Log on to any Australian news website and you will be led to believe that the most important issue facing our nation and its people is the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Likewise, tune into any Parliamentary debate or adjacent discussion and it is dominated by the conflict. Australia has no real strategic, economic, or diplomatic interests in this war. So, why are we subject to the rancour and division that the war has produced?
The answer is simple; beginning in the 1960s Australia began to unwind its sound policies of immigration restriction and discrimination.
Now we have powerful and mobilised ethnic constituencies to pander to when conflicts arise the world over. Parliamentary motions are moved in support of Israel, walkouts are staged in the Senate in support of Palestine, and local councils engage in petty spats over who flew which flag. All told the good governance of Australia on behalf of its people is relegated to second place, so that our elected representatives can posture over who is in the right with respect to an intractable ethnic blood feud on the other side of the world.
Our streets too have become a political battleground. Competing demonstrations engage in insults and violence. Convoys of cars waving partisan flags travel through suburbs populated by the rival ethnicity to intimidate local residents. Burger shops are set on fire and shipping is blockaded by activists. It is little wonder that more than half of respondents in a recent poll conducted by Resolve Political Monitor declared they did not want pro-Israel or pro-Palestine protests to take place in our communities.
Australians have become accustomed to bearing the costs of our immigration program and its consequences. Since 2001, we have been subjected to and financed the construction of a pervasive national security state – created ostensibly to stop radicalised Muslims from butchering Australians. We have had to contend with the subversion of our democratic processes on behalf of hostile foreign states by members of certain ethnic communities. We have had jihad inspired terrorism.
More recently we have witnessed in Sydney and Melbourne mass brawls between Hindus and Sikhs over the issue of Sikh independence. How long will it be before the Indian security services attempt to assassinate someone on Australian soil? It’s already happened in Canada and the U.S.
We should not have to put up with this.
If politicians from both sides had remained true to the founding vision of this country and maintained our traditional immigration policies, we would not have to.
Our diversity is our weakness. It is inherently divisive. The only way for us all to live together in harmony is for all of us to forsake our heritage and culture, adopting a neutral consumerism and become atomised. We are already far down this enervating path.
It is incumbent upon each of us to be intentionally Australian and to advance and promote our vision for the country. Societal division of the kind happening now presents a great opportunity for Australian Nativists to illustrate how multiculturalism diminishes our national security and our social solidarity. A halal snack pack is no substitute for a unified and functioning nation.
Rowan Oar
A.N.A Canberra-Monaro