Racism in Australia

While reading PCG's recruitment writings I cannot help but note that there are Australians among PCG's writers. Namely Ron Fraser and Brad MacDonald. Is there something about Australia that needs to be looked at? Could Australian history might help explain better understand PCG? Let's give this idea a try.

Recently I read this fascinating book about racism, Racism: A Critical Analysis by Mike Cole. It discusses racism in Britain, the United States and Australia. Wishing to learn more about this important topic of racism I took a look at this book.

I do not necessarily agree with everything in this book but it was quite fascinating reading about how racism was analyzed in this book.

Turns out that there is color coded racism such as that directed against African Americans, and non-color coded racism, such as that directed against Jews, Irish and Eastern Europeans.

In regards to Australia this book presents many sobering facts revealing that in Australia ethnic minorities are in a deprived situation compared with the white majority.

While discussing what Cole exposes here this will also be compared with the late Ron Fraser's 2008 booklet, Australia—Where to Now?, his earlier 1999 booklet, Australia in Prophecy and other writings by PCG.

Ron Fraser's 2008 booklet, Australia—Where to Now? was written in response to the 2007 election of a left wing, Labour Party government in Australia led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Essentially Fraser was denouncing that change of power.

(Note: All unattributed quotes are from Cole, Racism: A Critical Analysis, Chapter 3.)

Disclaimer

Now before we start let us just remember that in any society there are problems and matters that are sad, shameful and embarrassing. This is true in any country or any society. Nothing that is mentioned here should let us forget or ignore that our own societies will no doubt have problems that need to be addressed. We should not use the problems in Australia or anywhere else to make ourselves ignore problems within among our own countries and societies.

With that thought in mind let us take a look at racism in Australia.

Aborigines

In Ron Fraser's booklet he portrayed the settlement of whites as being beneficial towards the Aborigines.

It is to the colonizing English-speaking peoples that so many of the global masses owe their very education to the point that they may read and comprehend the Word of God. This includes the indigenous people of Australia. (Ron Fraser, Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, pp. 5-6.) 

Ron Fraser gave no indication of what colonization meant to the Aborigines. Let us now take a look at Cole's book to see what else has happened between the Aborigines and white Australia.

It is mentioned that half of the Aborigines in the Sydney basin were wiped by smallpox in 1788-9.

In 1984 ... [there occurred] a racist campaign denigrating Aboriginal culture, with claims that land rights would promote cannibalism and infanticide.

Also the Aborigines are socially disadvantaged in many ways compared with the rest of the population. 

Whereas Aboriginal people make up less than 5 per cent of each state's population, 30 per cent of Australia's prison population are Aboriginal. ...

With respect to life expectancy, today indigenous Australians have a life expectancy of around ten years less than non-indigenous Australians. ...

This communicable disease [trachoma] is still rife in many outback Aboriginal communities, with disease rates ranging from 2 to 50 per cent. ...

babies born to indigenous women twice as likely to die in their first year as those born to non-indigenous women.

Clearly there are many problems concerning the Aborigines that urgently need to be addressed.
 

The Stolen Generations

From 1900 till 1970 the Australian government had this practice of taking away babies from Aborigines in order to "save" them from their Aboriginal identity. About 20,000 to 25,000 Aboriginal children were seized in enacting this policy. These Aboriginal children are commonly referred to as the Stolen Generations. 

Turns out the Stolen Generation is still ongoing. Many Aboriginal children are being taken away from their parents.

Today, he argues, the theft of Aboriginal children - including babies taken from the birth table - is more widespread than at any time during the last century. As of mid-2013, almost 14,000 Aboriginal children had been 'removed'.

In his 2008 booklet Ron Fraser just simply denied that the Stolen Generations had even occurred.

PCG's Ron Fraser and the Aborigines

In his 1999 booklet, Australia in Prophecy, Ron Fraser denigrated the Aborigines.

However, the plain facts are that the Australian Aborigine, at the stage of their cultural development in which the early settlers found them over 200 years ago, were not an industrious people. Their articles of manufacture were limited to the most basic of tools and weapons, traditionally thought of as “stone age.” They largely went naked, save for the use of animal skins in the colder climate of the south. The concepts of cloth and yarn manufacture and weaving largely eluded them. (Ron Fraser, Australia in Prophecy, 1999, pp. 11-12.)

Fraser also accused others of indoctrinating Aborigines to "expect to be apologized to". Astounding the painful history of what was done to them is willfully forgotten.

On the other side of the coin, a motley collection of mixed-race, self-interested anthropologists, historians, lawyers and politicians have bent the minds of the Aboriginal population to the extent that they now expect to be apologized to, by the very people that have built the systems of finance, health, welfare, education, business and housing of which they freely avail themselves. (Ron Fraser, Australia in Prophecy, 1999, p. 13.)

Fraser also accused the Aborigines of trying to get money from the white majority to which he belonged. The fact that Aborigines were legally ignored by the Australian government when their land was legally defined as terra nullius ("empty land") even though all those Aborigines lived on that land. This denial of Aboriginal rights to live on the land that was their home has caused immerse suffering to the Aboriginal community. So no wonder there are legal issues. But Fraser just chose to ignore all that painful history and lash at the Aboriginal community whose land he lived on. 

This is happening today in Australia. The 2 percent of its native population seeks to hold the 98 percent to ransom.  (Ron Fraser, Australia in Prophecy, 1999, p. 16.)

In his 2008 booklet Ron Fraser once again denigrated the Aboriginal people. In this booklet Fraser condemned an performance of an traditional Aboriginal dance within Parliament.

...a reversion to tribalism was enacted on the floor of the nation’s parliament at Parliament’s opening under the newly installed federal government on February 12, 2008. ... This is rank pagan nonsense. What an insult to our founding fathers and to the God that parliamentarians ostensibly acknowledge at the opening of every parliamentary session with a repetition of the “Lord’s Prayer.” ...

What is happening to civilized societies when a highly developed First World nation openly permits half-naked tribal romps, based on pagan tribal rites attached to snake worship, to be performed in the very heart of its national seat of government? (Ron Fraser, Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, p. 22.)

But at the same time Fraser insisted that Australia was given to the English speaking people "by right of birth" thus denigrating the Aborigines' rights to live on their land and obscuring how their autonomy was ended by government policy.

The peoples which founded and pioneered Australia were but an outgrowth of the “Brith-ish” folk— Brith ish meaning “covenant man” in Hebrew—of whom the Eternal God had prophesied that by right of birth they would possess the choicest parts of the Earth, including the major sea and land gates to give them a strategic advantage second to none.... (Ron Fraser, Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, p. 4.)

Fraser insisted that colonization was good to the Aborigines. They were taught how to read.

It is to the colonizing English-speaking peoples that so many of the global masses owe their very education to the point that they may read and comprehend the Word of God. This includes the indigenous people of Australia. (Ron Fraser, Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, pp. 5-6.)

Fraser boasts that his people "so generously extended" freedom to the minorities within Australia including the Aborigines.

From the time of the Spanish Armada, through Trafalgar, Waterloo, World War I and World War II there was a freedom-loving people that fought and defeated tyranny to guarantee those very freedoms that we in the Anglo-Saxon nations enjoy today and have so generously extended to the minority groups that exist—indeed, still flee tyranny so as to enjoy life—within the main bastions of those freedoms today, the Anglo-Saxon nations. (Ron Fraser, Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, p. 25.)

Looking at the way Ron Fraser wrote about Australian Aborigines I cannot help but think that he refused to admit that his people might have done them wrong. He lived on the land that was first owned and lived upon by the Aborigines. But he seemed determined not to dwell on that. He says Australia was given to his people "by right of birth" using HWA's discredited doctrine of British Israelism.

It is unfortunate that he appears to have responded to any internal discomfit about what was done to the Aborigines by choosing to denigrate and condemn the Aborigines. And even vilify them as trying to get money from the white majority in various court cases caused the Australian government's previous practice of regarding Aboriginal land terra incognita.

It is unfortunate that Ron Fraser chose to protect the white majority, condemned the Aborigines and lived in denial.

We now move on to other ethnic minorities in Australia.

South Sea Islanders

It is also mentioned that there is another ethnic minority I did not know of previously, namely the South Sea Islanders. Alas, they were also racially discriminated against as well.

There were at least 40 pieces of racist Queensland legislation between 1900 and 1940, directed at South Sea Islanders who had stayed on in Australia. Most of these laws restricted employment and income-earning opportunities.

Anti-Chinese Racism

Cole exposes the fact that there has long been a history of anti-Chinese racism within Australia.

The following describes a deadly, targeted riot directed against Chinese miners in Buckland River, Victoria in 1857.

With the mob shouting, 'Come on and let us drive the long tailed devils off at once', Chinese miners were trampled, robbed and beaten. A European wife of a Chinese miner was beaten and nearly killed, another Chinese miner had his finger severed for a gold ring.... There were 2,500 Chinese miners expelled from their camps, three died from exposure and another was said to have drowned. All but four of the arrested white rioters were acquitted, as local juries believed their anger was understandable.

It is mentioned that the first Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Edmund Barton, insisted that Chinese were an inferior race.

These races are, in comparison with white races - I think no one wants convincing of this fact - unequal and inferior. The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman.

In 2014 one leader of a minor party made the following racist statement.

[He] referred to officials in Beijing as 'Chinese mongrels' who were trying to 'take over this country'. [He later apologized.]

In his 2008 booklet Ron Fraser scare mongered about China and Chinese immigrants. He also seemed to be antagonized that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could speak Mandarin. Fraser twice mentioned that Rudd could speak Mandarin. It seemed to be mentioned with hostility.

Ron Fraser wrote the following denigrating Chinese immigrants and immigrants from other nationalities.

The strength of Australia as a nation was once rooted in the virtues referred to by Winston Churchill as “the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society.” Those virtues are not of African, Indian, Indonesian, Singaporean or Chinese origin. (Ron Fraser, Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, p. 30.)

Anti-Japanese Racism

Following the deadly attack on Pearl Harbor those of Japanese heritage within Australia were rounded up into internment camps. (A similar policy was enacted in the United States.) After the war, unless they were born in Australia or married to one born in Australia, they were deported to Japan even though some of them had lived in Australia for fifty years.

After Japan surrendered, following the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nearly all Japanese internees were forcibly repatriated to Japan unless they were born in Australia or had an Australian-born spouse. Some had lied in Australia for more than 50 years.

It is mentioned that in September 2014 a speech was made by the leader of the Labour Party, Bill Shorten, while protesting against the government's decision to purchase submarines made in Japan.

As Shorten stood before the crowd, one man in the audience went where he shouldn’t have. “Last time we had Jap subs, they were in bloody Sydney Harbour,” he said.
This was Shorten’s big chance. When he spoke, he should have rejected this view and made it clear Labor opposed importing submarines because it undermined the local shipbuilding industry and risked jobs, however retrograde this view is.
Instead, Shorten went for the cheap applause and amplified the racist rhetoric of his interjector. “This is a government with a short memory,” Shorten said. “In the Second World War, 366 merchant ships were sunk off Australia.”
The figure was wrong but the message was clear.
Here was the alternative prime minister giving voice to the view that, because Australia fought a war against Japan from 1941 to 1945, we should not purchase their submarines for our own defence. He seemed to be suggesting that Japan was still our enemy. (Tony Branston, "Bill Shorten’s submarine speech plumbs the depths," The Australian, September 11, 2014.)

In his 2008 booklet Ron Fraser also scare mongered about Japan.

Furthermore PCG has a long and shameful history of demonizing Japan dating back as early as 1993. This tendency is inherited from HWA's WCG. It is continuously asserted that Japan will soon militarize and somehow turn against the United States and ally with Russia and China against the United States.

PCG's demonization of Japan may be seen in the following posts:

• PCG's Demonization of Japan

• PCG's Continuing Demonization of Japan

• Armstrongite WCG's Demonization of Japan

Anti-Irish Racism

It is mentioned that one prominent politician had made the following scurrilous attacks against the Irish within Australia.

Parkes had previously referred to the Irish as 'jabbering baboons and disruptive trouble makers.'

More about Henry Parkes may be seen here.

Cole also mentions a tragic incident in which an Irishman accidentally damaged some hotel rooms by turning on a water hydrant while in an intoxicated state. He was widely ridiculed in the media for this. These "jokes" often took aim at his Irish identity. Tragically this widespread ridicule broke him and he committed suicide. (Eoin Michael Hahessy, Why is it OK to be racist to the Irish Down Under?, The Independent, September 5, 2014.)

Traditionally the COGs have continuously demonized Catholicism. It is quite reasonable to assume that such extremist views will negatively affect views of Irish people, particularly if they happen to be Catholic.

Anti-Semitism in Australia

Cole also documents the presence of the specter of anti-Semitism within Australia.

It is mentioned that after World World II many collaborators migrated to Australia.

Mark Aarons has estimated that hundreds of fascists and Nazi collaborators were accepted as immigrants between 1947 and 1951, a number of whom found an amiable political home in the [right wing] Liberal Party. 

Cole also refers to anti-Semitic attacks against Jews in Australia today.

In one incident in late 2013 a group of five Jews walking home from a Sabbath evening meal were viciously attacked by a group of about eight bigots. This attack is mentioned by Cole.

Eight or so young men shouting anti-Semitics epithets viciously attacked four men and a woman – visibly Jewish – as they returned home from a Shabbat evening meal in Bondi Beach, Australia, this weekend. The Jewish group sustained injuries that include a fractured skull, facial fractures, a broken nose, cuts and bruising.

The attack surprised leaders of Australian Jewry. ... Peter Wertheim, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the attack “appeared to be the most serious incident of spontaneous anti-Semitic violence in Australia in living memory.” ("Anti-Semitism in Australia," The Jerusalem Post, October 27, 2013.)

One report mentioned by Cole noted that physical assaults against Jews had trebled in 2013 compared to 2012

THE number of anti-Semitic physical assaults trebled to 15 in the last year according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s (ECAJ’s) annual anti-Semitism report.
The majority of those attacks, 11, took place in NSW while two occurred in Victoria and one in both Western Australia and Queensland.
The most serious incidents were the assault of five Jewish people in Bondi, who were viciously assaulted after being called “F***ing Jews”, and an attack on a 28-year-old man wearing a T-shirt with Hebrew writing on it in Melbourne. (Joshua Levi, "Anti-Semitism on the Rise," The Australian Jewish News, November 14, 2014.)

PCG has no history of vilifying Jews as far as I know. But the predominantly white PCG does insist that Jews are white like themselves using the false dogma of British Israelism. Using British Israelism PCG insists that white Americans are the long lost brothers and sisters of the Jewish people.

At first this may seem beneficent. But this insinuates that Jews are to be valued because they are white and the supposed long lost brothers and sisters of white Americans. The Jews are not so much valued of themselves but because of their supposed relation to white Americans. It is wrong to view this matter in such a way. This disregards the Jews' own distinct identity which is independent of any identity with the social construct imagined as the white race.

Traditionally Jews were not viewed as belonging to the white race and this perception was used to vilify and demonize the Jewish people. Astonishingly vicious and inflammatory stereotypes were created to demonize them. We need to treat Jews as equals regardless of whether they are related to ourselves or not.

Also it is has been comprehensively discredited that Americans and British are descendants of the Biblical Israelites. It is not true. And since it is not true this means that PCG is appropriating the distinctive identity of the Jewish people for themselves. This is stealing from the Jewish people. British Israelism is theft.

Boat People

The first boat arrived in Darwin in 1976. Over the next five years, there were over 2,000 Vietnamese boat arrivals, with the last in 1981.

It is mentioned that bureaucratic delays left 55 staffers at the Australian embassy unable to leave Vietnam in April 1975.

In his 2008 booklet Ron Fraser also scare mongered against boat people and blamed them for changing the "Anglo-Saxon foundation" of Australia. (Meaning apparently that there are not so many whites anymore.)

That all began to change in the wake of war in Vietnam. Following the Vietnam War, boatloads of Asians penetrated the northern shores of Australia and were absorbed into its society. Buddhist temples, something quite alien to the Australian Judeo-Christian culture, started to pop up around the country. ... The entire culture of the nation began to change from its Anglo-Saxon foundation to reflect the policies of multiculturalism. (Australia—Where to Now?, 2008, p. 49.)

Islamophobia

Cole also mentions the rise of Islamophobia within Australia. Riots in Cronulla against the Lebanese ethnic minority in 2005 are mentioned.

One incident is mentioned in which Islamophobic persons hassled a memorial service for the Martin Place hostage crisis of December 2014. Incidentally accusing the left of somehow supporting Muslims is a common trope of Islamophobia.

Four men waving Australian and Southern Cross flags shouted slogans including 'Islam is evil' and 'not all cultures are evil - Islam is inferior'. The men also accused Muslims of being 'murderers' and supporting female genital mutilation, according to a witness. The group bore signs proclaiming 'Muslim terrorists not wanted here - neither are their leftist supporters'....

PCG has a long history of vilifying Muslims.

Conclusion

So we have seen Australia has had a troubled past and unfortunately PCG's Ron Fraser failed to break away from that attitude of hostility towards minorities.

It is disturbing to note how many tropes denigrating towards ethnic minorities are being used in PCG's writings.

However because of PCG's secretive nature it is hard to determine how much of this historical baggage may or may not be affecting PCG. It is hard to know how much these writings may be influenced by attempting to gain converts in Australia. It is too be hoped that this paucity of knowledge may change one day.