Down Under, They're Just Wild About Wilders (updated with extra video)

Hate speech: sowing discord in the Victorian community

As reported by J-Wire, Jewish bodies in the Australian state of Victoria have signed a statement extolling the benefits of multiculturalism and expressing disquiet about the visit to Australia of Geert Wilders (incidentally, see this video for what veteran Aussie broadcaster and champion of Islam George Negus thinks of him, and this video for the way Wilders once dealt with a certain Mr Cohen).

"Victoria is a multicultural and multifaith society in which racial, religious and linguistic diversity is embraced as a strength. This vibrant diversity has generated social, cultural and economic benefits for all Victorians.... 

Community harmony in Victoria is strengthened by a long-standing, shared commitment across government, community and business – and in a range of settings, including on the sporting field – to respect and embrace difference, to respond appropriately to unjust treatment and vilification, and to recognise and celebrate our common bond as proud Victorians and Australians.

We have a collective responsibility to respect our fellow citizens and preserve the social cohesion and harmony that characterise Victoria and makes our society great. We also encourage genuine and constructive engagement and dialogue as a means to achieving greater understanding and acceptance of diversity.

We welcome challenging ideas and debate, however, inciting hatred and animosity towards specific cultural or faith-based communities has no place in Victoria. All Victorians have a right to practice their faith and observe their cultural traditions and languages."

More discord ...

This "motherhood" statement was endorsed by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

All very civilised.  All very honorable.  And all very well.

Who doesn't want peace and harmony and a quiet existence?

But the statement's basic premise is that all cultures are created equal.  And that tends to stick in the craw, because, although impeccably politically correct, in some respects it's a betrayal, a betrayal of enlightened values.

No matter that some cultures espouse ideologies and permit practices at odds with modernism, democratic principles, and gender equality.

Whether a woman outraged by a credo of inherent female intellectual inferiority (and other insults to the female sex), or a Jew distressed by the allegation that s/he is "the descendents of apes and pigs" or a person of whatever background alarmed by Islamist-driven antisemitism and delegitimisation of Israel, we must all, it seems, be cultural relativists now.

... and cultural enrichment

Comments one opponent of the statements referred to above:

"I’m still at odds trying to work out why the JCCV [Jewish Community Council of Victoria] and the ECAJ have put this statement out.

It doesn’t make sense.

What’s the issue?

What are they afraid of?

 Many countries are coming out and saying multiculturalism doesn’t work and here we have these organisations saying it does.

Multiculturalism asks for people to bring their ‘culture’ and that they never really need to become ‘Australians’.

Multiculturalism implies that people can change this country to suit their values, which becomes unacceptable.

 British Prime Minister David Cameron said during a panel discussion attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel

 “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream,

“We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong.”

He said the “hands-off tolerance” in Britain and other European nations has encouraged Muslims and other immigrant groups “to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream.”

More still, as this democracy-decrying Sydney conference showed

He further said

 “Multiculturalism, was undertaken for the highest of motives. It was intended to create a more tolerant society, one in which everyone, regardless of colour, creed or culture, felt at home. Its effect has been precisely the opposite

Multiculturalism, entered into for the noblest of reasons, has suffered from the law of unintended consequences. By dissolving national identity it makes it impossible for groups to integrate because there is nothing to integrate into, and by failing to offer people pride in being British, it forces them to find sources of pride elsewhere.”

This has been echoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy'

 Comments another:

"Everything being presented ... about multiculturalism in Australia – the same multiculturalism that European leaders admit has been a demonstrable abject failure in the countries they lead – points to a profound misunderstanding of what multiculturalism is.

 Everything being presented ... about Geert Wilders’ message demonstrates that they either have never heard what he has to say or have heard but not listened.

Read his lips: It is not about muslims. it is about islam.

You will find apostate muslims and non-mus[l]im migrants from muslim countries among Wilders’ supporters. Listen to them.

The fact that so many venues cancelled his appearance out of fear shows that Australia has succumbed to fear.

Not all 1938 Germans were evil. That was not about Germans...."

 Here (hat tip: reader Shirlee) is an ABC (equivalent to the BBC) segment regarding Wilders in Oz, beginning with remarks from pro-Islam leftist detractors and going on to feature interviews with the man himself and others:

"You should open your eyes and learn from the mistakes we made in Europe," Wilders says in this video.

He warns that, if Australians "fail to be vigilant" against the inroads of radical Islamism, women, gays, and, yes, Jews, will be the first "to pay the price".

But let's give the last word to the man who for decades bestrode the Australian Jewish communal leadership scene like a Colossus – a man who warned (here) two or three years ago:

'It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade.

We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards "gas the Jews."

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church's medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, "the descendants of apes and pigs."

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam....

This is taking place at a time when the Muslims have the audacity to promote legislation at the UN and elsewhere which would make any criticism of Islam a criminal offense. The response of the Obama administration has been to reiterate the ludicrous mantra introduced by president George W. Bush describing Islam as "the religion of peace" and blatantly deny the reality that present-day terrorism is essentially a Muslim phenomenon, even though that does not mean all Muslims are terrorists....

 Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists.

In that context, the relative tranquility which Muslims experience in Western societies is a great tribute to tolerance – a tolerance unlikely to have been extended to Jews in similar circumstances. Imagine the response if Israel had a track record like some of the Arab states, or if Jews in Western countries were blowing up their neighbors...."