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January
Is that burning Reichstag that I smell?
Well, things are certainly hotting up in old Sydney
town! On December 11th, 2005 we witnessed the start
of rioting in the burbs on a level that certainly
surpassed anything that has taken place in living
memory for me.
Some 5000 people converged on Cronulla beach
last Sunday - mainly testosterone-filled young men
- sparking violence that spread across
Sydney’s southern suburbs. It even made its
mark on peaceful villages such as Dulwich Hill! And
it’s all very racial. It’s black against
white, Lebanese against European, Moslem against
Christian!
“Just let the Lebs get their revenge”,
was the plea from one of the young teenagers in our
Youth Centre this week! “Revenge for
what?” was our question to him. He wasn’t
sure.
Meanwhile, the ‘war against terror’
intensifies in this country, with 17 men now
awaiting trial as ‘terror suspects’ -
charges that could land them in gaol for 25 years,
though it appears that the evidence against them is
pretty feeble.
In case that weren’t enough, one of our
local church buildings has been burned to the
ground by arsonists this week - presumably
anti-Christian arsonists. And to top it all off, I
keep hearing reports on the radio of assaults and
attempted rapes being carried by a man ‘of
Middle Eastern appearance’.
I’m not sure what this man ‘of Middle
Eastern appearance’ is supposed to look like
exactly. Should I assume he looks like my Israeli
friend, Morde? No. I think the description is meant
to depict a more swarthy skinned soul from one of
the oil-producing nations, or perhaps someone who
is Lebanese?
Now, while all these disturbing scenes are
holding our attention in the foreground, the
government is beavering away in the background,
constructing new laws designed to curb the
‘reign of terror’!
Sweeping new powers for police have been rushed
through parliament in a special sitting held this
week. The laws allow police to ‘lock
down’ troublespots, search people and cars,
and confiscate vehicles and mobile phones. The
presumption of bail has been removed for offences
of rioting and affray and the penalties for those
offences have been increased to maximum jail terms
of 15 and 10 years respectively.
Add these new laws to the other
‘reforms’ that have been rushed through
recently - allowing police to arrest with charge
for 14 days, and increasing the rights for the
government to ‘monitor’ suspected
terrorists - and you quickly get the feeling that
life in this country is never going to be the same
again.
Now I’d be the first to say that police in
this city often have a very tough time of it -
especially when dealing with the type of young
people who are currently engaged in rioting and
racial violence. Having said that, the sudden surge
of sweeping new powers worries me deeply, and
I’m wondering if that isn’t the scent of
burning Reichstag that I can smell in the
background.
You should remember the incident from your
history books if not from living memory. On
February 27th, 1933, the Reichstag (the German
parliamentary building) was the subject of an arson
attack. Hitler blamed the communists. The
communists blamed the Nazis. A mentally-retarded
Dutch immigrant was eventually tortured and
beheaded for the crime.
Whoever was responsible, nobody debates that in
retrospect it was a windfall for the Nazis, as it
gave Hitler the excuse to introduce sweeping new
powers through Parliament that silenced all
dissenting voices and ultimately dissolved the
democratic process.
No doubt the new powers seemed like the only
sensible response at the time. Fear of
‘communism’ and ‘the Jews’ had
become all consuming. The good citizens of Berlin
needed someone to protect them from these
uncontrollable terror attacks that were taking
place in their city. Thank goodness that one man,
Adolf Hitler, had the courage to stand up against
the godless communists and violent ethnic
minorities that were threatening to destroy the
peaceful way of life enjoyed by the German people
...!
OK. We all know how that story turned out. And
I’m not wanting to pretend that we’re
living in Nazi Germany or that the Australian
police bear any resemblance to the SS. Having said
that, there are certain parallels in these two
scenes that can’t be ignored:
- Racial violence is exposing deeply held
prejudices within the population that have never
been adequately addressed.
- The population seems to be gripped by the
fear of terror attacks, and willing to let the
Government do whatever it deems necessary to
maintain stability.
- Sweeping new police powers are being
introduced rapidly with very little opposition.
Indeed, in the case of our state parliament
here, the only objection from the leader of the
opposition this week was that the new laws
didn’t go far enough!
Perhaps the most disturbing thing I’ve
noticed this week is the way in which the race
riots and the ‘terror problems’ are all
being lumped together as a part of some great
‘Arab-Islamic-ethnic’ issue.
The assumption on the ground seems to be that
the rioting Lebanese boys are all Lebanese Moslems.
The burning of the church building would be taken
as obvious evidence for this. The link is then made
to other Islamic extremists currently on trial, and
it all starts to look like one enormous Arab-led
axis-of-evil conspiracy to destroy the happy,
peace-loving lifestyle of the Australian people
(ie. white Australian people)!
The truth is of course that the rioting is far
more complex than any axis-of-evil type explanation
would suggest. From what I’ve picked up, a lot
of the gang violence has to do with traditional
issues of territory and the associated control of
the drug trade in suburban areas. And of course not
all the rioting young men are Islamic. Neither are
they all Lebanese.
There are deep and serious issues in Australian
society. No one should gloss over this.
There is a deep spiritual corruption amongst our
young people, associated with an abandonment of all
faith and youthful idealism and the entrenchment of
a ‘sibling society’, that is increasingly
aimless and narcissistic.
‘Multi-culturalism’ continues to be a
concept that is officially enshrined but never
discussed, and I have little doubt that the
underlying tensions will continue to bubble to the
surface in various destructive ways until this is
addressed honestly and openly.
In this context, the grievances of Australian
Moslems, who uphold more traditional social values
, are understandable and need to be heard. Indeed,
I do believe that if we middle-class white people
could get over the vilification of the Islamic
community, we would quickly discover that we share
a lot more in common with these people than we do
with their riotous white opponents!
As is always the case, every complex problem
always has a simple answer, and it’s always
the wrong answer! It is always wrong to blame one
ethnic group for a country’s social problems.
It is always wrong to target a particular religion
as being the cause of violence. It is always wrong
to make permanent life-changing decisions for an
entire country based on a knee-jerk reaction of
fear to some faceless terror. And it is always
wrong to silence dissenting voices as being
unpatriotic - something that now appears to be a
part and parcel of the new anti-terror laws.
We’ve seen this all before! History teaches
us that it’s only a short walk from the
burning of the Reichstag to the ‘Night of the
Long Knives’. More recent history (eg. in
Malaysia, Singapore and Israel) has shown us that
when countries introduce special police powers to
deal with a state of emergency, the laws remain
after the emergency has subsided, and are used to
silence all sorts of dissenting voices.
The future for this country is very much unknown
at the moment. I picked up one clear indicator in
the paper today though: Australia’s
‘Patriotic Youth League’ - the local
equivalent of the Hitler Youth - is currently
experiencing an unprecedented surge in
membership!
©2011, Rev. David B.
Smith
* * *
Never contend with a man who has nothing to
lose. - Baltasar Gracian
Rev.
David B. Smith is a Parish priest, community
worker, martial arts master, pro boxer, author of
Sex,
the Ring & the Eucharist: Reflections on
life, ministry & fighting in the
inner-city and a
father of three. Get a free preview copy of Father
Dave, the 'Fighting Father's book when you sign up
for his free newsletter at www.fatherdave.org
or dave@fatherdave.org
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