Andrew Bolt, Australia’s most notorious racist and Islamophobe, like the Nazi Jew-baiter Julius Streicher before him, continues to relentlessly pursue his program of hate against Islamic and non-European immigrants to Australia.
His almost daily attacks (here’s today’s) against Islam at his on-line column at Rupert Murdoch’s Herald-Sun newspaper are designed to demonise the entire Islamic community. Bolt does this by cherry-picking the misdeeds of a very few and inferring that whatever offence has been committed by an Islamic person was done because they are Muslims and that they are representative of what the whole Islamic community are like. In other words, Bolt misrepresents the values of the Islamic community claiming that Western values are different and, therefore, are better than those of Muslims. It is exactly the same propaganda technique that Julius Streicher used in his Der Stürmer newspaper in Germany during the Nazi era to demonise the Jews of Germany and later throughout Europe.
Like Streicher, Bolt hopes that his relentless propaganda demonising Muslims and Islam will influence public opinion to the extent that the Australian people will eventually hate Islam and Muslims as much as he does and that the government will then deport those that are here or, at least, not allow any further Muslim immigration to Australia.
The problem is; it never just ends there. Streicher started his hate campaign against Jews in much the same way. At first he demanded that Jews should be expelled from Germany. Over time, as the Nazis and other extreme right-wing groups coalesced and became increasingly more influential politically, so the persecution against Jews went beyond mere words. Eventually, as the Nazis moved into power, so the persecution of Jews increased. They were shunned by their fellow Germans and then excluded from certain professions. As Hitler’s expansionist dreams became reality so the persecution of Jews was taken a step further and they were put in camps and then later deported, mostly to Poland. As Hitler marched further east into Russia so the final plans that became the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’ were put into effect. The rest of the story is all too well known.
Yet there are some among us that never learn and others that seem to have forgotten about the horrors of the last century. In more recent history, as we have seen in Bosnia-Herzegovina where over 7000 Muslims were murdered simply because they were Muslims, history does repeat.
The Jews of Germany and Europe, whilst aware of the anti-Semitism that was pervasive, not just in Germany, but throughout Europe and the US during that period, never in their worst nightmares as the war approached imagined that Germany would actually attempt the wholesale slaughter of every one of Europe’s Jews. But in just a very short time it went from abusive harassment in Streicher’s Der Stürmer newspaper to what ended up being the deaths of millions. And one of the reasons so many did die was because they simply did not believe that such hatreds could lead to slaughter on such a massive scale.
We should not allow the abusive harassment against Muslims that we see in Bolt’s column of hate to continue. While Bolt continues to claim his rights to ‘freedom of speech’, his abuse of those rights to harass and demonise Muslims should be stopped in its tracks. His column of hate should be shut down. This meme about ‘freedom of speech being a cornerstone of democracy’ is simply being used by people like Bolt as an excuse to pedal their hatreds.
Freedom of speech is one thing; the abuse of it in order to pedal hatred is something else.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
ANDREW BOLT AND THE NAÏVETÉ OF THE ‘FREEDOM OF SPEECH’ DEBATE
There are some on the Left that seem to be extremely naïve when it comes to considering certain aspects of free speech. Paul Howes, the national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, seems to be a prime example of this type of naïveté. In an article in today’s The Australian newspaper, Howes defends Australia’s most obnoxious racist, Andrew Bolt, on the grounds that freedom of speech is essential for a robust ‘democracy’. Howes reckons:
Andrew grabs an idea and often follows his logic to wherever it may lead him; God help those who stand in his way!
Now while I really can't accept some of this stuff I will - unsurprisingly - defend to the death his right to run a hot-headed, half-cocked argument where he says he is now putting into his crosshairs all sorts of political, academic and media grandees. It is the Voltaire in me that says I don't like what you're saying - or about to say - but sure as hell I reckon you have the right, in our democracy, to run that argument.
Why would anyone want to die defending Bolt’s right to foment hatred in the world? Because that is exactly what Bolt is doing. For centuries there have been propagandists like Bolt that seem to see it as their life’s work to insult, demean, belittle and ostracise those who are different from them solely because they are different.
Just as Julius Streicher, the Nazi propagandist proprietor of the anti-Semite newspaper Der Stürmer, fomented hatred of Jews throughout Germany and Europe which ultimately led to the attempted extermination of European Jewry that resulted in the deaths of millions, so Andrew Bolt is subtly doing exactly the same as Streicher did by fomenting hatred of all things that are not a part of a Europeanised Judeo-Christian Australian society.
I wonder, though, if Paul Howes would defend Julius Streicher ‘to the death’.
Bolt’s disgusting views about Aborigines and the plight of indigenous peoples which he carefully cloaks in patronising rhetoric are well known. They are views that have now seen him before the courts as he attempts to defend himself against charges of defaming people who identify as Aboriginal by accusing them of defrauding the Australian people on account of them not being black enough for Bolt’s liking. But Bolt's racism doesn't stop at Aborigines. It goes beyond skin colour and physical differences; it also extends into other peoples cultures and religions.
Bolts paranoid detestation of Islam is well known and in many ways even more fanatical than his very public written and verbal assaults on Aboriginality. The reason for Bolt’s appearance in the courts is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the legal aspects of Bolt’s racism are concerned; it doesn’t even begin to address the real potential consequences of his racism.
Hatred of Islam, Islamophobia, is sweeping the Western world thanks to the likes of Andrew Bolt and his so-called rights to ‘freedom of speech’. We should all bear in mind the consequences of such hatreds as we approach the anniversary of the July 1995 massacres of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina who were murdered by Serbians who had been taught to hate by people just like Andrew Bolt; murdered for no other reason than they were Muslims.
Defend the right to free speech that helps progress society by all means, but the likes of Julius Streicher and Andrew Bolt don’t use that right for progress; they abuse it to foment hatred and disharmony that ultimately lead to terror and death in once civilised societies.
That’s indefensible.
Andrew grabs an idea and often follows his logic to wherever it may lead him; God help those who stand in his way!
Now while I really can't accept some of this stuff I will - unsurprisingly - defend to the death his right to run a hot-headed, half-cocked argument where he says he is now putting into his crosshairs all sorts of political, academic and media grandees. It is the Voltaire in me that says I don't like what you're saying - or about to say - but sure as hell I reckon you have the right, in our democracy, to run that argument.
Why would anyone want to die defending Bolt’s right to foment hatred in the world? Because that is exactly what Bolt is doing. For centuries there have been propagandists like Bolt that seem to see it as their life’s work to insult, demean, belittle and ostracise those who are different from them solely because they are different.
Just as Julius Streicher, the Nazi propagandist proprietor of the anti-Semite newspaper Der Stürmer, fomented hatred of Jews throughout Germany and Europe which ultimately led to the attempted extermination of European Jewry that resulted in the deaths of millions, so Andrew Bolt is subtly doing exactly the same as Streicher did by fomenting hatred of all things that are not a part of a Europeanised Judeo-Christian Australian society.
I wonder, though, if Paul Howes would defend Julius Streicher ‘to the death’.
Bolt’s disgusting views about Aborigines and the plight of indigenous peoples which he carefully cloaks in patronising rhetoric are well known. They are views that have now seen him before the courts as he attempts to defend himself against charges of defaming people who identify as Aboriginal by accusing them of defrauding the Australian people on account of them not being black enough for Bolt’s liking. But Bolt's racism doesn't stop at Aborigines. It goes beyond skin colour and physical differences; it also extends into other peoples cultures and religions.
Bolts paranoid detestation of Islam is well known and in many ways even more fanatical than his very public written and verbal assaults on Aboriginality. The reason for Bolt’s appearance in the courts is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the legal aspects of Bolt’s racism are concerned; it doesn’t even begin to address the real potential consequences of his racism.
Hatred of Islam, Islamophobia, is sweeping the Western world thanks to the likes of Andrew Bolt and his so-called rights to ‘freedom of speech’. We should all bear in mind the consequences of such hatreds as we approach the anniversary of the July 1995 massacres of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina who were murdered by Serbians who had been taught to hate by people just like Andrew Bolt; murdered for no other reason than they were Muslims.
Defend the right to free speech that helps progress society by all means, but the likes of Julius Streicher and Andrew Bolt don’t use that right for progress; they abuse it to foment hatred and disharmony that ultimately lead to terror and death in once civilised societies.
That’s indefensible.
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