Canadians Or NME's Editor: Who Does Morrissey Despise The Most?

Morrissey still hates Canadians, but you can't call him a racist.

The dour British singer announced a boycott of Canadian performances two years ago to protest the country's annual seal hunt, and he was nowhere to be found north of the 49th parallel during his recently completed tour in support of his Ringleader Of The Tormentors album. But concert promoters in Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary hoped he might have softened his stance and tried to book him for shows this summer. According to a statement on the True To You fan site, he's obviously not budging.

"The horror of the Canadian seal-kill is untranslatable, and although I fully realize that highly concentrated evil exists in other countries — Japan's dolphin slaughter, Iceland's newly-revived whaling, the cat-skinning trade in Switzerland, and China with just about every injustice imaginable — there is something especially menacing about Canada's seal-kill," says the man born Steven Patrick Morrissey.

"Loyola Sullivan (Canada's Ambassador for Fisheries Conservation) is a man of glacial coldness who claims that the seal-kill is 'humane' — a view he might alter if his own skull were cracked open with a spiked axe.?The fact that the seal-kill provides a livelihood for fishermen is an insultingly dim excuse for it to take place — after all, the German gas chambers of World War 2 also provided work for someone.?The seal-kill takes place to satisfy greed for fur-pelts, and this Canadian government is happy to drag the global image of its own country down, and make it a place that people such as I couldn't bear to visit."

Whether you're for or against the seal hunt, that's a pretty inflammatory indictment of Canadians. But don't accuse him of racism.

His name was cleared in a statement read in London, England's Royal Courts Of Justice on April 3 regarding an article in the March edition of Word Magazine that could have been construed to suggest that the former Smiths frontman was a racist, held racist opinions or was a hypocrite. Morrissey filed a libel suit against the publication (he has a similar ongoing libel suit against NME), and an apology was made.

"The Defendants accept that it would be absurd to accuse Mr. Morrissey of being a racist or of espousing racist views," read Morrissey solicitor John Reid in the courtroom. "They equally accept that Mr. Morrissey is not a hypocrite, in relation in particular to the views he has expressed in the past in relation to British cultural identity.

"The Defendants accept that Mr. Morrissey is well known as a keen supporter of anti-racist groups and the Defendants wish to make absolutely clear that they never intended the article to suggest that Mr. Morrissey was anything other than a sincere supporter of anti-racism initiatives.

"The Defendants wish to take this opportunity to apologise to Mr. Morrissey for any offence or distress that he may have been caused by the closing paragraphs of the article and are happy to make the position clear."

While happy with this victory and the clearing of his name, Morrissey remains as venomous towards NME as he is with Newfoundland seal fishermen.

"The NME have calculatedly tried to damage my integrity and to label me as a racist in order to boost their diminishing circulation," he said. "Word Magazine made the mistake of repeating those allegations, which they now accept are false and, as a result, have apologised in Open Court. I will now continue to pursue my legal action against the NME and its editor until they do the same."