Wrong to say senator wasn’t referring to Holocaust
Defending Queensland senator Fraser Anning’s maiden speech on Muslim immigration, Bob Katter said: “Anyone who says Fraser’s language was a reference to neo-Nazi beliefs either hasn’t read his speech or is trying to use any excuse to stifle public debate.”
Technically Katter is correct. The “final solution” is not a neo-Nazi belief. It is an authentic, goose-stepping, Nazi belief first articulated in July 1941 by Hermann Goering.
Except that it wasn’t a belief. It was the euphemism for a plan of action that murdered six million people. The words are synonymous with genocide. Not with a theoretical belief in genocide, but with an actual historical genocide.
To suggest that Anning wasn’t referencing the Holocaust when he used the phrase is laughable.
The words “final solution” appear in scientific and medical literature quite frequently. Although its connection with the Holocaust is painfully obvious to us seniors who suffered discrimination under European totalitarianism, I do not think most Australians recognise this. The furore with Fraser Anning’s speech is just another demonstration that offence seekers are able to put unintended meaning to many English words to signal virtue.
After listening to the speech by Fraser Anning, I was appalled. I am a new Australian. I arrived in 1949, sponsored by the government, and worked for two years on a contract with the government.
I lost all my family during the Holocaust: my Mum and Dad, a two-year-old sister, eight uncles and five aunties. I was interned from the time I was 13 and I didn’t come out from the camps until I was 18.
I personally invite Anning to come to the Sydney Jewish Museum as my guest and listen to my story.
Is Sherry Sufi trying to appease the bottom layer of voters that the accidental senator Fraser Anning seems to be gunning for, or is Sufi unable to face unsavoury historical events (“Critics of a past built on ‘racism’ get it all wrong”, 17/8)?
Playing with words around the White Australia “dream”, to glamorise our nation’s birthright does not in diminish the sufferings of the Chinese being treated as vermin for the 50 years to federation and as tolerated aliens to fade away after federation.
Even after the advent of multiculturalism in 1972, the Chinese were still treated as useful minions whose place in society was to be meek and subservient, even though they are often lauded for their contributions to the multicultural circus.
In light of the outrage over the racist connotations of the “final solution” comment, Sherry Sufi’s historical background piece on the White Australia policy is enlightening and welcome.
These two phrases are indeed a product of their times, too easily adopted in this modern age to justify outrage over the cause of the moment.
In a multicultural Australia that is rapidly becoming Asianised, the “final solution” will have little or no significance for future generations of Australians of Asian heritage.
However, the White Australia policy threatens to be a rights banner that will be waved at every Human Rights Commission opportunity until the Asian minority group becomes the majority.
Letters printed here appeared in The Weekend Australian.