Sign In
0 Items (
Search
Comments (0)
It is a simple and indisputable fact that children are not quite so useful as was the case when Australia was young and pioneers gained enormous advantage from their large families. Handing out poisoned flour to Aborigines, as any number of Indigenous Studies PhDs no doubt attest, was made much easier by the multiple distribution systems guaranteed by ready access to the familial labour pools of rural consanguinity. Today, such help is entirely unneeded, since government agencies manage to terminally enfeeble entire and untold generations with the simple assistance of stamp, envelope and welfare cheque.
More than that, where once it was the responsibility of our genocidal forebears and their kin to keep Aborigines remote and isolated, we are today blessed by separatists who insist that Indigenous children be taught in languages few others speak and understand, not to mention being consigned to remote communities bereft of economic opportunities and career possibilities. Even in our universities, where some Aborigines have been known to stray, separatism prevails — a current example of such government-funded progress being the strife visited upon three white students who dared set foot in a Queensland University of Technology computer lab reserved for Koori keyboard ticklers. The legacy of Invasion Day lives on! Fortunately lawfare and Section 18C will make sure they think twice before doing so again.
There is one area, however, where children can still be very useful. This is on the pages of the Fairfax press, the Guardian‘s website and, it goes without saying, the multimedia operations of the ABC and publications of the Human Rights Commission. Those who wish to see an open-borders policy, as was unofficially in effect during the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd days of massive people smuggling and leaky armadas, turn with crayons and butcher paper in hand to the nippers of Nauru.
A little encouragement, some thematic guidance, a bit of help with those heart-tugging captions and what we get is a bulk delivery of grist for that ceaselessly grinding mill of activists’ conspicuous compassion.
Take the illustration at the very top of this post and the way it captures what might be called the Barbed Wireist school. Notice the vertical lines scrawled over the image? They are a ubiquitous motif, even down to their near-uniform spacing. Yet more examples are reproduced immediately above and below this paragraph. Why, one could easily suspect the little artists had been given quite explicit instructions to render their images in just that specific format! Indeed, the style is evident in so many of these drawings one could even believe they might have been added by a second hand!
And what of the neatly written caption in the drawing above? One of the activists’ frequent complaints is that camp children are being denied adequate educations. The sure characters and command of English strongly suggest that is not the case. Either that or, as one might also suspect, the lettering might have been added by a second hand!
That Nauru is an island obscured by a fog of lies is a point of view confirmed today by Waleed Aly, who can always be counted upon to establish the bona fides of any case or topic by his arguments against it. Terrorism? As he has explained, it is no more than “an irritant”. What to do about ISIS? Killing Islamist barbarians only makes them stronger, a view which suggest that, rather than bombs, we might achieve a happier result by delivering food parcels and winter-warm burkas. Today, Aly huffs and labours to the conclusion that “mighty fictions” have sustained the inhumanity of detention centres.
If only Fairfax editors were just a bit more competent. They could have presented his tendentious column with vertical lines in crayon superimposed on the text. That would have made it instantly credible. His latest effort can be read via the link below. Feel free to draw lines upon it if you wish.
— roger franklin
