It is Australia Day today. As an immigrant into this wonderful country, I have followed with growing consternation the developments that have taken place in Australia since the election of the Rudd government in November 2007. What follows are my personal thoughts and ruminations. They are not meant to offend or antagonise anyone reading this post. I do understand that my point of view is that of a relative outsider. I was not born in Australia and have not internalised all cultural nuances that for a life-long resident seem self-evident. A big part of the culture is learned through osmosis.
When you have lived in a country since childhood there are certain things common with you and your fellow citizens that you just know. You have not learned them consciously but, as it were, picked them up and absorbed them from the air around you. For instance, if you wanted to refer to a 1970s Australian television commercial I wouldn’t have a clue of what you are talking about whereas someone who lived in Australia in the 1970s would immediately be able to form a mental picture of that particular commercial and recall certain feelings associated with that commercial.
I am still also a partial outsider when it comes to language. Although I have a working knowledge of the English language, it is not my mother tongue. I learned English at school and later continued my studies in the university. Despite this I am constantly making mistakes in grammar and syntax and often find it hard to find the exact word needed. Naturally, there are scores of words and expressions in the native Australian English that were not taught at school when I studied. It has been my pleasure, during the years I have spent in Australia, to enrich my vocabulary with these highly innovative expressions that seem to me to embody the best aspects of Australian culture: informality and mateship.
With these provisos and forewarnings, I would like to embark on the main topic of this little “speech”.
Ever since Kevin Rudd was elected as Prime Minister and more so since the transferral of power to the Gillard government in 2010, we have had a government that seems to be doing everything in its power to bring this great nation into destruction. Admittedly, “destruction” is a strong word but perhaps in this instance there are some ground for its employment.
I will bypass economic considerations as my expertise in this area is negligible. I will mention, however, that the government spending in the last few years seems to have increased exponentially and perhaps irresponsibly. We all remember the government handout of $950 in 2008 to households earning $100,000 or less. The aim of this highly unusual move was to increase economic activity in the country and keep the recession at bay. Whether it did so is debatable. To me, it seemed to have been a fairly brazen attempt at buying popularity and votes if anything. In the end, there are no free lunches and this “stimulus package” came from the tax payers’ pockets. The government has very little money to give unless it comes from the taxes.
My main points of contention are outside the economic sphere. In my opinion, the two of the most worrisome developments in Australia during the recent few years are illegal immigration and the eroding of free speech by the so called intellectuals in this country. This last point is perhaps not directly related to the activities of the government but it can be argued that government policies have created an atmosphere in which totalitarian tendencies can surface more freely.
With the illegal immigration we have seen the increase of boat arrivals into Australia from five in 2007 to 134 in 2010 and 69 in 2011. Now, I am not against helping people that genuinely are in danger in their own countries. Even our Lord Jesus Christ with his mother and Joseph had to emigrate into Egypt soon after He was born. I am an immigrant myself. It is the duty and the privilege of all Christians and Christian countries to help those in need and I am glad that Australia is also doing its share in this regard.
At this junction, I would like to make it absolutely clear that none of these considerations have anything to do with the race of the entrants into Australia. I am very happy to see people from all races inhabit Australia.
Ok? So if that’s clear to everyone we can continue.
People that choose to enter Australia illegally, by way of the back door, so to speak, are taking the place of genuine arrivals that have used legal means to enter the country and are in dire need of help. More often than not, these illegal entrants are also among the well-to-do in their countries and can afford the exorbitant cost involved in human trafficking.
Another point of consideration with illegal immigrants is that at least some of them have little or no regard to to the laws and values in Australia. Australia is still a Christian country with respect to the rights of the individual. There is one law that at least in theory treats everyone equally. With a growing Muslim population comes the increased pressure to introduce Sharia law and make amendments to the Muslim customs. It seems to me that a free, democratic rule of law is not compatible with a large Muslim population and that many of the illegal immigrants indeed do profess Islam. This might seem harsh but the fact of the matter is that all independent nations must have the right to choose whom they allow within their borders. What illegal immigrants are trying to do is to gain access into the country forcibly.
This cannot be right.
The last of my two concerns has to do with proceedings that have taken place in the court houses and outside them within the last year or two. It has become a criminal offence to voice opinions about certain topics in Australia. Famously, Andrew Bolt lost his racial vilification court case last year. His main offence was to doubt the motives of a group of self acclaimed “aboriginal” artists and intellectuals concerning their choice of racial identification.
The word to pay attention to in my last sentence is “choice”. To any impartial observer, choice is indeed what these individuals exercised. To a relatively recent arrival, like myself, it would have been impossible to distinguish the complainants from any other people of European extraction. Obviously, they have a right to call themselves aboriginal if they so wish but to try to stifle the right of other’s to criticise this choice or even to question it smacks of totalitarianism. As someone coming from a European country, Finland, that is geographically located next to Russia that used to be the biggest dictatorship in the last century I am perhaps more sensitive to the creeping totalitarian tendencies that I see taking place in Australia. If we lose the right to voice an opinion we lose more than just free speech. We lose democracy.
Along with these thoughts, I would like to wish everyone a great Australia Day. Australia is still a free country that has never been under totalitarian rule. But unless people wake up to the fact that freedom can be taken away from a people — sometimes by its own government — I am afraid that the future of Australia might look completely different.
