The Future and the Western World

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• First published on this blog in October, 2015

Whatever one’s political orientations are, and no matter what the individual context is, the sight of human suffering is always traumatic. As human beings, we are naturally upset when presented with photographs of starving African children, shrapnel-wounded Syrian schoolgirls, Burka’d Afghan women and brainwashed North Korean families. It is the way we were designed to be. Few things are more innate.

Given this predisposition, the arguments of ‘humanitarianism’ will usually find a public audience, and typically (from there) a political majority. For example, the view that it isn’t ‘fair’ for Americans to have ipads and super-sized milkshakes, while Malians have only bottle tops and sewer puddles is not one most people would feel comfortable disputing. Who would ever wish to be regarded as an elitist or social Darwinist? No-one, I would venture.

However, in the interest of truth, we must consider that at some point the privileged will have to draw a line around their advantages and prevent their being usurped. For if they fail to do so, the advantages will be watered down, or stolen outright, to be shared amongst the swelling masses until all have as much as each other, and very little alike.

It is a good time to reflect on this kind of difficult issue. For if we think that the West enjoys obscene advantages at the moment, the developments of the near future will leave us bewildered.

We are living on the brink of a scientific revolution unlike any in history. The confluence of emerging competences in AI, robotics, nanotechnology, life-extension and genetic manipulation will make the gap between America and Mali today seem insignificant. Part of the world is about to accelerate through time into a dazzling future, and all other parts will be left languishing in a primitive angry, resentful past.

Most ordinary folk have no idea of what is about to be unleashed on the Western market. Misinformed by experience, they naively presume that technology will progress at the same rate as it did in the past. They do not realise that with every advance, technological development is speeding up.

To a 20 year old in 1980, military drones were science-fiction, as were iPhones, ipads, anti-satellite weapons and hypersonic vehicles. And yet all are now with us. It takes a healthy and imaginative mind to realise how much has been achieved in such a short period of time, and to appreciate that this kind of 35 year leap will soon take 5 years, then 4, then 3…

We would be fools to believe this scientific revolution will not have geopolitical consequences as large as its spectacle.

Right now, you can buy a PlayStation in Karachi, and perhaps even in Mali. This won’t be the case with the operating systems of the future. New technologies will be so overwhelming and expensive (and dependent on other technologies and infrastructures) that first-world lifestyles will fall entirely into their orbit, adapted to fit and absorb their possibilities. The first-world will begin to speak a language that the rest of the world cannot relate to, using concepts, humour, references and symbolism only applicable to the age the West (and the West alone) has arrived at. In time, technology will create a new cultural divide far greater than any created by religion or politics.

And as that divide grows, the West will have to make a choice. Let the rest of the world in on the future, and risk having our hard-won wealth and military advantages destroyed or turned against us by destructive and primitive beliefs; or else simply declare ourselves the winners of human history; the winners of the global lottery, and be happy and secure in our good fortune, willing to defend it from our competitors. Triumphalism, that is, and not humanitarianism.

While this sounds morally outrageous, recall that many of us indulge in this attitude already, even if only semi-consciously. When you’re out using your laptop in Starbucks, for example, you are doing so fully in the knowledge that you are part of the exclusive 20% of the world population who can afford to live so extravagantly. Though we might feel privately guilty about this, none of us make any great effort to change it. If a popular figure (Russell Brand, perhaps) called upon us to donate 90% of our wages each month so that the third and second worlds can lead a Western standard of life, we would all refuse. In fact, we would likely be indignant about it. Our civilisation has figured out the best way to live, to produce and to thrive. Theirs has not done so. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the most fertile regions in the world. The Islamic world is flush with resources. The reason for our success is our creativity; the things we have done with our hands and minds. Therefore, only we have a right to the fruits of our achievements. Perhaps this is the correct attitude…

‘Humanitarianism’ and its much vaunted idea of ‘international development’ certainly has a future. But I don’t believe its arguments are as future-proof as some believe. I’m interested in your views.

D, LDN

The Earth is Flat, Islam is Peaceful, Idiocracy was just a Movie.

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The popular hip-hop artist B.O.B (I presume this is pronounced Bob) made headlines last week when he confidently proclaimed the earth to be a flat disk, and not – as we have been cynically led to suppose – a slightly oval sphere. Reactions to these statements ranged from the informed to the ridiculous. It has been pointed out, in a variety of ways, that B.O.B’s assertion is unsound; that the earth is in fact a sphere (or there abouts) and that the flat-disk theory is outdated and no longer taken seriously by the relevant scientific authorities.

You might think the easiest disproof of the flat disk theory is that the earth can be seen as round in photographs released by various space programs. The reason this isn’t accepted by B.O.B’s ilk is because NASA (in particular) is held to be a shadow agent of American malevolence (although what such a demonic force hopes to profit from this deceit remains unclear).

I have been aware of the renaissance in flat earth theory for quite a while now, so wasn’t as surprised by B.O.B’s comments as other seem to have been. Indeed, the flat earth boom is just another symptom of a general human malaise; one that if left unchecked threatens us all with a grim and untenable future.

The Idiocratic reality afflicting (primarily) Western countries is one of the great crises of the modern era. The social and political dominance of certain personality types, bolstered by their increasing organisation via the internet, is beginning to significantly degrade the focus of Western politics, dragging it back, relentlessly back to an era of conspiracy, moral panic and ignorance.

In a rap song (called ‘Flatline’) released just after his flat earth comments, B.O.B made positive noises about other fringe ideas, most notably in the following lyric:

“They nervous, but before you try to curve it/Do your research on David Irving/Stalin was way worse than Hitler/ That’s why the POTUS gotta wear a kippah/I’m a man before an artist/ Get a lawyer, look up Doctor Richard Sauder.”

David Irving I presume needs no introduction. The cretin is an iconic denier of the Holocaust and a large and respected presence on the international and Islamic far-right. Doctor Richard Sauder is probably less well known. Indeed I had to research the name myself (thereby grudgingly following B.O.B’s commands). As I now understand it, Mr Sauder alleges among other things that Western militaries have constructed massive underground and underwater bases, including marvellously infeasible facilities beneath the Atlantic and Pacific ocean floors. Why have they done this? It’s for the usual reason these imagined tyrannies operate behind closed doors – to control us, to keep us from discovering ‘the truth’…..

Internet conspiracy theories and their ballooning popularity must be placed in a greater context in order to be properly understood. Unlike the flat earth, the non-Holocaust, and the peaceful religion of Islam, idiocracy is a grim reality, and one that can only become more problematic as time goes on.

Most population increase is occurring among the less intelligent sections of the human species. Downward selection is now mass-producing gullible and unintelligent personalities, leaving the intelligent at risk of saturation. Why is this not considered a problem?

D, LDN

Merry Christmas

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I’d like to wish all who frequent this blog a truly wonderful and pleasure-filled Christmas season.

As ever, I am deeply grateful for your support and attention.

Posting shall resume soon after the holiday. In the meantime, any comments will be answered as normal, and feel free to email me if you wish.

Merry Christmas

David.

Defining the ‘West’

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In the course of an online discussion last Tuesday, I was asked a deceptively simple-sounding question that has since plagued my thinking. After offering an argument for the inherent superiority of the ‘West’, my competitor stumped me by requesting that I “define ‘the West'” – that is, explain what it actually consists of.

Having had a few days to ponder an answer, during which I have been staring intensely at google maps and rifling through the pages of Wikipedia, I have come up with a list of countries I consider ‘Western’. I must add beforehand the obvious point that ‘West’ and ‘Western’ in this context have no geographic meaning, but rather imply certain standards of civilisation, such as secularism, gender equality, liberal capitalism and a free press. Here then is my answer – presented in no particular order:

Great Britain and all the countries of the EU
Liberal commonwealth nations (such as Jamaica, Trinidad etc..)
The United States
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
India*
Japan
South Korea
Taiwan (Republic of China)
Brazil
Argentina
Chile
Uruguay
Mexico
South Africa
Armenia
Israel

*It should be noted that India has an anti-democratic caste system, with different categories recorded by government. This must change if India is to maintain its Western character.

Now, a lot of people would say I’m being far too generous with this list. When such people think of ‘The West’, they think of things like influence, affluence, cleanliness and order, as well as the basic civilizational standards mentioned above. I understand what these people mean and would agree that there exists a ‘core’ inside of the West, without which the whole ‘Western’ construct would begin to fragment or collapse. This core is simply the Anglosphere, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Such nations are not merely of the West, but its original authors.

Needless to say, no Islamic country comes close to membership of this marvellous club. And I doubt that fact will change any time soon.

D, LDN.

Islam and Popular Culture

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Having nothing better to do last night, I sat down with a friend to watch a DVD performance by the brash, Hicksian comedian Jim Jefferies. The show was called ‘Contraband’.

About half way through, as seems to be obligatory in modern comedy, the Australian performed a routine critiquing the religious, beginning (naturally) with Christianity, moving onto Judaism and then, to my great surprise, Islam.

And he didn’t ‘tackle’ Islam in the playful, tip-toeing style of Dara O’ Briain, Frankie Boyle or Ricky Gervais, but with a dirty-mouthed fearlessness usually only employed against Biblical ideas.

Commenting on a recent scandal involving blasphemy against Mohammad (there have been so many, I honestly don’t know which one this was), Jefferies informed any Muslims in the crowd that his microphone stand was the literal incarnation of Mohammad and that it was ‘fucking gay!’.

I was taken aback, not because I have never encountered this sort of thing before (the internet is filled with anti-Islam comedy), but because Jim Jefferies is not a ‘right-wing’ race-baiter, and nor is he a reviled ‘working man’s comedian’ of the Jim Davidson or Bernard Manning variety. He is a respected liberal who campaigns against race-discrimination and in favour of gun control (born in Australia, Jefferies now lives in Los Angeles), and yet here he was, giving an equal allotment of hatred to a variety of anti-liberal targets. I surely don’t need to remark as to how rare that is.

Jefferies is said to have form on this. I am told that his Islamophobic gestures from ‘Contraband’ are repeated in his other performances (most of them are available on YouTube). We must hope that this bravery has sufficiently cleared the way for others to follow in his footsteps. As an American observer commented in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks – “blasphemy (against Islam) must become so commonplace that it bores people” rather than shocks them.

Of course, it is inevitable that popular culture and Islam will collide at certain points and in regard to certain subjects. While no-one is going to risk being murdered in the defence of bacon, a celebrity or two might be tempted out of PC-world by issues like Muslim homophobia, sexism, and the prohibition of music.

Indeed, that last element is potentially the richest Islamophobic vein of all. Surely nothing is so fundamentally beloved by and interwoven with the spirit of the Western world as music. It is an art the West (and the West alone) has perfected and through which the highest forms of Western expression have been communicated. It consoles our deepest miseries, undergirds our joys and sustains us through all the voids in-between. Naturally then, music artists are revered with an intensity superior to that aroused by the practitioners of any other art-form.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Taylor Swift – a woman currently worshipped like a Nordic Goddess – fell victim to a Muslim bullet for being ‘Haram’ (which, like all musicians, she undoubtedly is). I’m pretty sure the backlash (among the public, if not the government) would be palpably more severe than followed 9/11, 7/7 or Charlie Hebdo. At a stroke, the youngest billion of the world population would be transformed into dead-eyed, anti-Muslim zombies, horny for violent relief. Such is the terrifying power of sex, groupthink and idolatry.

Popular culture has, by definition, immeasurably greater political influence than the exotic fancies of the intelligentsia. Very few people pay any attention to books or newspapers. The majority of people live in a state of cheerful stupidity, a kind of apolitical daze. What would happen if they were shocked out of it? The mind boggles.

D, LDN.

A United Anglosphere?

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Utopian politics is a dangerous game to join. The promise of paradise evaporates judgement and allows for great and historic follies.

Does a union of the Anglosphere belong to the realm of hopeless, dangerous utopias?  I’m not sure.

I’ve made no secret on this site of my intense desire to move to the United States, nor of my admiration and envy for Australia, Canada and New Zealand; states with cleaner, more positive cultures than the one into which I was born. And so this idea, brought to fruition, would provide me with a liberty I have longed for since childhood.

And there is currently a petition, already in receipt of thousands of signatures, arguing for complete, visa-less travel between the nations of the English-speaking world. If successful, the idea would permit an American to move to Britain without legal trials and vice versa. Similarly, a Canadian, fed up with the biting of native wind, could up sticks and relocate to Australia without having to make any of the tortuous applications currently needed.

It sounds beautiful doesn’t it? Given the power to make law out of it, I would sign and stamp the bill in a heartbeat. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be objections.

I think some might (rightly) perceive the British as getting by far the best deal out of the policy. Why indeed should Britain be allowed to attach its rickety old caravan to the healthy and exuberant sports-cars of younger nations? That can only be answered by the presence or absence of solidarity.

On top of this, Australians in particular might be aggrieved by the influx of millions of new citizens, robbing their country of its prized (and environmentally advantageous) airiness. A similar snobbery might also break out in Canada over the influx of overly-religious, gun-wielding Americans.

Still, I would argue that the benefits of such a policy would ultimately outweigh the downsides. We are very similar cultures after all, and could bring together very synergistic gifts. The English, with our humour and literary flair; the Americans with their dynamism and positivity; the Canadians with their laid-back civility; and the Australians and New Zealanders with their love of alcohol and hatred of political correctness.

I say go for it. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I…

D, LDN.

Are We Even Winning?

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Upon hearing the news that a Persian Islamist had taken hostages in Sydney, Australia, my first thought was as follows: “Boy, he’s messed with the wrong country there!” Those Aussies, I thought with pleasure, have far less patience with the diktats of political correctness than we do. They’ll probably come out fighting and loudly condemn the attack, arm locked in arm just like the heroes of Cronulla beach.

By the evening though, it had become clear that any majority response was being strangled at birth. The asphyxiating implement used was the faddish hashtag ‘#illridewithyou’, reportedly designed to offer protection to Australian Muslims in case they fell victim to a civil backlash.

Though Conservatives quickly tried to counter the trend by offering an alternative #illnotridewithyou hashtag, they were entirely unsuccessful. By the end of the day, #illridewithyou was the world’s No.1 trending topic.

What does this tell us? Well, for me, it shows that – for all our efforts and successes – we are still not winning the Islam argument, that the Left is coming back with renewed energy and resolve and that the Counter-Jihad, as a movement and as a sentiment, is declining in power.

How could this happen, you ask? Surely, the daily massacres, beheadings and explosions count in our favour… And if each grisly event converts more people to our cause, we must be well on the way to a commanding majority.

Before #illridewithyou I thought this too. Now I realise my complacency.

Islamophobic blogs like this one are echo chambers. Those who comment on this site more or less share the same views as I do. The right-wing press is the same in general with like almost always attracting like. But outside of this closed world, the Left works at a faster pace that we could ever match. For every article we publish, a hundred are published to throw cold water on the fires we light.

Islamophobia has become a subculture, the members of which reinforce the opinions of the pack. And like those UKIP members who mistakenly believe their party will win the 2015 election simply because everyone they know is voting the same way, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking this battle is won.

Time for a reality check. It has been estimated this week that Pakistan will have 200 nuclear missiles by 2020, four times the number it had in 2000. Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all have functioning nuclear programs too. The Islamic Republic of Iran has a military reserve of over 5 million men, far more than can be marshalled by any Western military including the United States. Weapons of the most sophisticated kind are still being passed by America to regimes like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Demographically, the situation remains as dire as ever. For all the hatred being kindled against their faith, Muslims continue to outbreed Europeans at a ratio of more than 2:1. Hundreds of Mosques are constructed every year in European cities. The median age of White Europeans continues to push deeper into middle age. Western indebtedness to China, the Arabian Gulf and Brazil has yet to be reduced.

Let’s make 2015 the year we start to tackle the Islamic menace with the radicalism required to defeat it.

D, LDN.

Oprah Winfrey is a Talentless Scumbag.

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Shortly after the LA Clippers race ‘scandal’ hit the headlines; the television uber-personality Oprah Winfrey was quick to nominate herself as a qualified commentator.

“We’re not going back to the plantations.” She remarked to a waiting pack of reporters in her poorly ventilated, pre-op baritone voice, “Those days are over.”

Her comments were then duly reported across the world as if a whole new layer of meaning had been laid upon the story.

The comments under the article on the Daily Mail were dominated by the enquiry – Why?

Oprah Winfrey must be unique as a modern phenomenon. She is a billionaire, with uncountable books, television hours and celebrity connections to her name, and yet her renown and source of affection is limited entirely to her country of birth. No Englishman, Frenchman or (despite her laughable ‘tour’ down under) Australian has any regard for her whatsoever. Her success is an enigma; an American peculiarity – and the usual attempts at explaining it only seem to render it more foreign.

What distinguishes Winfrey from any other woman with the ability to read an autocue, expose straightened teeth and regurgitate ghost-written pleasantries?

In truth, Oprah is the longest-standing beneficiary of the racket of Affirmative Action. She has no disernable talent or charisma. Her personality is as multi-faceted as a plank of wood, and her physical appearance couldn’t be less photogenic. But none of this matters. She is clad in a suit of ebony privilege and arrived on the scene just as that privilege was beginning to grow in value. Now as it spikes, she is showered with more money that she knows what to do with.

This might be OK if Winfrey was merely vapid, but she isn’t. She is culturally damaging. The billionairess has built a well-earned reputation for being mentally shallow and ticklishly responsive to any passing trend, even to the point of self-contradiction. Through her talk show, she has endorsed just about every new philosophical or ‘spiritual’ fad under the sun, supplying each with the same rehearsed enthusiasm.

One could (as many do) dignify this tip-toed poise as open-mindedness. Didn’t Nietzsche remark that one’s thoughts should remain light and changeable and only tiredness lets them degenerate into convictions? Well yes, but he also had something to say about blindly following the herd.

Winfrey wastes no time in applying this malleable sense of loyalty to the field of politics. In her time, she has been friendly to both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. Only one aspect has remained constant, and that is her dedication to the theme of Black victimhood and the perennial nature of White guilt. Her jingoistic involvement in ethno-politics (like that mentioned above) is truly nauseating, as is her scumbag hypocrisy in amassing obscene wealth and preaching social justice.

Thankfully there are still some commentators with the balls to take issue with the Winfrey cult in public:

…But they are far from numerous.

The truth be told, I prefer America to my own country. I would gladly fight for America in a military conflict. But Winfrey gives me genuine cause for concern. Political correctness has sanded away the sharp edges of Europe. Affirmative Action has within it the same corrosive potential.

D, LDN.

Remembering The Cronulla Beach Uprising.

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Though we might dislike the fact of their settlement, there is at least some geo-political logic to the presence of Islamists in Europe. North Africa and the Middle East (both of which are blighted with fundamentalism) are separated from the continent by a small distance of light blue water. One can reach the outlying islands of Italy from Libya or Tunisia within a couple of hours by boat. One can swim the distance from Morroco to the Iberian peninsula. The European Union furthermore is a Leftist initiative that cannot (and anyway does not try to) police its most critical borders.

The presence of radical Muslims in Australia however demands a greater explanation. Australia is one of the most remote countries in the ‘Western’ definition, close but not too close to the most civilised and affluent country in the Muslim world, Indonesia.

For a long part of its short history, Australia barred any non-European immigration under the so-called ‘White Australia’ policy, and to date retains one of the strictest immigration policies in the G20.

Despite this, subsequent reforms have enabled Australia to undergo a partial multicultural enrichment; principally from Indonesia and China, but also from the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East. There are currently an estimated 72,000 Lebanese Muslims in Australia, and they haven’t been slack in amassing a reputation.

In the year 2000, a gang of fourteen Lebanese Muslim men carried out a campaign of sexual terrorism against the women of Sydney and its surrounding suburbs.

“In the space of two months” wrote Sarah Crichton and Andrew Stevenson “Seven teenage girls who identify as Australian….were abducted and pack-raped by members of a group of youths their own age. Three others escaped the boys’ clutches. At least 19 youths were involved in the attacks, though not all were present at every one. One girl was assaulted by four, another by two.

A police investigation captured 14 boys, most living within a few streets of each other in Greenacre, within weeks of the crimes. Five are related by marriage. All were born, raised and educated in Australia and identify as Lebanese Muslims, or just “Lebs”, although two had mixed parentage…. Some chose to add racial abuse to their rampage. The teenager raped on August 30 was called an “Aussie pig”, told she would be raped “Leb-style” and asked “does Leb cock taste better than Aussie cock?” by three of her assailants. Another girl was asked her nationality and concluded: “The world isn’t what I thought it to be – it isn’t safe and females are punished for being Australian.” ‘

The gang rapes were part of a larger culture of criminality among the Lebanese Muslim community of Greater Sydney. Sexual intimidation (if not always going as far as rape) was commonplace. In one incident (described in the same article), a Lebanese male began to publically masturbate in front of women on a bus. In another, groups of Women on beaches were harassed by Lebanese gangs, who called them ‘sluts’ and ‘pigs’.

In 2005 several Lebanese men altercated with a group of volunteer lifeguards on Cronulla beach, demanding the lifeguards ‘their’ territory, before brawling with two of them.

As news of the incident spread, the sparks connected to a long fuse of resentment in the area…. and then something extraordinary happened.

The following Sunday morning, more than five thousand local Aussies decided to make a stand at Cronulla beach to protest against the social terrorism being inflicted by the Muslims.

It’s worth repeating that number so it isn’t overlooked. Over five thousand. This is considerably more than the EDL have ever managed at a national demonstration. Cronulla was ostensibly a local dispute (although clearly one with more worldly overtones), and yet out people came in overwhelming numbers. Some carried placards demanding action by local and national authorities. Others merely made defiant gestures of Australian patriotism. All stood in the defence of a stable and affluent country against an aggressive campaign of intimidation.

If you research this civil uprising on Google, your search engine will rebrand the affair as the Cronulla ‘Riots’. Needless to say, this is disingenuous and unjust. While there certainly were undesirables (and moronic racists) present, the ‘riots’ described by the media refer only to the actions of a few hotheads. The initial demonstration was law-abiding, and given the provocations described above, inevitable and appropriate.

I call Cronulla an ‘uprising’ even though I know that word conjures to the mind images of flames and baton-rounds. True, the violence was distracting, unjustified and unfortunate, but other than this, Cronulla had all the markings of a stand for civil rights; a ‘civil uprising’ of defiance and initiative carried out within the law, aimed at those transgressing it.

Australia is a country extraordinarily blessed with isolation, stability and a demographic profile conducive to social peace. The defenders of Cronulla, no matter how much they are defamed by a craven and cowering media, demonstrate that there are some people willing to preserve this good fortune by whatever means are appropriate.

Remember them.

D, LDN.

Christopher Lane’s Culture Shock (and America’s Problem).

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I live in a house-share with 8 other people, 5 of whom are Australian (two from Sydney, two from Melbourne and the other from the wonderfully named city of Wollongong). They came to London, so they say, to experience a city with ‘a bit more Jazz’, by which I think they mean a city more diverse, risky and ‘American’ than those of their homeland. They now wish they hadn’t.

A great many people in England – usually folk with a conservative bent – are massively envious of those living down under, and so would view Aussies who migrate to Britain with confusion. Australia might not have the political relevance, economic power or cultural importance of somewhere like the UK, but as a trade for this, its natives tend to enjoy isolated, post-historical, low-risk lives, comparatively safe from minorities, Islam, pollution and crime. One can sense the pleasures of this existence by noting the number of Australians who spend all day online mocking the poor denizens of London and New York with something like the following:

“Man, I’m so glad I live in Australia. All you poor Pom bastards getting mugged left, right and centre – and here I am relaxing on the beach…”

Trolling of this kind is not uniquely Australian of course. Canadians and New Zealanders are pretty adept at it as well. But it’s Australians who have turned the habit into a well perfected craft.

One can’t dislike Aussies for doing this. I am – just as they presume – jealous of the social peace Australia enjoys. (I’m also jealous of the fact that the future demographics of Australia do not condemn its population to civil war and Islamic takeover).

But while differences between Oz and Britain are great, none compare with the growing divide between Australia and the United States.

While both are technically part of the ‘Western’ World, the US and Australia are becoming ever more foreign to each other with the advance of social trends. On specific issues like crime, they are at opposite ends of the global development scale. The murder rate in the United States is almost 5 times that of Australia (1.0/100,000 in Aus – 4.8/100,000 in the US) and a similar disparity exists in the rate of rape and robbery.

With this in mind, the strong emotion unleashed by the murder of Christopher Lane makes more sense.

In case you haven’t read about it, Mr. Lane was a 22 year-old Australian athlete staying in America with his girlfriend when he was shot dead by a group of mainly African-American youths. The assailants are said to have picked Mr. Lane at random and committed the crime simply because they were ‘bored’. Race has not yet been dismissed as a motivating factor.

Beneath every tribute video to Mr. Lane on YouTube, a stream of comments (by both Aussies and Americans) angrily discuss the social implications of the incident, often veering into explicitly racist language. While that’s a shame, one cannot deny that there is a racial problem worth talking about here.

Responding to the Lane killing, John Mcwhorter over at Time magazine wrote the following:

“The numbers don’t lie: young black men do commit about 50% of the murders in the US. We don’t yet know whether the attack on Lane was racially motivated, nor can we know whether the three black boys who attacked a white boy on a Florida school bus recently would not have done the same to a black kid. (Critics took Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to task for not condemning the violence.) But hardly  uncommon are cases such as the two black guys who doused a white 13 year old with gasoline and lit him on fire saying “You get what you deserve, white boy” (Kansas City, Mo.) or 20 black kids who beat up young Michael Owens on his porch “for Trayvon” (Mobile, Ala).”

It’s worth pausing on the statistic cited in this extract. ‘50% of murders’ committed by African Americans. FIFTY PER CENT.  Remember that African-Americans currently make up no more than 12% of the American population. For that community to enjoy a 50% market share on homicide is frankly bewildering.

In the same week I learned of Mr. Lane’s fate, I was browsing through a disturbing book entitled ‘White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Race Riots to America’ by Colin Flaherty. This volume details the increasing regularity and brutality of Black-on-White crime in the United States. Here’s an excerpt: 

“Racial violence is back. In hundreds of episodes in more than 80 cities since 2010, groups of black people are roaming the streets of America — assaulting, intimidating, stalking, threatening, vandalizing, stealing, shooting, stabbing, even raping and killing. Cities big and small. Expected and unexpected.

But local media and public officials are silent. Crime is color blind… Race is not important… We talk about everything except black mob violence and lawlessness. That is Taboo. Result: Few know about it. Fewer still are talking about it. Today it is at epidemic levels at almost every city in the country.”

To conclude, the Australian reaction to Mr. Lane’s murder is no surprise. The present situation in America is not one any other civilized country would recognize as their own. Americans are going to have to make a choice. Either continue down this route and become more and more unrecognizable to other Western countries, or make a stand and remain in the top category of development. The latter is no longer something to take for granted.

D, LDN