The other week
Bolt got all upset because
someone said he was a racist on Monday, 10 March, Q & A program. He
reckons he was so upset he couldn’t
go to work the next day. However, that didn’t stop him writing because he
still managed to post a few items at his blog on Tuesday, 11 March, including an
item about someone calling him a racist.
Q & A is a
fairly high profile current affairs program produced by the ABC and, as such,
is considered fair game by the extreme right of both the media and politics, so
when Marcia Langton accused him of being a racist Bolt couldn’t resist the
golden opportunity of the publicity he would get by coming over all hurt by the
remarks. All he needed to do was kick up a fuss by demanding an apology and
laying it on really thick about how hurt he was by this attack on him and
mumble something about suing and defamation. He then sat back at home for the
day waiting for his mates in the rest of the Murdoch propaganda machine to do
their bit supporting him. Considering how close Murdoch’s propagandists are to
the Abbott government and how thin the relationship between the ABC and the
government is, Bolt could almost guarantee a quick apology from the ABC via Q
& A’s anchor, Tony Jones, a few nights later.
The whole thing
was clearly just an opportunistic publicity stunt.
The truth is
everyone knows Bolt is a racist. He’s even been found
guilty of it in an Australian court of law. Yet still he tries to insist he’s
no racist.
Not only does Bolt
insist he’s not a racist, but there are many Australians out there who support
Bolt who also insist they are not racist despite being so – and many of them
actually sincerely believe this. They’ll swear black and blue they’re not
racists. Yet they are. Why?
Quite simply, they’ve
been conned by Bolt’s rhetoric which is based on his notion of Australianism
and, to a lesser extent, the notion of Western Exceptionalism, whereby anyone
can become Australian provided they totally accept Australia’s modern culture
and values and accede to Australia’s contemporary heritage. And, of course, Australia’s
contemporary heritage is white European.
Bolt has managed
to con a lot of Australians – even including some Aboriginal people – into believing
that we are all equals as Australians and, therefore, do not need changes to
our constitution which Bolt sees as ‘separating’ and ‘dividing’ Australians.
Bolt sees us as all as equals and so we should all be treated equally under one
law regardless of ‘race’.
But this a
deliberate deceit. What the proposed changes to the constitution are about is
recognising the culture and heritage of Australia’s first peoples. Their race
is actually incidental. What Bolt is really trying to achieve is the
abandonment of Indigenous culture beginning with the denial of heritage of
those that he thinks he can marginalise by accusing them of not being what they
feel they are. He uses the various grants, benefits and scholarships that are
available to people of Indigenous culture and heritage as a lever to reinforce
his peculiar brand of racism accusing them of claiming Indigenous heritage in
order to obtain a pecuniary advantage.
The fact is, while
we are all equal as Australians, we are a multicultural society – not just of
Aboriginal and Indigenous people but also Asian, Middle Eastern, European,
African, etc. We are all different – even within these groupings. However, the
reason why Australia is giving special significance to Aboriginal people is
because they were the original inhabitants of this country and, contrary to
Bolt and others denials, were displaced and ethnically cleansed from their
lands by white Europeans, some of who even attempted to wipe them out
completely.
Not only is Bolt a
racist, he is also a deceitful racist. He is a racist adept in the use of
propaganda to perpetuate his particular brand of obnoxious race hate.
And then there’s
his Islamophobia… I can’t wait to see his reaction when someone on Q & A
accuses him of being an Islamophobe.
