Following the recent events in Israel and Sydney, questions naturally arise about what multiculturalism, invented (at least in Australia) by Malcolm Fraser in the late 1970s, has wrought. Then there have been the continuing waves of mass immigration driven by both major parties. Not to mention what Anthony Albanese and his divisive race-baiting referendum have gifted us. You don’t have to be a xenophobe or a disciple of Enoch Powell – who foresaw “rivers of blood” emanating from Britain’s sudden tilt toward mass immigration in the 1960s – to be alarmed by recent developments. And you certainly don’t need to be an adherent to “replacement theory” either. The average Jo(e) in the street, who one can almost guarantee has never heard of Enoch Powell, Malcolm Fraser or replacement theory, will be dismayed by the scenes unfolding in the country, and its sullen, or as I have previously termed it, “cranky”, mood. https://paulcollits.substack.com/p/the-cranky-country What we now have, apart from a housing crisis and rampant homelessness, is angry multi-mono-culturalism. And if Australians are “racist”, well, one has to remember that, as of now, one third of us were born overseas and just about one half of us have at least one parent born elsewhere. So, to the extent that we are racist, it is largely imported racism. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, it is often remarked – including, recently, by Jacinta Price – that we are mostly a peaceful, tolerant place. Not that you would have known it Monday evening. Like so many of the political class who have two faces, Albanese clearly doesn’t get irony. Here is his response to the beyond-ugly racist scenes at the Sydney Opera House on Monday: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described the pro-Palestine protests outside the Sydney Opera House as horrific, appalling and having no place in Australia’s “tolerant multicultural nation”. Sydney’s Opera House was lit up on Monday night with the Israeli flag as a show of solidarity with the affected country after Hamas launched a series of attacks which killed over 900 people. Despite the event being created for the mourning of lives lost, around 1,000 pro-Palestine protesters showed up to the event with many chants and banners which Mr Albanese has labelled as antisemitic. “We are a tolerant multicultural nation – I understand that people have deep views about issues relating to the Middle East conflict. “But here in Australia, we have to deal with political discourse in a respectful way and I certainly didn’t see that from the footage. “We need to lower the temperature – I don’t want to see conflict here in Australia.” https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/lower-the-temperature-albanese-comments-on-appalling-propalestine-protest/video/2c6d30ea26baea806fa543f8bd4e4387 At one level, what the Prime Minister says is true and blindingly obvious. Tolerant nation. Lower the temperature. I don’t want to see conflict. Yada yada. At another level, having scratched the surface only a tiny amount, one finds not only the absence of leadership noticed by John Howard and others, but an absolute failure to recognise who and what have divided Australia and made many so angry. And I don’t mean the Lakemba set. Here is Howard, very much on message, as per the Daily Mail headline: John Howard slams Anthony Albanese's 'lukewarm condemnation' of Hamas accusing him of 'pussyfooting' on terror after pro-Palestinian protests in Sydney celebrating the carnage in Israel: 'We need leadership' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12614479/John-Howard-slams-Anthony-Albanese-terror.html The lack of leadership is patently clear. What we saw was violence and hate speech. A full-throated Albo describes this as “deep views”. We had Penny Wong being mealy-mouthed in her small “c” condemnation. Wong has been applauded by Hamas for her policy shifts, by the way, as Sharri Markson has noted. Source: The Australian, 11 October, paywalled. We had NSW Police, run by Labor, standing idly by as all the carnage occurred on the streets. We had the NSW Police Minister – and the Counter Terrorism Minister – defending, yes, defending, the police inaction that she oversaw. She still has her job. We had the gnomic NSW Attorney General (former Labor leader Michael Daley) telling people to stay calm and go home. As John Howard said: How can you remain calm when demonstrators are invoking the memory of the Holocaust? People remain calm in that? Indeed. Why weren’t the Palestinians told to “stay home”? As the Daily Mail notes: On Sunday night at Lakemba train station, prominent Muslim preacher Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun was filmed riling up the crowd by applauding militant group Hamas for slaughtering at least 1,000 Israeli civilians. Did anyone tell the Sheik to stay home? Here is the Sheik, in his own words: 'I'm smiling and I'm happy. I'm elated,' Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun shouted. 'It's a day of courage. It's a day of pride. It's a day of victory. This is the day we've been waiting for! 'This brings pride to the heart, this brings joy to the heart, my brothers and my sisters... you and I, standing in Australia we support our brothers and sisters in Palestine.' Just like the Pope, anyone who says “back off and be peaceful” at this point is, in effect, condoning the terror attacks and the murder of babies. Simple as. We had the Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, no doubt a supporter of Queers for Palestine, refusing to condemn his governing partners, the Greens, for their appalling pro-terror sentiments and statements. Finally, from the left of politics, we had former NSW Premier (and Australian Foreign Minister) Bob Carr’s smug, slimey tweets. No one does smug and slimey better than Professor Bob. Now the University of Technology Sydney Industry Professor (Business and Climate Change) and former Deputy Vice Chancellor, Carr was appropriately condemned. Source: The Australian, 10 October, paywalled. And all Albanese says is, we should all step back. There is another cognitive dissonance in play. Isn’t the left against hate speech? They never shut up about it. We are about to get a Mis -and Disinformation Bill to put an end to it. The so-called 1984 Bill. Does “gas the Jews” qualify. Perhaps you have to say it online to get hauled over the coals. To get de-platformed. To be silenced. Saying iton the steps of the Sydney Opera House is okay. Anthony Albanese’s appalling vanity project, which mercifully will come to an end – hopefullyan ignominious and embarrassing end – this weekend, has gifted to the nation massive division based on nothing but race. His voice crusade (apologies to Islamist readers) has ditched Martin Luther King Jr and the unity engendered by the 1967 referendum, and has opted, instead, for dog whistling to the race-baiting, progressive left. All utterly unnecessary. Which leaves the inescapable conclusion that it was deliberate. Calculated to within an inch of its life. As I say, Albanese doesn’t get irony. What transpired in Sydney on Monday was more or less unique in the world. And uniquely ugly. I say almost unique. The Brits share our shame to an extent. Sadiq Khan’s melting pot, London, had similar scenes, proving the British Home Secretary right following her recent reality check on the fruits of multiculturalism. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/10/suella-braverman-multiculturalism-failed-israel-hamas/ Speaking of British reactions: The world’s oldest hatred has made a grotesque comeback, says Tom Slater in Spiked. If we look the other way now, we surrender the right to call ourselves a civilised nation. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/10/we-must-confront-the-new-anti-semitism/ We might heed that lesson down under. And the racists here weren’t native Australians. (By native Australians, I mean those born here). Well, except for the fellow travellers like the leftie Greens and, indeed, the odd Labor plant, who were happy to join in the racist mayhem. Finally, the Daily Mail notes: However, during Monday night's protest, a handful of people with Israeli flags were arrested on sight in a move police said was for their own protection. Really. As Gerard Henderson often asks, can you bear it? Perhaps Australia’s Jewish people need a voice. I don’t think that if there is a“no” victory on Saturday night that that is whatwill have overseas people shaking their heads about the state of the Great South Land. Paul Collits 11 October 2023 © 2023 Paul Collits | 
