Some time ago, I wrote a piece at Online Opinion on the views of a Deakin Uni Law academic, James McConvill, on public intellectuals. I expressed some scepticism that his contributions to public debate, and the arguments of his senior colleague Mirko Bagaric in favour of legalised torture (both of which I’ve written about extensively at LP), were in fact legitimate exercises in disseminating the fruits of academic research. Rather, they seemed to me to be pitching outrageous and controversial views in the interests of establishing a niche in the (lucrative) op/ed market.
I’ve been keeping track of discussion at Catallaxy on Macquarie Law academic Andrew Fraser’s alignment with Neo-nazi groups, and his views on race (which would not seem to fall within the professional competence of a public lawyer):
An associate professor in the Department of Public Law, Andrew Fraser, claims that African migration increases crime, says HSC results point to a rising ruling class of Asians and wants Australia to withdraw from refugee conventions to avoid becoming “a colony of the Third World”.
Associate Professor Fraser, originally from Canada, believes cognitive and athletic abilities, testosterone and “impulse control” vary according to race, and “civilisations” should look after their own.
Much of this discussion has revolved around issues of free speech and academic freedom.
It’s no massive surprise to see Mr McConvill joining the lists at Online Opinion in favour of Professor Fraser. This, fresh from justifying insider trading, something Ken Parish blogged on.
McConvill’s article includes this statement:
The condemnation of Fraser’s comments by Macquarie simply because they are not politically correct is a serious problem. Did the doyens at Macquarie University actually take the time to consider whether Fraser might be right? Did they test samples of sub-Saharan African testosterone, carry out IQ tests, or consult experts in the United States on that country’s history, before issuing the July 21 press release, or before deciding to buy out Fraser’s contact?
And -
Is a university actually in a position to say that Australia will not experience an Asian managerial-professional ruling class, and what are the implications of this?
This issue goes beyond academic freedom and freedom of speech to the issue of the responsibility of making such obviously inflammatory and ludicrous statements (phrased in the true defamation lawyer’s form of rhetorical questions). The question then becomes – what are McConvill’s motives for trading on his presumed public standing as a legal academic to enter every passing controversy from the most extreme angle? If his motive is purely to seek fame and fortune from op/ed columns, and he doesn’t believe in the serially ludicrous positions he adopts, then he deserves condemnation. If his views are genuine, then they deserve condemnation.
Academic independence should be almost limitless—within each academic’s sphere of specialty. When Fraser becomes a social or physical scientist of race and racism, and not just a law academic, then people might start to take him more seriously. When he starts using evidence to back up his claims he’ll start gaining respect.
Until then he’s just using the title and prestige provided him by a major university to push a barrow. It’s a shame Macquarie can’t just sack him.
I don’t get it. Why are the statements ludicrous? If you have a system in which Asian students can buy their way into uni courses and then get bonus points in applying for immigration, then isn’t it possible that you will end up with a professional class with a disproportionate number of Asians? Isn’t it possible that sub-Saharan Africans have lower IQ and, historically, a higher propensity to crime when living in Western countries? There does seem to be fairly convincing evidence in regards to both points. I understand that you don’t like the political implications of the information, but that doesn’t mean the information itself is ludicrous.
Hi Mark, I replied to your post in Catallaxy’s thread.
Mark R, I suggest you read Ken Parish’s post.
Without reference to the comments themselves, it’s difficult to say what constitutes a ludicrous statement – the thing is, is a statement ludicrous or absurd because it is truly nonsensical, or is it that way because it doesn’t fall within our (usual) modes of thinking ?
These notions are particularly present in the physical sciences – eg, the theory of continental drift was derided by geologists for many decades! I’m thinking that you have to be careful in the social sciences in what you think is nonsensical as they are more “fuzzy” than the physical sciences.
I for one welcome our new Asian ruling class!
Goodness. Sub-Saharan African people just happen to have a lower IQ, eh, which drives them to crime? There’s something a tad rotten in that there view, and it leaves a nasty taste in my virtual mouth just virtually saying those words.
Mark R, two points.
First, I agree with Rob – I suggest you read Ken Parish’s post where he addresses the issues Fraser raises. I find myself in complete agreement with Ken, which is why I linked to his post, and why I didn’t spell out the obvious lack of scientific support for Fraser’s “arguments”.
Secondly, you ask:
I suppose so, but what does “disproportionate” mean in this context? In a liberal society where merit is rewarded (and isn’t that supposed to be what ours is?), then surely the ethnic background of professionals is irrelevant.
The key to Fraser’s question is in the part that McConvill significantly doesn’t quote:
As another link in the post points to, Fraser has acted as a legal adviser for a neo-Nazi group. His views, it could reasonably be inferred, are not scholarly ruminations but inflammatory political statements, justified by pseudo-scientific twaddle.
He’s also indicated his support for the said group – so he’s not just a lawyer with a case. If he was advising and supporting a group supporting Jihad, then I doubt that the response to his views would be so understanding. QED.
As to Luis’ points:
There’s a difference between Tim Lambert commenting on climate change and Andrew Fraser commenting on immigration. Lambert doesn’t make his comments from a pulpit where he dons his academic gown and claims authority by virtue of his status as a UNSW academic. Lambert also researches the issues, and is prepared to defend his views against others’ arguments in a spirit of truth.
I think academic bloggers would also normally be upfront about which part of what they write is opinion and which part is a report of scientific fact or hypothesis.
Andrew Norton has long argued that we shouldn’t accord any particular authority to statements on politics by (for instance) Professors of French Literature or Civil Engineering, and he’s right. Their opinions are either just that, or are worth the value of their arguments.
Secondly, I am completely unaware of any humanities academics that support “all type of totalitarian regimes”. This is just the usual furphy about the allegedly left wing dominated academy, and has its genesis in McCarthyist concerns about academics supporting communism in the context of the Cold War. Please point me to any actually existing Australian academics who support “all type of totalitarian regimes” and I’ll add my voice of condemnation to Luis’.
As to the IQ debate, it’s fairly clear where I stand on this one, and the fact that such statements are taken even remotely seriously is another instance of the phenomenon which concerns me about such arguments.
On crime figures, as Ken pointed out, the research shows that recent immigrants to Australia, on the whole (and check Ken’s post) have lower levels of crime than those born in Australia. In any case, there’s no warrant in the criminological literature for some sort of essentialist argument that people from a particular racial background have a tendency to commit crime, which is Fraser’s argument. The arguments about the causes of crime are complex, and they’ve not been addressed in this debate.
I taught criminology for four years, btw, and am pretty much across the literature on this.
Sachmo, consider the logic in McConvill’s second question for a while.
Let him say what he likes. Just shoot the silly bastard down in flames. His argument is pissweak, and lacking in all evidence. He ought to be too embarassed to publish this attention grabbing, baseless piffle. But since he’s too daft to keep his head down – let him ruin whats left of his reputation and career. WHo cares.
This doesnt bother me a bit. As long as he’s not concerned by looking a fool when informed people who actually know something of the area tear him a new one.
Shake your chains to earth like dew!
(did it work?)
Hmmm. Lord Byron a bit dark and small. Oh well.
Nice rebuttal Mark.
And I’d just like to say that this Andrew Frazer is repulsed by the views of that Andrew Fraser.
Mine’s working too!
Sach, to clarify my point – when I say “McConvill’s second question” I mean the second quote I’ve highlighted from him in my post.
McConvill’s article begins with a (hearsay) report that Macquarie is trying to buy out the rest of Fraser’s contract and concludes:
“at Macquarie University, they are also in the business of creating martyrs.”
Some martyr. they’re not proposing to dismiss him summarily, or drum him out of the academy with a ceremonial ripping of his gown and de-tasselling of his mortarboard; they’re (allegedly) thinking of slinging him a bucket of readies so long as he hits the bricks.
As for the substance of McConvill’s argument pro-Fraser: has McConvill himself done the tests he suggests? has Fraser? McConvill demonstrates his own ignorance when he talks of testing “samples of sub-Saharan African testosterone” as if testosterone were subject to the same sort of regional variation you find in commodity crops like coffee and cocoa.
Is McConvill defending free speech and academic independence against the continuing encroachments of political correctness? Nah; he’s indulging in a reflexive, knee-jerk piece of opportunistic self-promotion.
The one thing that worries me is that if universities start making a habit of buying out the employment contracts of academics who are given to promoting stupid theories about subjects outside their principle area of expertise we could see a lot more of this sort of stuff happening in future as bored academic hacks with dreams of op-ed prominence look to flee the halls of academe with a nice nest egg to tide them over periods of outrageously stupid opinion block.
I guess if you believe in Evolution and progress, then it’s a fairly logical corollary that some are not as evolved or progressed. Evolutionists can fall back on environmental factors as an explanation for this of course, but the nature of the London bombers really put the cat among the pigeons with that theory.
It helps sometimes to have a rare surname, Andrew! Having said that, I know one academic who has a very prominent person bearing the same name who doesn’t discourage people from thinking that she’s actually the person who’s published several celebrated books (as opposed to 2 conference papers).
And what Gummo said.
Observa, that’s one of the silliest things you’ve ever said. Out of a population of how many million Muslims in Britian, the actions of less than 20 individuals PROVE that some are less evolved than others?
You need to go back to high school and study basic biology.
observa, at least you don’t claim any particular scientific warrant for your views so we can treat your arguments as they deserve to be assessed.
And, as any high school biology student can tell you, that the differences between human populations are so statistically slight, and so difficult to untangle from cultural/environmental factors, that it’s ridiculous to talk about evolution in that way.
Black people and white people aren’t separate species, so your comments about evolution reveal your profound ignorance of the science behind the theory.
Firstly some of you may be interested that Andrew Fraser will be on the next program of Counterpoint on ABC National.
But also the Geoffrey Blaney experience of the 80′s (and Blaney was pretty mild compared to this bloke) is to just let it go. Banning him and ostracising him will only make him a martyr and attract all the loopies a la ‘One Nation’. We don’t need to go through that again. Just let him speak and the whole thing will blow over.
Agree with Guido. Its like borderline personality disorder – if you ignore their attention-seeking tantrums they’ll stop annoying you and move onto someone else.
Blainey of course continued his term as Dean of Arts at Melbourne after his statements. However, trots picketing and disrupting his lectures was not a good thing.
I don’t agree with Macquarie’s actions.
Incidentally, there’s a response to McConvill by a UWS academic at Online Opinion.
Mark, I don’t find it racist to publish a careful study that shows differences in test score across racial groups (this seems to be an implication in some comments). But the bar is pretty high here, so you’d want to have a lot of evidence going in, and to be fairly confident that the results said more about racial differences than about race-specific tests. So far as I can tell, Fraser has neither, so I’m on your side on the fundamental point. If you don’t have good evidence, opening your mouth and saying the first thing that comes out isn’t a particularly good use of the MacU podium.
As to crime, what the AIC (via Ken Parish) found is that for most crimes (you imply all) rates of offending are lower among immigrants than native-born Aussies. But this isn’t true of rape or homicide (see http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/ethnicity-crime/ethnic-ch4.pdf). Of course, one probably wants to control for income and employment here, and it doesn’t look to me like the AIC study does this.
I should clarify that my comments were not a defence of McConvill’s scribings, but moreso just a general attitude to keep in mind.
Actually looking at “McConvill?Äôs second question”, it doesn’t look like an intellectual question, but moreso alarmist rhetoric, in addition to containing some very strange “logic”. Hmm
Andrew, neither do I, and nor am I suggesting (as a couple of the Catallaxy commenters implied about opponents of Fraser) that legitimate lines of scientific or social scientific enquiry ought not to be pursued.
Though I am one who would minimise any causal weight given to biological factors and IQ.
But as you say, Fraser is very far from conducting careful enquiries.
As to the AIC study, there’s been further work done on this – published in the Australia & NZ Journal of Criminology and Current Affairs in Criminal Justice which does take into account socio-economic status, and finds that this affects the results. However, being academic journals, they don’t publish free online. The best work on all this has been done by Scott Poynting at UWS. Unfortunately, I have a lecture to write today – which I’d better start on – so I lack the time to track down the actual studies. I’m sure Scott would respond to any email enquiries – I have no doubt he’d have the figures at his fingertips.
Andrew, what is meant by “racial groups” in this research? In my limited understanding of biology, I thought that it wasn’t possible to tell someone’s “race” from their DNA. Is “cultural group” (whatever that means!) a better descriptor?
Sach, yes.
Observa makes the classic and widely promulgated error of thinking that evolution is about progress and complexity, when its about change to best adapt to circumstance whatever that may be. For the majority of life it means remaining as specialized types of bacteria, who are highly evolved to do what they do.
Mark,
I have pointed out before in catallaxy that it was clearly a mistake to use university affiliation to give weight and respectability to the claims. Fraser seems to be willing to defend his claims, but clearly he has not the, how to put it, intelligence to make it properly. That does not mean that he is not “prepared to defend his views against others?Äô arguments in a spirit of truth”.
Acting as a legal adviser for a neo-Nazi group does not convert you in a neo-Nazi (although he may be one, I have no idea), in the same way that providing legal advise to a murderer does not convert you into one. That comment is more character assassination than real argument.
As you probably realise, I do not share at all Fraser’s views, but I still think that if a University is willing to pull the plug from Fraser it should do the same with other academics with poorly substantiated and contentious views.
By the way, I did not mean in my previous post that there were academics that supported ALL totalitarian views, but that there were examples of academics who support (or have supported) at least who one kind of totalitarian regime (for example Fidel Castro’s left wing dictatorship). There are cases of academics that support (or have supported) other totalitarian right wing regimes (for example Augusto Pinochet’s).
As I see it, in a democratic society people should have the opportunity to express all sorts of ideas (even idiotic or ‘dangerous’ ones). As such, the ideas can be discussed, condemned or supported. In this particular case I choose to condemn them, but probably I would have chosen not to fire (or to provide early retirement) to Fraser.
Luis, continuing coverage of this affair seems to have pretty satisfactorily established that Fraser is not an impartial legal advisor but an active sympathiser. That’s now on his own admission, I understand.
And I’m still waiting to hear who these Castro-supporting humanities academics are.
Also, Luis, my quote was a direct one from your comment at Catallaxy. Happy to accept that’s not what you meant to say.
Well I’m glad you cleared that up for the layman here Kate. There is of course the alternative theory that our London friends were created in God’s image, in which case we may need to choose our God carefully, or else he’s got a warped sense of humour. No, it seems Evolution carries the day and as you say the differences between human populations are imperceptibly slight. What it really comes down to is culture and environment. Can I take it then, you’re all for creating(perhaps evolving or progressing rapidly might be more apt) the right cultural environment in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to iron out any slight statistical discrepancies?
A bit late for that, observa. As I’ve argued recently, the Middle East could have done with a dose of freedom and democracy 40 or 50 years ago instead of American neo-Imperialism.
Kate’s welcome to answer if she likes, but I think this line of comment has the potential to go way offtopic.
Tim Lambert and John Quiggin commenting on global warming are completely different – for one thing they can actually hold their own. Someone like Quiggin is a genuine polymath. Fraser has, by highlighting his Professorial position, staked his reputation on claims that he does not have the capability to defend. Well, tough luck. Nor are JQ and TL outside their area of expertise as their contributions to the debate have mostly been in issues of data interpretation and methodology, issues that they are well placed to comment on given their qualifications.
I choose not to take this thread to that particular place, as Mark suggests, as we have already done it to death.
Err, or perhaps Steve’s whack em with antiseptic and penicillin approach?
Agreed we don’t need to go there, but all Fraser is really doing is pointing to the Mexican Standoff that the London bombers have brought us all. He’s saying oil and water don’t mix, so we need to be more culturally discriminating in who we allow to come ‘here’. The converse is we need to be very circumspect about going ‘over there’. Some common ground for the Dreamtime Separatists and Western Imperialists it seems.
In case you haven’t been following the news, the masterminds of the London bombings were high IQ Indian and Arab engineers, observa
And what would they have had in common Jason?
Well obviously they wouldn’t have both been poorly evolved, as you seemed to argue earlier, observa.
Re: your comments on ‘here’ and ‘there’? The Australian tourism and education industries will thank you for such sophisticated arguments.
your rallying Fraser to your side doesn’t make much sense observa. not exactly sure why you want to anyway. but Fraser was scapegoating Sudanese refugees as low IQ and therefore prone to crime. not exactly pertinent to your arguments.
fraser wasn’t making cultural arguments which would at least be a step up in terms of some soundness and respectability. he was advocating *judging* individuals according to the statistical averages of their fuzzy ethnicities. not using these averages as a proxy for research or application in other areas (e.g. ethnic differences in responsiveness to treatment to some medicines), not exploring the usefulness of these proxies but conflating the positive with the normative and fetishising the categories employed in the former.
“Well obviously they wouldn?Äôt have both been poorly evolved, as you seemed to argue earlier, observa.”
This culturally conservative Anglophile is hardly leading the charge of liberal progressive evolutionists here Jason. I am more comfy with (apparently homophobic) Catholics, happy clappers and axis of evil Bushie types, who aren’t in favour of homosexuals getting ‘hitched’, than those progressive types that are. We probably find the comrades in the other camp with the unhappy strappers who want them ‘hitched’, somewhat strange bedfellows. As for educating unhappy strappers to blow us up, some of us might question the cost/benefit outcome of doing that, apart from the costs we incur in our tourist industries.(Pyramids, Buck Palace or Kuta anyone?)
Fraser might need to refine his arguments a bit more to really channel where the smoko room are coming from- No more bloody muslims and then we’ll look hard at the cultural characteristics of the potential immigrants that are left. As Fraser points out, that wouldn’t augur well for tribal Africans on all of the empirical evidence. Best to stay where they are with their Mugabes, free of our cultural imperialism. How could the Dreamtime Separatists argue with their logic? After all, haven’t they been drumming home that message for years? Something about having morally superior cakes and eating them, as I recall.
observa – further to the right than Andrew Fraser. Just saying…
Has observa been eating some cakes baked with funny stuff?
Sachmo, I have no idea but I didn’t get a word of that. And I read it twice.
observa is like this all the time, sachmo. you should’ve seen his short story about bestiality in the suburbs which was his main contribution to the gay marriage debate. born in a different set of circumstances he could’ve been a Booker prize contender.
you should think about taking up creative writing, observa. with a little practice you could be Australia’s very own michel houellebecq
There’s some sort of stream of consciousness happening in observer’s writing – but what sort of consciousness it is I don’t know!
Ryan Adams’ bass player is called Catherine Popper.
To me this is not about supressing politically incorrect views — Fraser did not come up with any kind of research or evidence which would support his view, and the questions McConvill asks of MU’s “doyens” could fairly apply to Fraser. Witness his performance on ACA, although knowing them they may have edited out his scholarly, well researched remarks on IQ, criminology, statistics, history and biology. I await his appearance on Counterpoint (or in the comments threads of the many blogs discussing him) for these things. If the Uni wanted to chastise a humanaties prof for writing inflamatory and discriminatory letters to the editor using the weight of the institution as credibility, I would back that too.
On the question of getting rid of him, I go back and forth.
Just put aside your elitist left/right paradigm blinkers for a moment and I’ll spell it out for you from the smoko room’s point of view.
We middle class wankers live in nice leafy middle class suburbs, which we share amicably with similar middle class wankers from all sorts of cultures(or travel OS regularly to enjoy latter). Because we largely run the show (Biz, Gov, Educ, etc)we have this superior notion that we know what’s best for everyone and how best to achieve the good society. (Welcome to the 2 main streams of ‘noblesse oblige’ here, which has the same underlying humanitarian ethos.)
observa type- Protestant work ethic, self reliance and conservative family values are the best medicine for all. Honesty, integrity, fidelity. A man’s word is his bond. Take everyone as you find them, until you work out they’re no good, cheating, lying, lazy sons of bitches then reject. Nevertheless some innocents can fall into the clutches of these types and need some serious intervention from us gung ho types, with the capacity to help. Hence support for Iraq and Afghanistan, regime change and Marshall Plan, because after all Ozzies, Iraqis, Germans and Japanese people aren’t that different. Also fits prioritisation of problems approach and teaching people to fish rather than handing out free fish, which often seems to be philched by reject types. Can’t solve the problems of the world by stuffing them all into Western Sydney before Xmas, without serious consequences. Not the world’s keeper anyway.
LP type-Everyone’s lovely like me and if they’re not it’s because they haven’t had the opportunity to go to university, are a victim of circumstances beyond their control, or simply because of harsh oppression or rejection by observa types. If the world could share our centrelink payments system our world would be a better place, so everyone who wants to come here should be welcomed with open arms. Come and bring your diverse cultures with you and we can all enjoy your cultural enclaves, food and point of view, because they’re all equally valid and we’ll all be better off sharing and caring together. If we can’t understand each other’s speech, that’s OK we can play music or paint together. We need to tax our rich more to send more aid overseas, then they’ll be happy like us. We should never send armies overseas to meet such diverse, interesting people and kill them. We’re the world’s keeper.
So where do the smoko room crowd stand with this sanctimonious middle class wankery now? Well of course they don’t live, work and play in some monocultural vacuum themselves, they do share some of these sentiments and are open to persuasion. However we do know the majority are not in favour of taking in boat arrivals(or more immigrants generally) and they are not in favour of sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. Muslim terrorism has killed off the LP humanitarian open arms view for them, particularly now that they’ve seen what home grown muslims are capable of in Britain. The observa humanitarian approach in Iraq and Afghanistan is looking decidedly dodgy too, if the insurgency prevails. OTOH what if the end result is a peaceable, theocratic democracy under Sharia Law, hanging poofters and stoning loose women? Doesn’t all this confirm their overall stance? Why the hell are we taking refugees/immigrants from these monkey countries when we can’t even fix their monkey countries ourselves they ask? Don’t bring the monkeys here and leave their monkey countries alone you dopey middle class twits! You must admit, they’ve got a point from where they sit at present, but then perhaps they shouldn’t fart in polite company.
what is this “smoko room” ? and what are you saying, observa?
What all that had to do with whether or not Fraser should keep his job is utterly beyond me.
This is an unusual level of incoherence even for you, Observa. Here’s the thing. At one point, you seem to be calling people ‘monkeys’. This is extraordinarily racist and degrading language.
So, why don’t you stay on-topic if you’re going to post here again, and keep the degrading language to a minimum, okay?
Sachmo, I work with working class people(the smoko room crowd), which some disdainfully refer to as the plasma screen mob. They don’t exactly express themselves in politically correct ways, but they almost always get it correct politically at election times, given the limited choices they face. They don’t see the need to engage the political process in some high falutin, esoteric language of their betters, but can look up from their mortgages, kids sport, cricket, footy, etc as required, to intuit the crux of an argument at the appropriate times. They have excellent built in bullshit detectors and can spot a carpet-bagger a mile away. Naturally, this can be most disconcerting to carpet-bagging bullshit artists. The observa sometimes bundles up their thoughts and channels them here. This Fraser bloke is probably echoing some of their thoughts at present. That answer your question?
Apologies for my recalcitrance here Kate. Change that to Keatingesque banana republics and banana eaters.
Yes, what Kate said, observa. Please at least try to avoid derogatory epithets and to stay vaguely on topic.
Sach, the shorter observa:
I’m a salt of the earth small business type in close touch with the great battler majority and youse are all chards-swilling elitists.
“This issue goes beyond academic freedom and freedom of speech to the issue of the responsibility of making such obviously inflammatory and ludicrous statements”
Inflammatory and ludicrous because he
“wants Australia to withdraw from refugee conventions to avoid becoming “a colony of the Third World”.”
That will be a judgement for all to make and that’s why I have pointed out how some are beginning to think and their reasons for doing so. (IMO he is discussing a small subset of a much larger social question at present)
“The question then becomes – what are McConvill?Äôs motives for trading on his presumed public standing as a legal academic to enter every passing controversy from the most extreme angle? If his motive is purely to seek fame and fortune from op/ed columns, and he doesn?Äôt believe in the serially ludicrous positions he adopts, then he deserves condemnation. If his views are genuine, then they deserve condemnation. ”
Perhaps the same motives and conclusions could be ascribed to the Robert Stary QCs of this world too? OTOH maybe it’s appropriate to have a countervailing balancing act here.
“I?Äôm a salt of the earth small business type in close touch with the great battler majority and youse are all chards-swilling elitists.”
Well actually the observa is quite long Satch, no doubt from all that pulling and pushing between two cultures. Perhaps he is eternally damned to wander in a schizophrenic twilight zone between middle and working class cultures, like some miserable half caste of yore. The secret of survival is probably not to take himself too seriously.
I’m with Jason, observa – you have quite a nice literary style sometimes.
“If you have a system in which Asian students can buy their way into uni courses and then get bonus points in applying for immigration, then isn?Äôt it possible that you will end up with a professional class with a disproportionate number of Asians?” No, because once you get out of Uni, a bought degree doesn’t make you any smarter and in a society that still in some way awards merit, you sink. Sorry, that rejoinder is a bit behind, but I couldn’t resist.
Nice to have you back, o. The rest of you should stop being so snooty about stream of conciousness rants – I’ve read a lot worse from others. And to scan thru his whole piece and pick out the word “monkey”, then try to hang him out of context for it is intellectually dishonest and not worthy of you, Kate – I won’t even touch how bizarre it seems to castigate someone in a comments thread like this one for wandering slightly off topic. Bloody hell, next you’ll be correcting typos.
observa is reporting on some views that exist and are very common – disturbing, distressing, whatever, but common. I hear it every day (even sometimes – gasp – in a my own smoko room). And so it needs to be raised, discussed, on the table. I’m not in touch with any majority – but there’s a world out there, folks, and it’s full of people with half baked opinions who vote. Better get used to it
I just want to draw attention to the comments by Amanda (16856) and Jason S (comment 16739) as I think they get to the heart of the issue.
If you can’t support your views with a reasonable and sound argument then that is the problem. It is not about if you are qualified to comment. I believe that lay-persons (including professors outside their fields), if sufficiently versed in various fields, should not be dismissed by their lack of qualitifications. They should be dismissed on the basis of the validity of their arguments.
Which, given Fraser’s public arguments, why his should be dismissed.
what Irant said.
At least the smoko room has now been explained!
In 2001 I worked at the Macquarie uni library, and after Sep. 11th I heard some really disturbing things from my co-workers who otherwise were really lovely people – not disturbing in that they reflected psychological disturbance – but rather beliefs that didn’t correspond to information. I’ll always remember, one of my co-workers said “don’t muslims just want to take over the world?”
Tony, I found his comments disturbing and I had no idea what he was going about. Why can’t I point out that I find something Observa says distasteful? Are you to be the arbiter or what I find a racist commentary, even if phrased within a “what my mates in the smoko room reckon” soliliquoy?
Is this intellecutually dishonest? It would be more dishonest to let the whole thing pass without raising what I thought was a valid objection to Observa’s use of language.
You’re right, I shouldn’t castigate anyone for being off-topic. I apologise for that.
However, I will not retract my comment that calling people ‘monkeys’ is racist language. If that bothers you, fine. I didn’t call for Observa’s comment to be deleted and I didn’t call him names, in fact, I just wanted him to try and keep his comments on a more reasonable level. If you think I’m picking stuff out… well, whatever. Of course I did. But I picked out the bit I found offensive.
Mark,
You wrote: “I don?Äôt agree with Macquarie?Äôs actions”.
(comment 16701 (July 28th, 2005 at 11:45 am)).
It seems to me, then, that you and James McConvill agree on the main issue at stake here.
Hence, I find the very point of your initial post rather perplexing — all the more so because I disagree with both you and McConvill; i.e. IMO, Macquarie had/has ample reason for immediately terminating Fraser?Äôs services as an employee. Free speech is hardly the issue; rather, it is (i) basic competence at doing one?Äôs job (for an academic, this means following the precepts of science, not prejudice), and (ii) meeting legitimate customer expectations (here the rule is admittedly mainly confined to front-line service roles, whether they be bank teller or university lecturer. An African student in Fraser?Äôs class, told that they?Äôre dumb?Äôn?Äôcriminal would have understandable customer-service issues — although, like other commenters, I?Äôm not sure that the same actually goes for Asian (“overclass”) students.)
McConvill?Äôs main argument against Macquarie taking immediate action is that a bit more due process should be followed first. I?Äôm not sure what yours is though, Mark. Are you suggesting, say, that a forthright Holocaust-denier a la David Irving should be impossible, or almost so, to dislodge, providing, of course, that they have stitched up their Australian academic employment before such predilections become known? And if your answer depends on distinguishing pissed-off/discouraged-potential African students as a wearable cost, but not so for Jewish students (because of the latter?Äôs greater numbers, and so economic importance to Australian universities), this seems a slippery slope indeed.
More generally, in the several online swipes that you have taken against McConvill to date, you seem strangely lacking empathy or curiosity about the micro-politics and demographics of his position:
“As a young academic, I have been frustrated by the resistance to fresh and challenging ideas in my discipline of law. There is a clear and positioned elite who dare not to depart from their conservative views”.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Ideas-need-an-airing-in-halls-of-learning/2005/06/14/1118645806269.html
As a young academic myself, I share this frustration. Surely you *you* (also a young academic) do too, Mark?
In any case, I’m asking this rhetorically, as an introduction to my three (and a bit) categories of GenX academics and intellectuals (the latter are usually non-salaried, unless they are of the Right). The three are *all* frustrated, but otherwise have almost nothing in common:
- the Janet Albrechtsen
Standard line: the 1960s (i.e. baby boomers of the Left) are to blame for everything wrong in 2005. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16058850%255E32522,00.html By the end of the GenX lifetime, all trace of them will be removed. Social values will be returned back to 1959, and if this involves returning labour?Äôs position (vis a vis capital) back to 1829, what?Äôs so bad about that?
- the “Paul Watson”
Standard line: the 1960s did not happen — yet. Whatever baby boomers thought they were doing in their younger years, sustained social progress has not been the result (in fact, I?Äôd happily now settle for the social values *and* labour standards of 1959, but it seems a bit late for that). It?Äôs time that boomers recognised their colosssal f*ck-up on this account. Left, Right, whatever once makes no difference now. It?Äôs back to the drawing board, and here, boomers (Left, Right, whatever) have *nothing* to contribute, other than their cash.
- the James McConvill
Standard line: the 1960s (i.e. baby boomers) are a roadblock to be pragmatically gotten around. If “they” — with the exception of far-Right, one-trick screamers like Albrechtsen — control the serious side of the OpEd pages, then just go sensationalist and lite. If in doubt, remind yourself with this: an OpEd is an OpEd is an OpEd. Whatever it takes, do it. Above all else — do NOT become bitter and twisted like Paul Watson. Sure, you?Äôll get your critics sniping about your corner-cutting, but in the end, you?Äôll make it — while Paul Watson won?Äôt.
And the “bit”? Oh, that would be the “Mark Bahnisch” — “*What* frustration, *what* baby boomer problem; for me, the 1960s are rolling on and on just fine, thank you”. So where?Äôs *your* byline in the hardcopy OpEd pages, Mark?
DISCLOSURE: Paul Watson teaches in the (infamous, according to Mark Bahnisch) law school at Deakin University. In case it is not clear, he has many and serious disagreements with the views of James McConvill (and Janet Albrechtsen, FWIW).
Huh. And I thought this was the smoko room.
Kate,
The very big social question being asked in smoko rooms, uni staff rooms, offices, homes, etc, etc in Aust and elsewhere is discussed here
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16058850%255E32522,00.html
Now you were offended by my use of the slur of ‘monkeys’. Now that term is used as a term of denigration and has Darwinian Evolution undertones. ie a human or humans are backward, not evolved, primitive, closer to primates or what we believe is the origin of our species. It is a derogatory term and the smoko room would use it to describe these people as monkeys from a monkey country here http://gayorbit.net/index.php?p=2459 Personally I would have no objection whatsoever to their derision or language here, albeit that it is clearly a gross oversimplification to tar all Iranians with that same brush. However, many of them may rightly deserve that tarring, under the circumstances. The same could be said about the Mugabes of this world, ‘swinging from the trees’. Some evil bastards deserve ad hominem abuse, if not a good swinging.
In middle class academic argument and discourse, such ad hominem abuse is rightly frowned upon. Racist ones are a big no no, which I find somewhat bemusing, because of its class based double standards. There is undertones of soft left racism with much of its anti-US sentiment, which is matched by their opponents. What sort of slurs and aspersions have been cast here against Bush Republicans, etc. Bushitler, fascists, rednecks, hillbillies,plasma screen mob with the opposite moonbats, looney left, communards, etc. Not exactly PC in the lofty towers of academe are they? Somehow Steve Bracks has the wisdom to sit in judgement over all this and decide what’s polite vilification and what’s not. Victorians covering up their unpleasant piano stool legs. As far as I’m concerned if the boot fits wear it and if it doesn’t laugh it off, although there is a strong case for public correctness or what we always understood as plain good manners.
Let me clarify Australian working class values for those who sit in judgement of them from afar. At some broad macro level, they can be apparently be quite racist at first glance. Poms, septic tanks, wogs, boongs, curry munchers, slopes, etc are all terms I’ve heard used by a variety of nationalities. They are often used in a broad macro sense, but rarely, if ever applied to the individual. There are ‘wogs’ of course, but George the Greek isn’t one of them, nor is Les(Lotsica) the Hungarian, etc. Wogs, etc are some amorphous bunch ‘over there’, not in our smoko room here. Same with all the nationalities in the factories and workplaces I come into contact with. If you are a decent bloke/sheila, it doesn’t matter where you come from, what accent you have, or what unusual tucker you eat, you are accepted. Cross the line like one muslim bloke did in a mates factory and you’ll incur the wrath of this multicultural group. He ran about cheering and yelling after Sept 11 until a whole factory turned on him in no uncertain terms and threatened to punch his lights out. No multicultural niceties for him there and he shutup real quick. The message- Don’t bring your old country crap in here fellah. Working class Australians have a strong sense of what’s right and wrong and don’t need to be lectured by middle class twits on the niceties of polite society.
P.S.
Perhaps the strongest argument of all in favour of Macquarie taking decisive action against Fraser is his own words/tactics of self-defence. Did he come out fighting with facts and figures? Nup. Instead, he dropped this clunker:
“This is a message to young academics that they are at serious risk if they are not committed to the politically correct official orthodoxy.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16064139-1242,00.html?name=nation
Fraser evidently hasn?Äôt a clue about the world of GenX academics in 2005. The “risk” of losing one?Äôs job is indeed acute, but this is invariably due to the apolitical, invisible hand of downsizing and short-term, casual contracts.
If Fraser *had* been a GenX academic, it is highly probable that he would have just been quietly gotten rid of — so resulting in no media story, but probably a good degree of private satisfaction for the proto-Nazi (or whatever) sacked Xer. S/he would think that, since the odds were against them getting the same gig next year, even had they put in their absolute all *and* refrained from any form of politicking (which is statistically the case), they had not only gone out with a bang — bonus! — but had got paid out til the end of semester, thus being entitled to effective “holiday” pay, of the sort that no other academic in their situation ever gets (going on the dole between contracts — while quite legal and proper — means going on to Work for the Dole).
Finally, since no one has mentioned James McConvill?Äôs OpEd of today, I can?Äôt resist mentioning it: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16081282%255E7583,00.html
It?Äôs a cracker — James should be writing for Letterman, or its Australian equivalent. But hold on, isn?Äôt/wasn?Äôt that the Steve Vizard “Tonight” show? Oh yeah, that?Äôs right, James *is* writing for Steve:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15995282%255E7583,00.html
The jokes are everywhere, then — but no one seems to be “getting” (= laughing at) them. Perhaps this is why no-jokes-required (or welcome) “laughter clubs” have sprung up everywhere: in a joke-saturated world, laughter can only be triggered by the truly unfunny.
Working class Australians have a strong sense of what?Äôs right and wrong and don?Äôt need to be lectured by middle class twits on the niceties of polite society.
Good one, observa. And a lot of sense in what went before it. Leave it to the ordinary people to work out. They have a lot more sense than those who parade – in their own minds, at least – as their ‘superiors’.
As a non-middle class wanker (but wanker nonetheless), I would like to point out that there are working class people who are more than capable of socialising with practicing Muslims, as illustrated at the northern suburbs cricket club that I used to play for. Two guys from Pakistan played for the club over a couple of years. Afzaal the fast bolwer came from a poor family and who attended the nearest mosque. The flairy middle-order batsmen (can’t recall his name) came from a much wealthier background and was essentially secular. This was a club full of the biggest pissheads and bongpullers you’ve ever seen but the club accepted these guys. Now, perhaps things would be different if this happened now, but these Pakistani guys were beyond our usual cultural experience and we learnt to get along with them.
Bigotry is expressed by all sorts of people in Australia, including class or social bigotry, as I have directly experienced while studying at uni. Like racism, it is expressed at an imaginary group, unfortunately for those expressing it, their targets are often standing right next to them.
As for the notion that everyone on the Internet is middle-class, that idea is at least five years out of date. For young people, probably even more out of date. Same goes for the idea that everyone who can put a sentence together must be the product of a private school education. Even my parents on the Yorke Peninsula are on the bloody net and my dad wants to make him a page to show off all of his woodworking.
As for the ‘monkeys’ comment, anyone who uses that term in regular conversation needs pulling up. I don’t see why people should put up with that shit, just the same as I didn’t appreciate being informed that my family and friends were all thick, lazy and racist.
Rob, Observa thinks it’s okay that “ordinary people” uses terms like “monkey” to describe the supposedly unevolved state of various ethnic/racial groups. Do you think there is “a lot of sense” in that?
Robert, I think there’s a lot of sense in this bit:
If you are a decent bloke/sheila, it doesn?Äôt matter where you come from, what accent you have, or what unusual tucker you eat, you are accepted.
Unless, Rob, you’re Sudanese, Iranian, or one of the new Asian ruling class.
Kate, I didn’t see any ‘unlesses’ of that kind in observa’s comment.
(The RWDBs stir, cast their tails about, and rattle their scales, quickening to dreadful life. Too long dormant in the maze of dreams….)
Paul, thanks, you raise some good points. Just having come from a day as a Gen X young academic in the teaching machine, I’m too tired to respond in depth, but I promise I will. I’m also enjoying my post-work Merlot and winding down. My short answer is – I have every sympathy with the point McConvill makes about young academics, but I have reason to believe that what he is doing with his exceptionally prolific op/edding has nothing to do with his research – as I argued in my Online Opinion article.
And I’ll be coming soon to an MSM op/ed byline near you – but based on my area of scholarly expertise.
There are other issues you raise cogently, but as I say, I’ll revisit them when I’m less tired.
As to observa’s language. I’d actually be surprised if his “lunch room” uses these terms. I’ve never heard anyone use them in that context, and contrary to what observa no doubt thinks about my lefty elitism, I have friends who are blue collar workers and find myself quite at home in the odd public bar or two. It’s just observa’s shtick – we’re all elitists, he gives voice to the “silent majority” of battlers.
If you actually look at the history – and indeed the present lived reality – of a lot of unionised blue collar workers – there’s a huge amount of left radicalism out there. Some of the most challenging and radical political positions I’ve had the honour to discuss have been with merchant seamen, builders’ labourers, tilers, and wharfies.
Observa represents the classic petit bourgeois small business perspective – imagining himself as the salt of the earth while patting himself on the back at the same time that he’s not a wage slave. Well, whatever. It’s more than possible that observa’s lunch room agree with him because he’s – well – the boss. When I was a jejeune 17 year old clerk, the tone of the conversation in the lunch room – yeah, we had a literal lunch room, would change quite radically when the boss walked in. “Yes, Col”. “Well put, Col”.
The last thing we ever wanted was for our bosses to join us at the pub after work. Talking to friends who work in offices or on building sites, that experience from 20 years ago is reproduced today.
And, I will shortly be amending the comments policy to prohibit the use of derogatory terms stigmatising entire groups of people.
Before you start ranting about PC police, let me tell you a story. A mate of mine’s dad was the Labor Member for Oxley who lost his seat to Pauline in 96. A not exactly celebratory bbq took place in suburban Ipswich at Les’ place the following weekend. One of the local branch members – an apprentice mechanic (yes, Virginia, there are workers in the Labor party as well as teachers, lawyers and academics) was having a chat to the former member and saying – “Keating let us down with all this political correctness”. Les replied – “mate, it’s just politeness”. Which I think bears thinking about before you make sweeping statements about entire groups of people.
I wish I had a transcript of what Les said, in a convivial atmosphere over a few Crownies, because it was a beautiful argument in favour of the basic values of respect for your fellow humans.
End of story.
Which I think bears thinking about before you make sweeping statements about entire groups of people.
And you’re going to prohibit it on LP.
That sounds to me like a calculated attempt to shut down debate. Everyone talks in generalisations and resorts to some extent to stereoptypes. It’s normal, and you do it as much as anyone else.
That’s a very disappointing and and depressing post, Mark.
No, Rob, all I’m saying is that comments like “Deport all Muslims” (ala C.L.), or observa’s characterisation of sub-Saharan Africans as “monkeys” will not be allowed.
That doesn’t “shut down debate” or even prohibit generalisations, but rather prohibits stereotyping in an offensive manner.
It’s not a step that I take lightly, at all, Rob, and I was only driven to it by some of the post-London comments by observa and C.L. which were massively beyond the pale in my view.
It’s a big blogosphere out there, and I’m sure if people want to use such language, C.L. can put up his own thread about how Islam is evil, or I’m sure it would be welcomed at tim’s place by some of the less astute commenters.
I’ve had a big rethink of my own practice since some of the rather virulent debates we had in recent weeks, and I acknowledge my fault in being too ready to comment for the sake of scoring points, and have resolved to do differently in future.
But I think lines have to be drawn – despite the avowed policy of “open slather” combined with “civility” at Troppo, when comments threads were lively over there, Ken stepped in a lot more than I’ve ever done at LP.
I just think we can debate issues seriously without resorting to epithets. I used to cringe every time C.L. wrote “Abos” (which he did frequently) but I’ve decided – these debates over multiculturalism have become too heated, and strayed far away from the rational, so it’s time to turn the temperature down.
Everyone – of whatever political persuasion – is welcome and encouraged to comment here – and I don’t think not saying “Islam is evil” or “x are monkeys” is too high a price to pay. If it is, then, go elsewhere.
I certainly also generalise and resort to stereotypes, but I am always careful not to stigmatise people by virtue of their race or religion. Maybe I slag off too much at THE RIGHT but hey, blow for blow for the attacks on THE LEFT. But political ideologies – voluntarily chosen – are a different kettle of fish to race and religion.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge my own fault and will try to avoid unsupported generalisations in future.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Mark.
Maybe the best way to deal with us, when we get out of line, is for the LWBC (Left Wing Baying Chorus) to tear us to pieces for the nasty RWDBs we really are, rather than banning comments. I don’t mean that as a snark, just as a reflection of the fact that we all say things on blogs we don’t really mean except at the time we say them, and couldn’t sustain when pushed into a corner unless equipped with all the appropriate authorities, and are just basically trying to annoy the other side. In the magisterial words of Monty Python, ‘I know I do’.
I mean, let’s not take this whole deal too seriously. What’s done here is not going to change anything anywhere in the world, anyway, any more than it is on a million other blogs.
Mark, I’ve tried to post a comment twice on your Good News from Ireland post and neither has worked. Gremlins….? Anybody else having problems?
Cool. Rob, CL’s comment was: “Deport Muslims”. Either you support it or you don’t. Either you’re with us, in not deporting all Muslims altogether, or against us, and want to deport all Muslims from Australia, citizen, native-born, everybody.
Your call.
Aye, Rob, I’ve had commenting problems Chez Commentariat too. I’m searching the spam lists trying to resuscitate killed comments as we speak. Or rather, snark.
Oh, I’m with you, liam, in not deporting all Muslims, just terrorists, their surrogates and supporters, if the law so allows. But did C.L. ever say ‘deport all Muslims from Australia, citizen, native-born, everybody’, regardless?
Actually, yes, surprisingly enough.
I think C.L.’s point was that if Muslim extremists ignore the law to the extent that abortion clinic bombers do, and force women to cover up and abstain from employment (contrary to western law), they should go elsehere. The point was made specially in the context of fundamentalists, it seems to me.
No, no, Rob, he said, deport Muslims. I quote.
I think it’s a hell of an extrapolation to say that ‘deport Muslims’ in the context of fundamentalism and abortion clinic bombings equates to ‘deport all Muslims from Australia, citizen, native-born, everybody?Äô.
Liam’s right, Rob. I wouldn’t bother trying to make a good fist of it. According to C.L. Islam = evil. It’s about as simplistic as that in his view. I’m sorry – it is as simplistic as that.
Too late at night, but if anyone cares to search C.L’s comments on relevant threads, he’s said repeatedly that “Islam” per se is a false and evil religion. I’m sure if he looks in he won’t deny that. In any case, you can find the links should you choose.
The Prof has at least prompted my to dig out a copy of “Race & IQ” Ashley Montagu (ed.) OUP, 1975 which I bought at one of those Clouston and Hall sales years ago and never got around to actually reading, on account of my low impulse control, general shiftlessness and genetically determined inability to stop buying more and more books before I’ve even properly looked at the last lot (I know its genes because my mum and sisters have the same thing.)
Oh, look bibliographies. That means research! And facts! And testable claims! Weeee! I will try to read as much as possible as my uni studies/drinking programme allows between now and Monday 4pm in preparation for the Prof on Counterpoint. I expect he will have considered and reasonable arguments which, based on evidence, call into question all that and I do hope Michael Duffy expects that of him. If OTOH his main argument is “everyone knows crime has risen since the end of slavery”, I shall be most disappointed.
Mark,
You’re right the observa is viewed as ‘the boss’, but he also falls into the category of middle class twit quite often. I’m not suggesting for one moment that working class people from many cultural and ethnic backgrounds regularly label other ethnicities as monkeys from monkey countries, but it is a term that is used occasionally in response to their understandable outrage at particular and specific behaviour.- Islamics hanging homosexuals, honour killings, stoning adulterous women or Mugabe’s tyrannous behaviour may well elicit that response from time to time. Why the hell shouldn’t it? Are you saying that’s their culture and they’re entitled to their customs? It’s not right to vilify someone or some group for their cultural or religious views? Apparently it’s OK to call someone a dickhead or a bloodthirsty murderous tyrant, but not a monkey. When you really analyse it, being in a less evolved state is really a moral letoff compared to intelligent free choice I would have thought. Looney left, moonbats,Margolians,rednecks,fascists,plasma screen mob,infidels,Zionists,religious nutters, monkeys…..Some put downs are more equal than others to Mark it seems. I would have thought context was all important here, unless Mark sees hanging teenage homosexuals in Iran as culturally and ethnically relative.
Let me put Mark’s multicultural relative dilemma(our big social question at present) to him here very clearly. Would Mark be in favour of allowing 51% of our voting population to be Iranian Shariasts, who vote for hanging anyone engaging in homosexual acts? If not, why should he be in favour of allowing even 1% of them in here. Feel free to help Mark out with some advice on his luvvy multicultural dilemma here?
[...] His latest, endorsing Gareth Evans for the High Court, appeared on The Australian’s website yesterday (it was not in the print version I bought). While not quite as bad as his previous shockers (see Mark Bahnisch for more critique), it is bad enough. [...]
That’s right, observa. It is not right to vilify, though you seem to spend a lot of time doing it. The term ‘monkey’ is racist. The treatment of homosexuals in Iran is directly related to the regime’s homophobia, not to Iranians being ‘monkeys’.
Dickhead.
Amanda, good luck with your reading of “Race & IQ” Ashley Montagu (ed.) OUP, 1975. My assumption is that it will show Africans have lower IQs on average, and Asians higher — a finding that will be meticulously footnoted, rigorously methodologised, and with a generous survey size sample to boot (near carte-blanche funding of academic research — those were the days!)
What the book won?Äôt show, through no fault of its own, is that “race” is essentially an obsolete term in 2005; “genes” would now more accurately describe what the book purports to be about.
What also won?Äôt be shown, and this time the omission is more culpable, is the non-neutrality of the “White” IQ that is used as a benchmark. I am not just talking about “IQ” being, at the very least, partially culturally determined. Proper research methodology demands that the researcher step outside the picture, and with the end-stage of comparative IQ research — drawing conclusions from it — this is simply impossible: a researcher cannot step outside his/her own head.
Put another way — let?Äôs accept, for the sake of the argument, that there is considerable scientific evidence for the fact the women are better at housekeeping than men; let?Äôs call it the “neat?Äôn?Äôtidy gene”. Fascinating — and only a small and logical step needs to be taken for a (male) researcher to conclude that a woman?Äôs place is in the home full-time, because it is simply more efficient to run society this way (just like, say, pole-vaulters should be drawn exclusively from the ranks of the lithe and long-legged).
The weakness, of course, with such a conclusion is its male condescension and presumption (= active agency), in the guise of scientific pseudo-neutrality. In the end, the only useful thing that comparative IQ research can actually *tell* us is what?Äôs going on in the researcher?Äôs head. So good luck again, Amanda, with your weekend tour of racial anxieties among rich white men (and women?) in the early 1970s.
Whether one agrees with them or not, there are intellectually respectable arguments around – here, for example – that jihadism is central to Islam, not peripheral. If that is true, it’s not unreasonable to extrapolate to a position that ‘Islam is evil’ without being racist.
‘Racism’ is more than the deployment of stereotypes. It has to involve malice, evil intent, IMO. There’s a great joke in one of the Goon Shows where Major Bloodnok drops some money into one of those old tills (the ones where you hit the keys, a bell rings and the drawer slides open), and exclaims, ‘Ah, the old Jewish piano!’
Stereotypical? Sure. Racist? I don’t fink so.
Rob, in the Middle Ages you could have argued that Crusades were central to Christianity.
Paul, on your earlier comments, I’m rethinking my view on Fraser’s employment status.
As to the demographics – yes, there is a problem for young academics. I remember seeing some data a couple of years ago that the average age at which one gets a continuing position is 38.
However, it’s more a function of the expansion of the University system in the 70s than anything else (when most of the 55+ academics were appointed). There will be opportunities galore over the next decade as they retire. But it is true that it’s harder for younger academics now than it was for younger academics 30 years ago.
As to whether they’re all “dead wood”, that’s a massively sweeping statement and usually a generalisation based on a few instances. It varies from University to University and department to department. There are indeed some lazy and disillusioned older academics – though in some places, a lot have been encouraged to take redundancy packages. But there are also lots of productive older academics – including in my experience quite a few emeritus Profs in their late 60s and 70s who are still working and whose research productivity is outstanding.
I’d have thought Law Schools would be likely to have a younger staff profile than some others – given that there were only 14 Law Schools in 1987 pre-Dawkins and therefore most have been established in the last decade and a half. There are a lot of young legal academics at QUT and Griffith.
As to research in Law Schools, that’s a separate issue from research in Social Sciences – as I discussed in my Online Opinion article.
And you could have certainly argued that jihad was central to Islam right about then. Saladin executed all the Templars and Knights of the Hospital after the Battle of Hattin (i.e. after they had surrendered and been disarmed). Though they were (Christian) jihadis no less fanatical than he.
Yes, and you could find similar stories of what the Crusaders did, Rob, but what would the point be?
Anyway, I’ve quite forgotten what this has to do with the topic – Fraser and McConvill.
Yes, we have two conversations going on this thread which always makes it twice as interesting.
Anyway, I think that excerpts from Hayek’s works would make for good op/eds.
Reverting to the subject of jihad for a moment (a sub-thread, I realise), and a propos Mark’s thread on Ireland, here’s some bad news from Britain. Norm Geras has this link up at his site. I hope there are good news stories out there sufficient to cancel this one out.
Reading this interview with a young Brisitsh Islamist is like jumping into a pool of dark.
Well it’s interesting enough, the interview. But it’s hardly earth-shattering. Interview any young racist anti-social autodidact, and whether he lives in Manchester, Perth or Cape Town, the putrid and peurile nonsense is always the same.
Actually Paul the whole book is exactly about all those things you speak of so I’m afraid your assumption in this instance is incorrect. And I misreferenced, its the (expanded) 2000 ed.
From Rob’s link to Norm Geras site-
Taseer: Given that the Koran is incontestable to the letter, and that it is unique because there is no another religion in which there is a text so pure, handed down from God to man, can there be a moderate Muslim?
Butt: No. You’ve hit the nail on the head. If someone believes that it’s the incontestable word of Allah, how can he take a moderate view? We must fight if it is the will of Allah. I don?Äôt want to say that Muslims don?Äôt believe in Allah, but what I will say is that their faith in Allah is weak. They fear man the same way that the Jews feared the pharaoh, who they feared more than Allah and that’s why they were afraid to do anything against him, until Moses came and liberated them. The lack of leadership in the Muslim community is simply because they are too afraid to stand up against this so-called undefeatable giant of the United States.
Taseer: Coming back to the youth, are they angry?
Butt: Many are from quite wealthy families, as I am.
Taseer: So you don’t see this rise of extremism among British Muslims as rooted in economic disadvantage?
Butt: I think that’s a myth, pushed forward by so-called moderate Muslims. If you look at the 19 hijackers on 9/11, which one of them didn’t have a degree? Muhammad Atta was an engineer [he was actually an architect and town planner] at the highest level. His Hamburg lecturer said, “I didn’t have a student like him.” These people are not deprived or uneducated; they are the peak of society. They’ve seen everything there is to see and they are rejecting it outright because there is nothing for them. Most of the people I sit with are in fact university students, they come from wealthy families. Islam caters for everybody: the economically deprived and the most educated person. It doesn’t make any difference: the message will still be the same. But this myth?Äîthat the only reason these people go for Islam is because they have nothing else to do?Äîis a lie and a fabrication. People who say that should be very careful. Even Osama himself, Sheikh Osama, came from wealth that I could never dream of and he gave it all up because it had no value to him. Who can say he came from an economically deprived condition? It’s rubbish.
As Liam so rightly points out it’s not right to call someone a ‘monkey’. They’re ‘intellectually challenged’ of course. You quite sure dickhead isn’t sexual vilification Liam? Some of us dickheads do see the fatal attraction for Islam among the intellectually challenged. You’ll have to pardon some of us for our vested self-interest in not marching in time to the showers without our soap and towels.
Just some references to back up Andrew Fraser.
Black Africans have strikingly low average IQs of 84 even when at ‘anti-racist’ universities in Black-run South Africa: J. Philippe Rushton & Mervyn Skuy (2000), ‘Performance on Raven’s Matrices by African and White university students in South Africa’, Intelligence 28, 4, 251-265. {See also McDougall NewsLetter 16 ii ’99. For background, see Richard Lynn’s ‘Race Differences in Intelligence: a Global Perspective.’} Rushton & Skuy note: “Black South African students are a highly selected population. They have passed standardized school matriculation exams, entered university and been chosen for a first-year course in Psychology on the basis of academic performance. Assuming that these students are one standard deviation {15 IQ points} above the population mean, the results are in accord with earlier work finding that Africans, in general, average a tested IQ of 70.” An estimate in the low 70′s also emerges from the scores of studies reported by R. Lynn and T. Vanhanen, 2002, IQ and the Wealth of Nations — see 2002 review by Brand. The average Black American does better (IQ 85) thanks to carrying a 25% White genetic admixture and enjoying far better nutrition, health care and education than is available in Africa (after some 40 years of Black control in many countries). Nevertheless, Black schoolchildren, whatever their gifts in rhythm, jumping, boxing and social skills, cannot be expected to perform as well academically as White children; and educational schemes should not be dumbed down just because Black pupils tend to perform poorly. Under-educating higher-IQ pupils does no service to Blacks or to anyone else. The New Zealand political scientist James Flynn speculates that Blacks might one day enjoy the kind of IQ rise that occurred in many White groups rather mysteriously in the twentieth century; but he has yet to demonstrate any of his ‘magic multipliers’ at work, and the worldwide secular rise in IQ test scores was not mainly on the more g-loaded tests (except on those which placed a premium on speed rather than accuracy). While Flynn hopes for a Black IQ boost, Harvard University has grown impatient and just wants affirmative neo-racism or, failing that, massive ‘reparations’ for the ancient slavery that brought Blacks to the USA. Even though slavery continues — even enslavement of hundreds of thousands of children in West Africa — the ‘liberal’/left demands reparations from Whites Only. In discussion with a ‘social constructivist’ (who argues there are no pure races {who ever said there were?} and that slave-trading Europeans created any African inferiorities {though the latter were first noted earlier by Muslim scholars in the fourteenth century}), Phil Rushton has set out today’s case for race realism in the widely read magazine, Insight (Washington DC). Also, from New Zealand, criminologist Greg Newbold says Polynesian rates of violence are four or five times higher than those among Whites, which is why Kiwis think Auckland a dangerous place to live. Orientals often accuse each other of massive genocidal political violence (as under Emperor Hirohito, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse Tung); and the religious hostilities of the Indian sub-continent (flashpoint: Kashmir) often look likely to furnish the beginning of World War III. A study of men in Andrah Pradesh, India, found that men of higher caste (e.g. the priestly Brahmin caste — often considered the most intelligent) were more similar in their DNA to Europeans (‘The genetics of caste’, Science, 1 June ’01, p. 1643, reporting work by Michael Bamshad at the University of Utah). (In 1997, the Times and Nature reported that the Cohens, the original Jewish priesthood, had been shown to possess distinctive genetic characteristics dating back more than 3,000 years.) As to causation, Pittsburgh physiologists have reported that cognitive impairments are associated with a gene e4 (Am J Med Genet 2000 Dec 4;96(6):707-11); and this gene is at least three times as common in Africans, Pygmies and Bushmen as in East Asians, with Whites falling in between. Top US sociologist Christopher Jencks does not attribute poor Black scoring to any cultural unfairness in the tests — a matter that was extensively investigated in the 1980s; and there is little possibility of accounting for most the B-W difference in the USA in terms of environmental factors — see review by Brand, 2003, Heredity. (Jencks is perhaps the most scholarly and scientific ‘environmentalist?Äô about the B-W difference. A full and accessible internet answer to him was provided in 2001 by Jos Verhulst.) The Fall 2001 issue of Mankind Quarterly reported a Black IQ of 71 based on the testing of 10-year-old children in Sao Paolo, Brazil (Maria Fernandez, ‘A Study of the Intelligence of Children in Brazil’). Other group scores (using Brazil’s standard Census categories and the Standard Progressive Matrices test) were Asians [mainly Japanese] 99, Whites 95, and Browns 81. {NB: The Matrices are often thought skewed to crediting spatial intelligence. It is not just Blacks but also Jews who perform rather worse on Matrices than on other IQ tests.} In November 2001, the leader of the UCLA team which reported strong links between genes, IQ and frontal gray matter said it would be possible but “unethical” to extend their work to examine racial differences (New York Times, 5 xi 01). Other group differences in IQ are less well established but nevertheless conform to a sensible pattern, with Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore having the world’s highest IQs (around IQ 105) and 16 Black countries occupying all the lowest positions (with IQ estimates of around 70) — see The Wealth of Nations by Lynn & Vanhanen, 2001 (and review by Phil Rushton). Wealth is not invariably a predictor of national IQ: six countries having IQs of 99-100 are Belgium, China, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Hungary and Poland; but IQ correlates around r=.70 with GNP, GDP and economic growth rates (both recently and over the past 180 years). {All testing — mainly of children aged 5-15 — was by the non-verbal Raven’s Progressive Matrices, normally thought to test spatial ability [k] as well as the g factor. Sampling was doubtless not sociologically ideal and the national estimates obtained could easily be wrong by some 5 IQ points. However, the consistently good performance by East Asian countries and the poor performance of African countries looks a highly valid result.} Achievement testing in New York State in 2002 found large race differences that could not readily be attributed to the socio-economic backgrounds of children. Police are often alleged by professional anti-racists to engage prejudicially in ‘racial profiling’; but when academics in New Jersey studied speeding objectively (having the race of speeding drivers estimated from photos by observers who did not know whether the drivers were speeding) they found that the Black arrest rate (23% of all arrests by police) was actually a little lower than then the objectively assessed Black incidence of speeding (25% of all cases) (Front Page Magazine, 27 iii 02). (Around 2000 it became fashionable among liberal-leftists to pretend ‘there is no such thing as race’, but DNA testing at Penn State University (by a team led by molecular anthropologist Mark D. Shriver) found that only 16% of US Blacks had any White ancestry and only 0.6% of Whites had any Black ancestry; and American patterns of housing and intermarriage looked set to keep things that way, for racial miscegenation occurs principally between Asians, Hispanics and Whites — not between Blacks and any of the other ethnic groups. Massive race differences in AIDS — see Occidental Quarterly, Spring 2002, Chart 6 — continued to confirm Phil Rushton’s claims that human groups tend to evolve towards either sexualisation or encephalisation.) The substantial relations between race, IQ and brain size were usefully summarized and updated by Phil Rushton in The Psychologist 37:2, 28-33 (‘Race, brain size, and IQ’; Summer, 2002; published by the American Psychological Association’s Division of General Psychology). Replying
to the notion that “race is biologically meaningless” (editorial, New England Journal of Medicine, 2001), a strong defence of the use of racial classification in biology and medicine was given by geneticist Neil Risch and others in Genome Biology, vii 02 (reported in Nature, 26 vii 02, and explained to New York Times readers by Nicholas Wade, 30 vii 02). There are five main geographically isolated groups in Dr. Risch’s account: sub-Saharan Africans; Caucasians, including people from Europe, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East; Asians, including people from China, Japan, the Philippines and Siberia; Pacific Islanders; and Native Americans. (The same five-fold classification is also used by the US Census Bureau.) Dr. Bette Phimister, editor of Nature Genetics, said that “Risch’s point that there is a high and useful degree of correlation between ethnicity/race and genetic structure, is well taken, and one with which we agree.” Risch concluded his review of race by saying: “Ignoring our differences, even if with the best of intentions, will ultimately lead to disservice of those who are in the minority.” The idea that race is innately linked to head size was long denied by social anthropologists relying on work by Franz Boas (who claimed to find substantial brain size differences between earlier and later immigrants to the USA, reflecting improved nutrition); but for New York Times 8 x 02, science correspondent Nicholas Wade reported that Boas’ work had been reanalyzed (showing no difference among migrants) and could no longer be taken as a refutation of scientific racism. Apparently skull measurements can yield accurate assignation of race in as many as 80% of cases. White social anthropologists may not believe Blacks innately different from Whites, but African ‘coloureds’ would be seriously shocked to hear this — Spectator 29 xi 02. Evidence for an IQ of 97 in elite Black engineering students at South Africa?Äôs Witwatersrand University was said by authors to dovetail well with an estimate of 70 for the general sub-Saharan Black population (Rushton, Skuy & Fridjohn, Intelligence 30, 5 (2002)). The biological reality of race differences were helpfully outlined in the book Race, 2004, and more fully (indeed, academically) at John Gudrum?Äôs website The Race FAQ. Experimental evidence of genetic factors in psychological race differences was being collected by David Rowe prior to his untimely death. Postmodern ideas that ‘race?Äô is primarily a social (not biological) classification were disproved by a team led by Californian geneticist Neil Risch: from the records of 3,636 patients, they found that self-classification of race matched DNA-classification of race in 99.86% of cases (American Journal of Human Genetics, ii 05, http://mednews.stanford.edu).
OTOH some of us dickheads are quite prepared to concede that some conditions are pathological here
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lapkin200507210807.asp
I do not believe the Skuy et al studies support you ( a PDF of the Intelligence 30 article is here ), certainly the authors of the report seem to argue strongly for environmental factors and improvement through interventionn. If Fraser is using that my criticism still stand, he is extremely dishonest and reckless. If he is Using IQ and the Wealth of Nations, he’ll need to come up with good refutations of the very substancial criticisms of that book. The MacDougall Letters doesn’t appear to be a very scholarly, peer reviewed source, so sorry. I cannot find this Gudrum’s website. Nothing else you’ve said is relevant or revealing.
Observa,
What WBB said. Generalising from anecdotal opinion does not a religion define. Likewise the strawman inventions and pop-psych drivel of the hyperbolic RIGHT.
I sometimes wish that rhetoric was a compulsory subject in school, like it was in classical times. There’d always be class dunces, but at least we’d make an effort to teach people to argue coherently.
Good going, Amanda, but I can’t help feeling these IQ debates are just feeble aftershocks from the Great Bahnisch-Soon Biological Determinism Stoush of ’05.
Chris, one word: paragraphs.
Now that was a stoush indeed!
On the interpretation of the Qur’an, please read this post:
“What WBB said. Generalising from anecdotal opinion does not a religion define. Likewise the strawman inventions and pop-psych drivel of the hyperbolic RIGHT.”
Fyodor,
If whole nations like Iran believe that hanging homosexual teenagers is their religious duty, I think most of us would hardly call that anecdotal. Still, it was a position the left took for a long time with nations that practised Marx. For most of us that sort of anecdotalism tended to be fairly conclusive evidence, but I guess for some the proof of their pudding is ultimately in their eating.
So Observa, based on anecdotal evidence was Tasmania for many years more socially backward in its treatment of gays than Indonesia? what does that say about Islam and Christianity?
http://www.globalgayz.com/g-indo.html
With a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Marcel is director of Yayasan Mitra Indonesia, an HIV prevention and educational resource center that has also grown to become an important contact center for the lesbigay community in Jakarta. Marcel frequently gives lectures to public and professional and business groups about HIV and the several Mitra services such as anonymous HIV testing, counseling and referral services for medical, social and legal aid.
In this small four-room office on a narrow alleyway in the labyrinth of Jakarta’s dense downtown, I asked Marcel what ‘gay’ means in his Moslem-Buddhist-Hindu-Christian country.
“It’s considered a bad way of life but there is no bashing here. People see it like prostitution. But historically homosexuality–they didn’t call it that– was more accepted until the protestant Dutch arrived and stigmatized it.
Today there are no specific laws against homosexuality. There is no age of consent because homosexuals do not have any legal existence, in religious law nor in civil law.” As if to conform to such invalidating standards, gay life here is generally subdued and shrouded from public view. Much of gay social life takes place under the cloak of darkness, in certain places on certain nights.
Speaking perfect English, Marcel described some current same-sex customs still in place in the remote villages of Sulewesi and Java. There, a ‘warok’ is a charismatic conductor of ceremonies who has one or several young male apprentices called ‘gemblaks’.
http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/gt/default.asp?topic=country&country=496
Indonesia whilst predominantly a Muslim country in common with other South-East Asian nations is generally tolerant of homosexuality though in 2003 there was talk of criminalising homosexuality.
A small gay scene exists in the country with bars and clubs in Jakarta, Surabaya, Jogyakarta and other larger cities as well as on the tourist island of Bali. You will also find that some gays congregate in the juice bars in the fancier malls of the larger cities.
As in Thailand, various kinds of sexualities are an integral part of society. Many married men and women also maintain same-sex relationships. Only in some sectors of the new middle and professional classes, as well as some religious movements, has homophobia taken root.
Gay Indonesians are extemely welcoming towards visitors in our experience making Indonesia an excellent tourist destination for gays and lesbians.
Age of consent (gay)
Legal
Age of consent (lesbian)
Legal
Legal notes
There is no specific mention of gays and lesbians in the laws of Indonesia. Gay emancipation has recently taken hold in Indonesia. The first gay movement organisation was founded in Indonesia in 1981. In the early 1990′s LGBT organisations spread throughout the archipelago and in 1993 the first Indonesian Lesbian and Gay Congress was held in in Yogyakarta. Indonesia’s first Gay Pride celebration took place in Surabaya, in June 199
observa, hate killings of gay people in the US are often justified by their perpetrators in the name of their Christian beliefs, and they often cite verses from the Old Testament.
I can’t top Jason’s superb effort, Observa, but I’ll add that evading a point doesn’t refute it: quoting loony extremists doesn’t define the broader religion to which they subscribe. You’re all over the shop, yet again.
Oh, yeah, another thing: no country has ever “practised Marx”. Sheesh.
wbb, I don’t doubt that peering into the diaordered mind of Timothy McVeigh would be pretty disturbing as well. What struck me about Butt was how cool, un-disordered and calculated he seemed to be. Here is a young man for whom death by suicide bombing – or martyrdom operation, as he prefers to call it – would represent a glorious apotheosis of his entire life and the ultimate statement of his obdience to Allah. It’s not hate, really, is it? Not as we understand the term, at least. To him, western traditions like the rule of law, participatory democracy and progressive sectoral enfranchisement are without meaning, merit or moment, simply because they are not derived from Allah, and should be swept away by the caliphate for that reason.
‘Loony extremist’ he may be (thought that doesn’t seem quite right, given Butt’s obvious intelligence and articulateness), but not insignificant or to be ignrored for that reason. I imagine the four London bombers were very much of the same mould.
“‘Loony extremist?Äô he may be (thought that doesn?Äôt seem quite right, given Butt?Äôs obvious intelligence and articulateness), but not insignificant or to be ignrored for that reason. I imagine the four London bombers were very much of the same mould.”
Who’s ignoring? The issue is inappropriate generalisation to Islam as a religion, not the obvious danger posed by the terrorist minority.
I have to admit I worry more about the latter.
Maybe a ‘reasonable’ generalisation could be:
Rob, I don’t know whether you read the post I linked to.
As opposed to inferring something from the statements of one fanatic, you might like to consider what 170 Islamic religious leaders had to say, meeting under the auspices of the King of Jordan:
King Abdullah’s speech to the Conference is also worth reading.
I’m disappointed that this statement has hardly been reported in the Western press, but not surprised.
More information and the text of the statement.
In case it needs spelling out, the significance of the statement is that Osama Bin Laden can’t claim authority to issue Fatwas.
Something went awry with the link in the comment above so hopefully this one will point to the statement, but here’s the text just in case:
Here’s a better link.
This probably warrants a separate thread, since most of this discussion is extraneous to the substance of the post. I think observa started the derailment.
So please don’t discuss anything but legal academics and their views on this thread.
The new thread has been opened.
I think the best way for Macquarie to deal with this would be to prohibit Fraser from using his academic title when making statements outside his professional competence. That doesn’t necessarily address the issue of what students of his might think, were he to make his statements in a private capacity, but on the other hand, the attention drawn to them is probably only because of his academic title and its presumed authority.
I’ve been preoccupied with other matters and have just caught up with this thread.
Kim, there was an interesting session on Radio National tonight (Aust Talks Back) wherein Di Yerberry put her case. She took the view that Fraser could say whatever he liked under his own name, but by using his university position to support his views in areas outside his expertise he had breached a formal code of conduct that he had signed.
She had cancelled the lecture because of concerns over safety and the duty of care she owes the students. I gather another lecture room was made available.
In any case her reasons were quite logical and defensible.
Terry O’Gorman wasn’t happy with her and said if there was a safety concern the university should jolly well provide extra security. On this occasion I couldn’t go all the way with Terry O’G who showed a lack of appreciation of the practicalities of the situation.
I heard the Michael Duffy interview and it was one of the tamest ever. A clear case of the suppression of freedom of speech according to Duffy – not worth arguing about. In it Andrew Fraser did actually claim expertise in the areas he commented about, so Jason’s comments about him not having the wherewithall to defend his opinions is pertinent.
On intelligence IMHO IQ tests don’t measure general mental capacity. Sure there will be differences in measured IQ, for example in this graph but there is no evidence that I’ve seen that definitely attributes such differences to race.
Inspite of what Craig says, environmental differences, the Flynn effect and his notion (with Dickens) of social multipliers probably do resolve the IQ paradox.
There is a technical paper by Dickens and Flynn here (PDF file)
But I don’t really want to go over that territory again.
I’ll try that pdf file again. I was sure I had that right. It should be here
[...] Australia’s worst op-ed writer, Deakin University’s James McConvill (for previous commentary see here and here and here, plus Mark Bahnisch has a go here) has found a forum more suited to his very modest talents. Yes, he has set up a blog. According to McConvill, his blog: [...]
To live with the statistics is not easy. A serious crime is committed every 17 seconds in South Africa and Johannesburg is the epicentre of the crisis. Who can forget recently the “The practice of recycling pauper bodies continues unchecked because of the laxity of follow-ups from the authorities and so the same corpse is used time and again and the state is unknowingly milked of money.” which is occuring in Africa.The discovery of 40 decomposed bodies at an Umlazi, KwaZulu-Natal mortuary this week has revealed what has been described as the tip of the iceberg of “wheeling and dealing” in dead bodies said to be rife in the industry.
A prominent government appointee has said that if a proper investigation were instituted, hundreds more bodies would be found.
Several people in the funeral business who spoke to The Independent on Saturday agreed that competition was fierce among undertakers, with each vying for a lucrative slice of pauper burials which are paid for by the state.
The key to solving crime is , in part, removing the poverty, and removing the desperation. However, this is a third world or in thought and maybe it’s back to school in industry and in the old school of business.
Mugabe and the regime may be a good example of an African Nation which has ended up hurting it’s own kind. Bulldozing homes, President Mugabe corrupted by getting officials off for wife beating. A reversal of white farmers being displaced and beaten as recently read in the African Websites. eg. Wilding-Davies was attacked by about 15 armed militia when he went to assist his manager, Allan Warner, 53, a South African, who had been knocked to the ground and was being kicked and pummelled. Mr Wilding-Davies said a member of the Central Intelligence Organisation, which operates out of Mr Mugabe’s office, led the attackers.
Not to mention in the current situations where third world/media does not promote health and safety within Indonesia in relation to the Bird Flu pandemic. For example: Officials have been accused of being slow in sharing information, slow to carry out checks and held back by ponderous bureaucracy. However, it is important to bear in mind that the Indonesian government cannot combat the disease by itself.
I’m a little concerned at the level of knowledge and layers of knowledge within this system. It’s obvious the Indonesian Law system is an opposite to the Australian system ” guilty until proven innocent” and in a way cognitively/mindset this could be a “culture that is a different mindset” and like fashion could easily manipulate mindsets for future generations on how we determine truths and honesty. What we see on the television is an interpretation of the event from an Australian mindset. It’s all in the detail and western civilisation, and to see the “evidence” from a recent case over there on television made the system looked rigged.
Do we adopt this multicultural ideology within Australia subliminally and say it’s ok they are that “community” which the media appears to be re-writing it’s own agendas.
How do we say to a Dr Death oh, that’s your culture and your procedures say it’s ok not to wash your hands prior to an opperation without someone interventing. I recently read on a medline in India the do’s and don’ts of a Dr..
The current AD. or bce. to be “politically correct” stated: answer do not smoke infront of your patient. (What the?? hello)
Can I be really safe if I got sick from a Dr Like this? Recently there was a gang rape case by two boys and his father was a Dr practicing in Australia saying that the boys would make a great “gyno” and yet his girls still lived in a “tribal” system in Pakistan…… This is not ok….. It still happens today.
Just to let you know recently 2005: Women are the losers and I look at third world “community” areas in the 1970′s called Suburbs and see suppression of women I feel like I’m in the dark ages. But that’s ok, it’s the culture….
As in countries throughout the world, the human rights of hundreds of thousands of women in Turkey country are violated daily. At least a third and up to a half of all women in the country are estimated to be victims of physical violence within their families. They are hit, raped, and in some cases even killed or forced to commit suicide. Young girls are bartered and forced into early marriage. They come here, and it’s all hush hush, Aussie men are hopefully understanding the situation, however, women are the losers, and winners and pollies write stories to “suit” their own agendas.
Food and produce: China and agriculture where was it farmed near a nuclear waste dump. What about Argentina and cattle recently seen on the ABC shows and the idea of foot and mouth disease.
Cultures may not be aware of these “issues” as they pose no problem in their third world culture however, it does to the average Australian. New migrants might think this is normal, and to us as a nation the change of globalisation and greed has changed the rules and the agendas .. including the media, education and the level playing field.
Then again we could try to ban the word Mate like they tried to at The security office in Canberra…. (that’s anglo).
It’s nice to know it’s all a grand illusion and agendas but don’t worry as long as you have your house and stay in the zone it’s ok. These are thoughts as I sit at my computer and I feel is an expression of free speech. I hope I can grow from the experience as we are all human, however, we should make the road safe for our country.
So listen learn and grow.
Lucanas
“So listen learn and grow.”
I shall waste no time in following your taut little strictures.
I agree with Nabs.
Mark B
Brisbane
“[1]To live with the statistics is not easy. A serious crime is committed every 17 seconds in South Africa and Johannesburg is the epicentre of the crisis. Who can forget recently the “The practice of recycling pauper bodies continues unchecked because of the laxity of follow-ups from the authorities and so the same corpse is used time and again and the state is unknowingly milked of money.” which is occuring in Africa.The discovery of 40 decomposed bodies at an Umlazi, KwaZulu-Natal mortuary this week has revealed what has been described as the tip of the iceberg of “wheeling and dealing” in dead bodies said to be rife in the industry.
[2]A prominent government appointee has said that if a proper investigation were instituted, hundreds more bodies would be found.
[3] Several people in the funeral business who spoke to The Independent on Saturday agreed that competition was fierce among undertakers, with each vying for a lucrative slice of pauper burials which are paid for by the state….”
Strange conclusion!
Lefty E
Three-paragraph max reader
Byron Mews.
There is another prong.
Channelling:
Mark L
Canberra
Channelled by:
Kim J
Brisbane
Kim J
Brisbane
is the hotness…
Just sayin…
Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
THE COMING OF THE SECOND PRONG??
(*gathers cult members, rushes to nearby mount in millenialist fever*)
I’m writing not for a reaction, in fact I work in a check out at a supermarket and I don’t have a rigged degree and was surfing the web.
My perspective is just as valid as the University paid students, I’m not as fortunate to have the finance. I am not an academic, nor am I paid the high prices that some command within Australia. But it’s so blatantly obvious, the change is immense and just looking and checking out Sydney to have a look at the brass helmets the ladies are wearing with full scarves is such a joy and such liberation, what a wonder. Why bother coming here to Australia when supression is still within some “communities”? Oh but don’t worry the government will “educate” the newbies but don’t tell the tribal men… that’s hush hush…. that could spoil their “religion…
What was written was about a situation that is still occuring in this part of the world, 2005.
I’m sure you wouldn’t even know why past generations went to war for Australia.
However, Australia is such a soft touch and such a money spinner for all… Obligation christianity or united nations or better still greed and economics…
Today is National LIe day if I read in India or was It Pakistan.. Check it out,,,,, everyone is supposed to Lie about something.. Kool…
I didnt get any of that.
And now ive gotta go. See ya!
Hmmm.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter