Multiculturalism, the real target for Reclaim Australia. By Tim Tufuga 25th July, 2015.
It is not unusual to view Australia, from a socio-political and historical perspective, as a watershed for multicultural anxieties emanating from cultural experiences from afar. On face value, Reclaim Australia has staged rallies across Australia premised under an anti-Islamic Jihadist agenda. However, simmering beneath is another subliminal message which is less apparent and, is more pervasive, in its rippling effect upon other minority cultural groups collectively grouped into the same basket of Multiculturalism. As a bifurcated race relations political setting the them versus us becomes very simple which is not necessarily a Socialist Anarchist Anti-Race hate groups facing off with Neo-Nazis pretending to fly under the banner of the Australian Flag, and Reclaim Australia political narrative, the ripple effect is more sinister and touches upon all other pluralistic ethnic and cultural groups within the so called Multicultural banner. In short, Reclaim Australia, is really a rally cry for the mainstream White Australia to fight on all fronts, and by all means necessary, against any elements considered to be an antithetical force to the homogeneity of a Monocultural White Anglo-Celtic Australia and the perceived privileges associated with this threatened quality of life.
Out of a population of twenty three million Australians no less than seventeen million is ethnically Anglo-Celtic. No less than 45% of the Australian population are descendants of either English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh or Cornish, or a mix of these groups. More significantly, 74% of the Australian population have partial British and Irish ancestry. The anxieties felt by the nascent race hate group called Reclaim Australia are predominantly made up of this majority ethnic group of Australians.
Contrary to the disclaimer made by the group, members marching during the numerous rallies up and down the country have contradicted the About Reclaim Australia movement statement, which states that :-
“Reclaim Australia Rallies are the result of a “grassroots movement” that has been organised into nationwide rallies that will be held in capital cities, major cities and townships and rural areas.
The rallies are being independently organized by blue collar workers, white collar workers, mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers— people from all walks of life concerned with a certain issue that they want heard and addressed by government.
We are not a racist hate group affiliated with any other group, nor neo-Nazi or white supremacist. In fact it is the opposite. We are simply patriotic and love our country, our nation and the law that supports our values and our lifestyle. We just want our successful Australian way of life retained—that is not “racist”, that is just plain sensible!
For the first time in our recent history Australians have now been exposed to hostage sieges, attacks on our police and service people, foiled beheading and bombing attempts, here on our soil. As a result Military and service uniforms may no longer be worn off duty in public because of security issues linked to only ONE group—the so called “radicals of Islam”.
The rallies are a public response to the shock of recent atrocities of “Islam’s radicals” both inside and outside of Australia, echoed by our media.
“Our values are better than those of Islam’s extremist madmen and it’s time we said so”— Janet Albrechtsen, The Australian”
Multiculturalism the real target.
The overall narrative of targeting Islamic terrorism has been a precursor for another wider rippling sociological narrative which is to target Multiculturalism along an Enoch Powell prophetic warning, when he cites Sibyl’s quote, in Aeneid’s poem, “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood”, When this speech was delivered in 1968 post Colonial Great Britain was reaising the reversal of the Blackman’s burden with the nascent rise of the White man’s burden with the influx of peripheral colonial migration from the periphery to the Imperial ‘core’, the motherland, England. Great Britain was suffering the anxieties of self government and Independence of Commonwealth nations with the dwindling of Commonwealth wealth generation and instead a steady influx flow of former Imperial servants were to realise their quid pro quo service for Queen and Empire would choose to migrate to England. Subsequently, multicultural ethnic ghettos sprung up throughout England, in North America and, Europe.
In the meantime, after World War Two, in 1945, under a policy of Populate or Perish predominantly White colonies throughout Commonwealth nations. Australia, New Zealand, as well as, Canada, were considered the Jewels within the British crown. After world war two the Populate or Perish policy reinforced the White Australia policy objective. The now celebrated Ten Pound Poms were lured into migrating to Australia and as late as 1973 this assisted passage to Australia cost was lifted to $75.
The Populate or Perish shortfalls, begrudgingly, gave rise to a Multicultural Australia and the demise of the White Australia policy.
Post 1945 and the rise of Multiculturalism.
Australian multiculturalism has been accepted in mainstream Australian society. However, in certain politically convenient moments, scapegoatism, through visualised racism, becomes a convenient socio-economic and political distraction for other socio-economic crisis. For Political agenda settings, racism is always an election winner, for the silent majority, who will deflect their scapegoat usual suspects memes and propaganda on mainstream media and social media networks.
Modern day political trend setting would seek the pet aversion of the month, year, or decade, throughout most modern societies, in which Australian is no exception. Australian political history, like any other society, is imperfect, which would include ethnic-religious cultural bashing throughout modern political history. For all intents and purposes, for now, the favourite pet aversion for most Western Societies is the Islamic ethnic cultures anywhere. The main threat variable, understandable, is the physical fear mongering with the perpetual threat of violent terrorism. The fear factor has been the mainstay for ultra conservative, ultra nationalist political groups fearful of the threat to their cherished privileges being taken away violently it seems, with the nascent rise of Islamic terrorism throughout predominantly Judeo-Christian societies. A fear that is factually supported in many instances but exaggerated and sensationalised by those who choose to dwell on the fear factor in the everyday existence of their lives.
Needless to say, the adjunct political focal points in present day Australian politics would include,
1. The perpetual war on terrorism Global War on Terror (GWOT);
2. Revocation of Citizenship for known terrorist Organisation/s sympathisers and fighters;
3. Turning back of the boats narrative; and,
4. The war against Multiculturalism.
The perpetual war on terrorism, The Global War On Terror (GWOT).
The perceived, and actual, spread of Islamic Jihadism has served as a convenient narrative for the extreme right wing xenophobic narrative throughout many Western Societies and Australia is no exception. The ultra-nationalist political agenda has found Islamic Jihadism as the most convenient scapegoat and is, generally speaking, accepted by a predominantly Eurocentric and Judeo-Christian mainstream Australian community.
The September 11, 2001, event would serve as the Mea Culpa for the present perpetual Global War on Terror, (GWOT). For the warmonger 911 would serve as the finest hour for both the ultra-Nationalist and the Islamic Jihadist alike. Paradoxically, each side would seek a raison d'etre for committing to a reciprocated perpetual war which would last for over a decade and it seems to be self perpetuating fueling itself from each other with an intergenerational hunger for hate begetting hate.
The regressive nature of the present global war on terror has retarded the economic and socio-political development of most Middle Eastern cultures. Whilst, at the same time, fueling a war machine, within most paranoid and perhaps guilt ridden advanced societies some just cause to want to supplant and to prevent further erosions of their privileged status from any nascent emerging economies who aim to aggrandise through qualitative development of their own macroeconomic and microeconomic infrastructural and superstructural development. Moreover, the privileged would choose to preserve their privileged status from externalised threats. Such threats of erosion of their quality of life are sourced at the perceived, rather than actual, emerging economies improved quality of life through acquiring or using natural power resources, such as oil and mineral energy resources, which would result in a diffusion of power resources away from the present advanced developed societies. When the core, more developed societies feel that their quality of life is ebbing through this power resource diffusion, then a retardant force must halt this advance.
Conflicts, civil disequilibria, and entropy, will prevent emerging societies from progressing. Underdeveloped societies like most religiously oppressed Middle Eastern societies are more conducive to volatile social disruptions. Anarchic forces such as political coup d etat and social conflict occur in vulnerable societies ripe for social upheaval. Rigid and draconian religions would set a regressive agenda which would serve the purpose for the core, and more developed nations, to maintain a suppressive stifling lid on development and emerging economies from progress.
Therefore, to reiterate the present day crisis, for the present moment, advanced societies would want to maintain their privileged status by undermining and supplanting emerging economies’ progressive development. Why? because, of the perceived ebbing of the privileged status of the core developed society status. Energy power resources, sourced at oil resources from Middle Eastern locales, would fuel the economic developmental growth of most Westernised societies. To undermine their own self development you use religion and an under educated religiously draconian society eager to commit to violence in order to fuel this regressive agenda which would effectively supplant their on socio-economic and political progress to best effect.
Black Man’s burden, becomes the White Man’s burden.
Post colonialism has meant the removal of most of the physical evidences of the Eurocentric cultural Colonialism from the former colonies. Upon their return to Europe the Imperial legacies of Colonialism would include laws and cultural evidences including laws and language of conquest for the former colonies. Conversely, on the flipside, was the influx of coloured people, with their elements of culture, including their Cosmopolitanism, their religion, music, dress, art forms, culinary skills and food, back to the Imperial Motherland.
Culturally, the expectant anxieties of immigration would attract the White Man’s Burden. In the twentieth century, the Enoch Powell narrative fear bodes well in this instance of the White Man’s Burden. In Britain, politically, the British National Party BNP, and United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), today, has chimed in with this xenophobic and anti-Multiculturalist narrative.
In Australia, the portability of the Enoch Powell narrative, may be manifestly inherited, with the literature of Professor Geoffrey Blainey, and the politics of Pauline Hanson.
Now, updated, the present day political landscape of Reclaim Australia has revised and reinvented the xenophobic narrative with finding a tangible evidence of a real terror threat to mainstream White Australia. The National Security threat is perceived as a white man’s burden with a manifested threat from Islamic Jihadism which is often source from coloured people from South East Asia and the Middle East.
Stained by the same tar brush.
Whilst it may be salient to point out that the Islamic Jihadist is soured from the South east Asian and Middle Eastern region the bifurcated perception by mainstream societal perception would simplify the them versus us as coloured ethnic cultures versus White European Australian society.
Samoans, whilst considered minor and insignificant to the Australian bifurcated race relations dividing line, as Samoans are considered as being lumped into the Multicultural basket, and therefore, considered as part of the them group. Samoans have been smeared with the them category and have been included within the cross-hairs for the Reclaim Australia hitlist.
Samoans represent some 40,000 of the Australian population. Even though this is a statistical fact, racism smears across all ethnic groups. Samoans, particularly menfolk, are disproportionately targeted by hoi polloi and unwanted law enforcement attention more so than comparable white people within the communities either in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne where there is some ethnic enclaves of Samoans.
In Logan City, south of Brisbane, within South East Queensland, there is 8,800 known Samoans residing within this region. Logan City, has the largest concentration of Samoans in all of Australia. Again, the unwanted attention by the police and law enforcement is disproportionately over represented as well.
Revocation of the Australian Citizenship.
The recent announcement of the revocation of citizenship under section 35 (1) of the 2007 Citizenship Act, has given too much political power to a humanitarian and legally unqualified Politician to revoke the citizenship status of a perceived Australian citizen suspected of joining a military organisation considered an enemy and at war with Australia. This may be considered a justifiable reason for the protection of local Australians from potential terrorist elements as potential cell or a lone wolf actuals within Australia under the present GWOT conditions, however, it may set a precedent for potential abuse of power for the removal of citizenship status for a targeted ethnic and cultural group under the most flimsy of reasons as perceived by the purveyors of power at a particular time.
Turning back the boats.
The White Man’s Burden narrative may be translated as the plight of the Core-Periphery dialectalism with the peripherally war ravaged refugees and dysfunctional externalised stateless persons have been disgorged within the Core Developed Sovereign Societies within Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. The present bipartisan response has been uniformly anti-refugee and asylum seekers. Perhaps, the justification may be considered politically pertinent after noticing the consistency of the Suspected Irregular Entry Vehicles (SIEVs) having been sourced from regions which are consistently are war torn, destabilised, and, often, have over population issues, which must be considered as going beyond the pale for Australia’s Border Security and National Security resources. In this regard, the testing of the Australian level of tolerance has become a more uniform bipartisan political approach with a collective consideration of the perpetual influx of SIEVs as an adjunct to the present Global War On Terror (GWOT). More particularly, Nations, who may consider Australia, and other Coalition of the Willing, ‘Core’ Nations, as likely targets as a post facto GWOT reciprocated war.
Ultimately, the Turning back of the Boats policy has in another, neo-Marxist perspective, could be considered as perpetuating the stress upon the White Man’s Burden. Therefore, the White Man’s Burden, for the ‘Core’ Nations, as considered synonymous with the present Global War On Terror narrative, may be comprehensively conceivable.
Tim Tufuga
[1] Anglo-Celtic Australian population, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Celtic_Australian
[2] Reclaim Australia, http://www.reclaim-australia.com/about-reclaim.html
[3] Rivers of Blood, Powell, Enoch, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech
[4] Ten Pound Poms, Victoria Immigration Museum, http://museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/discoverycentre/your-questions/ten-pound-poms/
[5] Samoan Australians, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_Australian
