Yesterday on the acknowledgement of country thread I cited with approval this article by Noel Pearson, which I urge all to read.
However, there was one element of Pearson’s article which I found jarring. In it, Pearson devotes a few paragraphs to this notion:
Anti-Aboriginal thinking is like anti-Semitism: a complex of irrational ideas that cannot be understood as a reaction informed by personal experience, facts or spurious information that is believed to be true.
Irrational contempt becomes the primary reason for its own continued existence. This is captured in the famous dictum on the ineradicability of anti-Semitism: “If the Jews did not exist, the anti-Semites would invent them.”
The irrational nature of anti-Aboriginal thinking through history is obvious. No matter how decimated, powerless, removed to the fringe or distant reserves Aboriginal Australians have been, anti-Aboriginal thinking has been virulent.
and
Those who have ideas about “reverse racism” in favour of Aborigines will not be able to provide evidence or logical reasoning in support of their fixation but will latch on to anything that vaguely resembles their resentment.
The central figure of thought of irrational anti-Semitism is “the Jews have too much X”, where X may be something tangible, material, political or cultural. We all know that every sentence that follows that pattern is unutterable.
Reading these words provoked a gut reaction that something in the suggestion wasn’t right, and despite a fair bit of cogitation I still haven’t managed to put my finger precisely on the problem. Here is the story so far… Continue reading ‘Aborigines are the new Jews – really, Noel?’
The state elections and federal implications
In tonight’s counts, it appears clear that the ALP has narrowly held on in South Australia, containing the swing against the government to 1.7% in the marginals, with much of the state wide anti-Labor swing washing through safe seats, while Tasmania, as predicted, is up for grabs.
On the ABC’s latest figures, the Tasmanian vote split is 37.1/39.1/21.3 for Labor, the Liberals and The Greens respectively, with a 10-10-5 allocation of seats predicted. It’s interesting, in passing, to observe that The Greens didn’t come anywhere near as close to Labor’s vote as polls might have indicated, though nevertheless scoring a handy swing of 4.6%. The swing against Labor in Tasmania was -12.1%, compared to -7.4% in South Australia, where the great majority of the swing has gone straight to the Liberals, with only a small increase in The Greens’ vote of 1.6%.
I’m going to be very interested to see whether those members of the commentariat who were proclaiming that a Labor loss in one or both states would spell doom for Rudd, further embolden Abbott, and claiming that “state results have federal implications and feed into the psychological battle in Canberra” will now rewrite their scripts for tomorrow’s papers.
In truth, there is very little point pouring over state tea leaves to concoct a federal brew.
Continue reading ‘The state elections and federal implications’