Terrorists take Camden!
You don’t see too many stories about Australia on the news over here, but this morning on the BBC I was greeted by this little gem.
Town moves against Islamic school
The ‘once peaceful’ town of Camden is being taken over by Mussies. Yep, a man can’t even drink drive while beating his wife nowadays without some Islam preaching terrorism at him.
Besides sport, Australia doesn’t make the news too often, and when they do it’s usually for the wrong reasons. I can’t really blame BBC, it’s a pretty good story accompanied by some awesome footage of Akubra wearing rednecks baying for Muslim blood.
Such a fucked argument too. “Those bloody Muslims are coming over here and educating their children! You heard me, they’re teaching them things right here in our community.”
I was sharing a Fosters with a Palestinian friend the other night while I explained to him how awesome Australia is. He said he would like to go but probably couldn’t because people see his Palestinian passport and think he’s a terrorist. I wiped the tears off his suicide vest and wished him all the best, just kidding, I told him that he was just the flavour of the decade and people would find someone new to hate in a few years. He found my explanation of Australia’s transient xenophobia (which I have explained here before) quite amusing.
It’s confirmed in this wonderful quote from the President of the Camden Darkie Hating Association;
“This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK.”
Oh, I just have to put this woman’s whole quote in. It’s hilarious.
"Everywhere is being destroyed. Why don't we tell the truth. They're wrecking Australia. They're taking us over...Why hasn't anyone got any guts? They've got terrorists amongst 'em... They want to be here so they can go and hide in all the farm houses... This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK."
Fucking gold. You can’t make that shit up.
I know it’s the words of an under-educated sheep masseur from country NSW but her words sum up a few things about racism in Australia.
Firstly, “Why don’t we tell the truth” – An undercurrent of racism.
Very few people are walking around the streets calling people Boongs and Towel Heads to their faces nowadays but given half a chance and the feeling that they are among friends and it all comes out. We seem to have got the message that open racism is bad, but lots of us are still racist. Given half a chance we revert back to the 50s, ala Cronulla riots.
“They've got terrorists amongst 'em” – Enormous Ignorance
I’ll wager that this woman has been more emotionally harmed by the recent UDL price increase than she ever has been by terrorism, yet fear of the latter has compelled her to don her best singlet and face the international media.
“This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town” – Lack of historical perspective
Australia fucking hated Vietnamese and Cambodian gangs 15 years ago, what happened there... you stupid inbred hick?
Having witnessed some pretty horrible shit over here I must say that Australia is still scoring pretty high on the tolerance stakes, but we are far from the utopia we like to think we are sometimes.
But as I sit here in the Middle East listening to the evening call to prayer, having been at work all day with my Australian, French, Pilipino, Indian, Nepalese, Emirati, Polish, English and Swedish colleagues I can’t help but reflect that all it takes to combat racism is the willingness to have a chat to people. (Well, that and the ability to speak English)
You realise so quickly how people are just people. They obviously have their own cultural quirks, but their personalities quickly override all that. That guy’s funny, that guy’s a smartarse, that guy’s a cockhead, that guy’s missing his wife, that guy’s a champion bloke.
I dream of a world where people of all races can join as one... and make immature dick jokes together.
Town moves against Islamic school
The ‘once peaceful’ town of Camden is being taken over by Mussies. Yep, a man can’t even drink drive while beating his wife nowadays without some Islam preaching terrorism at him.
Besides sport, Australia doesn’t make the news too often, and when they do it’s usually for the wrong reasons. I can’t really blame BBC, it’s a pretty good story accompanied by some awesome footage of Akubra wearing rednecks baying for Muslim blood.
Such a fucked argument too. “Those bloody Muslims are coming over here and educating their children! You heard me, they’re teaching them things right here in our community.”
I was sharing a Fosters with a Palestinian friend the other night while I explained to him how awesome Australia is. He said he would like to go but probably couldn’t because people see his Palestinian passport and think he’s a terrorist. I wiped the tears off his suicide vest and wished him all the best, just kidding, I told him that he was just the flavour of the decade and people would find someone new to hate in a few years. He found my explanation of Australia’s transient xenophobia (which I have explained here before) quite amusing.
It’s confirmed in this wonderful quote from the President of the Camden Darkie Hating Association;
“This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK.”
Oh, I just have to put this woman’s whole quote in. It’s hilarious.
"Everywhere is being destroyed. Why don't we tell the truth. They're wrecking Australia. They're taking us over...Why hasn't anyone got any guts? They've got terrorists amongst 'em... They want to be here so they can go and hide in all the farm houses... This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK."
Fucking gold. You can’t make that shit up.
I know it’s the words of an under-educated sheep masseur from country NSW but her words sum up a few things about racism in Australia.
Firstly, “Why don’t we tell the truth” – An undercurrent of racism.
Very few people are walking around the streets calling people Boongs and Towel Heads to their faces nowadays but given half a chance and the feeling that they are among friends and it all comes out. We seem to have got the message that open racism is bad, but lots of us are still racist. Given half a chance we revert back to the 50s, ala Cronulla riots.
“They've got terrorists amongst 'em” – Enormous Ignorance
I’ll wager that this woman has been more emotionally harmed by the recent UDL price increase than she ever has been by terrorism, yet fear of the latter has compelled her to don her best singlet and face the international media.
“This town has every nationality... but Muslims do not fit in this town” – Lack of historical perspective
Australia fucking hated Vietnamese and Cambodian gangs 15 years ago, what happened there... you stupid inbred hick?
Having witnessed some pretty horrible shit over here I must say that Australia is still scoring pretty high on the tolerance stakes, but we are far from the utopia we like to think we are sometimes.
But as I sit here in the Middle East listening to the evening call to prayer, having been at work all day with my Australian, French, Pilipino, Indian, Nepalese, Emirati, Polish, English and Swedish colleagues I can’t help but reflect that all it takes to combat racism is the willingness to have a chat to people. (Well, that and the ability to speak English)
You realise so quickly how people are just people. They obviously have their own cultural quirks, but their personalities quickly override all that. That guy’s funny, that guy’s a smartarse, that guy’s a cockhead, that guy’s missing his wife, that guy’s a champion bloke.
I dream of a world where people of all races can join as one... and make immature dick jokes together.
posted by Sam Cox at
03:26
14 Comments:
Typical Sam. Always jumping at the chance to call someone a racist. Race has nothing to do with it. Not wanting someone's crazy religion brainwashing children in your area is what this is about. Granted the people that don't want it are crazy brainwashed people of a different religion, and allowing one religion and not another is stupid and discriminatory, but it's not racist.
By
Anonymous, At
27 May 2008 07:18
Yeah OK, technically it is Religious Intolerance, but that's crap that race has nothing to do with it. It's at the heart of the matter.
You think the townsfolk would be up in arms about the Mormons chucking up a school?
It's Muslims, you know, Arabs, you know, Terrorists!
By
Sam Cox, At
27 May 2008 13:46
I disagree Sam. I think if it was an Arab Christian School there would be no problem. I think the only racist person here is you. Racist against the white man that is.
By
Anonymous, At
27 May 2008 16:51
This kind of insanity happens whenever the in-group/out-group animosity kicks in; it's hard-wired into our heads, after all, and will always be a problem when it's possible to identify any given minority as "them" versus us.
You're absolutely right: this continues until it's possible to see all of humanity as your in-group. At that point, there's no "them" to hate. Well, except for the aliens.
Regarding religious schools... well, I'm against them all, including (especially?) the Christian ones. Mormons would actually be worse (those guys scare me). Islam, at least the more moderate version which presumably would be taught in an Aussie town, would be the pretty harmless. The hicks really are wrong to conflate Islam with terrorism; that's just sheer ignorance.
Sometimes it seems pretty damned lonely in the reality-based community (though imagine how much worse it would be in the US).
By
Jason, At
27 May 2008 17:15
No, you're right Anon. Nothing racist at all about these people...
Dickhead.
By
Sam Cox, At
28 May 2008 05:00
No I'm Right!! Insult!! Nice arguing skills there, ignore the facts presented by the other person and insult them. Good work.
But here, let me give you a hypothetical to see if you think they are still racist, and see if you can come up with a better argument this time.
Hypothetical: So later today you run in to an Australian Aboriginal. You say "what are you doing here" and he says "Well you see these white folk came in to our community and built buildings where we didn't want them to. And they brought their own beliefs and customs with them and completely ignored ours. And I had to leave the area because I'm now too scared to sit round the campfire by myself at night because I think a couple of white cops will come and beat me up for doing nothing."
And so I assume your response to him would be "YOU'RE A RACIST" because in both the hypothetical and in Camden:
- People of a different race want to build where they don't want them to
- People are scared of the others so they don't want them to move there
- People think the new people will not fit in with the town
Am I right? That's what you would think about the person in the hypothetical?
By
Anonymous, At
28 May 2008 10:12
Now I am, as you pointed out, lumping xenophobia and religious intolerance in the same boat with racism. You could probably argue somewhat against religious intolerance being included (if not taken to the extreme) but xenophobia is definitely in there.
And I think that is exactly what we are facing in Camden.
Back to the analogy. If our Aboriginal friend there hates all white people, purely because they are white and in his town then yes, he is racist. If he hates all white cops then he is also being racist. If he hates the white cops that beat him or his friends up then he is not racist, because who wouldn’t hate someone who beat them up, besides Ghandi.
If he left the camp because he heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that all white people come into your town and kick you out and beat you up then he is just playing to his own hysteria and is stereotyping a people he does not really know anything about. In this case he is being ignorant and racist, because he is forming an opinion of a large group of people of a certain race based purely on their race and the behaviour, imagined or real, of a small group of those people.
Which is what the people of Camden are doing. They (the people furiously protesting the school for reasons other than legitimate reasons to protest the construction of a building) seem to be equating people of Muslim faith with terrorism. They are stereotyping based purely on religion, culture and race. I will bet my passport that the women I quoted has not met any of the people trying to build the school, let alone any of the proposed students.
To your three points:
- People of a different race want to build where [the people of the other race] don't want them to.
This is irrelevant. In Australia it is illegal to discriminate based on race or religion.
- People are scared of the others so they don't want them to move there
This is based on ignorance. But, if there really was something to be scared of then go to the police. Having these ‘terrorists’ just move somewhere else is not going to reduce terrorism, we should lock them up if they are breaking the law.
- People think the new people will not fit in with the town
Again this is irrelevant. In Australia it is illegal to discriminate based on race or religion. I don’t think that ‘one woman’ in the article probably would fit in in New Town, Sydney, but she has every right to move there. We’re not talking about importing people directly from Iran here, were talking about Australian citizens who can live wherever they damn well like... providing they can afford the rent, which the people building this school cannot in Sydney which is why they want to move to Camden.
It is all academic now anyway. The school was rejected by the Council on planning grounds.
By
Sam Cox, At
29 May 2008 01:07
Is that the same Camden County in "My Name is Earl" I love that show, American red neck hicks!
Ooops, just read the news, Australia, and real... now I just feel like shit.
By
matware, At
29 May 2008 21:20
Ah, Camden. We Sydneysiders are glad we now have our very own Ipswich, right on the margins of the Big Smoke, and even (probably) with its own fish-and-chip shop.
There were a few telling comments from these racist anti-Muslim scared stupid people (for, whatever our or their prejudices, that is what they are). One said that Camden was a place where white people fleeing the Gomorrah that is modern, multicultural Sydney, had ended up. Basically the refuge for poor white folks who don't like racial and religious diversity in all its beauty and complexity, but like getting tattoos on their right shoulder, of a star system 50 million light years away, to show how much they love Australia.
White flight and white fear.
Anoymous has some sort of problem with Sam's analysis. I think Sam is spot-on. This is not about schools, education, ideas, religion. This is about brown folk moving into the area. Sam mentioned a Mormon school - hell, even if that was a Jewish school, there wouldn't be a problem.
And even if this was about education - it's not like these people are building a madrassa out there. Every school in NSW - Catholic, Anglican, public, Exclusive Brethren, Nazi - has to follow the NSW curriculum. Sure, they'll do two hours of Islam a week - just like the kids at Fairfield Pats learn to hate abortionists in Religious Education. But I doubt they'll be spending their English lessons, watching videos of Osama harp on about the Great Satan.
This is John Howard's legacy to our country. A bunch of sad and scared people who don't know how to deal with difference.
Embrace it, fuckwits.
By
To 'Allah Akbar' Jihadi Smith, At
30 May 2008 20:48
Damn it should have said Tom
By
tom jihadi etc, At
30 May 2008 22:19
Oh, my other favourite quote from this 'debate' was the one about Muslims who 'take our welfare'. What the??
By
tom jihadi etc, At
31 May 2008 09:42
Did they actually use the name 'Gomorrah'? I'll have to give props to that.
The article mentions that Pauline started to get involved, thinking it was a mosque they were building, but backed off when she found out it was a school.
If you're pushing a racist agenda, you know you've got problems when even Hanson thinks you've gone too far.
By
Sam Cox, At
31 May 2008 10:35
Yet another dumb-arse comment from one of these true-blue dinky-di Aussie fuckwits:
"I don't speak Muslim".
No, mate, no-one on earth does.
Gee, give me strength.
By
Tom the Muzzo, At
2 June 2008 11:51
You are not racialist Sam-well. Anonymous is a dick.
By
AR, At
2 June 2008 15:45
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