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Point Of View! with Barb Sumner Burstyn
The Racist Cacophony
 Racists
in our midst? Without doubt Winston Peters has won first place
in the ‘racist we all love to hate,’ category. No right
thinking, liberal minded person would embrace his philosophies.
Even his deputy, Peter Brown landed in hot water over his comments
that Enoch Powell had been right in his warnings on immigration
levels. In the subsequent fallout Mr Brown defended himself by
saying his argument on immigration was about numbers of immigrants
and not about the races involved.
But it seems a thin disguise to say it’s just about the
numbers. Of course it’s not. But use any other vehicle to
try to open discussion on the topic and you’re automatically
branded a racist.
What’s really alarming here is not whether Peters and his
party are racists but how impossible it has become to even discuss
the subject of racism in our country without bringing down a cacophony
of protest.
Instead of reasoned debate we get, on the one hand, protests
on the steps of Parliament and on the other, over-blown political
rhetoric, with both groups obscuring the real issues by tossing
round media-catching words like Hitler and Klu Klux Klan.
But like it or not Peters is in tune with international dialogue
on immigration and multiculturalism and he may just presage for
New Zealand the kind of future that countries like Denmark are
now ruing.
Considered for years to be a model of ethnic acceptance, the
Danes lauded multiculturalism. Now they’re not so sure. 5%
of their population are recent immigrants but they consume upwards
of 40% of welfare spending. Then there’s the escalating gang
rape statistics, almost entirely fuelled by Muslim men and European
victims. Australia and France are suffering the same trends. But
it’s in Norway where the debate on the downsides of embracing
multiculturalism is most active. A professor at the University
of Oslo recently called on Norwegian women to take their share
of responsibility for rape (Muslim men make up the majority of
the country’s convicted rapists while almost all their female
victims are non-Muslim) because their manner of dress was inappropiate
for Muslim men.
This bending of established cultural sensibility to accommodate
new customs may be laudable and necessary but how far do we go
in accepting the practices of other cultures? Recently in the
US the Council on American-Islamic Relations objected to the prosecution
of two men in Chicago for the ‘honor killing’ of their
cousin on the grounds of ‘ethnic and religious stereotyping.’
Or how about suttee? Or forced marriage? Or female circumcision?
Sure those are the extreme ends of multiculturalism. But if we’re
not even willing to talk about the fundamental issues, the building
blocks of creating a more multicultural society then how can we
begin to formulate a response to issues that will inevitably come
with that blending.
And what immigration numbers? Countries like Demark are now finding
that as immigrants from a particular group increase, they mix
less with the indigenous populations, live increasingly in self-imposed
isolation from the surrounding culture and exclusively practice
their own customs. And while it may seem far-fetched in New Zealand
today, in Demark the Muslim population has grown so strong they
are now openly seeking to introduce Islamic laws.
In a show of solidarity for new immigrants Green MP Metiria Turei
naively suggested Maori had more in common with immigrants than
Pakeha New Zealanders. But does she really think a swelling immigrant
population, once it got the numbers, would respect the tenets
of bi-culturalism, let alone multiculturalism, any more than the
system she is presently part of?
The organizer of the recent noisy protest on the steps of Parliament,
Karuna Muthu told reporters the kind of racism he encountered
in New Zealand was very subtle and sophisticated. "The issue
is racism and don't run away from it," he said. But he’s
mistaken. The issue is not racism. The issue is the pressures
of multiculturalism and how we accommodate it.
No one is served by removing so called racist remarks from the
records of Parliament as Muthu is suggesting. Such things are
signposts of a country experiencing growing pains, a country no
more than a few years behind its European counterparts. A country
with an opportunity to get its cultural flavour just right.
But it doesn’t happen by allowing essential issues to be
hijacked by the loudest voice, leaving this discussion (like so
many others) to grandstanding politicians and enraged special
interest groups. By wilfully allowing those groups to define the
issues in the narrowest, most self-interested terms we all give
up our discernment and our judgment and our opportunity to participate
in nation building.
Personally, I stood with every other liberal minded New Zealander,
flinching at almost every grandiose and ego driven statement made
by Winston Peters. But right now he’s all we’ve got.
He’s the only person trying to engender debate on an issue
that will only grow in relevance to New Zealanders. And if, even
after open dialogue we don’t agree with him, the remedy is
not to shout him down, or expunge his comments from the records
of Parliament or limit his unpopular free speech. It is more free
speech. It is discussion, debate and reason.
Have your say on this column:
Barb Sumner Burstyn.
© Barbara Sumner Burstyn
August 2002.
P.O.V. with
Barbara Sumner Burstyn @
http://www.spectator.co.nz/POV
and now @ http://www.mensnewsdaily.com
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