From: dwayne (dwayne@pobox.com)
Date: Fri May 17 2002 - 09:02:09 MDT
Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
>
> Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > What is the story with this massive border-protection and defense spending
> > increase? Does the govt know something that we don't?
>
> yes, it knows australians are much more xenophobic than they think they
> are (or than the media pictures them to be).
The problem is, we are nowhere near as xenophobic as our neighbours, and
the govt lied at a critical point in the election, giving us our current
set of reptilian masters. It'll eventually come out and *perhaps* heads
will roll, but who cares? The Prime Minister is retiring before the next
election (!) and either way, they are still in power.
"The Boatstag Incident" they should call it or something.
Actually, this side of the country is not too bad. My family is from
Western Australia and I've been recently, well, boggled by some of the
stuff I've heard my relatives say. There's some sort of relativistic
effect taking place on the Nullarbor Plain, where time doesn't so much
slow down as actually reverse.
People like to paint Australians as racists but given that we have
arguably the highest level of postwar immigration on the planet (I'm 1st
generation myself) I don't think this is actually the case. I think
there is a certain level of institutionalized xenophobia in the
conservative arm of politics, but that's more the last gasp of the
1900-1950 old guard than any hidden demographic. I think there is a
certain level of mass-immigration-induced societal turmoil taking place,
no big deal, just everyone fitting in and wriggling about to get
comfortable, plus a cultural memory of 1930-50s propaganda about the
northern hordes invading us which pops up on TV every now and then,
coupled with the fact that reading regional newspapers gives you an icky
feeling about how we are viewed by our neighbours. Unfortunately, the
conservative (ha! "The Liberal Party". We all snicker at US political
discussions because the way americans use "liberal" is so totally
opposite to our liberals that it's really funny. Well, I think so, at
any rate) branch of federal politics is totally ruthless and devoid of
shame or conscience, and they manufactured a crisis right at the high
point of the election, and panicked everyone into voting for them. Plus
Sep 11 helped them as well. Gah.
Mind you, I may be wildly out on this, but my feeling is that most
Australians are opposed to the over-the-top treatment of refugees here,
but the govt is in for another 4 years and there's not a lot we can do
about it. I find it very interesting that pretty much the only people
who I have spoken to who are actively opposed to the refugees, and think
the current treatment is a good *start* are the children of immigrants.
Weird.
So, I'm not so sure this is such a xenophobic country. It might be, I
may well hang out in rarefied circles, but this is how I see it.
Dwayne
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