DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK EVERYWHERE

Reading this week’s Australian Jewish News (3/5/’13) from the front cover to the letters pages, it is frighteningly clear that protecting our democratic way of life that many countries enjoy or try to emulate involves a tremendous effort just to protect, let alone to instigate from afresh in other parts of the world. There are so many competing issues for the protection of human rights, that one wonders who needs to be locked up from whom first and foremost today in the world’s   democracies. 

On the one hand we have a young Australian child being inculcated with murderous hatreds towards other Australians, (FRONT COVER)while on the other we have the new Eureka Museum devoted to preserving democracy as though democracy is already dead and buried! In the letters pages we have ‘pro’ and ‘con’ the depiction of a  free and successful Israel versus keeping out Palestinians behind barriers in films such as “The other son” and “The Promise “ on TV.

Israel is not the only democracy protecting itself from inimical outsiders wanting to inundate and destroy its way of life. India had to do it on its borders with Bangladesh; the USA on its borders with Mexico and so on. Pakistan’s democratic attempts at general elections are being undermined by the Taliban who openly claim that “democracy is incompatible with Islam”.

 In protecting our Australian maritime borders from massive unregulated movements of people to our shores, sadly has to lead to deterrent measures as well.

It is inevitable that what is right for us will be wrong for others. The backlash in Europe due to massive influx of refugees from Asia and Africa has resulted in racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigration neo-Nazi xenophobic winners at the ballot boxes in several countries, including the UK and Hungary. We should not forget that Hitler and his Nazi Party won a democratic election. While as Stan Marks notes in his letter that there is nothing funny in portraying the Nazis in comedies today, perhaps ridicule and satire is the way for future generations not to repeat that folly!

The American ‘gun lobby’ thinks that guns are for protecting the individual from hateful governments (presumably like Nazism or Communism), while the need to protect the population from individuals who may be mentally unbalanced or just terrorists, seems to be beyond their comprehension. Not even a background check for would-be purchasers of dangerous firearms seems to be allowed. Parents and families are under threat from mentally ill children; wives from violent husbands; children from paedophiles and each other while guns are freely available in the home.

Let us start valuing individual human rights and  teaching respect, tolerance, safety and just good personal relations right here in our own homes and in our schools. The brochure that the National Council of Women of Victoria Inc. has produced, could go a long way to teach children, newcomers to our shores and all citizens, that women while having the major family responsibilities, must  also earn their families’ respect as well their love. This is something that the majority thankfully do earn and deserve it.

Then why is domestic violence against women so prevalent in today’s society? Why are children under threat from paedophiles, even in their schools? Why do parents from other cultures persist in sending their children to their countries of origin to have female circumcisions performed or child marriages arranged? Is it due to ignorance of our laws and modern-day norms of behaviour in  our modern-day democracy? Religious dogma about gender and sexuality can lead to repressive self-hatred and deviant behaviour such as rape and incest. I would not be surprised if we learn that behind every suicide or terrorist bomber, or a Taliban, lies a repressed and frustrated homosexual who takes out his/her self-loathing on others,-either en-masse or on their women whom they use just for procreation!

Only a widely distributed educational pamphlet such as the NCWV “Woman” can assist to alert the public to such arrant and horrific behaviours being totally unacceptable in our democratic way of life.

Malvina

8/5/2013.

Miriam's Topical Topics.: Steven Hawkins and BDS terrorism, UK..