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| Blogs > rm_mazandbren > The Complaisant Husband |
Who Are We?
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Who Are We? There seems to be an utterly miniscule fine line between being a redneck, racist Australian and an enlightened, multicultural Australian; a line that seems to largely depend on which side of politics you happen to be on. The recent debate on whether we should follow the lead of France and ban the Burqa has generated plenty of heat amongst conservatives, who generally support the ban largely on the basis that it is denigrating to women, and liberals, who oppose the ban on the basis that there is no real way to determine whether it worn by choice in observation of cultural and religious teachings or forced upon the woman by her male relatives. Reading Sophie Mirabella�s piece on The Punch about the AMA�s move to try and legalise or decriminalise the practice of piercing the genitals of girls in preference to a full blown female circumcision, usually a backyard affair dispensed without the aid of anaesthetics or antibiotics, it struck me that quite a few comments on the story took the position that, as a member of the Liberal Party, her concerns were less motivated by considerations of women�s rights and health but were in fact a racist attempt to demonise migrants. Until recently, both practices seemed to be firmly in that category of items that feminists and leftists viewed as evidence of the denigration of women by their patriarchal societies. Now it seems that, with the Right supporting moves to ensure that they disappear from our country, the practices are evidence of cultural diversity and deserve to be protected, or the impacts at least minimised. What strike me as inherently misogynistic practices are now given the cover of multiculturalism and any criticism is simply evidence of the inherently racist nature of Australians- apparently we have to be more open minded to such things in order to make our new immigrants feel welcome. Given the recent cases in Britain of Nigerian immigrants practicing human sacrifice with victims, I wonder how soon we will be asked to embrace that particular cultural �oddity?� Indeed, to judge by several articles on The Forum, particularly a piece by Brian Hennesey, we are not merely being encouraged to ignore such practices in our backyard, but to positively embrace the cultural and historical aspects of other nations. Mr Hennesey, speaking of our relationship with the Chinese, believes that it is a national disgrace and disaster that many Australians have failed to learn Mandarin or studied the 5000year history of China. According to this erstwhile personage, a good understanding of the Chinese culture and history, accompanied by the capacity to speak the language, should allow us to see the Chinese perspective in<b> trampling </font></b>the human rights of its majority Han population, not to mention all those pesky dissidents being harvested for their organs and those non-conformist Tibetans, Uyghars and Manchurians kept in their places by the legions of the PLA. It is not too dissimilar to past claims that we should all learn to be Japanese, forget their abhorrent actions during WW2 and enjoy the fruits of our efforts; similar arguments were made to learn one of the myriad of languages spoken by the members of ASEAN and forget the cultural peccadillos we found difficult to accept as products of the Enlightenment. So what if they treat their citizens so poorly; if we take the time to learn to be like them, we can all get rich on our lack of morals. It is in a somewhat similar vein that Dr Maggie Walter addresses the issue of identity for Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Citing a recent survey of what it means to be Australian, she bemoaned the fact that an identification with the land was not amongst the top replies. She put this down to the fact that we have separate historical traditions and that for we non-indigenes to feel more a part of this country, and to embrace the concerns of the indigenous population, we should all embrace that part of our national history that extends beyond white settlement. What struck me was the implication that embracing the longer Aboriginal presence would, by numbers, devalue the 200+years of white settlement- hardly a watertight argument for both sides of the native divide to embrace each other�s histories. Besides which the argument is essentially flawed; modern Australia is a product of a different tradition to the tribal societies (plural) that existed before white settlement. In essence, it would be asking us not merely to turn our back on the last 200+years, but on the thousands of years that went before it. At the same time that we�re being encouraged to be more tolerant, more understanding and more like other cultures, we�re losing our own identity. Of the many explanations of the significance of the recent Foundation Day public holiday in Western Australia stated on radio, not one got close to the facts. It was not the foundation of the state or white settlement or the first British colony here; it was not the anniversary of the first sighting of the Western Australian coast by HMS Endeavour. If something so basic can be forgotten so easily, what does this say about our own identity? Perhaps we fail to identify with the land because we�ve made ourselves feel unwelcome? It was not always so; the most famous literary figures in this country, poets and authors like Rolf Bolderwood, AB �Banjo� Patterson, Henry Lawson, etc, talk to us from the land- The Bush Poets are described as such for a reason. If non-indigenes have become divorced from this tradition it is because we have been driven from it by that clique of leftist Historians and social activists demanding that we turn our back on our own history and embrace what is, to us, an alien culture. It is a phenomenon almost unique to the Anglosphere, particularly the settler societies of North America and the Antipodes. In trying to make a better, more welcoming society, white people have taught us to hate our white culture; that any other culture is inherently superior to our own. In these never ending debates on political correctness and multiculturalism, we all buy into a false belief that the proportion of non-European descendants is increasing exponentially and that there is some sort of racial balance. If we look at the race debate in the United States, it is easy to assume that Afro-Americans make up a significant proportion of the population- 30-40%? It comes as a real shock to people when it is realised that the proportion is only about 10%. Even hiving off the Latino segment of the white population, the US still has 69% of its population being of European descent. This figure is even more pronounced in Australia; the Indigenous population comprises 2.3% of the total population while non-indigenes of European descent comprise some 90% of the population. How has it happened that the dominant racial group is being forced to go to such extraordinary lengths to adopt minority sentiments? How has it happened that an intellectual tradition stretching back over three thousand years to pre-Socratic Greece has come to a point where its latest development is to detest that very intellectual tradition? A key element in this attack is the Leftist belief that the structures that effectively define our society must be broken down and rebuilt in order to reflect the paradigm of universal outcomes. Since these structures have been built, justified and function as an extension of the western intellectual tradition, it is important that this tradition be discredited. Reform is not enough; in the Leftist view this only diminishes the disadvantage, it does not remove it. One of the key elements of Western society is the regard we hold for tradition. Much of our society functions not because of the laws and institutions in place, but because we choose to follow the dictates of those traditions that underlay them. For example, a truly effective police force would be one that provides a policeman to monitor every citizen; we accept that while a police force is necessary to police the laws we have, much of our law is based on the fact that we choose to follow those laws. The flipside of this arrangement is that our laws do not infringe upon those traditions that define our freedom, or at least not too much. For a society whose underpinnings rely on the notion that a clique of leaders will determine what is best for you, such notions are an anathema. Historically, the law has been formulated on the basis that those who commit crime have stepped outside of society; Leftist tradition views criminals as taking advantage of being left outside of society. Thus non-whites, who by definition are outside a white centric societal structure, deserve special consideration in judgement for criminality because they are merely taking advantage of their position outside of society. In order for this inherent disadvantage to be removed, the structures must be removed and replaced with societal institutions that don�t have this inherent flaw. There are a number of failures in logic in this position. The first is that it is racist; it automatically implies that whites are better able to adapt to other cultures than other races are able to adapt to ours. This plays into the second failure of logic; we know that many more people of colour are able to fit within our societies� broad parameters than remain outside it. The third failure is that those coming to our societies do so in order to take advantage of the opportunities and freedoms our societies provide. While these opportunities and freedoms tend to be financial in nature, sometimes it is the just the opportunity to live and breathe. The dumbest part of this is that by embracing other cultures, not only will these asylum seekers have nowhere to seek asylum, but we will be condemning ourselves to the sort of regimes we will probably want to flee from. One of the ironies about this rush to embrace alien religions, cultures and patterns of thought is that there is a projected nuance and subtlety to what, in essence, are fairly uncomplicated structures. One of the problems with a Bacon or a Spinoza is that their works tend to be rather heavy going; in any number of texts and translations we are admonished to re-read and take-in in small doses the most profound of western philosophers. The appeal of these alien concepts is not that they are more complex than western concepts but that they are, in fact, relatively simple. Rather than bending over backwards to include every cultural aberration, no matter how abhorrent; instead of pouring funding into the study of foreign cultures and languages; instead of embracing an alien history, we should be pressuring our politicians into making the study of our traditions and history and culture a priority. Western civilisation, western thought, is based on the competing interests of the individual and the state; from it we have drawn our ideas of what it means to be free. Turning our backs on this, embracing alien cultures and societies, runs the risk of undermining our freedoms by making us forget from where we have drawn the lessons that have shaped that freedom. It may not be a perfect freedom, or a perfect balance, but it is a lot better than anything else on offer.  In truth is there no beauty? I am not in love; but i am open to persuasion. |
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