Just hours after many major brands publicly ended their partnerships with controversial chef Pete Evans, independent bookstore Robinsons Books has released a statement declaring itself “Switzerland” in the situation.
“Please be assured we have not changed our position from acting as Switzerland and stocking books for all sides of any debate. We are not part of any side, political affiliation or attack on anyone,” Robinsons Books wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post.
If we’re “bullies” for being a group who campaigns against the use of Nazi symbolism & other forms of mistruth & hate, we’re extraordinarily proud to be so.
And for anyone who thinks we shouldn’t do the things we do, just remember what you’d have been doing in Germany in 1936. pic.twitter.com/Wl2y6objIZ
— MFW 🧙🏽♂️🧹🧙🏽♂️🧹🧙🏽♂️🧹🧙🏽♂️🧹 (@MFWitches) November 17, 2020
Basically, it’s all well and good to stock different opinions, but when those opinions are harmful to others, something needs to be done to de-platform that person.
But in addition to declaring themselves Switzerland, Robinsons Books also claimed that they are the target of bullying.
“We are currently under attack from an organised group of cyberbullies though. Get ready for them to take aim because we didn’t do what they demanded,” they wrote.
“We clearly are NOT Nazi sympathisers, nor anything else the activist group – The Mad F- Witches are claiming we are. We are simply an indie bookshop doing our thing. We are proud and passionate about books and our role in the community to informalities.”
Following immense backlash from customers, Robinsons released a follow-up statement declaring that they *will* remove Evans’ books from stores.
“After tallying the results of our debate earlier and really listening to the Pete Evans haters out there tonight – we have decided that despite our usual position on removing books, we WILL remove Pete’s cookbooks from our shelves tomorrow due to the nature of the allegations being made,” they said in a second now-deleted Facebook post.
All posts relating to the Pete Evans situation have now been wiped from the Robinsons Books social media accounts, making their final position on the situation unclear. PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to them for comment and will update this story as more information becomes available.
You can keep up to date with all of the brands that have distanced themselves from Evans in our running list here.
