Them: Adventures with Extremists
Jon Ronson

Geoff Kidder

200 people cram into Borders Bookshop on Oxford Street, London on a warm spring evening to hear Jon Ronson talk about his book Them: Adventures with Extremists, which also spawned a successful Channel 4 TV series. Ronson is amazed at the large turnout. He is onto something.

In the past decade extremists of one sort or another, from the American Militia movement to Islamic Fundamentalists, have been portrayed as the enemies of society. Ronson reckoned that by spending time with some of these extremist leaders and their conspiratorial theories of how the world is run, he would gain an insight into their thinking and also that of the society they criticize. He was constantly told during his travels that the world is controlled by a tiny elite operating from a secret room. He made it his quest to find if there was anything in this claim.

Ronson's great strengths are his humour, investigative zeal and a broadmindedness and ability to see things from another point of view. The book is hilarious and refreshing. Where many have examined extremists as a case study in evil, he is confident that if you give them enough rope they will hang themselves, revealing some interesting insights in the process.

In pursuit the highly secretive Bilderberg Group of international dignatories in Portugal, his photographer is mortified to find that their car passenger is well-known US neo-Nazi Jim Tucker. For Ronson this may be a shock, but it does not deflect him from his quest nor make the Bilderberg Group any less secretive. Likewise he does not let the horror of the Oklahoma bomb - for which Timothy McVeigh was recently executed - get in the way of examining whether the US authorities were forewarned of the atrocity.

The events of Ruby Ridge are probably the most shocking described. Labelling a family as far-right extremists, the FBI organised a siege of 400 troops to try to settle a minor firearms offence, resulting in the mother killed while holding her baby and the 14-year-old son dying from a shot in the back. The federal judge subsequently condemned the FBI for showing a blatant disregard for the family's rights.

For his pains Ronson has been branded naive and accused of giving a platform to fascists. He was accused of this at Borders, but the accuser was given short shrift by the audience. Unlike his critics, Ronson credits us with enough intelligence not to be taken in by a bunch of racists and religious fanatics. The study of David Icke's tour of Canada, during which a ragbag of self-appointed censors from Green and Jewish groups tried with some success to get him banned, was an eloquent argument against censorship. It never seemed to occur to the censors that debate and discussion might expose Icke's ridiculous theories about lizards controlling the world or that alarmist phone calls to bookshops and the press and throwing custard pies might be a cowardly and pathetic way to proceed.

Someone at Borders asked Ronson why he drew no conclusions from his work. What the questioner failed to understand is that this is one of the keys to his success. It is not just the exposing of authority that strikes a chord but the mystery of it all. Today when people are cynical about politicians and those in authority, and big ideas and explanations are out of fashion, Ronson's version of 'reality meets The X-Files' finds a ready audience.

This is real life X-Files and compelling too. The US authorities are somehow complicit with the Oklahoma bomb but in an intangible way. The mock sacrifice to a giant stone owl in Bohemian Grove summer camp in California, with George Bush and other world statesmen present, may not be the world conspiracy of the militiamen but it shows something peculiar nonetheless. Ronson interviewed a lady who used to picket Bohemian Grove. She protested at the symbolism of the great and good all meeting for a holiday when they were responsible for so much war and suffering in the world. Today it seems to be the mystery of the symbolism of the ceremony itself which concerns people.

I was left with the mixed feeling that whilst Ronson shows well how the war on extremism can be a threat to freedom of speech and other liberties, to many he reinforces the view that the world is a real-life mystery which we can never fully comprehend.