The Rise of Racism (again)

I had hoped that Pauline Hansons crash and burn would be the end of overt racism in Australia - at least for long time. With September 11 I predicted a sudden upsurge in racism in politics, the media, the market and the community at large. Indeed there was to some extent. However, it wasn't until the London bombings that overt racism in Australia has become a crisis.

Take for example the case of former Macquarie lecturer Andrew Fraser (read this article for some background) who wants Australia to revert back to a "White Australia" immigration policy because Africans are supposedly prone to violence.

Do i need to refer to the hype over radical islamic fundamentalists?

Then there is this piece by Nationals Senator John Stone opinion piece titled "The Case for Assimilation". He says:

Since London's July 7 bombings, the Federal Government has been under pressure
to address Australia's rapidly growing Muslim problem. But it clearly still
wants to avoid the real issues: the need to abandon outright our official
multiculturalism policies and the need to sharply reduce, to the point of
virtually halting, further inflow of people whose culture (Islam) is such that
there can be no realistic hope of them ever integrating into Australian society.

Yes, that's right, he said the "Muslim problem", it may as well have been the "Muslim question". What is probably most disturbing has been the reaction to such racism. For example, of the community's reaction is the comments to Senator Stone's article. To illustrate, here is one post:

We have a serious problem of religious, philisopical and racial intolerance
displayed by a sizable proportion of the Islamic community and to the bleeding
heart left, those filthy anglo racists are all to blame.I used to teach in our
West.Recently a retired Head of a mostly Muslim primary school told me how she
had a security guard escort her to and from her car just before she retired.My
sister bumps into an Muslim Lady and apologises,"Yes you'll be really sorry when
we take over your country," came the retort.My son and his friends get assaulted
for wearing the Aussie flag on Australia Day.It ends with a stand off between
the police and 40 thugs.No one is arrested because they are all under the age of
18.I have been run off the road by these people merging in traffic behind me and
giving me the finger as they pass.Pushed off the footpath as they walk four
abreast down George St Sydney.A very sizable portion of the the Muslim
population are both intolerant and violent.Now would the likes of
rossco,kalweb,rainer and strayan tell me how this makes me and John Stone the
racists.As I've said,get your heads out of your fundamentals and smell the
reality.

What a narrow minded, selfish and ignorant piece of trash. It becomes racism mate when you take individual instances like these silly ones and say it about an entire culture. What a total ... This is a scary post considering he is a teacher.

Another example after Andrew Fraser's interview on Channel Nine's A Current Affair, the show did one of those silly viewer polls asking whether they agreed with Fraser's comments and views. A whopping 85% agreed with him.

I have always understood that many Australians are racist. It trully disgusts me but it trully scars me when racists start to become more confident to go public with there views and try to change policy.