One Nation - A road well travelled

One Nation – A Road Well Traveled

The world is heading into a new and dangerous phase. The Syrian refugee crisis has stretched European refugee policy to breaking point, creating doubt over the very future of the European Union, the USA just nominated a dangerous authoritarian populist for it's conservative party and here in Australia Senator Elect Pauline Hanson is once again throwing verbal bombs at mosques, Muslims, halal snack packs and refugees.

Lets take a look at the policies of our newest old hand.

Senator Elect Hanson's policies are to ban the burka, stop new mosque contraction, have a Royal Commision into Islam to discover whether it's a religion or a political ideology, denial of climate change, banning companies from paying for halal certification and zero net immigration. The complete list can be found here. http://www.onenation.com.au/policies

Lets take some of these policies and imagine Australia under them.

Ban the Burka

First lets sort out some terms. Here's a handy guide to terms http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241

The Burka is a head to toe covering of an Islamic woman with the eyes covered by mesh that she can see out of, but no-one can see in.

I have a few things to say about the Burka. The number one thing is that I have only ever seen the burka in the secure zone at Sydney Airport. That is the zone after you go through security for international flights. I never saw them in the check in area, implying that the ladies actually checked in in normal clothes and donned the burka after security. I'll also ad that I only ever saw them on the Etihad airlines flight to Abu Dhabi. So they were wearing them on an arab airline flight to an arab destination. Some facebook friends have told me that they have spotted Burkas in Bankstown and Merrylands, but the truth is they are very rare. So rare, as to be almost nonexistant.

I myself dispise the burka because I feel it dehumanises the woman underneath. So what's the harm in banning the burka?

Are your appearance and chosen mode of dress a matter of speech? I would argue that indeed it is. It expresses something about you. Of course in security conscious places like banks, airports and upon request from any police officer I believe the headpiece should be removed. My opinion comes down to, should a person be allowed to express their identity through their mode of dress even if I don't like it?. I have to answer yes to that. To deny a woman her right to express herself is Un-Australian.

Stop Construction of New Mosques

This boils down to – Should Australians be allowed to worship whatever gods they believe in whatever manner they want, within reasonable limits.

I'm an atheist, so for me I think religions are all dangerous leftovers from a savager, darker time. For me, If you want to follow some bronze age mythology, go ahead. It's none of my business.

One of the difficulties however that is unique to Islam is the lack of an overall authority. No-one can declare you orthodox or heretical in the same way christian authorities can. This is both a strength of Islam and a weakness in that any blowhard with any or no level of education can set themselves up as an Imam.

This does mean Islam is prone to hate preachers in a way that Christianity (which still has them) isn't.

The concept that an Islamic theocracy (called sharia law) is the ultimate expression of submission to God might be abhorrent to me, but do people have the right to call for that? Yes I believe we should have that right. Does Sharia law have the right to compete in the market place of ideas? For me, yes it does.

If any Imam suggests using violence to advance sharia law, then they should be punished in accordance with our laws.

So should we ban construction of new mosques? No I think to do so is Un-Australian.

Conduct a Royal Commision Into Islam

Senator Hanson would like to see a Royal Commision into Islam.

The One Nation Party contends that Islam is a political ideology and not a religion. Unfortunately Christianity can also have this characteristic.

Anyone listening to Ted Cruz in the USA or Fred Nile here could easily come to the conclusion that Christians are stopping non Christians from marrying who they want right now, imposing a kind of christian state.

There is no real Islamic authority to call to account. Islam is an incredibly broad church that goes to the extremes of the Wahhabi nut-jobs like Isis and the Taliban to the spirituality of the Sufi Whirling Dervishes. That you could distill the life and experience of 1.6 billion people's faith around the world into a Royal Commission and then judge those 1.6 billion people is laughable.

It is true that separation of church and state is a western idea and that it's an idea that Islam has struggled to deal with. The usual example of a Democratic Islamic nation Turkey is coming apart at the seams, which leaves the troubled democracy of Malaysia.

But how is that different to Christianity? Don't forget Christianity didn't give away the power of the state, it fought tooth and nail to keep it. Anyone even slightly conversant in history will remember the Roman Empire became the ultimate christian state, with the emperor as the final arbiter of God's will. Should Donald Trump be elected in November millions of evangelical christian voters will regard his Presidency as God ordained and the beginning of a new more biblicaly focused America. Christianity can be read as a political ideology.

It's true that the issue One Nation is driving at is troublesome. But if Islam is a political ideology, why is that so bad. Political ideologies are all around us. There are plenty of terrible, barren ideologies out there. We don't ban them. They compete in the market place of ideas. If Islam is a political ideology, why are we afraid that Liberal Democracy will lose the battle of ideas. Our ideas have held firm against Christianity, Communism, Fascism, Nationalism, Populism, Militarism and any other ism you can name.

So I'm not afraid of Sharia law. It's a terrible idea. I have faith in the power of democracy. It's un-Australian not to.

Denying Climate Change

Anthropogenic Climate Change is happening. Only idiots don't accept the scientific consensus. At this point you have to be intellectually dishonest to yourself to still believe it's just a conspiracy theory. It's the ultimate zombie lie. (A zombie lie is a lie that has been proven incorrect many times but just wont die.) That being said of course One Nation have the right to be dishonest, to lie and to decieve. That's freedom of speech. As much as I hate that they are pushing this horseshit, I will always support their right to self deception. Sadly that's the Australian way...

Halal Certification

One Nation is calling for a ban on Australian companies using third party Halal certification companies to certify Halal compliance. They claim on their website that "What is also believed is that it funds terrorism".

There is no proof of this, indeed after Nutjobs like Cory Bernardi and George Christenson claimed that Australian Halal certification was funding terror, a Senate inquiry was set up. It found that the availability of Halal certification in Australia allowed Australian companies many export opportunities into asia, that there was some evidence that there was some corruption involved, but that there was no evidence whatsoever that Halal certification channels funds into either organised crime or terrorism. The claim that Halal certification in Australia funds terrorism is a lie. Another zombie lie that wont die. It's my belief that stirring up hate against one group of people to further your own power is sadly an Australian value.

To sum up, to believe bizarre stupid propaganda is an Australian right we all share. As is the right not to.

ZERO NET IMMIGRATION

This is an interesting one. Because to claim that wanting zero net immigration is racist is not correct. Well not exactly. But they are related in this case. Reading between the lines, it seems that One Nation would like to keep things as they are. That's admirable. That's true conservatism. It would be good for the environment, even if One Nation don't care about carbon emissions, the truth is that carbon emissions are important.

Scratch a bit deeper and I think you'll find a kind of harking back to a gentler, simpler time. A time of white picket fences and affordable housing for all.

The Australian birthrate is 1.93 births per couple. So stabilising the immigration rate to zero net, would actually stabilise and then lower the total population. But what happens when you stabilise the population?

Frankly your percentage of older people increases dramatically. As the baby boomers age, we are going to need more and more people of working age to pay for their health and upkeep. For that, we will need a growing population for some years to come. So for me, I believe zero population growth will lead to higher taxes and larger deficits. That's the point of our immigration programme. To bring economic growth.

I believe we need more people in this nation, not less. As a continent comparable in area to the continental United States but with less than a tenth the population, I also believe we have room to grow and a larger Australia gives us more power in an unstable world around us.

Of course immigration brings difficulties. It's a hard choice to make. Do we bring people into our country who have different cultures to ours and sometimes different values to ours?

For me I can only answer an emphatic yes. As a nation of immigrants (only the First Nations People in Australia can claim idiginousness) why should we stop now? Immigration into this nation has risen the tide of life for all Australians. The economic activities of migrants pay our taxes and bring us amazing cultures.

WHAT ONE NATION WANT US TO GIVE UP

One Nation would have us going back to a mono culture. Now I like Anglo Saxon culture. I am a white Anglo Saxon. This culture has brought us the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of association, democratic values and economic growth.

But One Nations platform is self defeating, because it calls for an end to freedom of speech, freedom of worship and the freedom of association.

I also think that other cultures have elements that enrich both myself and other Australians. We have the greatest coffee in the world right here. Our wine industry is renowned the world over, we sit around and debate democracy in greatest traditions of the Americans and of course the ancient Athenians. We tell stories like the Irish, but also like our Indigenous cultures. We're tech savvy like the Japanese, we have a fantastic health care system modeled on the British NHS, Chinese inventiveness has been with us almost from our founding, and of course Muslims brought us mathematics as we know it.

Of course there will be difficulties. Islam is going through a difficult transitory phase in the world right now. Islamic terror is a part of life. But remember Timothy Mc Veigh, Anders Breivic? Christian terror is not new thing.

Remember also that as immigrants bring change to a host country, so does the host country bring change to the immigrants as they slowly take up values from the surrounding culture. When I was growing up the same group of people who are upset by Muslims in this country were angered by Vietnamese immigration. These days Vietnamese people are on TV, are our doctors, lawyers and our bakers. Before them it was the Italians and Greeks and instead of radical Islam we were terrified of communists.. Before that the Irish terrified us.

This too shall pass. In 20-50 years Muslims will just be another group adding value to Australian society. It's happening already. Waleed Aly is already one of the most important commentators in public life. Muslims will be replaced by the boogeymen of the day. It will probably be the Chinese.

One Nation wants us to give up both our freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to wear what we want, and economic security because they are afraid. This is normal human behavior. But to give in to it is to give in our own weakness.

We've been down this road before. America is treading this road right now. A real Estate Tycoon is whipping up anger and hate against Muslims and Mexicans. Britain just shot itself in the foot travelling this road. Germany went down this road once, but to talk about it would be a violation of Godwins Law.