Bullshit Mountain

Vic Rollinson had a piece titled Living on Bullshit Mountain published on the Independent Australia site on 30 Dec 12. I posted this in response on 1 Jan 13 - to add some balance to the  argument. I have made some minor grammatical corrections below.

Bullshit Mountain. Now you’ve really got me going.

Here we are in Australia, one of the best developed, wealthiest, educated and governed nations in the world. We have concepts of democracy, human rights and freedoms that can be traced back through Judeo/Christian and Grecian thought that have developed over centuries and millennium. This is in stark contrast to our near neighbours (with the exception of our Kiwi brothers and sisters) where we find an amazing array of religious and cultural expressions. Here we find fatalism, reincarnation, ancestor worship and no doubt a lot more. Some of these differences are quite significant and give these people different world views and values that at times really clash with ours.

Most Australians are so far removed from food production our only role in the food cycle is as over-consumers. Our diseases are largely those of opulence, in many cases preventable through diet, exercise, little or no alcohol and other drugs. Rather than change our lifestyles we look to an overtaxed and expensive health care system to keep us alive – not to mention the amount we spend on reproductive health so that we can put off having children until we have the house, plasma screen TV, four-wheel drive and trip around the world – unlike our grandparents who may have started their lives together sleeping on a mattress on the floor. All this in a seriously overpopulated world where far too many people die of starvation, suffer malnutrition, and lack access to clean water, basic health care and education. Women and children are forced into prostitution simply as a survival measure. It is nothing to do with their morality – it may say something about ours.

Among significant numbers of our near neighbours we find overpopulation, poverty, illiteracy and low levels of education, cultures working on the basis of honour and shame rather than the rule of secular law, and a religious view of life that sees as us morally decadent. The reality is if you have loose change in your pocket you possibly stand with the top ten per cent in terms of wealth in the world and definitely in the top twenty.

A large number of our neighbours are not into those things that Maslow identified at the top of his hierarchy – meaning, purpose, self-actualisation. Theirs is the day-to-day struggle to stay alive, feed themselves and their kids and to provide some basic shelter.

Our neighbours have lived with the tensions of racial, religious and sectarian differences for centuries. In contrast, our forebears established this nation as a bastion of British civilization in the Pacific, determined to maintain our racial purity through the White Australia Policy. These same forebears – well, some at least because there were those with different views – hunted down our indigenous people as if they were vermin less than 200 years ago. And in the 1950s before we dropped the bomb at Maralinga we counted the cattle – but not the aborigines – which probably meant we considered the former to have greater value. And, as inheritors of this outpost of British civilisation in the South Pacific we should we remind ourselves it wasn’t all that long ago within the timespan of human history that our British culture sent the gunboats to China to make sure they would buy our opium despite the serious social problems that caused.

During WW2 we took some refugees from Asia but after the war our immigration minister Arthur Caldwell sought to have them returned whence they had come. Caldwell recognised the need to ‘populate or perish’, but that meant with good white folk – although the Chifley Government did allow the right non-Europeans to settle for business reasons. In 1949 Holt, as Immigration Minister in the Menzies Government allowed the remaining Asian refugees to stay. Over the next two to three decades the White Australian policy was dismantled. Non-Europeans with 15 years or more residency could obtain citizenship from 1957 on. The policy was effectively dismantled by the Holt Government, ended legally under Whitlam, and Fraser removed its last vestiges. (Wikipedia on the White Australia Policy).

Back in opposition Whitlam was initially reluctant to accept an influx of Vietnamese refugees but with Fraser’s leadership in this area Whitlam and then Hayden came on board. (http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=29418).

While all this was going on our neighbours were emerging from long periods of Western colonization which, as we all know, was not driven by any altruistic concern for the colonized. It left in some areas at least major social and political challenges. And just as the wealth of the British – and others – empire was built upon the exploitation of the colonies our lifestyles today are largely built upon the exploitation of the developing world and the land grabs of our pioneers.

Whitlam recognised the importance of Asia and as opposition leader announced his policy to recognise Communist China – and was attacked by Prime Minister McMahon for doing so. In Government Whitlam carried through on his policy and Fraser’s first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to China and Japan. (Wikipedia on McMahon and http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=29418).

Now our political leaders – Gillard and Abbott – tell us we need to engage with Asia. This is the Asian century so let’s get on the bandwagon. Well Keating didn’t help with his ‘recalcitrant’ remark – although he did introduce a new word to my vocabulary and it may have been a heat of the moment thing. Then along came Howard and some Asian leaders saw him as – well, we could say, unenlightened.

So how do our current lot do?

First, we have a debate on asylum seekers – a legitimate debate and one that we should have. But our leaders have a domestic audience to play to – one with legitimate fears of the unknown – especially religious extremism - who themselves are struggling to keep up with rapid change, to make ends meet and believe charity begins at home, and, yes, plain old-fashioned (then again has it ever been out of fashion in some quarters) racism. So in the middle of all the crocodile tears that are shed on this issue the Greens and the Coalition let the world know that Malaysia is not a fit and proper place to send these people we really care about because of their poor record (or is it atrocious) on human rights.

Malaysia is a country which, if you know anything of its history, has in the relatively short period since independence faced some significant domestic challenges and deserves credit for the progress it has made. It still has a long way – as do we all – to come but, hate to say it, this domestic debate can only be seen by them as a kick in the teeth.

And on this matter, Gillard should perhaps have had a talk to Fraser and some of his cabinet colleagues from the Vietnam era. They didn’t take too kindly to finding out on the morning’s news report what the latest US policy on Vietnam was – and we were their friend and ally. At least consult with our neighbours first before making pronouncements on regional solutions.

One point on the Greens – I do believe they are sincere in their concern for asylum seekers but I am not convinced that either of the major parties is.

Then there is the matter of live meat exports. Animal cruelty is abhorrent in more forms than the slaughter of cattle. How many of us think about factory farms and battery hens? I hate the sight of semi-trailer loads of chickens being taken to wherever and am not a fan of transportation of cattle over long distances in couped up conditions – which is one reason I feel good about buying what I hope are free-range eggs and rarely eating meat.

But what message does this well-developed, educated nation of over consumers living on easy street – yes, I would say even our pensioners, when compared to the majority world, have it easy – send to people struggling to survive with their well-entrenched cultural expectations about how meat is slaughtered.

But, you may say, didn’t we explain to them our slaughter protocols and didn’t they say they would do it?

Asian’s place high value on ‘face’. If an Asian entrenched in this culture is given an instruction they do not understand, they will not seek clarification. To do so is to lose face. Furthermore, this culture will tell you what they think you want to hear – not what they intend to do. I lived in Asia for five years and never got used to this. ‘When will my bike be fixed?’ ‘Tomorrow can.’ And as the ‘tomorrows’ rolled into weeks and months it became more and more frustrating – so maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on Keating for his ‘recalcitrant’ comment.

And yes – maybe our export companies could be more diligent in their audits and inspection, but perhaps they also are learning to engage with Asia (profit motive aside).

So, Ms Gillard, Mr Abbott, and others, do we really want to engage in Asia. Or are we simply, all of us, climbing Bullshit Mountain?

Ken Marsh (BSA)