Check out Brendan Nelson’s version of the vision thing [via Tim Dunlop], particularly this bit:
4. The concept of “defence of the realm” should be expanded beyond border control and fighter planes to embrace “defence of values”. Dr Nelson wants to initiate what could be a politically volatile public discussion about what Australians stand for beyond universal values.
That’ll be interesting. There were various lists of “values” floating around in the dying days of the Howard government - for instance for informing the Citizenship test. All were defined in terms of either immigration or defence, or the history wars. I couldn’t see any that were particularly unique to Australia - do Kiwis or Canadians or Finns not believe in “the rule of law” and “democracy”?, and as far as I can see “equality between men and women” was only chucked in there to suggest Muslims didn’t believe in it - though I’m not sure Howard did himself.
What is he talking about here? Green capitalism? Surely a contradiction in terms. And what values - bashing the pooer, certainly. That’s the only clear one. The White Man’s Burden? That scary nationalism that created the Cronulla Riots? Nasty Ways to Say Sorry Without Really Meaning It? After Howard’s disastrous example, a wise politician, right or left, would leave this sort of thing alone, methinks.
hey paul
Nelson wise? There’s an oxymoron if ever i heard one,
HP
wash your mouth out with Lux, please. Then go and stand in The Naughty Corner.
An oxymoron is a very dangerous person: it’s a MORON waving an OXY torch around. Stand well clear, is my advice.
At least it’s supposed to be a listening tour. Who knows, they might even rediscover liberalism!
If one state claims the right to foreign military action in defence of values (apart from those common to all political systems recognized under international law, e.g. to stop genocide), it logically must grant the right to other states. This implies that Nelson would grant the right to defend it’s idea of Islam (and it’s a very twisted idea of Mohammed’s teaching) in Australia.
Perhaps, as we in Australia (and most of the civilized world like NZ, Europe and Canada) value a system of universal health coverage, it might be reasonable to defend those values overseas, on US soil perhaps?
Is this what Nelson is implying?
Interesting chat with some ex-Sydneysiders on the weekend. They grew up near Cronulla, but not actually in it, and say the “anti-Lebanese” movement is simply a racialised extension of the sort of violence that used to meet ANYONE on the beach who wasnt from Cronulla.
Skips not just ‘included’ - but the main target in those days.
So much for the Surfbogan defence of the nayshun theory. They’re just nasty little shits.
Second that about Cronulla and the Shire, Izquierdista. It’s fifty square km of cul-de-sac insular Hell with a surf beach.
Speaking of which, I’d be more keen to see a Government defend political virtue than values.
(Warning: typical Spiked sophistry. I happen to like it but YMMV)
Localism is a well-documented phenomenon at surf beaches, but there have been some big demographic shifts that explain Cronulla as well. For one, the whole suburb has gone up-market, more cosmopolitan, become crowded and expensive, making localism of the old variety harder to sustain. At the same time, the Shire has sprawled, grown, and claimed Cronulla for itself, turning Cronulla, as somewhere that some non-Shirites want to visit, into something of a frontier. It’s not just localism in the old sense, because that kind of thing can’t be sustained in the new conditions, so it becomes Shirist and quasi-nationalist at the same time.
Also, the ‘westies’ who trek out there to get their toes wet have become markedly non-Anglo over the last couple of decades. And in the case of the Lebanese kids, they take space, police it and will not be intimidated. Occasionally that sort of aggressive self-defense means that ‘innocents’ get pulled into it, and also makes them conspicuous others. At the same time there is a government and media discourse demonising said Lebanese kids, and offering a larger narrative, and giving a sense of legitimacy to this particular target.
Kim, you said, “Nelson’s donkey rides again”. Looks like he turned up as the new minister for Defence.
Super Hornets to go ahead says Fitzgibbon.
http://www.scopical.com.au/articles/Politics/3514/Super-Hornets-to-go-ahead-says-Fitzgibbon
Seems to me that Australia’s largest church has a very hard time signing up to that ‘Australian value’ as well as Howard.
Oh, I’m sure Howard had the Tony Abbott/Cardinal Pell stamp of approval for that one, Yasmin. Hang on…