to?

JR: I liked the Weavers very much, particularly Rachel Weaver, who is one of the most remarkable people I've met. The Weavers were a family of right wing conspiracy theorists who moved to the Idaho mountains to escape what they saw as a tyrannical government out to get them. In the end their conspiracy theories came true. The government did 'get' them. I have friends who think I've been too pro-Weaver. They say the Weavers were a threat, they fraternised with white supremacists, dabbled in gun-running, and so on, which is essentially true. But the government screwed-up and the fact is that the government should be better than its citizens, not worse. A friend of mine asked me: 'Who would you rather have living next door to you? The crazy white Separatist Weavers or a family of respected FBI officers?' I've thought about this, and my only answer is, 'Which ever one played their music quieter.'

DK: At certain times in your investigations you were in positions where you could possibly be construed as helping causes that you would normally be repelled by. For instance, chauffeuring round Omar Bakri Mohammed the Islamic Fundamentalist who had declared a Holy War on Britain. How did that feel at the time?

JR: The truth is, at the time I thought it was funny, and I still do. I like the absurdity of a Jew unintentionally helping an Islamic Fundamentalist organise a Jihad campaign. Anyway, I didn't drive Omar around too much - just the odd trip to Office World, the Cash and Carry, and one secret terrorist meeting in Birmingham. He would have got the train anyway had I not been there. For me,the experience opened up some fascinating ethical questions about the moment when journalists cross that line and become chauffeurs.

DK: Did your intention and aims for the book undergo many changes in the years that it took to research and write?

JR: The search for the 'secret room' became more and more prevalent as I went on. I kind of took it upon myself to try and solve the mystery once and for all. If there was a secret room, could I shimmy up the drainpipes and get in?This became the main narrative around two years into the process.

DK: In the course of the book you are pursued by representatives of a powerful secret society, unmasked as a Jew in a Jihad training camp, and go on the campaign trail with a KKK leader trying to spin his image - were these adventures or nightmares?

JR: I must admit to a few nightmare moments. I really did not like being chased by mysterious men in dark glasses through Portugal. When I phoned the British Embassy and asked them to explain to the powerful secret society that had set their goons on me that I was essentially a humorous journalist out of my depth, I wasn't being funny. I was being genuinely desperate. I felt severely uncomfortable at Aryan Nations when they all started screaming at me. And I could have lived without Omar sending out a press release saying that I had personally destroyed relations between Muslims and Jews, even if he did tell me in secret that he was just kidding. Otherwise, it was pretty much all an adventure.

DK: The book has many strange, hilarious and downright bizarre moments. Do you have any particular favorites?

JR: Like in The Perfect Storm - when all the weather conditions conspire to create an ultimate hurricane - my aim is to find the Perfect Absurd Moment. I think this comes in the last chapter, when the far right wing Texan conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones is practicing how to be preppy (by dressing in chinos and rehearsing preppy conversations) so we can infiltrate the mysterious Bohemian Grove summer camp where Henry Kissinger is reported to dress in robes and burn effigies at the foot of a giant stone owl. That, to me, is a Perfect Absurd Moment.

DK: 'At one point in the book you seem to lament the loss of the mysterious as you discover more details about one of the groups you are investigating. Do you think the lack of evidence and the clouding of facts is what helps make conspiracy theories exciting?

JR: Before I started this I assumed that all conspiracy theories (except for who killed JFK, of course) were basically nonsense. Now I realise that there are grains of truth. There really are powerful and secret cabals that deny existing and engage in weird rituals. This is true. Of course when you put Henry Kissinger together with robes and hoods, you've got yourself a conspiracy theory. But this doesn't mean - as David Icke would say - that Henry Kissinger is actually a 12 foot lizard who sacrifices children and drinks their blood. So I think this book tries to occupy the area that lies between the official line and the conspiracy theories.

DK: The criteria you use to define extremists are that others have called them extremists. Under this definition do you think you could be considered an extremist in any way?

JR: I am certainly an extremist in my love for Randy Newman. Does this count? Do others consider me an extremist? I am getting the odd weird email from far-left wingers accusing me of being a closet nazi (because I'm too nice to the Nazis in my book). But I can assure you that I am not a nazi. I am a card-carrying liberal Jew. (But these accusations are making me feel a little like Coleman Silk in The Human Stain).

DK: Who are your favorite writers and which journalists have inspired you?

JR: In terms of journalists, I've always loved P.J O'Rourke, Dominick Dunne, Gitta Sereny, Joan Didion, John Berendt, Tom Wolfe, and Lynn Barber. My favourite non-journalist writers are Tobias Woolf, Raymond Carver and Kurt Vonnegut. I love the George Saunders book Pastoralia, and I'm really getting into David Sedaris (particularly his essay The Santaland Diaries from his book, Barrel Fever, in which he gets a job as a Christmas elf at Macy's). The British journalist Justine Picardie is writing a book about the afterlife -about trying to contact her sister Ruth - and what I've read of that is just brilliant. I wish I'd thought of it. But, then again, someone close to me would have had to have died, so I'm glad that I wasn't in a position to think of it. That would be taking literary envy too far.

DK: In May Channel 4 are showing your four part documentary series Jon Ronson's World of Conspiracy, will this feature many of the individuals and organizations in the book?

JR: Yes. David Icke, Big Jim Tucker, Alex Jones and the Weaver family all appear in the series. But I do think that the two things have separate lives. They veer off in different directions.

DK: What are you working on next Jon?

JR: Right now I'm making a fifth film for our series, The Secret Rulers of the World. It is about Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma Bomber. After that I'm thinking about telling the Jonathan King story.

Interview by Dominic Kennerk from www.waterstones.co.uk

back | THEM: Adventures with Extreimists