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A prediction of Australia's Future
A Study Of Our Decline by Philip Atkinson
Australia's Future December 1996
According as there was intellect or no intellect in individuals, will the general
conclusion they make-out embody itself as a world-healing Truth and Wisdom, or as a baseless fateful Hallucination.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Seeking relief from severe back pain, my spouse consulted a
doctor who recommended a small back operation. A proposal
that enraged my wife who does not believe there is such a
thing as a SMALL back operation. Spinal surgery risks
death, paralysis, permanent posture disfigurement and
crippling pain. The disease was trivial compared to the
proposed drastic cure, so my wife rejected the suggestion.
A sensible stance, but the opposite to that being embraced
by the nation. For trivial reasons Australians wish to
embark upon the path of constitutional surgery and become a
republic, a drastic operation fraught with danger.
Changing the constitution is tinkering with the foundations
of law and order, and can easily explode out of control,
plunging the nation into anarchy or tyranny. Any rational
nation would need a compelling reason before embarking on
such a perilous undertaking- we have none, however we do
have several good reasons to defer such dangerous
indulgence.
Immediately north of our spacious continent is a group of
islands that are burgeoning with humanity. Our neighbours
are very different to ourselves in race, creed and religion.
Their booming economy is dominated by a military regime that
grows stronger as the nation grows richer. Their actions
over East Timor show a ruthless expansionist policy.
Indonesia is a nation with a desperate shortage of space,
which must regard our empty country with some envy. An
attitude that poses a threat to the tenure of our lands, if
not our lives, and makes questions of our choice of
constitution both an irrelevant and a dangerous diversion.
Even if our place in the world was not threatened, our
inability to manage our affairs is stagnating the economy.
The national debt has now passed the $16 billion mark and
shows no sign of reducing. Unemployment continues at the
staggering official rate of 10%, slowly impoverishing our
society . The recession is closing shops, offices and
factories, pervading the whole community with despair.
Fixing the constitution that does not need repair, while
ignoring the economy that is in desperate need of a major
overhaul, is clearly madness.
The desire to make Australia a republic springs not from the
improvement offered by a new constitution, this is still
unknown, but from a rejection of the old order. Citizens do
not aspire to be republicans, rather they wish to discard a
set of values and institutions they no longer accept.
Australians are not interested in creating - only
destroying; an ominous portent and one with many unpleasant
precedents.
Over two hundred years ago the general populace of France
were resentful and dissatisfied. They were not just unhappy
with the king, but with the whole existing set of values and
institutions that made up the regime; much as Australians
are today. And then, as now, few aspiring republicans saw
much danger in what they were doing- but they were wrong. A
mistake many paid for with their lives. The obscure token
committee of public safety started a murder campaign that
made the world reel in horror. Its unremarkable
bespectacled chairman was so affected by his new authority
that he discovered a blood lust and started an era known as
"The Terror"; thousands of ordinary citizens suddenly
discovered they were enemies of the state and were publicly
beheaded.
In hindsight the result should have been no surprise.
Fiddling with the constitution eroded certainty over right
and wrong, weakening restraints on social behaviour and
allowing festering public resentment to explode into
violence. The initial glee shown by those crowding round
the guillotine reveal this butchery won popular acclaim.
The mob were delighted to see previously privileged members
of the community publicly murdered. Indeed this was the
crux of the matter, this is what they really wanted. The
popular French uprising of 1791 had little to do with
Liberty, Fraternity and Equality, it had more to do with
indulged children who discover they can defy parents. This
was a revolt against authority, the populace would no longer
give unquestioning obedience to any agency.
Mob rule and anarchy were only ended by the appearance of a
more ruthless king than the one deposed. Napoleon seized
power and became absolute ruler, but not as a king but an
emperor. The community had gone full circle, but in the
process it had lost something vital. Respect for authority,
the quality discarded so violently and with such gusto is
essential for society. The storming of the Bastille marked
the slow disappearance of respect and obedience from the
community, for if it could be denied the king, it could be
denied any office- be it church, government, police or
parent. A result now all too familiar with parents,
teachers, police and government in Australia in 1990s. The
community no longer accepts any authority without question,
and is suffering the inevitable consequences - its eventual
dissolution. Which is why professor Toynbee set the French
Revolution as the start of the fall of western civilisation.
The French revolution was not unique, the Russian revolution
was very similar. Despite the relative prosperity of Russia
in the early 1900s, a malcontented populace resolved to
discard the old order for the promised utopia of marxism.
The country was plunged into civil war by comrades who
intended to improve the community by discarding the
monarchy. Social chaos was only ended with the appearance
of an absolute monarch, Stalin. A monster who proceeded to
imprison, starve and murder the populace to secure his
position as ruler. Russia has still not recovered, it looks
as though it never will.
The regime that Stalin created inspired a new word -
Totalitarian- where the state invokes its full technological
might to enslave its citizens. An action that frightened
many observers and inspired some chilling novels- "Brave New
World" by Aldous Huxley, and "1984" by George Orwell. While
both were futuristic, Orwell's novel was a barely disguised
description of the 1948 soviet government. Unfortunately
nature is imitating art and the work now appears a grim
prophecy for Australia.
Newspeak was a term coined by the novel to describe Big
Brother's manipulation of language. Words, being the
foundations of thoughts, were perverted to control public
understanding. If the words needed to think rebellious
thoughts did not exist, then neither could rebels. This was
one of the tactics of the totalitarian administration to
quell any resistance to its authority. Newspeak has appeared
in Australia, it is called Politically Correct speech.
Talking is no longer spontaneous verbalising of thoughts,
but another mechanism is introduced. Before expression,
sentences are laboriously checked for politically incorrect
words. In this way the state censor is installed in every
mind, ensuring thoughts match federal policy.
The anti- league is another invention of the novel that
has come true. The imaginary fanatical group dedicated to
eradicating the traditional concept of men and women, are
contemporary feminists. Their attitudes receiving official
sanction through ual harassment legislation, making it
illegal to socialise in the century's old fashion. Neither
now knows how to approach each other; an overt ual
invitation may win coitus or it may win prison.
In Orwell's book the family unit was undermined by
encouraging children to denounce parents who displayed
illegal attitudes, much as Australia law enforcement
encourages children to denounce parental abuse. This legal
approach that currently makes controlling off-spring
difficult, is soon to be amended to make it impossible.
There is a group lobbying to make chastising children
illegal - an absurdity - a quality that makes official
adoption almost a certainty.
Continually being observed via a huge television screen in
every room was one of the horrors of life under Big Brother.
Presumably Orwell was alluding to Stalin's secret police who
constantly watched all citizens. Such relentless scrutiny
has not yet been implemented in Australia, there are now
only radar speed cameras, red light cameras, random breath
testing, random car fault checking and occasional official
eaves-dropping. A worrying list, but there is no reason to
believe that official spying will not be extended in quality
and quantity.
An Australian Big Brother
It seems only a matter of time before radar cameras become endemic to all highways, with automatic penalising extended from speeding and crossing red lights to every driving offence. Undoubtedly random breath tests, state bugging and the racial vilification laws set the stage for random speech tests. Thought police, employing the latest in gadgetry, will be able to eavesdrop on private conversations at will, placing citizens at risk whenever they communicate. A trend that will see all possible offences brought under the baleful eye of the state's technology. Imagination seems the only limit to the future monitoring by an Australian Big Brother.
Dwelling only upon the realities of totalitarian life, the
book never explained the official ideology of Big Brother.
In reality authoritarian states have no beliefs except
gaining then retaining absolute power. Their official dogma
is merely the rationalisation of all state actions, and is
only rhetorical. Thus the differences between the regimes
of Stalin and Hitler were in name only, a similarity starkly
illustrated by Igor Golomstock in his book "Totalitarianism
And Art". This work makes it clear there was little to
choose between the dictatorships of Stalin, Hitler,
Mussolini or Mao, despite huge theoretical differences.
Having a dramatic new creed is an essential quality of these
regimes, and arises directly from the way they are spawned.
The process is not rigidly defined but the general pattern
seems clear. First a society suffering from a deterioration
in the character of its people, becomes impotent and
stagnates. Its dissatisfied citizens ignore their own
shortcomings and blame the existing order, its values and
institutions. Inevitably growing public alienation creates
a popular belief that some particular formula is the answer
to their problems; one that will right all wrongs, but more
importantly, overturn traditional values and eradicate
existing privileged groups. Characterised by increasing
hatred of the old order, anarchy increases and law and order
disintegrate. This condition intensifies until events hand
power to one person, who restores order through force
carried out in the name of the much acclaimed new solution.
Regardless of the regime's pretensions, it is an absolute
dictatorship ruled by a combination of propaganda and
terror. This is advertised by the deaths of obvious agents
of the old order and current rivals of the new ruler.
Marxism became Stalin's excuse, National Socialism was
Hitler's; neither creed was anything but public illusion.
The magical solution to all Australia's ills is obviously a
multicultural republic, or so a growing number of citizens
claim. The inane desire to become a republic is a akin to
the feeling spoilt children have towards parental authority;
the same public madness that persuaded the Chinese Red Guard
to murder authority figures and serve them up in restaurants
in 1969. Much as the Russians murdered their Tsar and his
family, and the French republicans guillotined their King
and Queen. Inspiration for the public clamour for change
has nothing to do with reason but the opposite.
Australia's new ism - Multiculturalism - is a blind
rejection of traditional values; choosing to adopt the
opposite of previous views. Pommy, dago, wog, slope, poof
are words coined by the old order, so in the name of
multiculturalism legislation have been passed to make these
expressions illegal; hence the anti-discrimination and
anti-vilification laws.
Regardless of claims to the contrary, this stance is absurd.
The, now illegal, words were inspired by communal
experience, terms that evolved to quickly convey a wealth of
meaning; they were not conjured up by the devil to upset
delicate sensibilities. The owner who refused to rent a new
home to an impoverished black lady with numerous children,
was fined $18,000 in an Ingham court in May 1995.
Undoubtedly the landlord could have been more polite, but to
accept such a tenant would have been to deny a wealth of
experience. Simple observation of similar cases displays
such renters often ruin the property, upset the
neighbourhood, and do not pay the rent. For the landlord to
act otherwise would have been madness. The law attempting to
compel financial suicide is the result of the perverse
multicultural approach and is obviously crazy.
No society can be multicultured, different cultures have
different values which make them incompatible; society
either allows the state to execute criminals, or it does
not; erers may be stoned to death or not; marriage
either gives husbands free rein to treat their wives as they
please, or it does not; the state may allow or proscribe
abortion. Only one choice can be selected, and this must be
supported by law, which effectively defines the culture of
the country. Our society might have multiple foreign
restaurants, citizenry that reflects a mixture of races, but
it has only one legal code, and this is the single set of
values that reflect our unique culture.
Naturally pretending we are something we are not and
supporting this charade by legislation, demands laws that
are not what they claim. The anti-discrimination act
compels the very crime it is meant to suppress; blatant bias
is now compulsory when choosing an applicant for a job.
Unless selection reflects official prejudice an unsuccessful
applicant can use the law to reverse it. This means that
black must be chosen over white, female over male, cripples
over healthy and ually perverted over normal.
While in blatant contradiction of the non-discrimination
policy is the enforced official racial discrimination known
as Land Rights. Of all citizens, only aborigines may make
land claims, thereby creating a privileged class of citizen
based on race. Claiming one thing while doing the opposite
confirms the insanity of the government, the law and the
people who accept it.
To compel the pretence of one big happy multiculture and
accelerate our descent into totalitarian madness, the racial
vilification law is proposed. Such a statute can only be
viewed as a symptom of public dementia, for it must kill
freedom of speech while providing nothing of benefit.
Giving increasingly nervous citizens a device to lash out
easily at others when social conditions are deteriorating,
can only have one result.
The satirical television cartoon comedy "The Simpsons" had
an episode that graphically depicted what happens in such
circumstances. To overcome constant bickering each Simpson
family member was given the power to administer an electric
shock to any other member of the family. Naturally the
result was a chain reaction, after a slow start everyone was
giving everyone else as many jolts as possible. That
hilarious scene is about to be enacted by all Australians,
only few will be laughing.
Our country used to be safe, boring and mediocre, much like
pre-communist Russia, but all that has changed. The bronzed
laconic tough Aussie has been replaced by a very different
creature - its opposite. Loud, forward, strident,
hysterical, arrogant, and ruthless; unrestrained by any
sense of morality. The fanatics of the forthcoming tyranny
are already apparent in Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Animal
Liberationists, Ecologists and Anti-Smokers. These
humourless self-appointed guardians of truth are the same
mob that shouted Liberty, Fraternity and Equality as they
raped, murdered and looted. The same criminals who sent
millions to their death in Russian prison camps in the name
of communism. The same lunatics who created the killing
fields in Cambodia and the same murderers who created the
death camps during the last world war.
Using the dreadful example of the Nazis as an excuse to
enact radical legislation will not stop us repeating the
crimes of the Third Reich. The lesson of the Holocaust is
not that people have got to be restrained from hating Jews,
but that nations go mad. The murder factories were not the
work of a few evil men, but the inevitable result of a whole
nation discarding reason. Hitler did not seduce the people,
the people embraced Hitler because he said what they believed.
The declaration of the victorious allies at a post-war court
that a few individuals were responsible for the attempt at
genocide, was a blatant lie. Indeed, many of those
condemned by this approach felt they had been made
scapegoats. They knew their only crime was being obedient
soldiers and dutiful citizens. They could not be held
responsible for the nature of their orders, it was something
completely outside their control. A view denied by the
Nuremberg judges who claimed that orders did not absolve
people from the guilt of their actions. The real guilty
parties were not the officials who were merely doing their
job, but the populace whose wishes they were fulfilling.
It is absurd to deny that unquestioning obedience of orders
in wartime is essential. If these officers were guilty,
then so were all the crews who manned the bombers that
destroyed German cities, along with those who sent them.
The list of guilty must include "Bomber" Harris, Churchill,
Roosevelt and Eisenhower. The commandant of Auschwitz could
be considered no more a criminal than the officer commanding
Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atom bombs on Japan.
Both men had deliberately supervised the mass murder of
non-combatants, both felt they were doing their duty,
however unpleasant. By denying the reality of a direct
order in war time, the allied judges were wrong and
consequently they failed to identify the real crime, along
with the real criminals. By adopting this stance the
judgement at Nuremberg did not uncover but hid the insanity
that induced National Socialism.
If the guilty were to be put to death then most Germans
should have been executed. The killers were not just those
left with the job, but the ordinary German who delighted in
the Fuhrer' s speeches; who exalted in hearing how their
poverty and frustration was a Jewish plot; who were thrilled
to hear that Germans were the master race, whose destiny was
world domination. Embracing such drivel as truth was the
evil deed that inevitably resulted in appalling acts of mass
murder.
The undeclared real crime was public acceptance of an
irrational set of beliefs; the popular discarding of reason
in favour of rhetoric. The horror of conveyor-belt murder
was unleashed by ordinary citizens, millions of individuals
each choosing to adopt nonsense and deny truth. The danger
that threatens to engulf our nation, if not our
civilisation, is this private failure; choosing to support
fad instead of fact.
Australians are repeating the same tragedy by opting for the
illusion of multiculturalism. The evidence of our plunge
into totalitarianism is obvious to all who are not blinded
by prejudice. While conditions have not yet become
dangerous, they are certainly deteriorating. Radical new
laws are being enacted, tensions are rising and the
community is becoming polarised. When Von Papen attempted
to improve his career by installing Adolph Hitler as Reich
Chancellor in 1933, he unleashed a calamity that only ended
with the deaths of millions and the invasion of his country.
The mediocre Australian politician who instigates the
Australian Republic, could well be doing the same thing.
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