DARTMOUTH resident Dave Ryan's Sept. 1 letter to the editor, entitled "Pro-white, not racist," in which he denies that the Heritage Front is racist, was my inspiration to write this column. After considering the pros and cons, I've concluded that the dividing line between pro-white and white supremacist is so blurred that it's almost non-existent.

I'll tackle the pro-white stance first. It poses this question: Is the white race, a very minuscule group when compared with the combined total of non-white races, in danger of being reduced to trading places with the vast array of people of colour who reside in dire poverty in Asia, the Americas, Australia and Africa? Hardly. Their wealth and power are so overwhelming that only the most pessimistic would say yes.

For example, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., controls more wealth than several have-not countries combined. Further, the portion of the American GNP controlled by white businesses exceeds the GNP of all the Third World countries combined.

For added emphasis, two white men, the presidents of Russia and the U.S., have their fingers on buttons that would unleash enough nuclear explosions to erase all human life, including whites, from the face of Mother Earth.

Can such be construed as a dire situation where the white race needs to circle the wagons and build strong defences, and set up pro-white organizations to defend itself against the evil designs of non-whites? Preposterous! This fact says it all: There are no non-white people demanding that the white race be stripped of everything.

However, the day of reckoning has arrived and non-white people are demanding a fair share of the pie. Not an unreasonable proposition, considering that a great portion of the wealth now controlled by the white race was originally garnered by destroying a great many of the world's non-white civilizations and appropriating their wealth. Thus, I don't believe that the pro-white thing can be defended as non-racist.

Now for the white supremacist angle. I recently received the following e-mail in response to a column I wrote about Edward Cornwallis, entitled "Idolizing Cornwallis insulting:"

"I am writing in response to an old article of yours that appeared in The Herald on July 11. Edward Cornwallis was a great man! He paved the way so that White Europeans (who are actually the true natives of North America; i.e., Kennewick Man) would have a better life.

"The micmacs were already killing Europeans, so Cornwallis decided it was time to fight back. Besides, a country belongs to the people that actually built it into a nation, and that was Whites! When indians have created, invented, devised and contributed to Canada what Whites have, then they can have a piece of the pie too. Until then, put a sock in it.

"Also, you are wrong once again. The majority of White Nova Scotians still do and always will idolize Cornwallis for doing what was in the best interest of Whites. I've even had a screen printing shop make up 100 T-shirts in support of him. How do you like them apples?"

Is the author pro-white or white supremacist? I would state unequivocally that he/she is a white supremacist. Then again, he/she could be pro-white. I can't define the difference; the line is invisible.

The groundless fear among many whites of a non-existent non-white desire to dispossess whites of everything, which feeds pro-white and white supremacist mania, will make the transition to a more equitable world, where wealth will be distributed evenly among all people, very difficult. Those who traditionally have held it all, without regard to the unfairness of the situation, will not be inclined to meet the challenge with a generous heart and share without being forced to do so. The following two examples bear witness to this.

The Atlantic fishery: Instead of seeing the inequities of the situation, where the Atlantic First Nations people were almost completely excluded from the fishery, and doing something to end the exclusion, the federal and provincial governments, and fishers' organizations, went to court and opposed sharing every inch of the way. First Nations are now included because the Supreme Court of Canada ordered it.

Zimbabwe farmlands: When Great Britain went into Africa and appropriated Zimbabwean lands without paying compensation, it set the stage for the dispossession crisis that the country's white farmers now face. However, with a little generosity and a sense of fairness on the part of white farmers, the crisis could have been prevented. If they had, when the country became independent from Great Britain several decades ago, accepted the unfairness of a situation where a small minority owned more than 70 per cent of the country's farmland, because of unfair acquisition, engaged the government in a scheme that would have eventually redressed the situation, there would be no crisis today.

But because they didn't opt to share, they are now losing it all to the Zimbabwean government's heavy-handed expropriation scheme. I don't approve of the method being used by Robert Mugabe, the country's president, to accomplish land reform; I think a better way could have been found. But it provides an excellent example of what happens when sharing isn't done voluntarily.

White extremism is not the answer. Sharing is. By using it, conflicts can be avoided and an equitable world society built.

Daniel N. Paul