An allergic reaction to people who were black, brown or yellow. [The Australian - Editorial Opinion - Phillip Adams]
21aug04
�I am determined to live to read your obituary in The Australian,� writes a 79-year-old reader. �That day will be, as the Toyota advertisement says, �Oh, what a feeling!��
Like my nigh-octogenarian nemesis, I like trawling Time and Tide to see who�s died, how old they were, what they died of - and to check that I�m still alive.
Not that it�s only individuals who cark it. So do entire nations. Consider the Soviet Union. When it expired in its mid-seventies, there were few to mourn it. And countless millions to do the Toyota leap. Its cause of death? Internal contradictions. I was sadder when my beloved Czechoslovakia died under the surgeon�s knife. And let�s not forget poor, demented Yugoslavia. It committed suicide.
But imagine my distress when I read, just a few days ago, that Australia had passed away. What finally caused Australia�s death? Ideological inflammation? Political suppuration? Poisonous ideas? Yes, it had been sick for quite a while, with all sorts of painful symptoms. Yet we all remember when Australia seemed so young and vibrant. So full of hope and optimism. Not that it was as young as all that. Indeed, when it fell off its eucalypt twig, it was 103.
Where other nations were fatally diseased by ethnic tensions or religious bigotries, Australia had had a healthy degree of tolerance. Many ethnicities had helped it develop a strong immune system. But we must remember that Australia was a sickly child - catching the White Australia bug while still in its cradle, and suffering its effects for more than 60 years. The symptoms? An allergic reaction to people who were black, brown or yellow. But we thought it had been cured in the late 1960s with the penicillin of progress and pluralism.
Then, unfortunately, there was another outbreak. John Howard had quite a bad dose of White Australia - he started going on about Asian immigration during a notorious radio interview with John Laws. Reacting quickly to the threat of contagion, there was an attempt to quarantine the virus in Laws�s studio. But it cost Howard the Liberal leadership.
Was there something in the water? A few years later it broke out again and became a full-blown epidemic. As with SARS, there were just a few cases at first. Wilson Tuckey and Graeme Campbell provided a vector in Western Australia, as did Howard in Canberra. Then Queensland�s Pauline Hanson became Typhoid Mary. With intolerance a transmissible disease, bigotry became bubonic. Overnight, millions of Australians caught it. As the obituary pointed out, this most venomous of viruses seemed to have mutated. Where it had hurt Howard previously, this time it helped. It helped him win a couple of elections on the trot. The primary symptom was delirium - people started having nightmares about boat people, thinking they were infectious, that we�d catch fundamentalism or terrorism.
As well as this form of paranoia, there were also renewed outbreaks of racism against Aborigines. These seemed to be spread by reactions to the Mabo judgment. People were deliberately infected by the mining industry, which went on and on about how blackfellas would take over the country, make land claims on your back yard. This was followed by a widespread outbreak of lying that proved resistant to all treatment: lies about �queue-jumpers�, �illegals� and �kids overboard�. Australia suffered a complete breakdown in tolerance. This had a really serious effect on our national health.
Such a pity. Since the �60s we�d been getting healthier and stronger. Unity in diversity, that sort of thing. There was a real glow in our cheeks and a strut in our step as we headed for the Sydney Olympics and the Centenary of Federation.
Older readers will remember the outbreak of �All the Way with LBJ�, which led to many fatalities. After Vietnam, you�d think we�d have developed an immunity. But the �All the Way� disease came back, worse than ever. Howard caught something from George W. Bush that led to so many hallucinations and delusions that, pretty soon, Australian democracy, like America�s, was in intensive care. And there was a short-term memory loss. We forgot all about Vietnam and signed up for another war.
What caused Australia�s death? The outbreak of One Nation? An allergic reaction to Mabo? Was Tampa terminal? We await a coronial inquiry to see what finished us off. But I suspect it was whatever Howard picked up in Washington. Shamed by the government�s subservience to the US, Australia simply rolled over and died. Or perhaps it was murder? One awaits the autopsy and a subsequent police inquiry into the death. In the event of foul play, history will press charges.
Yes, there�s a slim chance that Australia can be resuscitated, brought back from the dead, that its heart can be made to beat again. And it�s not only those of religious persuasions who will pray for this miracle. Many of us mourn the country�s loss of idealism and are joining in a vigil.
If you loved the tolerant, progressive Australia and would like to see it breathe again, perhaps you�d care to join us.
By Phillip Adams � The Australian http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10477316%255E12272,00.html
------------------------------------------------------------------- John Maynard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) PO Box 600, Cowes VIC 3922 Australia -------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
