Adelaide Advertiser
Racial hatred laws and foreign fighter laws may seem disconnected, but Tony Abbott is right to link them: Joseph Wakim
August 12, 2014
RACIAL hatred laws and foreign fighter laws may appear disconnected. Hence, Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s dual announcements to retain the former while toughening the
latter were met with much cynicism.
It has been presented as political trade-off to placate Muslim communities: garnering their support for the ‘‘guilty until proven innocent’’ proposal for returning ‘‘fighters’’ by retreating from the proposed dilution of Section 18C of the 1995 Racial Discrimination Act.
This exaggerated perception feeds into Islamophobia and ignores the fact that among the most vocal “Muslim’’ leaders who advocated against the 18C changes were from the Christian Arab communities.
It ignores a more important fact that incitement to racial hatred and incitement to terrorism thrive on the same continuum.
The Prime Minister was right to connect the two issues, albeit inadvertently.
On one end of this continuum is home-grown prejudice. Conversations around family dinner tables can teach children who to love, who to mock, who to fear, who to trust, who is us and who is them. If this is not moderated through wider socialisation and personal experiences, it creates fertile soil for poisonous seeds to be sown.
As the child matures and self-selects which media channels to tune into, the same world view about who to hate is reinforced. He can surround himself with social networks which further fertilise the hatreds. If he does not socialise with those who challenge him, the resulting foliage is never pruned, but blinds him from seeing the others as human.
He will utter statements such as Zionist pig or Arab terrorist as if it is a known fact, not as if it is racist. He will regurgitate propaganda about Israel wiping out Palestine, or Hamas wiping out Israel, with no regard to the human lives.
Whether racial hatred is yelled loudly in a train carriage or spoken softly in an executive office, it is still toxic. Sometimes the racism peddled in a suit and tie by lawmakers and politicians, such as the Howard government’s citizenship test, inflicts the most insidious damage. Hence, halfway across this continuum are those who harbour hatred and have the power to take action on the hatred.
The pre-emptive “I am a not a racist but’’ highlights the subjectivity of what counts as racism, whereby some genuinely believe that they are stating facts, not inciting hatred.
Websites and blogs that attract supremacist or hateful views have moderators, but they sometimes tolerate many vilifying comments because their subjective spectrum of intolerance is skewed. Repeated references to Arabs or Jews as terrorists or sub-human in their online comments and chat rooms are perceived as normal in their closed circles.
The grooming continues in the home is also reinforced as the young adult becomes addicted to daily updates on his preferred internet sites. He is incensed by graphic photos of injustices committed against “my people”.
In times of foreign conflict, dining table conversations may shift from who to hate to who is a hero: those who have made sacrifices, flown overseas, accepted their ‘‘duty’’, taken up arms and defended “my people”. The terrorist is always subjectively defined as the other.
This is the violent extreme end of the continuum: those who have graduated from using words to using weapons to end the life of fellow human beings. The other is dehumanised and dispensable. They are nameless and faceless, not someone’s beloved daughter, sister or mother.
Whether through homemade rockets or through a remote-controlled drone, whether they are wearing an army uniform or a black bandanna, human life is always equally precious, and therefore its destruction is always equally devastating.
Tony Abbott’s linking of the two issues may have been an accidental wake-up call to all of us. The dreaded home-grown terrorists that may create national unity behind “team Australia’’ may be literally home-grown. All foreign fighters who return home definitely warrant interrogation, and many of us called for this at the beginning of the war in Syria over three years ago.
But let us not delude ourselves that these fighters depart ignorantly and return home contaminated. And let us not delude ourselves that Muslims have a monopoly over fighting in foreign battles.
To uproot the causes of home-grown hatreds we need to redress the injustices that breed this radicalisation.
Injustices such as Australia pounding the UN Security Council table over the tragic loss of life in Eastern Ukraine, but not over the tragic loss of life in Gaza.
Injustices such as threatening to isolate Russia with sanctions, but not daring to apply the same moral standards with Israel. Injustices such as treating some foreign fighters with scrutiny and others with impunity.
The resolutions at the UNSC table need to disarm the hatred that begins in some dinner tables.