It was only after a half hour or so after watching the video footage of the New Zealand killings that I awoke to the fact that the vision had made no impression on me.
Had I become so immune to all the horror of mass murders? The killing of the innocents and the rape of young girls that my mind had been numbed senseless by it all? I had to shake myself from my indifference. I felt ashamed of myself.
Once I had watched an ISIS leader shoot 20 or so old men in the back of the head and kicked them into a deep mass grave. It appalled me, so horrific it was.
The mass killings in New Zealand, because the boot was now on the other foot, have evoked many responses. This was a white man killing brown men. Yes, Muslims.
The fine Australian Waleed Aly on The Project gave a passionate response to the New Zealand massacres in which, without mentioning the Australian Prime Minister’s name, nonetheless implicated him in the criticism of those who have shown anti-Muslim traits for many years. Central to Aly’s criticism was the proposition that Scott Morrison had said at a shadow cabinet meeting:
“What are we going to do about multiculturalism? What are we going to do about concerns about the number of Muslims?”
I unquestionably recall reading about that statement just as I do Morrison’s insensitive one about the cost of allowing other Muslims to attend funerals in which people had drowned. Abbott backed him, of course. And Morrison made it on the day they were being buried.
In a 2011 piece for the SMH Lenore Taylor said that the opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate.
Whatever is the truth of it, it certainly cannot be denied that at that time and since, the government has been consistent with their endless Islamophobic rants. It has been going on for a decade.
That Muslims have tolerated the conservative dog whistling comments of Peter Dutton and many others is commendable.
“Lebanese Muslim migration program in the 1970s was a “mistake”.
Tony Abbott’s speech in which he said;
“Islamophobia hasn’t killed anyone”.
Tell that to the 50 men, women, and children lying still but coldly calm in a morgue in the land where the silver fern grows.
On Monday in an interview on 2GB former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said:
“All of us need to lift our game,” “We need to get right away from demonising people.
“We should not make anyone who is an Australian feel like a stranger in their own home.”
Sorry, Tony but that staggering hypocrisy is yet another disgusting lie to defend the ones already told. The avalanche of them told by you and your racist party over the past 10 years is simply deplorable.
The hatred expressed by those of the far-right has inexorably been normalised. It’s what I fell for. Say it often enough for long enough and people will become immune to it and be comfortable with it.
And look at the result. Look at what all their words of hatred has produced.
And there is no point denying your xenophobia. Remember the Tampa? What a racist success that was.
So has offshore detention worked? It has enabled you to demonise people to your hearts content. All despite repeated condemnations from international bodies.
Places like Nauru where men and women were kept without dignity and without hope. And most of them were Muslims. They might just be terrorists, you said. And it’s about community safety.
Then we went to Iraq on the basis of a lie. Side by side with the USA. They had no evidence nor did John Howard.
It’s always been about Muslims, so we fight them where we can. Even if we have to go to Afghanistan.
Abbott tells us to be afraid ISIS is coming to get you. Yes, you personally. It’s Muslims once again.
“The wars began with a deluge of propaganda.” Later, the terror threat was leveraged to massively enhance surveillance by Australia’s national security.
Then in December 2005 the darling of the dollar Alan Jones was urging all the fit and abled young Australian white males to get down to Cronulla and throw whatever they could find at Muslims having a picnic on a bright Australian summers day. It didn’t worry Alan his ratings just went up.
The race riots of Cronulla were the genesis for the wearing of our flag on naked torsos to symbolise that we were better that those Muslims.
Now it’s commonplace to wear a flag on Australia Day to put those “Others” in their place. The flag that says little about our past and less about our future flies on Anzac Day celebrating militarism and imperialism.
And at the same time the Murdoch rags and other media outlets monopolises our media market and will keep demonising Muslims so long as it makes them a quid. Or they at least think it does.
Maybe they don’t have the circulation they once had but they still have the influence. They are still the go-to place for the shock jocks and others.
They say that the left is as bad as the right but I have never seen any evidence. Show me the evidence. Show it to me now. Does it compare with the facts I have written? Name me a left wing shock jock.
Do you recall Anzac Day of 2017; an intelligent young Muslim girl by the name of Yassmin Abdel-Magied had the audacity to use the words “LEST.WE.FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)” on her Facebook page?
She was trying to make the point that suffering was just suffering regardless of the conflict, and that people on Nauru and Manus were also suffering.
Murdoch’s Australian newspaper took offence, condemned her, and over time drove her out of the country.
She is a Muslim.
She escaped their racism and went to London where she described Australia as like an “abusive boyfriend”.
The Daily Telegraph but a year ago was reporting on the white farmers in South Africa. The writing was full of innuendo implying that blacks were murdering thousands of white farmers. In stepped Immigration Minister Peter Dutton suggesting that white farmers might be given “special attention” if they wanted to immigrate to Australia.
Peter Dutton – around the same time was – suggesting that Melbournians were afraid to go out to a restaurant because of African gangs. Melbournians laughed at the suggestion.
Shall I go on? Well, there is still much to be said. There is the case of Senator Anning who made it into the august chamber with just 19 votes on the One Nation ticket and then promptly deserted.
Again this week he came to national attention when he appeared to blame the victims of the Christchurch massacre, and then again when a young protester cracked an egg on Anning’s baldhead. It was a pity the kid didn’t use an even dozen.
Does the reader think that white nationalism is on the increase? Is it just my imagination? After all our Senate in all its wisdom did pass a bill saying that its “It’s OK to be white.”
Only last week the man who once had a brain Mark Latham and the red head with an ultra white complex were suggesting that self-identified Indigenous people be DNA tested before they receive welfare.
Retired former discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said recently that the government was “campaigning on fear, seeking to incite hysteria about asylum seekers and border security.”
I’m going to stop there not because I cannot produce more evidence of the Right’s decades-long xenophobia and Muslim-bashing. Goodness, I haven’t even mentioned Andrew Bolt.
They all know who they are these politicians and media hacks that belittle those who but seek comfort and safety from Australia.
Do they wonder why New Zealand is more forthcoming with love and compassion?
When we watch our televisions do we discern how naturally, from the old and the young it comes? Do we reflect that we are not like them, those New Zealander’s but we could be and should be?
Let me finish by saying that the language will have to change and also the transparency of it. If politicians and journalists – anyone for that matter – want to use the language of the gutter it will now be called out.
If politicians want to use racist scare campaigns as they have in the past – and no doubt plan to use in the next election campaign- then there will be a price to pay. If they want to change section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act to open free speech to enter the field of hate speech, I wouldn’t dare.
There are signs that public sentiment has shifted enormously; that all the government’s lies have caught up with them to the point where even their own supporters don’t believe them.
From now on a form of accountability in the form of public opinion will judge them.
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My thought for the day
An enlightened society is one in which the suggestion that we need to legislate ones right to hate another person is considered intellectually barren.
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I watched the video as well and for it means, I recoiled in shock. I could not bring myself to take a second look. An hour or so later, it was no longer there. I’ve also seen and been shocked by videos of Saudi beheadings (albeit from a distance) and IS executions. I’m even shocked still, when I watch “Schindler’s List.” I’m not immune to this sort of reporting, but was not the slightest bit surprised how quickly the discussion on-line descended into a tit for tat arguments over who had killed more innocent civilians, be they Muslim or Christian. I am immune, as it happens, to the callousness of on-line warriors with their holier than thou defence mechanisms, determined to hold what they think is the moral high ground.
I cannot know what goes on in the mind of a mass murderer. But I’m all too familiar with the responses of those who struggle with the embarrassment of their righteous indignation. They feel cornered and react accordingly. We are all such a long way from where we could be. Societies, cultures, nations, faiths are all responsible. No one is lily-white. The tragedy and the danger is that none of us know how to find our way back to where we should be.
“When we watch our televisions do we discern how naturally, from the old and the young it comes? Do we reflect that we are not like them, those New Zealander’s but we could be and should be?”
Once we were like them – I remember.
Whatever is the truth of it …
He did not sue then, he dare not sue now, for it is true. Lenore Taylor had multiple sources, and re-contacted & re-verified this week. Fairfax Peter Hatcher wrote a followup, as did Andrew Probyn at the the West Australian. It is true, our PM non-elect is a serial liar and race/religion baiter for partisan political advantage. There are literally hundreds of quotes from him confirming the execution of the policy since.
He consciously deliberately lied & obfuscated throughout Alys interview, routinely shouting over him whenever caught out. His extended rapid eye blinking after each deliberative screed is a clear ‘tell’.
… you and your racist party over the past 10 years is simply deplorable
As you touch on, it actually formally kicked off with John Howard, Tampa, children overboard, 9/11, the War on Terra, Afghanistan & Iraq invasions, etc. It was a prerequisite element of the required Psyops ‘narrative’ to attain & maintain a minimum of public consent. Morrison just came up with the idea in 2011 to expand & extend it for continual domestic political advantage & to offset One Notion under Hanson.
Then we went to Iraq on the basis of a lie. Side by side with the USA. They had no evidence nor did John Howard.
Actually the war was approved to proceed 6 months prior to Mar 2003, ~ October 2002, because the five-eyes had hard evidence, beginning in 1996, that there were NO WMDs, none. That is why the war was greenlit.
Murdochs media & the LNP, hand in glove & joined at the hip.
Alas, have no faith ‘public opinion’ will have much effect unless the government changes. Our Corporate MSM is complicit and the vast majority of our so called journalists & reporters that are not openly partisan shills are little more than stenographers, few & far between are left who have the integrity or guts to Speak Truth To Power.
Aly, on channel Ten … is it purely coincidental, after new ownership (CBS), only Ten of all our broadcasters has stood up meaningfully in the non-‘debate’ ?
Here’s another, just today, to add to the rich & extensive public record … Milo is banned, Milo lobbies, Morrison directs Coleman to unban, Oz terrorist commits NZ massacre, Milo gets banned again … Morrison & co. are bloody well full of it.
Explosive WhatsApp messages reveal Milo called on conservative mates in visa ban fight
An explosive transcript of WhatsApp messages reveals how alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and his touring manager tried to use network of powerful conservatives including Andrew Bolt to lobby the Morrison government to overturn a visa ban.
Yeah, tell me lies, more sour little lies, you and your party didn’t & don’t have racist/supremacist/Islamophobic dog-whistling policies going back two decades … Morrison.
I have no family links with ANZAC Cove. Both my parents were enlisted in the military during WWII. And every ANZAC Day since 2017 I have posted somewhere; LEST.WE.FORGET.Yassmin Abdel-Magied. Domestic.Violence.Manus. Nauru.
Waleed Aly actually said ‘there are numerous reports of…..” He did NOT say that the PM said “…….”. I accept that this is not entirely obvious to those with fixed ideas.
However, there was some reported dissension from whatever the PM said in cabinet. If his explanation to Waleed the other night was true, that he had said the coalition should reduce anti Muslim feeling in the community, where does that leave the dissenters within the cabinet?
It sounds almost horrible to say this, but i will…… it appears a “Tampa moment” has just happened, except it will have the reverse effect – it will blow the LNP out of the water rather that allowing them to sail smoothly to victory.
I am so gutted that NZ wore the tragedy of Aussie race baiting and so saddened by the sickening hate on display.
As Liberace would say, ‘Why can’t everyone just get along’!