Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Greg Sheridan: another liberal mugged by reality

Back in 1996 Australian journalist Greg Sheridan was an enthusiastic supporter of high immigration and multiculturalism:

There is nothing in multiculturalism that could cause any worry to any normal person.

He still supports high immigration but has had a change of heart on multiculturalism. Why? He explains as follows:

IN 1993, my family and I moved into Belmore in southwest Sydney. It is the next suburb to Lakemba. When I first moved there I loved it.

On the other side of Belmore, away from Lakemba, there were lots of Chinese, plenty of Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs.

That was an attraction, too. I like Middle Eastern food. I like Middle Eastern people. The suburb still had the remnants of its once big Greek community and a commanding Greek Orthodox church.

But in the nearly 15 years we lived there the suburb changed, and much for the worse.

The multicultural suburbs he chose to live in developed a less appealing culture:

Three dynamics interacted in a noxious fashion: the growth of a macho, misogynist culture among young men that often found expression in extremely violent crime; a pervasive atmosphere of anti-social behaviour in the streets; and the simultaneous growth of Islamist extremism and jihadi culture.

The changes were felt directly by the Sheridan family:

The anti-social behaviour became more acute.

One son was playing cricket with friends when they were challenged by a group of teenagers, whom they presumed to be Lebanese but may have been of other Middle Eastern origin, who objected to white boys playing cricket. A full-scale, if brief, fist fight ensued.

One son was challenged by a boy with a gun. Lakemba police station was shot up. Crime increased on the railway line.

I was in the habit of taking an evening constitutional, walking a long route from the station to home. At some point it became unwise to walk on Canterbury Road. A white guy in a suit was a natural target for abuse or a can of beer or something else hurled from a passing car...

The worst thing I saw myself was two strong young men, of Middle Eastern appearance, waiting outside the train station.

A middle-aged white woman emerged from the station alone. She was rather oddly dressed, with a strange hair-do.

The two young men walked up beside her, began taunting her and then finished their effort by spitting in her face. They laughed riotously and walked away. She wiped the spittle off her face and hurried off home. It was all over in a few seconds.

According to Greg Sheridan, it is recognised amongst the Australian political elite that multiculturalism in Europe is a failure. But some Australian politicians claim that Australia is exceptional, and that multiculturalism will work out differently here.

Sheridan no longer believes this to be true and so suggests measures to discourage large-scale immigration from certain Muslim countries. He is still, though, a supporter of high immigration from elsewhere.

I find it interesting that Sheridan is so surprised by the way things have turned out. For instance, he writes:

No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they're in today.

No one? I think this speaks more to the inability of those like Greg Sheridan to think through the consequences of the policies they champion. And I'm reminded here of the following idea of Lawrence Auster:

A reactionary (or shall we say a traditionalist?) is a person who sees a threat to his society the moment it appears. A conservative is a person who sees the threat to his society after it's already done a lot of damage. A liberal is a person who only sees sees the threat to his society after it's too late to do anything about it—or he never sees it at all. 

30 comments:

  1. Hear, hear. The tide is turning on immigration in Sydney. Even the SMH is starting to get the picture. In 5 years the consensus will be that immigration has gone too far.

    Pity it's 15 years too late.

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  2. "No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they're in today."

    Of course, that isn't true. Some people knew we'd have a mess and said we'd have a mess but they were either ignored, ridiculed, or called vile names and shouted down.

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  3. I read Sheridan's article but grew bored by its tedious length and extended, almost apologetic, justifications for what is after all a common sense proposition. Nonetheless he is moving in the right direction. Oh Horray!!!

    Yes merely being obviously or stereotypically and unconcernedly white can cause offense to these jokers. I had a mate in the Army who was very blond and confident and he was walking home one night and minding his own business and was confronted by Lebanese aggressively saying "Are you true blue?". I mean police will never do the job of keeping these asses in line and so we’ll have to be willing to stand up for ourselves or immediately call in police assistance. Of course Lebanese have no honour and will marshal all their mates if confronted.

    We can start by breaking them in the schools. Anti social behavior is to be immediately punished and sanctioned. Then we can fill the jails with them and follow the American example of harsh punishments even for minor crimes (so much for laid back Australia). Finally we encourage social elements within their own society to disown their communities behavior. And of course we stop immigration from these f witted countries and squeeze them on every claim they make. Sharia? No way, compulsory Christian education for you.

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  4. A liberal is a person who only sees sees the threat to his society after it's too late to do anything about it—or he never sees it at all.

    Disagree. A liberal is someone who sees a threat to his society and applauds, encourages, and supports it, because he wants his society destroyed.

    Liberals aren't opening the floodgates to mass non-white immigration by accident. They want to destroy the existing order and make conservatism politically impossible.

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  5. I'm glad to hear the confidence from you too, Jesse. You guys are going to need it, if our own inner-cities in America are any foreshadow of your near future.

    I'd like to point out two possible unforeseen consequences of the American "Throw the book at 'em" approach.

    1.)Petty white criminals get hit hard too (otherwise, you're nailed for racial discrimination)--and prison becomes a rape and murder filled nightmare for them. I don't see why a a man should get ass-raped for, say, passing a bad check.

    2.) Sending the lawless minority men to prison means sending a lot of minority men to prison, which also means depriving a lot of minority children of their fathers.

    Yes, the fathers are criminals, but they're still fathers, and no society functions well without them. And while they're gone, it's left to white men to pay for their children and women.

    So, the courts peel of, say, a third of the minority men from their women and children. Who do the courts think birthed and raised those men in the first place? Do they think those women won't just birth and raise more like the ones imprisoned? Isn't that exactly what has happened in the US?

    Why don't you Australians repatriate the entire sub-population? Let the entire, repatriated population, men, women and children, seek God's wisdom in how to deal with the sin in their men and the sin in the women that have raised them. And let the Australian nation seek God's wisdom in how to deal with their own sins. Each of the nations has sin enough of their own to contend with.

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  6. Bruce said...

    ""Of course, that isn't true. Some people knew we'd have a mess and said we'd have a mess but they were either ignored, ridiculed, or called vile names and shouted down.""

    And as Mark points out, in this case a man who was one of the right-lib culture warriors that banished non-PC thoughts from the "Respectable" liberal right in the 80's and 90's.

    Amazingly this one had enough courage of his convictions to live for 15 years in the areas affected by his ideology.

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  7. Bartholomew,

    My thinking is that if sending men to jails encuorages more young boys to be criminals, I guess I'd say build more jails, and sooner or latter people would want to get out of that cycle, (this is not intended to invite an MRA discussion). Obviously it is an extreme situation. On the point about heavy punishments being met out to poor or silly white people it is definetly a concern.

    Aside from repatriation, which you can encourage them to do voluntarily by making your society less of a multicultural wonderland, I'm not sure what other solutions would work.

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  8. 'No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they're in today.'

    Enoch Powell springs immediately to mind.

    Isn't mass immigration from many cultures/races multi-culturalism? Like John Howard he's just splitting hairs by engaging in linguistics games. Also these types who oppose Muslim immigration only must surely take the argument to it's logical conclusion and realise other races/cultures are bringing in many negative traits with them as well.

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  9. Mr Sheridan, like many another liberal and perhaps all eventually, is hoist with his own petard.

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  10. Cameron,

    I don't see any value in limiting the problems of immigration just to the Muslims and I think that that is a dodge. Nonetheless Muslims are probably the biggest single cause of problems by a big way. Apart from the problems they cause, however, at the end of the day they're singled out because they represent a religious world view which is at odds with Western (liberal) values.

    Additionally Mark is quite right to call Sheridan a liberal. By no stretch of the imagination could he qualify as a conservative, nor would he probably want to be called as such.

    [Quick note: Driving in Sydney today I saw a number of kids cross at a pedestrian crossing. The boys were wearing the old fashioned straw hats and they raised their hats to both sides of traffic as they crossed. Evidently they were all taught to do this and they did it very well. It was great to see.]

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  11. What an arsehole.

    If you find yourself unexpectedly in a war zone, your instinct is to evacuate the family, so the boys went to a private Catholic school, which was racially and even religiously diverse, though I don't believe there were any Muslim kids there. It was excellent.

    That's right. After advocating policies which destroyed the very area he grew up, he decides to move out of the area. His mea culpa is worth shit.

    The whole problem of our chattering classes is that they are not forced to eat their own cooking.

    The shallowness of this man's thought beggars belief. His advocacy of multiculti policy was based on his personal tastes and preferences, not a thorough analysis of the situation.

    Btw, Sheridans article is not a repudiation of multiculturalism, rather a repudiation of some aspects of it, namely Muslim culture.

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  12. Yes I agree with SP. They think multiculturalism is right, therefore it should work in practise. If it doesn't happen to work in practise we should still get used to it because its right. But, when it comes to Muslims we can limit it ... maybe. *Rolls eyes*. I've met Sheridan in real life, he's quite the gentleman but most definetly not living in the actual world.

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  13. His advocacy of multiculti policy was based on his personal tastes and preferences, not a thorough analysis of the situation.

    Good point, SP. Such a major policy and he doesn't give a principled reason for supporting it, it just comes back to what he personally likes - with little consideration of what the preferences of others might be, let alone what the long term implications are.

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  14. @Bartholomew
    Yes, the fathers are criminals, but they're still fathers, and no society functions well without them. And while they're gone, it's left to white men to pay for their children and women.

    So, the courts peel of, say, a third of the minority men from their women and children. Who do the courts think birthed and raised those men in the first place? Do they think those women won't just birth and raise more like the ones imprisoned? Isn't that exactly what has happened in the US?

    Why don't you Australians repatriate the entire sub-population? Let the entire, repatriated population, men, women and children, seek God's wisdom in how to deal with the sin in their men and the sin in the women that have raised them. And let the Australian nation seek God's wisdom in how to deal with their own sins. Each of the nations has sin enough of their own to contend with.

    - You still think in monogamous fashion (and noone can blame you). In case of muslims you can be (paradoxically) right, but otherwise not. How do you want to keep fathers of single mothers' children around? How do you want to keep fathers of several children with several different women to take care of them properly? Do you think that childless men will care about threat of prison?
    - Repatriation of masses is not as easy as you might think. It needs (military) power, long term support of majority, willingness to kill, and lack of action of the repatriated. When they are violent now, try to imagine what they will do when faced fate of repatriation.
    - In any post-modern Western mobocracy real action takes long time. Politicians have just started to recognize the problem. It takes several other elections and frustrated masses to turn them to real actions. But in 15 or 20 years it may be too late.

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  15. @Mark

    Such a major policy and he doesn't give a principled reason for supporting it, it just comes back to what he personally like

    It's not just that. He has a totally inability to extrapolate past personal experience. Look, I don't like the Muslim bashing that goes on on many conservative websites because many Muslims are good people. But looking beyond my own experience, I can see that wherever cultures meet there is usually some form of friction. The values of Muslim culture and the values of Western culture will clash since each culture has different priorities and metaphysical conceptions which are incompatible.

    Sheridan clearly doesn't understand the migrant mindset(despite being totally surrounded by migrants. Clueless). Migrants don't come to Australia, America, Germany, etc, to assume a new ethnic identity, they either go to these places as a place of refuge (few) but mainly go to these countries for their economic opportunities. This is why Muslim "refugees" pass over friendly Muslim countries to go to Atheistic Aus. The economic conditions are better. Nearly all of them come with the dream of making a buck and eventually getting back "home".

    Jesse

    Sheridan may be quite the gentleman, but problem with evil is that sometimes in comes packaged with impeccable manners. Sheridan and his ilk practice their social experiments always with the assumption that there will be refuge for them to go to if things go pear shaped. The problem is that that refuge gets smaller and smaller each day, as they progressively destroy the culture that which gave them their freedom.

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  16. I am still skeptical of Sheridan. Some have pointed out here how he is a right-liberal and I certainly see that in his reasons for disdaining multiculturalism. He disdains Islam not because it strips the identity of a country or because its alien (different) to the Western world but because it's "macho" and restrains. He sees Muslims as insufficiently liberal. Also agreed that he doesn't analyse the consequences and future of what his beliefs or policies will lead to. It's all about the here and now. Or better yet as longs as it works in theory and has good intentions. In the end he will try to run away from his policies after the damage they've done or never notice them at all.

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  17. SP,

    I'm not defending Sheridan merely pointing out some additional information. He's a nice guy and not doing this primarily for some personal advancement but because he believes in his principles. This has led him to belatedly start to question the consequences of the polices he has supported.

    This, however, of course is not good enough. A society is not just something that can be tinkered with, broken or dramatically changed with the instigators getting off with a mere “whoops”. Sheridan is on record as wanting a multiethnic state. He also wants it to be western. Such ambitions are not compatible when it comes to the Muslims (sorry SP I'm not so sanguine about them because of their very strong group allegiance, inability to take criticism, and self righteousness. Although I admit that many are personally nice). Also they’re not really compatible if immigration rates are too high, this he is yet to admit. Like many timid or nice souls Sheridan might like to act or sound tough from time to time but he’s not really willing to expose himself to the criticism that comes with real stances. Consequently his ambition primarily will be be to follow the dominate mindset, whatever that might be.

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  18. Repatriation of masses is not as easy as you might think.

    Disagree. The weren't forcibly brought to Oz, so they don't have to be forcibly evicted. They came to Oz because social, political, and economic conditions encouraged them to do so. Create social, political, and economic conditions that encourage them to leave, and they will do so voluntarily, at no cost in blood and at no cost to the taxpayer. Of course, it does require political will to create those conditions...

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  19. ""'No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they're in today.""

    Enoch Powell: 1968, Rivers of Blood speech.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_was_right

    Jean-Marie Le Pen: 1984, The FN wins 10% of the vote in the European elections.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen

    Jean Raspail: 1973, Writes "Camp of the Saints".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_of_the_Saints

    And that's just the first three to come to mind.

    Yeah no warning at all in Europe Greg.

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  20. @anonymous
    Disagree. The weren't forcibly brought to Oz, so they don't have to be forcibly evicted. They came to Oz because social, political, and economic conditions encouraged them to do so. Create social, political, and economic conditions that encourage them to leave, and they will do so voluntarily, at no cost in blood and at no cost to the taxpayer. Of course, it does require political will to create those conditions...
    I disagree to your disagreement. The fact they arrived voluntarily does not mean they will leave so. You cannot encourage them to leave to their 3rd world homelands. To create that social/political/economical "encouragement" you would need the tools I mentioned.
    An example: As far as I remember there is some reverse migration among Turks in European countries. But this relates to educated ones only. The majority has nothing to gain from repatriation unless their life is threatened and in this case they won't leave without fight. On the other hand I have to admit Turkey has some potential in suking in their expatriates back. But Arab countries do not have this potential.

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  21. If you look back at issues of The Australian from the 1980s, you will see that Sheridan was among the leaders of the let's-drive-Geoffrey-Blainey-out-of-public-life lynch-mob.

    Thus far he has not shown a spark of contrition for his loathsome behaviour back then, and I very much doubt that he ever will. Of course, until he does, his current hand-wringing is useless.

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  22. SP: Sheridan and his ilk practice their social experiments always with the assumption that there will be refuge for them to go to if things go pear shaped. The problem is that that refuge gets smaller and smaller each day, as they progressively destroy the culture that which gave them their freedom.

    Yes. And I would amend Auster's distinctions with "liberals and 'conservatives' don't see the threat to society until they themselves can no longer afford to buy themselves out of the multiculturalism they advocate."

    And even then they seem to think that the only injustice is that "deserving" people like them aren't being protected from destructive policies: see here for the recent case in the U.S., wherein the residents of wealthy areas of Marin County (arguably the SWPLiest place in American SWPLdom) are being threatened with having to get with the diversity program. Note the priceless comment of resident "John Anderson":

    "I'm normally an open-minded progressive-leaning person. But on THIS issue, I take a hard right turn.[...]For the Federal government to FORCE a financially underperforming class of people into this area is WRONG.[...]

    How much would you be willing to bet that never, ever in his life has the indignant Mr. Anderson been in favor of forcing "financially underperforming people" on the once pleasant, safe, clean neighborhoods of the people below him on the economic food chain?

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  23. Rohan Swee said,

    "And even then they seem to think that the only injustice is that "deserving" people like them aren't being protected from destructive policies"

    Isn't that sad, and these people are the leaders and influence makers in society. You have to watch the South Park episode on this where the "alien" arrivals (and they are actual space aliens) appear and start working for very cheap rates. The comfortable middle classes initially say, "Oh isn't that nice, we're giving them opportunities which shouldn't be denied them", nonetheless the moment, they start infringing into middle class areas it becomes "they took our jobs!".

    If the curse of our society is a self centered populace/elite who also seek moral self righteousness, which in practice is gained at the expense of fellow societal members, I'm not immediately sure what the best way to turn it is.

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  24. Greg Sheridan's article re multi-culturalism was mentioned here in New Zealand the other day by Leighton Smith(ex Aussie)on his Newstalk ZB programme.

    Although he is against multi-culturalism, Smith however is a bit like Sheridan in supporting immigration but refusing to take into consideration race, ethnicity, religion etc. And the numbers.

    Ironically, these people prefer to live in the English speaking part of the Western world, but do nothing to preserve English speaking western world countries and their predominant identity. In other words, we don't care if Anglo-Celtic Australia or New Zealand go the way of ancient Summeria.

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  25. Elin Krantz.
    Young Swedish woman stalked on a tram by a Somalian Immigrant.
    Then brutally dragged and raped to death in the woods.
    Someone released the pictures of the crime scene and its been spread all over the net. The images are incredibly graphic so i warn you to not search if you are squemish. The amount of force used to murder her is quite horrifying her body was mangled.

    The other sad part to this story was the woman was pro massimmigration and multiculturalism, she was part of a facebook page supporting the stay of immigrants like the one which raped her to death.

    This is the future of all white people if changes aren't made soon.

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  26. ""If you look back at issues of The Australian from the 1980s, you will see that Sheridan was among the leaders of the let's-drive-Geoffrey-Blainey-out-of-public-life lynch-mob.""

    I was in nappies but yes the lynch mob that went after Australia's greatest ever historian did have a much younger Greg in their ranks.

    And no I don't think he will recant, even after the quarter century that has done almost nothing but prove right-lib idiots like Sheridan wrong on social and cultural issues.

    The right libs are far more sensible economically than the left libs, but they are both stuck in the liberal mindset that accepts no wisdom existing before the enlightenment [pace perhaps that of the ancient Greeks].

    This hamstrings them in seeing the cultural and social reality that those of us not so well educated can see with Mark. 1 eyeballs.

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  27. Its fair to say that Greg Sheridan used to be a (fairly) left liberal. I'm not quite sure what turned him right.

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  28. In acknowledging his past mistakes Greg Sheridan demonstrates considerable insight and courage. Instead of nit picking about his past views, his present position should be applauded. I believe he has put himself at some personal risk in the expression of these views and has certainly been denounced as racist by colleagues in the media. So he is attacked by the left as being a reactionary racist and then attacked by the right for not reaching his position earlier . Surely the important thing is that he has reached this position . How about some common sense prevailing?

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