Hear Ye! Since 1998.
Please note: This post is at least 3 years old. Links may be broken, information may be out of date, and the views expressed in the post may no longer be held.
15
Oct 03
Wed

Oops

Bob Carr hits the headlines with his soon-to-be-infamous “obey the law or leave the country” quote:

“My message is simple: Obey the law of Australia or ship out of Australia,” he told reporters. “We’re not going to see, step by step, our civilisation dragged back to medieval standards of revenge cycles. We’ve got private vengeance, private vendettas being pursued here and we won’t have a bar of it.”

When asked to explain how Australian citizens – if found to be responsible for the crime – could be forced to leave the country, Mr Carr only referred back to his original comments.

“I make no apologies for saying we don’t want this in Australia.”

Then came a swift Labor “clarification” after Brogden stepped up to criticise Carr:

NSW Labor backbencher Janice Crosio said she understood how Mr Carr’s comments could be seen as racist, but migrants had to understand they must obey Australian law.

“We are a nation that has welcomed migrants for 200 years since European settlement first started. We all love our country and we would like all our new settlers to do the same.”

Welcomed migrants for 200 years? Really?

This post has 8 comments

1.  nate

What exactly is the problem with what the guy said (besides the impolitic, but not necessarily offensive, suggestion that egregious lawbreaker immigrants should be forced out of your country)? We’re talking about honor killings, revenge killings, and the like. Personally, if I were you, I’d have no problem kicking people involved in what this guy rightly terms medievalism over to New Guinea or somesuch.

2.  big deal

“Welcomed migrants for 200 years? Really?”

big deal, I’m not anglo, but I’m not bitter over the white australia policy either. racism is part of human nature. deal with it. the country has since moved on for the better.

Also what Bob Carr said was totally corect. I’m sick of whiners like you. STFU and stop whining.

3.  Finder

“It is easy, but mistaken, to attribute all these actions to what is now called racism – a word which did not exist before the 1930s. In the 19th century virtually everybody believed that there were deep and innate differences between races, and most people believed that their own race was superior to all other races. The Chinese and Japanese believed this as strongly as did Europeans (and to a considerable extent still do). The belief that people of different races could not live together in relations of equality was scarcely challenged before the 1920s. Australia was not the only nation to have a white or discriminatory immigration policy. Canada and New Zealand also had restrictive immigration policies.

The principal force driving policies of racial exclusion in Australia was not a belief that non-Europeans were inferior, but fear of their economic competition. Alfred Deakin, the most liberal-minded of Australian politicians, wrote: “It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors.””

Direct quote from the link you posted.

4.  Sleeper

I was hoping for other ethnic groups to come out against this, but it seems the paranoid Lebanese think they were targeted.

5.  Finder

By the way, anybody hear about this gem: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-10-16-malaysia-summit_x.htm

6.  Stu

Mahathir is a psycho, and he has a rather large hatred for Australia too. It’d be good once his reign finishes in a couple weeks. And I’m not singling out Carr as racist (I don’t think he is, but the comment was ill-considered). I think that some Asians are, or at least can be, even more racist and insular than the West.

The thing about Carr’s comments is that he seems to assume that the perpetrators of these ethnic killings are necessarily not Australian citizens. Regardless of their ethnic background, the stance really should be: obey the law or we’re going to lock your ass up in prison for a very long time, no matter how the murders are committed – via gang warfare, honour killings, or even a racial killing spree. If it so happens you’re here on a temporary visa and migration rules allow it, then, sure, we have the option of deporting you.

Finder: I agree, racism is not about believing another race is inferior. It’s discrimination against someone because of their race. Arguably, what constitutes “discrimination” can be quite broad. The point about the White Australia Policy is that people think Australia has been a happy multi-cultural melting pot for decades, but the truth is that it has only been very recently that this has come around. Not to mention Australia’s dubious distinction of being the only nation to have successfully committed genocide. None of this probably has much relevance to people like “big deal” anymore, but it’s important not to forget history (which is why the German school curriculum teaches so much about WW2). Because once in a while, someone like Hanson will pop up and prey on the fears of those who believe that we will be “swamped by Asians” who “have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate”. But if you seek to perpetuate racial separation like Pauline Hanson and Australia of the 1930s did, then you will never get a chance to see multiculturalism work.

But back to Carr’s remark. One of the reasons why that comment was inflammatory was that it was linked to immigration policies. Australia treads on very thin ground when it comes to government immigration policies. You really can’t say that Australia has a very good reputation (both within and outside of the country) with its handling of refugees in general. So any comment linked with migration is going to come under extra scrutiny.

7.  Rodent

Bob Carr is like the fully siccest Premier we’ve ever had maaaite!

8.  Fred

I see no problems with his comments at all.

And speaking of Australia being racist, anyone been to Japan lately?

Add a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.