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Welcome. I'm a mature age mum juggling Media Studies at university with everything else one needs to do in a busy life. Posts in this blog relate to topics being studied in the course and revolve around recent and current events and issues in the online world today. Comments are welcome, cheers Linda

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

HOW FAR HAVE WE REALLY COME?

We humans tend to think of ourselves as sophisticated creatures, reigning at the top of the Animal Kingdom, but if we were to examine the attitudes of some people it might be questionable how far we have actually evolved since crawling out of the swamp. Empathy, respect, acceptance and even tolerance for other members of society are traits in short supply in the psyche of some people. Amongst them are members of extremist 'hate groups': White Supremacists, neo-Nazi, Skinheads, organisations such as Aryan Nations; National Alliance; Hammerskins and Stormfront (White pride World Wide").

For someone who professes to hate people with black skin, this white supremacist has gone to a lot of trouble to darken his own skin...

Is it possible that the Australia First Party (AFP) could also be considered an extremist group? Read the following and then you can decide....

What the aforementioned extremist groups have in common is an extremist stance towards people they regard as racially inferior or genetically 'impure'. But this topics provides more questions than answers, such as: How is 'race' defined, and how white is 'white'? 

People from an African or of other dark-skinned descent are regarded as a distinctly different race to Caucasian people, yet it is difficult to understand on what rational, verifiable, scientific basis this argument is based upon. Surely the old, hackneyed black vs white brain -size argument is long behind us? 

It would be interesting to discern what distinguishable 'race' the proponents of White Power do regard as legitimate and 'pure'. Do they mean people exclusively of Anglo-Saxon descent?
How do members of hate groups actually know for sure that their own particular lineage  (and that of their partner) is totally 'unblemished'? Have they each meticulously investigated their ancestry right back to the dawn of time?


PERHAPS THEY REALLY MEAN NATIONALITY? 

If so, what would these members do if they found out that one of their ancestors was from a nationality considered not quite white enough? The classification of white can even differ from group to group,  with some regarding people from Northern Europe countries such as Denmark and Scandinavian lands as white, but not those with more olive-like complexions from Eastern or Southern Europe, such as Greeks, Albanians or Romanians.

To hate people that don't look quite white enough is tantamount to hating pretty much everybody from most of the world's countries, including those with the largest populations. Anti-Semitic groups discriminate against Jewish people even though their skin may be white, and some extremist groups also include hate homosexuals even though skin colour has nothing to do with that... It all starts to become just a little absurd really. Passe even? 



Two men that I used to work with some years ago were both from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. One identified himself as coloured, the other emphatically asserted that he came from a white background. There was constant bickering between the two as to the validity of the claims by the second man in regarding himself as white. I found it all rather silly, as they both looked the same light-milky coffee colour to me. I know that in their home country the distinction was of critical importance, but in Australia it really made no difference at all who was correct.

 NEO-NAZIS PARTYING AT THE GOLD COAST

Whilst America has possibly the largest share of hate groups, Australia is not immune. Racially motivated hate groups include the neo-Nazi Southern Cross Hammerskins, who recently angered the Gold Coast community with a gathering that included members of international hate groups Blood and Honour and Crew 38. "These events aren't just about music - they're about networking and meeting new comrades - so we look forward to seein ya (sic) and hopefully many other good white folk out there,"  a promoter said.

This meeting was organised and promoted by means of the internet, which has provided extremist groups with the ideal mechanism with which to disseminate propaganda and recruit new members through the use of maximum image control on their sites.

The internet is a powerful tool with a long reach, connecting members and linking similarly inclined but geographically diverse groups, thereby increasing their collective strength across the globe. According to Howard Rheingold, the virtual community provides a sense of belonging and kinship, and generates a sense of unity in numbers. 

The perpetuation of Hitler's racist ideals and extremist views are promoted unendingly through modern mass media, hypnotised by "the mesmeric power of what might flippantly be called Nazi 'branding'," as Mark Dery explains in his blog on Hitler studies. Extremists would no doubt be pleased that the hate themes get persistent exposure.

I find it rather puzzling though, when we consider that anti-discrimination laws have been around for a few decades in Australia, yet these types of groups are allowed to blatantly promote their racist viewpoints and spread their messages of hatred. Even more so in these days of strict political correctness. Why are they not charged with racial vilification and the promotion of racial discrimination and hatred?

AUSTRALIA FIRST

An organisation that may at first not appear quite as extreme or overtly racist as the groups mentioned earlier, but whose motives invite closer scrutiny is the Australia First Party (AFP), a conservative political party formed in 1996 by former Labor MHR Graeme Campbell. Their national website looks very restrained, professional and quietly businesslike, distinctly opposite in tone to the gruesomely garish, militant styles sites of the most of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. 

The Australia First Party claim to be patriotic, Australian Nationalist activists, a nationalist movement as opposed to an internationalist movement, resistant to globalsim and the politics of the New World Order. The NSW branch site states that they are "bonded against a globalising traitor / ruling class of money and position".

The 8 main policies of the AFP are: 

1. Ensure Australia Retains Full Independence. 

2. Rebuild Australian Manufacturing Industries.

3. Control Foreign Ownership.

4. Reduce and Limit Immigration.

5. Abolish Multiculturalism.

6. Introduce Citizen's Initiated Referenda.

7. Strengthen the Family.

8. Strive To Rebuild A United Australia.

The policies of the AFP certainly appear to have the best interests of Australians at heart and sound at first to be very patriotic and benign, but let's take a look at just one of their policies: 

5.  ABOLISH MULTICULTURALISM.

- End the divisive, government funded and institutionalised policy of multiculturalism. 
HOW could you possibly go about abolishing multiculturalism in Australia (presuming you wanted to)? If we did, then logic would dictate that only the descendants of the original inhabitants (Indigenous people) should remain, and everyone else should leave, including those of Anglo-Saxon descent. Where would everybody go? What would an 'Australian' monoculture look like? Whaich culture would be the 'chosen one' and who gets to decide? How is 'Australian' defined, and who classifies as a real Australian? This brings us back to  some questions: from earlier: who is entitled to belong to the selected 'race' and how would one determine or validate their racial./cultural/genetic authenticity and purity? Not such a simple task really, is it?  
How many people in this protest could claim to be 'racially pure' ? 
The Australia First Party talks about the 'Asianisation' of Australia, and urges all patriots to join the fight to reclaim 'our country'. What's that? Whose country exactly? Surely it is well known by now that white people were not actually here first? What about the indigenous people? Surely the AFP doesn't hold to the  terribly outdated concept of Terra Nullius?
The ideals of the AFP hark back to the White Australia Policy era of the 1950s. Although the AFP would probably not regard themselves as extremist, they have been linked with the Patriotic Youth League, allegedly responsible for initiating the Cronulla riots in 2005, causing violent mayhem. Just because the people responsible for beating up fellow citizens were wearing board shorts and thongs, rather than brown shirts and jackboots, does it make it any less callous and horrendous? Have we not learned anything from mistakes of the past? Patriotic Youth spoof site. 


Let's see a couple of images from that shameful event at Cronulla 2005:

  
Are these the faces of people who could be considered as superior?


Censorship of AFP:


The Australia First NSW branch website claims that access to their website is 'blocked' at certain libraries: "When one examines computer screens in these libraries for these sites, a notice appears: "access blocked"; "intolerance and hate". A Policy sheet from Rockdale library said "It is not permitted to access websites that contain violence, abusive language, sexually explicit material, racism and any other form of socially unacceptable material."

It seems rather odd, given that the AFP is a legitimately registered political party, and their website looks reasonably tame compared with much of what else is available on the internet, including sites of the aforementioned extremist groups.

What disturbs and angers me though, is the contradictory and hypocritical attitude of public libraries when implementing their so-called policies: A local consortium of public libraries decided to introduce a large collection of graphic novels (modern comic books) in an attempt to entice teenagers into the libraries and engage them in reading. Much of the content in those books is blatantly and unambiguously "socially unacceptable".: graphic illustrations of dishevelled-looking, drunken drug addicts lazing about and shooting up in filthy street gutters, foul-mouthed conversations between violent, hateful characters planning to go out and find disabled people to bash up (but in worse language), and many other totally unsavoury scenes. Why is this material deemed ok to use taxpayer's money to purchase and put on library shelves for clients of all ages to flick through and read?  With kind of material on our library shelves is it any wonder that certain youths might think that this aggressive kind of behaviour is ok?


MAP OF RACISM AND INTOLERANCE IN SYDNEY


Map source:  article in Sydney Morning Herald  retrieved 25th July 2008.

SUSAN BOYLE IS MORE POPULAR THAN AFP

The Australia First Party uses their presence on the internet to promote their party and hopefully garner support for their ideology and recruit more members. The AFP national website contains a minimal amount of content and has had only 16,140 hits since July 2006. The NSW site is much more comprehensive and has had over 66,000 hits, while the Victorian branch  site has only had 1441 hits. Susan Boyle got millions without even trying.



Here are some ambassadors of the Australia First party at Sydney Harbour.
Note how the guy with the braces uses his body language to maximum effect. 

So, is the Australia First party an extremist group?

It all depends on one's definition of extremist, and to some people the policies of the AFP probably make sense. But probably not to the majority of people, as membership is reasonably low and largely ineffectual, according to Associate Professor Andrew Moore, of the University of Western Sydney, a specialist in Australian right-wing politics. 

Although the AFP managed to generate opposition towards multiculturalism through their involvement at Cronulla, the Cronulla incident may also have been such an embarrassment as to preclude other Australians from joining what they perceive as an extremist organisation. Perhaps people are also still recovering from the Pauline hanson debacle?