« space cadets | Home | web 2.0 meltdown ? »
Australia and it’s unfortunate lack of Rascism
By Martin English | December 17, 2005
From Michael Duffy:
When Pauline Hanson was in Parliament, preachers such as Robert Hughes enthusiastically condemned the innate racism of the Australian people. There were numerous gleeful predictions of suburban pogroms. But what happened was that nearly all the violence flowed the other way. At Hanson’s apogee, hundreds of people would demonstrate outside her meetings, abusing, and in some cases spitting on and attacking, those who came to see her. Many were frightened away. It was possibly the most disgraceful episode in the recent history of our democracy. Strangely, it went almost completely uncriticised by the educated middle classes.
and
The sad truth for middle-class moralisers is that most Australians are unhelpfully non-racist. The book How Australia Compares, by Rodney Tiffen and Ross Gittins, includes the result of a 1990s survey on the sorts of people who were not desired as neighbours. Some of the respondent percentages were: drug addicts 74, heavy drinkers 60, people with a criminal record 45, emotionally unstable 38, and immigrants and people from a different race 5. Only 5 per cent! And that was the lowest in the list of countries surveyed: Austria and Belgium 20 per cent, Japan 17, France, Italy and Germany 13.
It was Voltaire who said supossedly said
I do not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.
This has long been acclaimed as the height of tolerance and civilisation. In other words, we should be able to discuss Islam, Lebanese culture and pretty much everything else in the same way various Web Diary columnists forsee the death of democracy in Australia and lay it at the feet of John Howard.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet This