The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, August 29th, 2001. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Racist beat-up in NSW. Carr Govt's law and order scare tactic "Evil delight - Father reveals rape taunts", "United outrage at lenient sentences", "Pressure to change the law", "Outrage as gang rapists get cut-down jail terms". So ran the headlines after the sentencing of three youths "of Middle Eastern background" (in fact from the Lebanese community) in the NSW District Court for rape last week. The Carr Government is being given a free ride by the mass media as it ties racism and a law and order beat-up together, appealing to base, simplistic and divisive ideas that will cause profound social damage into the future. by Marcus Browning The Carr agenda itself is as crude as a blunt instrument. Bob Carr and his right wing government are using a populist platform to demonise communities along racial lines in order to create the pretext for introducing draconian laws and for handing more powers to the police. In Cabramatta, in Sydney's south, it is "Asian gangs" and illegal drugs. The Government preyed on people's fears and exploited the very real problems that exist in the area to introduce laws which overturn the presumption of innocence and give police the power to invade homes and make arrests based on "reasonable suspicion". Carr's refusal to cease using the term "ethnic gangs" instead of attributing the primary cause of criminal behaviour as being a product of Australian society as a whole, is in line with his government's its racist campaign. It is why Unity Party MP Peter Wong has compared Carr to Pauline Hanson and One Nation. "He is going down the same path of targeting the ethnic community as those more likely to commit crime and more likely not to contribute towards this country", said Dr Wong. "He has created a wave of mutual hatred which has never been seen in NSW before." Hanson climbed aboard the Carr bandwagon last week, saying, "A lot of these people are Muslims, they have no respect for the Christian way of life that this country's based on." Ethnic community leaders have condemned the Government's actions. Ethnic Communities Council chairman Salvatore Scevola pointed to the social and economic base which are the cause of crime: "We believe there is no relationship between ethnicity and crime. It has more to do with social/economic conditions; social disadvantage, social exclusion and unemployment." The backlash is already underway with the Council receiving many racist phone calls. April Pham from the Immigrant Women's Speakout Association described Carr's portrayal of particular groups as "sensationalist, unethical and racist", saying it was being used "to mask the incompetency of the Carr Government in responding to the needs of disenfranchised groups in the community, the high level of unemployment amongst young people, the amount of drugs and ... systematic racism and harassment." Ms Pham said that Carr was hiding behind parliamentary privilege to avoid being challenged for inciting racial hatred. Carr and Police Commissioner Peter Ryan, who kicked off the "ethic crime wave" propaganda more than a year ago, together added fuel to the fire by referring to "rapes of Caucasian women by Lebanese youth from Bankstown". Ryan told the media that 50 women had been gang raped in the area during the last 11 months. But NSW crime statistics show that there had been 10 sexual assaults involving two or more people in Bankstown last year and that the offender rate in the area was lower than a number of others around the State. The Institute of Criminology's Mark Findlay accused Carr of fear mongering in the community for political reasons and noted that "the facts got less and less supportive of Ryan's position [of 50 women raped] and more and more ambiguous the closer you got to the ground. In a comment to "The Guardian" Peter Symon, CPA General Secretary, "said, "Bob Carr is stirring up ethnic and racial intolerance to win votes. He has always used the 'law and order' card whenever an election is coming up. "His proposal to legislate penalties and to pressure the judiciary is getting very close to mandatory sentencing. Of course he will deny that his attitudes are based on race but irrespective of intentions his remarks are stirring up racial tensions in the community. Racially based remarks should be strongly rejected. We have multiculturalism as an established policy and that is what Bob Carr should be promoting." ********************************************************** -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
