Ok, I realise that’s a bit controversial at the moment. Last night, like anyone who read his statement I was ready to write something attacking him as scathingly as I could but I’ve had a night’s sleep and I’ve realised that like all human beings, Fraser is a flawed creature.
Ok, Anning is more flawed than most, but let’s take a big deep breathe and remember that – at times like these – we feel both compassion for the victims and enormous anger. That anger needs to go somewhere and it’s often directed at the sideshow and not the main event.
Fraser Anning wasn’t the one pulling the trigger. He didn’t kill anybody.
Ok, you might argue that his rhetoric, his use of the words “final solution” in the Senate when refering to Muslim Immigration, his dancing with devil in the form of neo-nazis all contributed to this. But, again, let me emphasis, he didn’t pull the trigger.
If you’re going to condemn Anning for his, “I’m not a nazi, but didn’t Hitler have some great ideas” stance, then we have to start looking at a whole range of people who are now peddling back as fast as there little legs can carry them. We’d have to blame a current politician who can’t be named because he’s now threatening defamation action over a story that’s frequently appeared in the past which alleges that he suggested to Cabinet in 2011 that the Coalition should be taking advantage of anti-Muslim sentiment or Peter Dutton for his demonisation of the other.
No, you can’t hold people responsible when other people act on their words. If you did that, you’d be also blaming Andrew Bolt and Mark Latham and Sky News and…
Well, the list is endless.
No, we need to remember that this is crime committed by one human… Ok, he may have possibly been part of a group. But they’re an outlier. We can’t hold all those responsible.
If we start holding people responsible for what they say, we’d start to blame polticians and not those who were the foot soldiers carrying out the orders of their extremist group. Their very small group, because the rest of us aren’t like that. But, I must say that if the terrorist turns out to have ever atttended a Christian church, I’m disappointed that church leaders haven’t condemned him yet.
No, at times like this, we need to remember that we’re all human beings. Yes, even Fraser Anning. A stupid, ignorant one who’s too weird to even get a gig on Sky After Dark when his Parliamentary term finishes… At least, I presume so.
Anger and outrage just feeds the publicity machine which sets an agenda of “us” and ”them”. It’s hard not to be angry, but it’s what the terrorists want. Anger stops us thinking.
And, if you don’t believe that’s bad, just take a long hard look at Fraser!
