There’s not much to say about the riots that hasn’t already been said, but one point that hasn’t been stressed enough is the small numbers of people actively involved. The crowd at Cronulla on Sunday was large, but it seems that only a couple of hundred were engaged in violence. Similarly, forty car loads of thugs were said to have been involved in the subsequent round of attacks on Monday night. That’s alarming but again it amounts to a couple of hundred people. The same was true in the French riots, which mainly consisted of small groups burning cars under cover of darkness. The availability of mobile phones makes organising this kind of thing a lot easier, and calls for a response. I hope that, in addition to those already charged, the police will pursue everyone involved in this shameful behavior. Many of them have been recorded on film and ought to be easy to identify.
Then there are the instigators of the violence. The senders of SMS messages will no doubt be hard to trace, but there’s no doubt about the role of talkback radio and 2GB in particular. It’s unclear whether Alan Jones or his talkback callers have committed a criminal offence, as suggested in comments here and elsewhere, but if he hasn’t, then the government’s spanking new sedition laws are clearly a dead letter.
The laws governing broadcasting are also relevant. Radio stations like 2GB get free allocations of valuable spectrum under a system of licensing which includes a prohibition on broadcasting matter that is likely to incite violence. If this system is to be maintained, 2GB should be stripped of its license by the Australian Broadcasting Authority for broadcasting people like Jones.
John Quiggin 
Will De Vere, yes “hate” does rather define the opponents of Pauline Hanson. Well put.
Alphacoward. There were no “string of gang rapes perpetrated by white aussie males at rodeos accross western Queensland.”
Perhaps you are thinking of one incident in Longreach last year. The “case” was dropped due to inconsistencies in the story of the “victim”.
Someone was caught out late with rodeo cowboys & cried “rape” to mum.
No “gang rapes”, no “string of rapes”, lots of consensual sex between a rodeo groupie & rodeo cowboys.
“Is that Finnish for *squawk*, or Polish?”
“Squawk” is what parrots do, penguins “squak”, go to Philip island and you will see what I mean.
Lucky that David Flint is no longer Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority. He would have a real conflict of interest dealing with any complaints against his great mate Alan Jones. Not that David would be able to recognise a conflict of interest if he tripped over it. I do hope that there are complaints to the ABA, as well as consideration of breaches of the sedition laws. I bet Ruddock didn’t have in mind using the laws against people like Jones or neo-nazi, white supremacist groups/gangs advocating violence against Muslims. This is something Ruddock will no doubt want addressed in the review of the sedition laws flagged for next year.
I’m still trying to make sense out of events in Cronulla over the past week.
I’m particularly curious how, if at all, this story relates:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17552587-1242,00.html
ws Home | Story
Charity cancels service over attacks
From: AAP
December 13, 2005
“A CHARITY organisation that helps street kids has cancelled its services to Sydney’s Sutherland Shire because of attacks on volunteers.
Care for Street Kids Australia has been providing clothing, blankets and food to homeless youth in Sydney and Wollongong for the past 13 years.
The charity had stopped its operations in Cronulla and surrounding areas after rocks and bottles were thrown at its delivery buses over the past two weeks, charity chief executive Borge Rasmussen said.
The charity helps more than 140 people in the Sutherland area, but Mr Rasmussen said it was now too dangerous for his volunteers to carry out their work there.
“My volunteers won’t go there and I fully back them – I won’t have them getting hurt,” Mr Rasmussen said.
He said the charity had never experienced this kind of hostility before – not even in Macquarie Fields during the riots there earlier this year.”
So the violence directed at this charity started before the confrontation between locals and Lebanese-Australians.
Maybe the street kids were playing soccer on the beach and making suggestive comments to nice respectable girls?
The NSW government is amending laws to make the offence of “rioting” have a maximum penalty of 15 years.
Whilst there seem to be some meaningful new police powers in the reforms, extensions to maximum sentences seem to be at worst draconian and at best nothing more than window dressing.
If judges will never apply the upper penalty of 15 years then the reform is just window dressing. If they will apply it then it is a horrible reform.
If I run down the street with an iron bar and smash a few cars then to be sure I should face penalty. However I would think that no law of “rioting” is necessary to ensure such a penalty. And if I do it alone as compared to being part of a disorganised rabble then should the latter really attract a stronger penalty?
It actually undermines my faith in the law if the law needs amending to deal with shit like these riots. Does the parliament have such little faith in our laws that every crisis requires an immediate amendment.
No, they just have a desperate need to seen to be acting.
It’s like walking briskly around the office with a piece of paper in your hand. It looks like you’re doing important things and that you’re really busy, but actually you’re simply being ineffective.
Mr Quiggan, do you need things constantly requoted to you? No direct comparison between you and Chomsky was made. Go read the post again, you thickie.
Mr Soon, how are my “values” (did I state them at any point?) at odds with “fair go” attitudes? I wanted to discuss something, and am being attacked with irrelvancies by thickie leftists who can’t read and are made uncomfortable by the accuracy of my remarks.
I understood you to be a sensible man. Are you merely another thickie?
Pinguthepenguin, please do not apologise to these leftist sophist thickies.
They are deliberately laying a thick fog of nonsense in order to lead the conversation away from areas of rationality where their ideology does not permit them to stray.
To the thickies: The media has constantly and immediately blamed various instances of ethnic and non-ethnic rioting upon white people, regardless of circumstance. The absence of any serious or meaningful exploration of anti-white racism, as has been exhibited in France and Australia, by Muslims in both instances, indicates to any person with the power of vague comprehension that the media does not believe in the existence of anti-white racism.
Now discuss that, if you dare. Thickies.
The gauntlet is thrown down. Pick it up. Don’t kick it back into the shadows.
Marcian S.,
It is usually counted as at least impolite to abuse your host. I would have thought that against a normal set of values.
.
I am normally counted as one of the more right wing people on this blog – I prefer more libertarian, but that does not mean that I need to agree with you on this. The right typically believes in the freedom and responsibility of the individual and Jason Soon, I would hazard a guess, is further from being what you verged on accusing him of being, than many of the other people actively involved in this thread. Learn to use reasoned arguement rather than abuse.
.
I do not think that anyone here has denied there is anti-white racism involved. The important difference is the scale of the problem. There was not, as far as I can tell, at any stage, a large group of people of Lebanese descent organised on the street to behave in a riotous manner. Nor did they continue that behavior over a few nights. Yes, there is without a doubt a problem on both sides that needs to be sorted out – the normal method is the application of both the carrot and the stick – but the magnitude of the problem is probably greater on the side that organises large scale riots rather than on the side that has a group of criminals embedded within it.
I think we are being too cynical about the political response. Measures like denying the “presumption of bail” for rioters are eminently sensible. Before the riots there would have been no public support for such measures.
I have been heartened by the apologising and group hugging that has been going on today among the protagonists. But I still think some of the Muslim community leaders are behaving like whining tools. They are feeding a sense of grievance and are therefore, in my view, as worthy of criticism as Alan Jones.
Mr Quiggan mumbled incoherently:
“SImilarly, if you’d bothered to examine your own attitudes you would have realised that crimes committed by some Australians of Lebanese descent in no way excuse random attacks on Australians of Lebanese descent in general.”
I suggested otherwise where, exactly? Insinuated, perhaps? No, I don’t seem to have done that either. “Desperation” is a word I would apply to this limp attempt at misdirection. Come now, professor. Lift thy game.
“There are several people defending (or minimising the crimes of) rioters of Anglo descent, those who helped to instigate the Anglo side of the riots, sympathisers with the Anglo rioters, and so on.”
Fascinating! I’m dying to know who that might be.
You’ll now kindly furnish the name of the offender(s) and provide the quote(s) in which they provided support for the violent anti-Lebanese actions of some Australians.
Otherwise you will concede that that was a rather clumsy overextension.
If I may… I don’t wish to seem immodest, but you are unmanned by your temperament. For instance, instead of merely finish me by showing me the error of my thoughts, you suggest that people “attack” me, for expressing a view that is contrary to your own.
Now, attacking an argument or a point of view, this I can understand. Applaud, even. But to encourage people to attack one another in what ought to be an area for free exchange of ideas?
Surely you would see this venue as more Socratic than gladitorial. I’m sure that academics never would seek to attack or repress a person because their views are unapproved. Such things simply never occur. Like anti-white racism, I suppose.
Come now. I am not being impolite or provocative in the least. If you cannot stand being called “thickies” (which I only just began to do, because you require a verbal cane across the knuckles) when you are discourteous or when you are behaving like someone who is rather thick, then I cannot understand how you survived to adulthood in this rough and ready land.
You see, friends, you are wasting your time. I am not arguing for white Australians who attack people, regardless of the motive. Show me where I have? No, you jumped to the conclusion that that is what I was doing, because I was doing the opposite of what you were doing.
You are (most of you) happily talking about the racism of the white Australians. Let me do unto you as you have done to me.
You are all attempting to justify the attacks made by Lebanese on Australians, including the stabbings and the burnings and the smashing of cars. You are minimising the crimes of the Lebanese, because you sympathise with them.
See what I did there? I turned Mr Quiggan’s silly, completely untruthful attack on me, on you. It is just as applicable. That is to say, inapplicable. You’ve not said anything that justifies me drawing that conclusion, but I have anyway, because I can. Just as I said nothing of the sort, but the conclusion was drawn that I had, because you could.
Now, I trust we can dispense with this childish fumbling.
“I do not think that anyone here has denied there is anti-white racism involved.”
My point was that the newsmedia and most academics have not acknowledged its presence in the case of the French or Australian riots.
In response, the people here misdirected the subject wildly.
Did you bother to read my posts, at all? Or just the juicy replies?
Marcian, you can now neither spell my name, nor remember what you’ve typed. I think you’re now well past the point where you can make any useful contribution to this discussion. For your recollection, this is what you wrote:
“Yet when the much frustrated populace of Cronulla staged a one day mini-revolt in reaction to years of racism (the racism and violence perpetrated by Lebanese against white Australians there is a matter of record, please do not dispute that they suffered this much) and a total lack of police involvement (also established), there is to be no international sympathy for them.”
I’ve had enough of you. Please go elsewhere.
Marcian,
I thought your dissertation on the nature of assimilation was well written and reflects considerable thought on the topic.
However I think you have walked into this establishment with your chin extended and then sought to belittle people you barely know.
While it is true that you apologised for assuming that John had expressed views about the french riots that he clearly hadn’t, you then go on to speak in generalities in which you characterise people as being “thick” and you demean them for have worldviews contrary to your own.
Your arguments might have some logic or strength but few of us will care to know if your argument is continuely peppered with abusive insults. Do you think maybe such behaviour is not welcome on this beach?
Regards,
Terje.
I pointed out the racism the Australians suffered, as the international media pointed out the racism French Muslims suffered. I pointed out (in another paragraph) that the media’s cup runeth over with understanding of the Muslim’s plight.
In that paragraph you quote, I note that they had no such sympathy for the white Australians, who were in a similar predicament. They had no sympathy.
There is no mention or inference that I possess it for them.
Your final attack easily parried. No challenge. No challenge at all.
Say no more. I leave willingly.
Marcian,
I picked up the gauntlet you threw down. I attempted to answer the specific point you made and I thought I made a reasonably coherent reply.
Your post made a reference to leftist sophistry, then abused leftists and followed up by accusing them of laying a thick fog of nonsence (they are lefties, so that, at least, may well be a redundency). You then said that the media was ignoring any exploration of anti-white racism. Fair enough – your opinion may be valid. Not living in NSW (or even being in Australia at the moment) I cannot see the newspapers you read or the TV you watch.
Abusing those commenting on this blog for failing (in your view) to discuss what you want them to do is not, however, polite. If you make reasoned, thoughtful arguments you are much more likely to get a reasoned, thoughful response.
Continuing to abuse a host, as you do in this post is to magnify the (to quote you) childishness of the original abuse. Professor Quiggin and I disagree on quite a few subjects, but I have never found his reasoning to be worthy of abuse.
Stick around, read some more of the posts, calm the abuse and you will find that the reponses you get are more likely than not to be reasonable and thought provoking if (quite often) wrong.
The problem is that 90% of the thugs that showed at cronulla have NEVER been directly affected by Lebanese people. They showed up because they’ve been told it unsafe by other intolerrants hell bent on dismantling multiculturalism and just basically a poor excuse to allow cultural cleaning under a neowhite australia policy.
I know that the Lebanese Gangs have caused probelms, but I have seen enough violence (firsthand) in my life to know that its not just muslims whom are aggresive.
QUOTE: The problem is that 90% of the thugs that showed at cronulla have NEVER been directly affected by Lebanese people.
RESPONSE: Is that merely a guess?
Is your guess 0%?
Actually I have no idea. I was trying to determine whether your statement was based on some insight that I should take on board or if you were merely speculating. It would seem that you were speculating.
Steve at the pub:
“Four Townsville men are charged with raping an intellectually disabled Longreach woman after a rugby league carnival in the town last February.”
and
“A 16-year-old girl was blindfolded and sexually assaulted at a rodeo
north-west of Brisbane at the weekend, police said today.
The girl and her friends had been to the Toogoolawah Rodeo and
intended to sleep overnight at the local showground, a police
spokeswoman said. A group of males grabbed the girl as she went to the toilet sometime between 1.30am and 4am (AEST) on Sunday.
Her mouth was covered, she was blindfolded and forced to walk to a
nearby field where she was sexually assaulted, police said.”
Of course the police are in on the whole multicultural conspiracy as well. You know how the police force loves leftists.
However just to confirm the many sexual assaults in queensland you may contact the Kilkoy Rape Crisis service – but they may not be able to answer your call given how busy they must be with all those lebanese gangs hanging around.
Alphacoward said: The problem is that 90% of the thugs that showed at cronulla have NEVER been directly affected by Lebanese people. They showed up because they’ve been told it unsafe by other intolerrants hell bent on dismantling multiculturalism and just basically a poor excuse to allow cultural cleaning under a neowhite australia policy.
I call bullshit at this point. I’ll suggest that the figure who have been directly affected would be much higher than 90%. Of course, there were plenty of blow-ins and there was indeed a small core of Nazi fuckwits, but I’d be willing to wager a lot of money that it was more than 90%. That doesn’t mean that some of the rhetoric was overblown, and that whilst some may have had only the odd direct experience, almost all would have had stories about friends, mates, cousins, etc. The media gets involved and a feedback loop starts.
Everyone’s been guilty of a little hypocrisy. Those who have no interest about root causes when it comes to terrorism are suddenly urging that root causes be addressed. By the same token, those who stress teh root cuases of terrorism (whilst still condemning it) have suddenly become one factor fanatics (that factor being racism).
I think that all the major causes and theories that have been advanced all have a certain ring of truth to them. The problem is what to do next to fix the problem.
It would seem that you were speculating.
Yes, as everybody else on this blog. infact the vast majority of people in cyberspace only speculate – given the fact that nobody gets off their arses and goes into the real world anymore.
If you want me to properly quantify it to the best of my abilities – i will revise my orginal statement to be ” The problem is that the majority of the thugs…”
Further to the above:
Is it generally true that the media/mainstream expect more of immigrants? I think generally yes, hence the good news stories about people being a credit to their race/ethnicity or the excessive focusing and/or linking of bad behaviour to ethnicity.
However, I think the main media focus in the gang rapes case was on the racial/cultural elements, in particular the comments made by the rapists. This was the fuel that fed the Alan Jones fire, and still feeds it to this day.
alphacoward- be careful what you say to “Steve At The Pub”. He has a habit of threatening to sue people.
Isn’t it time we questioned what is the point of crowding so may people together in major cities like Sydney?
Whether or not we can legitmately label one side or the other ‘racist’ in these conflicts, I think that the likelihood of these conflicts occurring can only increase as we crowd more and more people into already overcrowded and unpleasant cities. Having lived ion Sydney on and off since 1979 and only last year, the character of the place has been almost totally ruined in that period of time with much of the skyline having become infested with ghastly high rise apartment blocks and much of Sydney’s roads ina state of gridlock.
If we must increase Australia’s population, then at least let’s try to decentralise properly and not hope that we can squeeze yet another million each into both Sydney and South East Queensland in the next 20 years with unpredictable social consequences.
Pehaps it’s time we questioned all of those economists who have insisted that Australia’s economy will collapse unless we constantly increase our population until it reaches at least 50 million. It seems to me that they are nothing more than mouthpieces for land speculators and property devolopers.
Interestingly, an economist working for the Property Council of Australia actually stated more than one on ABC Radio National’s Austalia Talks Back in May last year, that the property ‘industry’ was looking to an increase in immigration to lift the industry out of its ‘doldrums’, that is to dirve up the prices of houses even further beyond the already obscene levels close to the half million dollar mark.
If you read the property speculation sections of the newspapers, they seem to well appreciate the realtionship between Australia’s population levels and the price of real estate.
n ot
(Whoops! Somehow hit the ‘submit’ button early and posted erroneously under the name ‘Prince’. Anyway to continue the above post …)
It seems to me that the riots are, in part, the price we are all paying for the windfall profits earned by property speculators in previous decades.
James,
You may have a point – if there was no, or less, racist violence in our country towns than in our cities. Sorry, but having lived in several country towns, you and I must disagree, yet again. Decentralising is not likely to reduce racist violence overall, just disperse, and probably increase, it.
QUOTE: If you want me to properly quantify it …
RESPONSE: Please don’t think my question was a criticism. Your original statement was speculative as are lots of statements here. It would be inefficient if we all had to pre-emptively qualify every remark. You qualified your statement at the right time which was when you were asked a direct question. Which is all that I wanted from you. You are not being asked to change your style. If I need qualification for statements you might make in the future then I am more than happy to ask.
If you were writing a newspaper article I might expect a higher standard of objectivity. However here we are engaged in a dialogue so such standards can be readily abbreviated and corrected through discourse.
Your guess of 90% may be very accurate. Or else it might not be. I don’t claim to have any knowledge one way or the other.
James Farrell Says: December 15th, 2005 at 6:48 am
Multicuturalism is a (bad) response to the problem of reconciling diverse ethnicities within one political jurisdiction, under conditions of the globalization of incommensuarate ethnic cultures.
Ethnicity is the natural form of social organization of the nation state. But natural is not necessarily moral. Ethnicity is the origin of the nation state. But ethicality should be the destination of the nation state.
Two millenia of western political theory, from Plato to Rawls, promoted the dissolution of familial, tribal and provincial loyalties in favour of national and global ones ie the evolution from ethnic to ethical obligation. Multiculturalism is stupid and evil on the philsophical face of it, since it narrows political scale, regresses to primitive times and tends to partialise rather than generalise values.
The multi-culturalists reversed this trend, in order to promote ethnic identity as a goal in itself. Multiucultural policy is based on the idea of selecting immigrants on the basis of ethnic identity rather than economic efficiency or ethical equity. It urges the settling of ethnics by way of empasising their pre-modern racial and religious identities.
Ignore all the boilerplate about “tolerance”. Locke developed the theory of tolerance based on citizenship, not kinsmanship. The multiculturalists deliberatley conflate racial tolerance with cultural diversity in order to pretend that they really want to fight racism. When in fact they promote racism.
Multicultural policies are a disaster for social democratic agencies since they tend to disintegrate the nation state and introduce unaccountable bureaucracies. They are necessarily racist since ethnic identity is partly based on genotype. They are also sexist and sectarian, for reasons too obvious to point out to those with half a brain.
Multicultural politics are a disaster for social democratic parties since they are elitist and anti-nationalist. They became the basis for the evolution of the Left, from the Old Left based on class and state to the New Left based on clan and culture. The Old Lefts class politics was at least populist – good in democracy. The New Lefts culture politics was elitist – bad where numbers count.
The New Left despised the aspirational workers. They are more interested in taking over unions, stacking branches and padding welfare rolls. This also meshed with the New Rights agenda of exploiting cheap illegal labour.
THe concrete link with the Cronulla riots is easy to establish. The Cronulla riots were a pent up (and uncivil) response by Australian Anglo ethnics to uncivil behaviour by an Arabic ethnic group, the Lebanese. These distrubances are “actual and existing” multiculturalism is it is, and has been, practised for eons in Iraq, Timor, Sri Lanka, some bits of Ireland etc.
The Lebanese were targetted for immigration by ALP numbers men in the seventies and eighties, as part of its New Left multicultural politics. They were selected according to partial, rather than national, interest. They were settled in certain electorates favourable to the ALP and multiculti Left. These electorates have now become quasi-ghettos and safe Labor seats.
It is not all the fault of stupid intellectuals tinkering with complex institutions using bad ideologies. Multi-cultural policies are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for distrurbances of the Cronulla type. The problem of irreconcilable ethnicities may lie with multi-ethnic polities, rather than the multi-cultural policies.
Some cultures may produce people who may be unfit for citizenship in civil societies. This may be for sociological or biological reasons. It does not much matter which since either reason is insoluble within a few generations. My off the cuff judgement is that some of these cultures price fertility over intellectuality. This is not a good basis for a knowledge society.
Ethnic segregation may be unavoidable in these circumstances, as is occurring in the US (Red State v Blue State). This can lead to ethnic conflict unrest and cleansing. (al a Balkans)
I hope we are not heading down this track. I doubt it, in Australia the numbers are too small and the problem is manageable. But I am less confident after the London Bombings, Paris Burnings and Cronulla Bashings. The entry of Turkey into the EU will probably end in a slow motion ethnic disaster.
I am not blaming anyone or vilifiying any race. Immigrant youth that are caught between an pre-modern rock and a post-modern hard place. They hale from an ethno-tribalist multiculture but they tend to be hearty with a gangsta-globalist sub-culture.
If they were just multi-cultural ethnics they would tend to be reactionary but not troublesome because they stay at home. If they were just sub-cultural gangstas then they would burn out, like surfies, when they got old. But the combination of ethnic multiculture and gangsta sub-culture is toxic.
There is no rapid tonic for irreconcilable ethnic cultures, so far as I can see. The only answer is to do what Howard has done, and refashion immigration policy on the basis of national economic interest rather than partial ethnic interest. We should be concentrating on selecting nice, smart and fit people of all races. Ethnic cultures are not equally vauable and deserve no special consideration.
Meanwhile we have to go to damage control on the current generation of problem children. Which means playing it cool, no dog whistles amongst the populus.
Of course intellectuals who have any sense of moral responsibility should be pouring scorn and ridicule on the vicious and stupid poliicies and people who brought us to this unpretty pass. No names, no pack drill.
Andrew Reynolds,
Your point was refuted by Aden Ridgeway, the former Australian Democrats Senator, himself of Aboriginal descent, on Radio National’s “Australia Talks Back” a year or two ago.
Aden Ridgeway, was talking about Moree, a country town in northern inland New South Wales. which has a prosperous economy based on cotton. As a consequence of this Europeans and Aboriginals get along well together. (I do acknowledge that cotton is not a sustainable crop, however, so some other means for their livelihood will have to eventually be found if harmony is to be preserved).
So, where there is plenty of space and economic security, levels of racial intolerance tend to be negligible.
In any case, I would say given the experiece or Rwanda in the early 1990’s it would probably be prudent to stop increasing our population at some point before we reached population desnities equivalent to that unfortunate country.
Cronulla, insularity and ignorance
We can be an insular mob, we Aussies. We tend not to see complexity and difference, and we forget that stuff that happens here is often caused by similar factors to what happens elsewhere. These two characteristics are on display in the reactions to th…
Marcian, it’s called irony. I was told that the French invented it. Maybe I was misinformed.
Your comments about Islam and its incompatibility with liberalism are beside the point. The Lebanese troublemmakers are Americanised followers of gangsta rap, not devout followers of the Koran, though given their superficial understanding of their religion, they may adopt it as an ex post facto rationalisation of their yobboish antisocial conduct,
Alphacoward, the charges against the Townsville men were DROPPED, as mentioned in my previous post on this matter. DROPPED. Comprehende.. the tale of the “victim” was bristling with inconsitencies.
Er.. since when has Toogoolowah been in western Queensland?
2 isloated (& discredited) cries of “rape” at rodeos hardly amounts to a string of “gang” rapes. More cries of “rape” come from rock concerts than from rodeos, (at rodeos a brand o f justice is dished out which would make most people’s hair curl, especially those who sip latte for a living)
It seems there is some attempt in this thread at creating a moral equivalence between the Lebanese muslim transgressions in Sydney & the much belated response to it. Three cheers for the surfies!
By the way Alphacoward, I have to point out to you non-sporty fellers that there is a WORLD of difference between the sports of rugby league & rodeo! (the animals in rodeo exhibit a far higher maturity level than those in rugby league)
It is only a side issue, however your fabrication of a “string” of “gang rapes” at rodoes in western queensland is nowhere near the malevolent reality (court proven) of Lebanese muslim gang rapes of white girls in Sydney.
Andrew REynolds: “I do not think that anyone here has denied there is anti-white racism involved. ”
Andrew, I have pointed out that while there is direct evidence of racism on the part of the Cronulla locals and their supporters, there is less direct evidence of racism playing a part in the motivation of their opponents.
It probably did, but that’s inference not observation.
I’m also surprised at the apparent view of soem commentators that racism is the only objectionable motivation for violence.
If the fights last Sunday had been between the supporters of rival AFL clubs they’d be equally objectionable.
It’s cheating a bit to define multiculturalism in terms of the consequences you personally attribute to it. It’s like defining Keynesianism as a recipe for inflation, or Christianity as a form of intellectual sclerosis. You might well believe these conclusions, and you might even be right, but it hardly makes for fair-minded debate.
Anyway, it’s clear now that for the most part when you refer to multiculturalism you mean an immigration policy.
If all you were saying is that the policy was corrupted, I think you have a reasonable prima facie case. Whatever may have been the spirit and intentions of multiculturalism (defined as an immigration policy), we ended up letting the wrong people sort of people immigrate, especially people with a tribal outlook. This means in general they have values and practices that are backward. For example, they subjugate their women and engage in blood feuds. More specifically, they are tribal in the narrow sense of pursuing their members’ interests without regard for the needs and rights of those outside their group, or indeed the laws and mores of the society at large. At worst this could mean a strong propensity to criminality.
There is probably some truth in all this, but I would see it more as an argument that the policy was hijacked and perverted by political apparatchiks.
However, it’s clear that you are are going beyond this: you think nothing good could ever have come of a policy that explicitly aimed at ethnic diversity. Setting out to create a patchwork quilt is bound to produce tribal behaviour, even if the source countries aren’t themselves especially tribal in character, and even if the individuals chosen are educated and cosmopolitan. The corollary of a patchwork quilt immigration program, that we encourage the settlers to keep up their languages and traditions once they get here, is also a bad plan, bound in the end to create ghettoes and destroy social harmony.
I’m not sure where I stand on this. I think ethnic and linguistic diversity is valuable in itself for the same reasons as biodiversity. Of course there are plenty of traditions, like female circumcision and revenge killings, that can’t become extinct soon enough. But even if we only let in people who share our basic values of respect for law and the rights of others, there’s still room for plenty of diversity. I tend to agree that economic and humanitarian criteria should head the list when we pick immigrants. Other things being equal, though, why not have a few Ghanaians instead of just more Scots.
But at times you seem to be making a deeper claim still – that the idea of a tolerant multicultural society is in itself a fundamental misconception. This is irrespective of whether it arises through a series of historical accidents or is artificially engineered. Tolerance is only possible when ethnic identities dissolve. As soon as I insist on tolerance for practices that are characteristic of a group – an ethnic group in particular – suddenly I am inviting that group to be intolerant of others.
This seems to be emerging as your signature theory, but once it’s distangled from the more plausible arguments above, I’d have to say it looks pretty silly. And what on earth do you mean by ’emphasising their pre-modern racial and religious identities.’? The racial bit, I mean.
I omitted to indicate that the above was addressed to Jack.
Very Volkish!
Jack Strocchi’s point about multiculturalism’s contradiction of the secularising, globalising and universalising tendencies in the West is worthy of respect. I take issue with his assumption that a straight line can be drawn between Plato and Rawls. The history of the West is much more crooked than that. But that isn’t the issue I want to address here. Nevertheless, I do want to point out that Jack’s conceptualisation is ahistorical.
I also believe that Jack has overstated his case against multiculturalism, and I think that James Farrell has identified some of those overstatements. But on the other hand, I don’t believe that James Farrell has countered the central thrust of Jack’s argument. I take this argument to be that multiculturalism, as practised in Australia, and civil society are, at a fundamental level contradictory.
But just as Jack’s conceptualisation of Western political theory is ahistorical, so is his understanding of the relative value of different ethnic cultures.
Jack says: “Ethnic cultures are not equally vauable and deserve no special consideration.”
I take that to mean that certain cultures equip individuals better than others to cope with the rights and responsibilities of an advanced society like Australia. And it is in the national interest to select immigrants according to those criteria. This selection process carries with it some very touchy problems. For example, does a Wahhabi Saudi oil broker trump a Liverpudlian rock-n-roll drummer? But let’s pass over that.
My major issue with Jack is that its almost impossible to decide which groups make, on average, the better citizens. As we have discussed before, in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, right-thinking Britons preferred Pakistanis to Afro-Caribbeans. A quarter-century later, I imagine that verdict would be reversed. In 2005 Rastafarianism is out and Jihad is in. These passions rise and fall. Western societies have proven themselves to be big and resilient enough to cope. Thus, historical perspective reduces these issues to their appropriate size. This perspective is impossible if one takes an ahistorical view of the issue.
The central point I wish to make about multiculturalism is that it does tend to encourage tribalism which serves to prolong and accentuate marginalisation of minorities.
However, multiculturalism in Australia should also be understood in its historical context. Multiculturalism arose in the late 1960s and became official policy in the 1970s. There is a myth abroad that before multiculturalism came along, Australia was a colour-blind, secularist, universalist Lockean polity. This is arrant nonsense. From the late 1960s onward, a majority of Australians supported dismantlement of many of the exclusionary practices of Australian official racism. Unfortunately, they had no workable alternative to replace it. Instead of asserting universal values, it was easier and more convenient to embrace the emotionalism of multiculturalism. One might have hoped that multiculturalism would have served as a transition toward universal values. But this hasn’t happened.
And now it seems that Australians are going cool not just on multiculturalism, but also on the justice of universal values. This is worrying.
Here is a mental experiment:
Imagine that the Federal Government decided to send the Australian electorate and the world a message in favour of universal values.
Here is how the Government could do it:
They could sponsor a referendum abolishing the Race Powers under Section 51 of the Constitution.
Would that referendum be successful?
I fear that I am much less confident now than I would have been only five years ago.
Abolishing the concurrent power under section 51 would mean that the power would then be given to the States as an exclusive power.
To achieve the effect I think you want a new section, stating that the Parliament and the States shall not have the power of making laws with respect to the people of any race, would be needed.
Have a look.
Nice point AR. Youve revealed to me the conseuences of this important feature of Australian federalism.
Ian Gould: “Andrew, I have pointed out that while there is direct evidence of racism on the part of the Cronulla locals and their supporters, there is less direct evidence of racism playing a part in the motivation of their opponents.”
You are being disingenuous. The “direct evidence” is the camera footage of the Cronulla riots. However, there have been dozens of locals who have been interviewed and who have claimed to be the victim of Lebanese racism over several years. This includes middle aged folk and young women being assailed on the beaches and in the streets. For example, a group of Lebanese pulled up to a guy’s car and asked him if he was Australian. When he said yes he was clobbered with a baseball bat and his car was smashed up. I think that is pretty bloody direct!
You appear to have a big chip on your shoulder about white people. Do we disgust you this much?
Both Katz and Jack (as well as others) seem to have some very well formed ideas on this topic. I am finding this discussion very useful in the ongoing formulation of my own position.
Prior to this discussion I new that I liked ethnic food (in particular Turkish and Lebanese). My own suburb is mostly Korean and to date I have had no problem with that. My work colleges are from everywhere (and I recruited them) so I also have no problem with any of that either.
Can somebody tell me more about the ALP policy with regards to creating Ethnic suburbs. There was a bit in the Australian about it today.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17580509%255E7583,00.html
EXTRACT:-
new = knew
Andrew and Katz- If you abolish the section of the constitution that allows the making of laws “for any race”, wouldn’t that adversely affect Aboriginals? For example, Aboriginals are the beneficiaries of positive discrimination/affirmative action in Commonwealth employment. Another example is the Abstudy Centrelink payment for Aboriginal students.