Forcing migrants to undergo a naturalisation course and complete a language exam…which government would be so heartless and racist as to do that?

The PC-class via the media is constantly reprimanding the Australian people for their racism and heartlessness in dealing with migrants, illegal or otherwise. They are forever wringing their hands and deploring the Howard Government for coldly exploiting the Australian people’s lack of compassion and skin-deep racism claiming that we shame ourselves in the eyes of the world, that we are forever having our reputation tarnished ‘overseas’. One would think that after all the instances of loss of reputation over the years of the Howard Government, a government that has never been more popular, we would scarcely have any reputation to lose in the eyes of ‘the world’.

Our shame and the corresponding damage to our reputation, according to the loud PC voices in the media, have reached its peak in the last year over the Tampa Affair and the mandatory detention of illegal migrants who paid small fortunes to unscrupulous people-smugglers to get them to Australia. So you would think that the only government that would dare to force its migrants to complete a naturalisation course, which included an exam in the language of the country, would be a heartless government like the Howard Government. But no, the government in question is the new government of The Netherlands, the country that is continually invoked as the very ‘overseas’ model of a liberal progressive society. It can’t be true, you say.

Imams obliged to attend naturalisation courses

A major provincial Dutch newspaper, the Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant, ran a report (2 October 2002) over the opening of a naturalisation course by Minister Nawijn, Minister for Foreigner [sic] Matters and Integration Management (Vreemdelingenzaken en Integratiebeleid). The report has a picture of the minister standing between seven Moslem clerical leaders who are about to follow the course and complete the language examination. Since January this year, the naturalisation course is mandatory for Islamic Imams in Holland.

The report goes on to say that according to Minister Nawijn the Imams will ‘play an important role in readjusting the negative image of Islam in The Netherlands.’ The sermons and threats of radical Moslems leaders in the past have ‘left their mark on the image of Islam’, says the minister. The report ends:

As the final exam, the Imams have to do a presentation in Dutch about what they have learnt [during the course]. Nawijn is planning [to introduce] a bill for next year that has sanctions for new-comers who fail their final exam. ‘That could mean that their stay [in The Netherlands] is at an end,’ said [Minister] Nawijn.

Expelling a migrant because he has failed a language exam? Unimaginable, surely!

This policy, however, raises many questions, not least of all about the reliability of the PC-class’s constant public citing of ‘overseas’ condemnation of Australia’s border protection and cultural policies. For it seems that if this citing lacks credibility then the foundation of the PC-class’s constant reprimands of the Australian population has been cut away.

The ordinary people are in revolt against current policy

As frightful and unimaginable as the Dutch policy may be for the PC-class, the bare truth is that many Western countries are dealing with a serious problem of illegal migrants and the decay of their national culture. The Netherlands is just one of those countries recently to take firm action. That action has been the result of a groundbreaking shift in political allegiances which has expressed itself dramatically in the ballot box. The ordinary people in Holland, Britain, Australia, Belgian, Germany, to name a few countries, want action from their government on illegal migrants, the assimilation of new arrivals, the protection of their national culture, and the decay in traditional values. The people that condemn these views as ignorant, racist and heartless are the very class that has been the author of policies that have over three decades brought on the severe social problems most countries of the West are dealing with. That class of elites, who predominate in government, education, and the media, show themselves impervious to the substantial objections that are constantly raised about their failed policies. No matter what is said, they function as the arsonist and the fire brigade combined; unheeding those holding out a pail of water, they insist upon carrying a can of petrol to the blazes they have caused. That is the simple reason the people are turning against them and kicking them out of office – much to their hurt incredulity and consternation.

When these elites in Australia talk about the shame and damage to Australia’s reputation overseas, they are in fact talking about the condemnation issuing from their mates in similar positions of influence and power ‘overseas’. It is almost amusing to see the graduates of the seminaries of political correctness in the West (the universities) sending themselves overseas to be clothed in the finery of highly paid functions of the United Nations, or of other bodies spawned by that great lumbering overfed elephant, and having themselves appealed to by their mates back in their countries awaiting their rotation.

One must think directly of people like former Labor Minister, Gareth Evans, that brilliant academic lawyer but laughable PC-politician who now has his very own international think-tank that is to rescue the world from conflict and provide a forum for Gareth's very particular view of how that world should be. The nickname ‘Biggles’ must follow him to his luxurious quarters in Paris – or was it Rome, London...?

The media policy of censoring overseas news

Because Australia is so isolated geographically and, worse, so isolated from much of the world's information sources, the ordinary Australian is for the most part not aware of what is going on overseas if it is not reported in the Australian media. The inaccessibility of information is particularly true of events in non-English speaking European countries. In other words, the view of the world for Australians is formed through the good graces of the media barons who are constantly telling us that the most precious right the citizen possesses is freedom of speech. Of course, we all know by now that the media’s virtuous protection of the right of free speech is at its most frenzied and sanctimonious when questions are raised about their venal irresponsible behaviour and their revenue sources threatened. Who can forget Rupert Murdoch appearing at an international news conference to defend freedom of speech within days of the Princess of Wales being hounded to death by people from his own organisation?

The right of freedom of speech, among other things, implies free access to information that is critical to the healthy functioning of the society of which one is a citizen. This is the test for amoral organisations like the Murdoch organisation: how competently and truthfully are important political and social events in countries like The Netherlands being reported in Australia? The answer is that they are hardly being reported at all, and if they are it is in the usual colourful way that serves the interests of the media company. There have been one or two reports in The Australian, that snooty flagship of the Murdoch empire in Australia, about the alleged disintegration of the new rightwing political party in The Netherlands (LFP) established by the murdered Pim Fortuyn. There has been no competent serious analysis of the move generally to a social and political conservatism in Holland, let alone of the main players in the movement.

Truth in the Murdoch organisation is always coincidental with their commercial interests and objectives. Ideology is invoked only to protect those commercial interests. The Australian will start to sing a different tune when its money managers perceive that the reporting of specific events will increase their readership and draw more advertising. In that sense, the Murdoch organisation is being foolish in not turning a more interested eye to what is going on in Holland. ‘The conservative moment has come!’ exclaimed Joshua Livestro, one of the main players in the movement in Holland. The corresponding claim, ‘the Liberal/Left moment is coming to an end’, seems equally true. For the sake of our traditional liberal-democratic society, we can only hope so.