Paul Sheehan’s “Among the Barbarians” is currently Australia’s best-selling book and there has been an hysterical reaction to his exposure of the taxpayer-funded immigration multiculturalism-Labor party and crime nexus.
However, there is nothing new in Sheehan’s book. Over ten years ago, the late Frank Knopfelmacher attacked the “multicultural myth”, in the book The New Conservatism edited by Robert Manne of La Trobe University.
Knopfelmacher was bitterly attacked by Al Grassby, a former Minister for Immigration. Interestingly, Sheehan traces Grassby’s curious career as the godfather of multiculturalism.
Sheehan draws attention to the links between multiculturalism and immigration and organised crime, tax evasion, social security fraud and drug dealing.
Crime Syndicates:
It is a matter of public record that the 2300 kilogrammes of heroin imported into Australia is controlled by criminal syndicates in the Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotian and Cambodian enclaves. Australia now faces an unprecedented heroin explosion.
Yet a leading national law enforcement agency has been instructed that they are not permitted to refer to the ethnic status of groups under investigation.
Through “reforms” and “programmes” the Australian people have been systematically defrauded of billions of dollars in lost (stolen) revenue such as welfare fraud, grants to ethnic (read ALP) organisations, newspapers and radio, cultural organisations and ethnic branch stacking.
The creation of ethnic community Labor Party branches was a political masterstroke for the multicultural industry and the Labor party. It ensures votes for the Labor party and ensured grants (taxpayers’ money from the Labor government).
Sheehan writes, “Labor spent more than a billion dollars building a system of patronage, dependence and influence among ethnic groups.... During its thirteen years in office. (Unions receive Au$16.5 million)... The multicultural industry is a surrogate for Labor.”
The book raises some important questions for the future of political and intellectual freedom in Australia. First, due to prevailing political correctness and Labor party propaganda over the last decade, genuine political and social critique or serious discussion of political or cultural issues is almost impossible in Australia.
The reaction to Geoffrey Blainey’s speech criticising the immigration programme and multicultural policies in 1984 is a paradigm case. The demonisation of Blainey, the most mild-mannered of scholars, was a chilling precursor of the cultural and political malaise outlined in Sheehan’s book.
For daring to criticise immigration policy, Blainey was stigmatised as a racist. This was to be the pattern for future critics of immigration policy.
Second, would-be critics are treated as pariahs. they will be excluded from public and political discourse, may be denied jobs and subjected to relentless character assassination.
Sheehan describes the reaction to his initial article on the “multicultural myth”: “They were personal. They were concentrated on the writer rather than the arguments. Nearly all who identified their place of work were on the public payroll. There was no middle ground, no possibility of concession.”
Indeed, the author points to, but fails to identify, the most significant development in Australia over the last decade: the formation of an ALP nomenklatura. Sheehan writes: “After Labor lost office, its surrogates inside the bureaucracy conducted a guerilla war against the new Howard government, and strategically claimed at least four Ministerial casualties.”
The ALP nomenclature is comprised of the ABC, the multicultural and ethnic industry, large sections of the media and the universities, the cultural elites, federal and state bureaucracies, the welfare sector and progressive churches. Their message is clear: Australia is a violent, racist society which lacks political legitimacy.
This is the clear view of the covert Labor supporters in the Federal bureaucracy.
The nomenclature technique parallels the new Left strategy of the long march through the institutions, through networking, nepotism and the skilful use of a technique outlined by Sheehan called the “politics of embarrassment:.
Using this technique the ALP nomenclature has stigmatised its critics and opponents as “racists”, “fascists” and “sexists”. By this technique , controversial issues are unexamined and shielded from public scrutiny.
The politics of embarrassment aims “to soften up your opponents by making them feel bad about themselves or their ancestors. This puts them in a mood to make concessions.”
An inverted technique is the “politics of victimology”. The aim here is to gain sympathy by claiming to be a victim of sexism, racism or alleged discrimination. This technique has marked operational advantages for criminals, particularly members of ethnic groups engaged in crime. If you are the subject of police enquiries or investigations, or indeed, any kind of official enquiry, you can claim to be the subject of racism, sexism or some other form of discrimination and thereby avoid detection.
It is not surprising that welfare fraud, major crime, tax evasion and drug dealing have developed into billion dollar industries in ethnic communities. This is a statistical and verifiable fact disclosed in this book. It may make some people uncomfortable. It is still, however, true.
Who has most benefited from the charlatanry and shameless plunder of the tax payer’s purse outlined in this book?
Pauline Hanson and One Nation. Hansonism is a reaction to the Labor Party and to a lesser extent, to the Liberal Party.
The Hansonites reject “community education”, that is they reject the Labor Party preaching the virtues of multiculturalism and the labelling of all critics as “racists” and rednecks.
However, the Hansonites incorrectly view immigration programmes, ethnic crime, the media, multiculturalism and the ABC as a conspiracy. Their crude political sociology may well undercut their political effectiveness.
This reviewer has reservations about the author’s political - as apart from sociological - judgements. Why should Sheehan uncritically praise Paul Keating who was the architect of many of Labor’s bizarre policies and practices?
Despite these reservations, the author has pointed to the most important research task facing students of Australian politics - the analysis of the ALP nomenclature, its origins, philosophy and policies and its effect on Australian democracy.
It will not be an easy task. It is difficult to imagine a more important task.