There is this growing sentiment among a section of Australians that they are second-class citizens, says Tory Shepherd from The Punch.
Sometimes all you need to turn a bunch of disparate and disgruntled souls into a united angry mob is a slogan. Well, search no longer, ye of the red-faced rage and the impotently clenched fists.
For someone has indeed provided you with the lightning rod you need – the Tolerance is our Demise website. And it’s not just a website — for like all righteous movements it sells that most passive aggressive of tools, the bumper sticker. Whatever your gripe, your petty bigotry, or indeed your genuine criticism of the current state of politics, tolerance is apparently to blame. And thus, presumably, intolerance the answer.
It’s a broad church, this intolerance one. Everything from taxes to immigration to overseas funding (presumably they mean aid) to political correctness to soft sentencing to the carbon tax and man-made climate change – all of these need a more intolerant approach.
Frighteningly, this sort of website is reflecting a section of the community – a negative movement, a pointless tirade that does nothing but engender hate and fails on all fronts to be constructive or even coherent. It is anti. Anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-feminism (or just anti-women), anti-gay, anti-tax, anti-progress. Definitely anti-Gillard.
A note, here – members of this anti-tolerance movement say they are not racist, that the world is against them and calling them racist is just an attempt to shut down debate. For example, the TIOD website says:
We are sick and tired of ordinary Australians who love their country being labelled ‘red-necks, racists and bigots’ for speaking the truth, their only agenda being to keep Australia a great place for future generations.
Here’s a tip. No one’s calling anyone a racist for loving their country. It’s when you start to say that loving your country means keeping certain races or religions out that you are, indeed, a racist and a bigot.
It’s not clear who TIOD are. They didn’t respond to emails yesterday, and the number listed rang out. They may, as has been suggested in this blog by Mike Stuchbery, be part of something bigger. They may be no more than a couple of crazy cats who whipped up the website in their lunchbreak. Hell, this column may triple their hits. Oops.
But what is clear is that there is this growing sentiment among some Australians that they are second-class citizens. Compared to whom, I’m not really sure – although I have a sinking feeling many of them actually think we treat asylum seekers (whom we lock up, threaten to ship out, demonise) better than we treat your ‘average hard-working Australian’. By which (more sinking feelings) they probably don’t mean the Vietnamese refugees that have recently busted a gut pruning vines in my neck of the woods.
Some of them also think they’re being stifled, censored, even though it seems that for the past few months there has been a cascade of their voices, their protests, their placards. Even though they complain loudly and publicly and receive plenty of media coverage. Even though my ears are ringing from people shouting I AM BEING CENSORED AND THEY WON’T LET ME TELL YOU JUST HOW PISSED OFF I AM ABOUT EVERYTHING.
We’re obviously going through turbulent political times (unless you compare Australia to much of the rest of the world, in which case it’s pretty smooth sailing), and if a substantial proportion of the population is feeling seriously disenfranchised, then that’s a concern.
Except we’re not hearing from the people who truly are left out of the political process. They may be talking, but they’re being drowned out by the inchoate wailing of the conspiracy theorists who have concocted this confused idea of a Socialist-anarcho-feminist-leftard plot to redistribute wealth and consign all white conservative men to a life serving their new overlords under a New World Order.
And yes, this movement really does get that weird.
Second thoughts:
- Political correctness does have a lot to answer for. While its intention was good, its unintended consequences have contributed to people feeling as though they’re not allowed to say anything.
- You often hear people bemoan the fact they feel they can no longer discuss issues of race, religion, disability, gender issues and so on without outraging the PC police – whoever they are.
- Part of the problem is PC was too often aimed at changing the words that were used, rather than dismantling the prejudices behind the use of those words. People may still be thinking their racist or sexist or discriminatory thoughts but feel constrained expressing them publicly, so they fester.
- Having said all that, now it seems we are subjected simultaneously to the bigoted chatter, and to complaints that the chatter is not allowed.
