Rifty
Those that love the truth are not afraid to step up and show that they say what they mean and mean what they say.
The racists, however will always duck, weave and obfuscate, because their hate is based on fear of the truth.
Multiculture, Multiculturalism and the Dialectic of Racism: ===========================================================
The rabid anti-multiculturalists (Petzl, ferdie, Mosley Wallace, Emetic, et al) are motivated by racist hatred of foreigners, ethnics and other religions, they will never define what it is they blame, because the deliberate confusing of definitions is essential to their cause.
For example, you can never get them to define 'race' they use it loosley and the PRIME tool for their racism is to find an example of an INDIVIDUAL act (say a rape), identify the perp by ethnicity or religion (say Lebanese Muslim), and then slide into stereotype "Lebanese Muslim rapists".
Applied to a particular case it is a truthful descriptor, but it has a GENERALITY (all Lebanese Muslims) which is both a COMPLETE LIE and PRECISELY the linguistic blur that the racists rely on.
Pick one of ferdie, Petzl and Wallaces posts and analyse it those terms, their most abused tactic is to slide between individual incidents they trawl the entire world media to find, and generalizations from those single incidents, (known as stereotyping)
For the reasons outlined above, those who professionally oppose the tolerant, egalitarian Miulicultural diversity of Australian society will never define multicultural, because they rely on sliding between confused terms in order to maintain their argument.. from multiculture, to multiculturalism and back.
To illustrate; there is a fundamental distinction between multicultural and multiculturalism, which they constantly and deliberately confuse, because their goal is White Australia, and they can't attack 'multiculture', because it is easily shown that Australia in the past had many cultures, as did every other nation on the planet. (There is also no clear line between cultures, eg we have Roman numerals the Greek alphabet, and ME Christianity at the heart of ours! ..and there is no nation that is 100% homogenious). Multiculture IS reality.
So, if they can't blame all todays problem on 'multiculture', because an Australia of Aboriginals, Irish, English et al was ALWAYS multicultural.. what do they do?
They attack 'multiculturalism', misrepresent it and elevate it to an importance it has never really had;
Multiculturalism is two things, the -ISM indicates that it is simply a set of beliefs about multiculture, ie a recognition of multicultural REALITY, an acceptance of it, a celebration of it. But it is ALSO a set of government policies to formalize that recognition, acceptance, celebration! Thus the Howard government has a Department which documents the positive economic social and foreign policy benefits from having a successful, open, democratic multicultural society.
Note, the policy has NOT CREATED multicultural Australia, because we have ALWAYS had multicultures, it is a political response to it.
Just as Howards Agriculture Fisheries and Forrest Department did not **CREATE** Agriculture, fish or forests, but is set up to manage WHAT EXISTS.
Justs as the Department of the Environment did not CREATE the environment, but deals with issues arising from the REALITY OF WHAT ALREADY EXISTS!
Now it is essential to understand why the racists CONFUSE the two terms, and why they slide between them.
They can pick a particular date, when a government policy was created and pretend that we became multicultural at that point and claim that everything went to poo from then on. But they can't say that being 'multicultural' is the problem, because we were Always multicultural, so they rant against 'multiculturalism' you know, the thing that Evil Guvmint forced upon us, dammned politicians! And evey dammed thing wrong nowe, is the fault of that dammned policy, from Petzl being a Christian fundie lunatic to ferdie being a loveless, friendless wanker... It's all happened since Multiculturalism became a Guvmint policy! B^D
The most common fallacy in logic is that concurrence proves causality. Just because high petrol prices, the Internet, and nudity on TV have happened since there was a Multicultural Policy does not mean that the policy CAUSED them. No more than creating a Federal Department for Womens Affairs is the reason there are Women in our society.
But for a sad redneck loser, it makes a much more comfortable explanation for their joblessness and failure to find a mate, than their own inadequacies.
Blame the scapegoat is the oldest game in the book, and 'Multiculturalism' for bigots is simply the term they use to put an ACCEPTABLE FACE on their racism.
What they are really attacking, in every post or utterance, is other ethnic groups, other religious groups, The Other, the Foreigner.. "Auslander Raus!" but that is unacceptable racism, so it has to be dressed up, and so their buttaults on multicultural diversity (the REALITY of our society for all of it's history) continue, but when pressed they slide across to 'multiculturalism' being the problem, make a few comments about evil politicians, and squirm away from further rational exmination of precisely WTF they are on about.
To aid their ground shifting
they need to propogate some myths;
Myth #1 Multiculturalism has created Multicultural OZ
It is in fact a RESPONSE to the rapid immigration in earlier periods, which saw more Italian, Greek and other non Anglos arriving. It is a continuation of the process of dismantling racist White Australia which began long before multiculturalism became a policy.
Myth #2 Multiculturalism says all cultures are of equal value
Multiculturalism is firmly embedded in the Law, cultural practices which break our law are illegal.
What is permitted is what defines our freedoms, people from ALL cultures are allowed to play Bocce, go Morris Dancing, celebrate Christmas, fast for religious purposes, play cricket.. etc etc So LONG AS THEY ACT WITHIN THE LAW.
Why is that so hard for racists to grasp?
Myth #3 "We'll all be rooned" - Hanrahan
Every Greek returning to Greece after 40 years laments how things have gone to poo. They make TV shows called Grumpy Old Men because we know just how much worse things have got since our day.
Those who return to Bali lament that it ain't what it used to be before the commercial corruption of the Island paradise.. and the next generation of tourists will say the same and they will both be right.
We are sunk in problems up to our necks, species extinctions, resource depletions, constant economic restructuring, materialism, rude and surly children.. Plato had a long list of their generational failings and general decline.
The Simplest Explanation has enormous appeal for people dumb enough to be racists - it's THEIR fault.
Most Aussies, if they look around, note their problems and note their neighbours from different ethnic groups will agree that being from different cultures is NOT the root cause of our problems.
For most of us it is IRRELEVANT to the real issues.
So.. take note of those who can't get along, because as Cronulla shows, they are violent thugs who have moved from hate speech to rioting.
Oh, and one more thing. There will always be problems involving any ethnicity, the racists own stats show that convictions for ALL ethnic groups show statistically insignificant variations between 1 or 2 per 100,000 ..so watch vigilantly for those who scour the net, to pick an incident, from Sierra Leone one day, or Paris the next to build their false impression of 'Boogie Men'.. and for those who distort language to turn individual acts into a Stereotype.
-- "Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
"History shows us that there have been many struggles between the honest men of England and those that tyrannized them. All good laws come as innovation and as constraints upon the power of the King and Lords."
-Colonel Thomas Rainsborough Council of the Army, Putney Church, 1647
"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties."
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