Barbarism on Australia Day

From the Herald Sun:

A large police contingent was called to a Canberra restaurant after Aboriginal-rights protesters trapped the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader inside today.

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott were attending an Australia Day presentation of the inaugural National Emergency Medals at the Lobby Restaurant when protesters who had just marched to commemorate the Aboriginal Tent Embassy’s 40th anniversary surrounded the building.

Both party leaders were trapped inside for around 20 minutes before police forced a way for their exit and they left in the same car…

The protesters banged on the three glass sides of restaurant chanting “shame’’ and “racist’’ and chased the pair’s car down the road as they left, banging on the roof and bonnet.

This vulgar display certainly does nothing to promote the Aboriginal cause. Then again, I'm not even sure what their cause is any more. They have already received land rights, recognition as the "first peoples" of Australia, and generous handouts making them the most heavily subsidised ethnic group on the planet. What else do Aboriginal racial activists actually want? Every non-indigenous person to immediately leave Australia? Do they want to return to their old pre-European settlement, Stone Age-like way of life?

Europeans have been here for over 200 years, with many generations being born and buried on this land. Aborigines need to accept this fact and move on. They need to come to terms with the fact that the colonisation of Australia was inevitable. They also need to come to terms with the fact that the early British settlers were remarkably successful in developing this arid wasteland into one of the world's most prosperous, advanced societies and that the white Australian majority has every right to be proud of these nation-building achievements, particularly on Australia Day.

Towards a new racial hierarchy?

Nicolas Rothwell writes in The Australian about the proposals made by legal and Aboriginal activists to change the Australian constitution:

The expert panel is asking them to accept several measures that tug in different directions: both to deracialise the Constitution and to insert in it a clause recognising the special need for indigenous advancement; both to prohibit racial discrimination and to recognise the special place of Aboriginal languages, cultures and ties to the land. Equal rights - and a special role as well..

At core, the dilemmas lurking in the referendum lurk there because of the bedevilling concept of race and a keenly maintained conviction of indigenous difference. The expert panel’s aim is virtually to ban racial thinking, while exalting a particular racial category.

Despite speaking in the language of "anti-discrimination", it is clear from the proposed amendments that the "expert" panel's real aim is to promote one racial group over another - in this case, Australia's tiny indigenous minority over the European Australian majority. They want to legally enshrine a privileged place for Aboriginals in the Australian constitution. This is not about ending racial discrimination. Quite the opposite in fact.