The Right to Maim and Murder

It’s something that I would have considered only a matter of time – and it did happen, tragically. And it’s not like it’s unprecedented, either.

Australia suffered something similar, nearly 10 years ago now. 35 people died in the Port Arthur massacre, and Australia, horrified that such an event could happen in this country, reacted: semi-automatic weapons, weapons which have no role outside of warfare and its horrors. If there’s one thing I’ll grant John Howard as Prime Minister, it’s that he reacted well and quickly, banning the weapons that could cause anything like the massacre again.

But the American President? He still supports the right to bear arms, and among many others focuses on the escape line: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Right, because people have been killing people for millennia, yeah? Sure, but guns make it a helluva lot easier.

There’s no need for me to be over-zealous, as the evidence speaks for itself. Gun fatalities in the US far outnumber that of any other country, and it does ultimately come down to the 2nd Amendment, the principle entitling such deadly devices to any resident. Why must the horror be allowed to continue? What reason remains such that Americans must arm themselves to a man? The amendment enshrined in the constitution served its purpose, when militia played an active role in the defence of the country, but has lost its relevance.

If the US hopes to prevent these tragedies in future, and to reduce the gun crime on the streets, the only way is to put in place measures such that these weapons which make it so easy to kill are controlled.

I don’t want to hijack the tragedy for the debate over gun control and the gun culture of the US, but the fact is that, were the gun laws stricter, this wouldn’t have happened. If nothing changes, again, the power of the gun lobby in US politics, and the value given to it over the lives of citizens, should be quite telling.

A New Low

Children have been used to get out of scrutiny at a checkpoint in Iraq, with the children subsequently being killed in the car-bomb.

It’s absolutely disgusting, and something which does prompt me to say that maybe the “War on Terror” has a justification, with the terrorists clearly losing their sense of humanity and any justification what so ever they claim their religion gives them; but then I ask if the “insurgents” would be resorting to such tactics if the “Coalition of the Willing” weren’t in Iraq in the first place.

Still, if anyone is not sicked or disgusted by this, you’d have to question their humanity too.

Speak no English

In response to a claim that international students at universities have poor English skills, the Government says it “has no evidence” that this is the case.

If the Minister for Education would care to take a walk in a university and speak to these international students, perhaps to be in class when one of them presents, you’d find plenty of evidence. Anyone who has international students in their course can tell you the claim is absolutely true. And the situation is ludicrous, and the government’s see-no-evil do-no-evil approach isn’t helping.

The Mad Old Sheik

Sheik Taj el-din al Hilaly claims Muslims are more Australian than “the descendents of convicts”

The dear old Sheik has just shown how mad he really is. He claims that because Muslims came to Australia freely, rather than being “brought in chains”, Muslims are more entitled to Australia. Also, that Islam “has deep roots in Australian soil that were there before the English arrived”.

If that’s not enough to prove the guy is madder than a squirrel on speed, I’m not sure what would. Aboriginals, the original Australians, have no link what so ever to Islam. And Muslims were far from the only people to come here by choice – indeed, they’ve only really come here within the last 40 years or so, after the White Australia policy was lifted. Chinese have been here longer, since the mid 19th century gold rush.

He further goes on to claim Muslims have no democratic freedoms, and that Australia’s laws allowed freedoms that at times were “close to madness”. What on earth is this guy talking about? I’d laugh, but it infuriates me that this guy has any shred of credibility.

I’m not usually one for ultra-conservative actions, but don’t let this guy back into the country. It’d make us all happier.

Citizenship Test

John Howard wants to make a test for English and “Australian history and culture” before you get your citizenship. It’s supposed to be about only making citizens of those people who actually would “fit in”.  It looks more like a White Australia policy by stealth to me.

After World War II, Australia let in migrants from all over Europe, and while they were probably more ‘olive’ than ‘white’, they still fit in the old English sense of ‘white’, i.e. Europeans. It wasn’t until the late 60s and 70s that Asian migration started in any significant numbers. In the early 90s, there was a celebration of multiculturalism and the diversity of the Australian population, something I grew up with and believe in strongly.

If John Howard’s citizenship test is applied, the migration that made Australia one of the most diverse nations in the world will be effectively relegated to second-class members of society, not even citizens. Yes, the ability to speak, or at least understand, English is a reasonable requirement of Australia. But to require it in a formal condition such as a test, and to attach questions of history and culture to it as well, is to make it an overly onerous restriction. Ideally, yes, all citizens would pass such a test, but here’s my bone of contention: chances are more than half of the “born” citizens would also fail the same test. And you’d have to apply it retroactively to be fair.

So what if we apply it retroactively? All those European migrants who came here on a wing and a prayer with barely a broken word of English to their vocabulary would never have made it here. All that post-war prosperity, gone. All those Vietnam war refugees would remain refugees, probably to be bundled up and passed back to Vietnam after an “appropriate” period of time. All that diversity, gone.

Australia would have been a very different nation with Howard’s citizenship test. If he manages to put in something so apparently innocuous, he wins a victory for the ultra conservatives, for the White Australia policy we rejected so long ago. Let diversity and multiculturalism reign, because that is the only antidote to wars and hatred.

The Middle East, Again

A lull in the fighting gives everyone a chance to take a breath and review. Slowly, the explosions in the Middle East, those rocking southern Lebanon, fade into the background just like those rocking Iraq still, daily. Still, the chaos continues.

The truth is, wars in the Middle East are nothing new at all. For the past 2000 years of documented history, war has broken out without fail. That’s true for nearly the whole world over, but especially so for the Middle East, a bone of contention for years between three fundamentally alike and yet irrevocably seperated religions.

Lebanon is fundamentally a buffer state, as is its neighbour Syria to a lesser extent. They’re not quite artificial, but they certainly exist without any more defining characteristic than they occupy an area. Buffer states serve an important role in geo-politics – they keep wars relatively calm, because the war breaks out between a large and a small state instead of two large states.

It’s very important to recognise that I’m not saying here that Israel’s war is legitimate; they were provoked, that’s true, but the scale of their response has been astounding and brutal. The USA has hamstrung itself in its ability to respond because of its openly-declared policies of “pre-emptive action” and Hollywood-esque never-negotiate attitude; it cannot criticise Israel because that would show hypocracy on its own part, and it is already deep in its own mire. And in the world of instant media, the public reaction is swift, immediate and unfiltered.

This is just another war to ride out for the Middle East, as unfortunate as it is.

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A coda – a little view on the Middle East and why it’s so unstable.

It is said that man came out of Africa, but it was the fertile crescent that turned humanity from smart hunter-gatherers into the super-species we are today. Agriculture formed the core of moving away from the tribal unit, to something larger. It allowed some to remove themselves from the day-to-day, to dedicate themselves to more finely honed pursuits. At first, this resulted in pottery, practical items, then art, music and sciences. Alongside the rudimentary sciences though, religion also rose, the conjoined twin of science. It’d be hard to claim that the Middle East, the location of the fertile crescent, and the source of the three major monothestic religions, two of which dominate the world today, hasn’t been pivotal in human society. Not to mention it’s the location of the world’s best known reserves of oil, a resource practical and readily employable in a variety of uses. No wonder it’s called black gold.

Israel was created, carved out of the former British Emipre. Artificial states rarely have longevity – see Yugoslavia for a pointed example – but Israel had a unifying factor which drove its success and keeps it established today, the post-WWII legitimisation of the Zionist principles. Inevitably, its presence is somewhat belligerrent, a provocation for the people who once could lay more immediate claim to the lands. In the last 60 or so years of its existance, it has established its own credentials strongly, and I’m not saying it shouldn’t exist. Rather, its existance is contentious, and people will always find an excuse to fight. It seems the Middle East is especially so (I mean, c’mon, all that desert & dry land, and the only water is an inland sea so salty anchovies would have a hard time living there? :P) given its history. The area holds a lot of cultural and historical significance for a lot of people, and that’s going to cause conflict.

The theory I have is basically, were it not for Israel, people in the Middle East would find another reason to fight. It is perhaps cynical, but it holds weight because it illustrates itself well, even when Israel is playing it relatively quiet.

Also, it was highly amusing that Mel Gibson chose this moment to speak his mind, inebriated or not.

Systemic Bias

UN Security Council fails to condem Israel for an attack on a UN Observer post in Lebanon

If there was ever an indication of a systemic bias in the USA’s actions, this is it. From the article,

The Security Council has adopted a statement saying it “is deeply shocked an distressed by the firing by the Israeli Defence Forces on a United Nations Observer post in southern Lebanon on 25 July, 2006.”

But it stops short of condemning the bombing.

Diplomats say the US refused to agree to any statement which criticised Israel

The UN is taking a right royal battering politically, not to mention the peacekeepers killed because Israel wants to fight their own version of a holy war. The US government stands idly by as the slaughter of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastucture – a war crime – is openly perpetrated by Israel. It seems the US wants to play “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” refusing to criticise Israel despite a clear, blatant “accident”.

It’s not alright.