Page 3262 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 August 2005
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a different colour are the same people, perhaps, who work alongside us, catch the same bus, play in the same footy team, walk in the same park, meet in the same cafe, and whose children go to the same school. It is within the reach of every man, woman or child to accept and celebrate diversity and to engage in debate about why diversity should be encouraged and celebrated and not result in violent competition or international terrorism.
Through election to office, members of this place have been given a significant responsibility, as I said. We are leaders in our community and have been given the opportunity to shape our community. In these times of unrest and uncertainty we need to balance our condemnation of the actions of others with the prevention of vilification of our citizens. This country is internationally renowned for its cultural acceptance and for its free exchange of ideas.
I implore every member of this place to be an ambassador for this acceptance and tolerance and to foster positive debate about the ills of terrorism and the misguided nature of those who justify its use. I implore you all not to advocate the silencing of dissent by control, not to encourage those who seek to instil fear in others. Rather, the approach we should take is the one of positive acceptance and celebration of diversity of the community in which we live. If we do not, then it is all of us who will suffer the consequences.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (3.58): I am pleased to join this discussion today on the importance of maintaining tolerance within Australia, against the background of the current war against terrorism that is being led by a number of First World countries, including our own. I believe that the rhetoric of leaders such as US President Bush and our own Prime Minister, John Howard, is very mistakenly being guided by a book that was published in 1996, written by Samuel Huntington, called The clash of civilisations. Whilst this book has been disproved and critiqued very extensively in academic international relations circles, it is very unlikely that Mr Bush, who is not well known for reading widely, has read the critiques. In fact, I would be very unsure that he has even read the book.
Nonetheless, this book does form a very strong political purpose and falls right into the agenda of both Bush and, sadly, our own Prime Minister. I am sure that most members are well aware of the book, but what it does is present a posit, an idea, that after the Cold War we were divided into two main political, global segments. Now we are divided into five or so related to religion. According to Huntington, we have Confucianism, we have Muslims, we have Christians, we have Hindus and I think we have Buddhists—we all know how warlike they are—and it provides a very neat way of looking at the world.
Indeed, I contend that these kinds of approaches form a sort of lens—we could even say blinkers—which allows us to see certain things but blocks out other things; it allows our ears to hear certain things or to hear them in certain ways and it blocks out other things. I am deeply concerned about the application of that kind of lens to the world that we live in today.
What it does, of course, is justify things like concerns about the Middle East as a whole. First of all, we invade Iraq; and then we look as though we might invade Iran. I do not know if we will, but it must suit somebody’s purpose for us to look as though we will.
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