By Keith Davis
Dangerous small minds control our levers of power and we-the-people are, through our very apathy, steering our country down a path that may well one day leave us, and our reputation as a people, beyond any form of redemption. There is a craziness abroad in our wide brown land.
How did we let it come to this?
The Indigenous people of Australia suffered, and almost succumbed to, an unremitting historical regime of European transplanted terrorism. They were shot, poisoned, and displaced from their land. Our ancestors terrorised the Indigenous people of Australia.
Yet, in the modern era, our leaders are dithering over the very words of ‘recognition’. When it is so obviously a case where we should be hoping that the Indigenous people of Australia still have enough grace and forgiveness left to, in truth, recognise us, our leaders are dithering over a couple of words and planning the forced closure of Indigenous communities.
Forced re-settlement of ethnic minorities has long been recognised as an act of terrorism. Indigenous people in Australia are now an ethnic minority in their own country. There is a craziness abroad in our wide brown land.
On average eighty-four Australian women are murdered by domestic terrorists each and every year. That’s 840 Australian women each and every decade. Our leaders spend hundreds of millions of dollars, and involve us in an interminable series of unwinnable wars, in an attempt to nullify international terrorists who kill nowhere near that number of Australians.
We all know that terrorism is bad. International terrorism is bad. Domestic violence terrorism is bad. The greatest terrorist threat faced by Australia is home grown terrorism. We know it as domestic violence terrorism. It kills more Australians than all the other forms of terrorism combined.
Yet our leaders devote a pittance in real money terms to combating this scourge. Another eighty-four Australian women will be killed by domestic violence terrorists this year. There is a craziness abroad in our wide brown land.
The majority of asylum seekers who reach our shores by boat are not economic refugees. The majority of economic refugees arrive by plane. The majority of refugees who arrive by boat are fleeing, in most cases, state-sponsored terrorism, and in a minority of cases, the actions of stand-alone terrorist groups.
Yet our leaders bastardise the word ‘asylum’ and string razor wire around the fleeing victims. Our leaders want us to fight wars to protect ourselves and others from the horror of terrorism, however, if those ‘others’ do not have blue eyes and white skin then they are banished to remote concentration camps. Our leaders punish the fleeing victims of terrorism. There is a craziness abroad in our wide brown land.
We-the-people, we Australians, keep saying that we are a fair and egalitarian people. Yet our actions so glaringly belie our fine words. We-the-people are fully responsible for everything that our leaders are doing in our name.
If we continue to stand back in apathy … what else will happen … what further repressive policies will be enacted in our name? Which groups in our society will next be subject to the untender mercies of our apathy, and of the leadership who enacts policy in our name?
Will our scientists be next? Will our gays be next? Will our environmental activists be next? Will anybody who has a dissenting opinion be next? Will our Islamic citizens be next? Will our disadvantaged and poor be next? Will our unions be next? Will our alternative media organisations be next? Will any one of us be next? Will you be next?
Unless we do something about it. dangerous small minds will continue to control our levers of power.
Terror Australis. There is, indeed, a craziness abroad in our wide brown land.
