AUSTRALIAN
NATIONAL INDEPENDENT
CALLS FOR MORE IMMIGRATION MUST BE RESISTED
CRIME IN AMERICA
UN-ROMANCING THE STONE AGE
SCIENCE
HISTORY: Russia – A Cruel History
BOOK REVIEWS: Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers?
The Weirdest People in the World
Dateline Jerusalem
Die Laughing
NUMBER NINETY NINE SUMMER 2021-22
CALLS FOR MORE IMMIGRATION MUST BE RESISTED
Despite the problems brought on by the Covid crisis the usual suspects are hoping for a return to the high immigration levels we had before the crisis. NSW Premier Dom (or should that be Dumb) Perrottet even suggested the intake double that we had before Covid hit.
Actually, going on the figures from Home Affairs website they have been continuing to issue visas for permanent migrants at the rate of previous years hence once Covid restrictions on entry to this country are removed there will be a flood of immigrants. Unlike previous years however the immigration visas are not heavily biased towards those with skills but include more people in the family reunion and child streams. (1) This seems a bit strange considering one of the excuses for flooding the country with migrants is that we need more skilled workers. Even this excuse is a bit dubious or reflects badly on how we select migrants as we have had a migrant program that for years, in fact for decades, which is supposed to be supplying us with skilled workers.
No doubt as people again flood into this country there will be an increased demand for housing and consumer goods and services. The already ridiculous cost of housing can be expected to rise and there will also be a demand for workers to produce the housing, infrastructure, along with other goods and services which in turn will lead to demands for more skilled immigrants. It starts to look like a Ponzi scheme.
As pointed out in previous issues our economy can grow without immigration. Last financial year the Australian economy grew 9.5%, at least according to the Trading Economics website, while net overseas migration was minus 88,800. Due to a natural increase of 134,800 however, our population grew by 0.2% to reach 25,739,256. (2) Meanwhile our current account is positive and increasing, our balance of trade is positive and our foreign debt went down in the September quarter, as it did in the March quarter. (3)
Despite claims immigration has a positive effect on productivity, the truth is that over the last decade or so the rate of productivity improvement in Australia, like most advanced economies has slowed to a snail’s pace. (4)
Then there are the social problems like crime. A recent drop in homicides has been put down to the lockdowns and the Covid crisis. It could have however also be due to the slowdown in immigration.
A media release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that the number of prisoners in our jails has increased. The number on remand rose by 16% but those sentenced actually fell by 1%. (5)
ABS figures show the number of overseas born in our jails has decreased, possibly down to 15.72% of the total number of prisoners. The figures also show that 2,531 out of 35,275 Australian born prisoners are in for homicide and related offences, which works out at 7.17%. They also show that 761 out of 6,757 overseas born prisoners are in for homicide offences and this works out at 11.26%. Even prisoners born in the United Kingdom had much higher likelihood of being in jail for homicide. The statistics therefore show migrant prisoners are more likely to be in jail for homicide so it would seem the fewer migrants the fewer homicides. And at least five migrant nationalities, namely those from Vietnam, Tonga, Samoa, Somalia and Sudan, have higher imprisonment rates than Australians. (6)
NSW statistics on where crime is occurring also shows the effect of non-European immigration. In the twelve months ending September 2021 the state’s homicide fell 1.4 to 1.0 per 100,000 of population, a drop of 27.7%. Two of the most “multicultural” areas of the city also saw a drop; in the case of Bankstown Local Government Area (LGA) the rate dropped from 2.4 to 1.3 and in the Cumberland LGA which includes the notorious suburb of Auburn the rate fell from 3.7 to 2.1. Parramatta bucked the trend and rose to 1.6 homicides per 100,000. (7) What’s noticeable is that the rates in these areas noted for the large proportion of immigrants are quite higher than the state figures.
If and when migrants start to flood into Australia again we should not expect an improvement in the economy but an increase in crime and other social problems.
Statistics:
The 2020-21 Migration Program Report shows 79,620 migration places in the Skill stream, 77,372 in the Family stream, 3,006 in the Child stream, and 54 in the Special Eligibility stream. The total number of places was 160,052. In previous years about two-thirds of the intake was in the Skills stream. (8)
Figures on GDP growth from the ABS show slightly different figures to those on the Trading Economics website but all quarterly figures over the 2020-2021 financial year are positive and total over 9%. In the quarter ending September 2021 the economy went backwards by 1.9% but for the twelve months ending September the growth was a positive 3.9%. (9)
(1) Australian Department of Home Affairs, “2020-21 Migration Program Report”
(2) Trading Economics website; Australian Bureau of Statistics, www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-t...
(3) Australian Bureau of Statistics, www.abs.gov.au Downloaded 10 January 2022
(4) Shamar Saggar, “Five Traps for Those Arguing in Favour of Big Australia”, The Australian, 14 January 2022; Ross Gittins, “Time to Look At The Many Ways to Stifle Productivity”, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 January 2022
(5) “Prisoners on Remand Up 16%”, www.abs.gov.au/media-releases/prisoners-remand-16
(6) Australian Bureau of Statistics, 45170DO001/2_2021 Prisoners in Australia, 2021
(7) NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, crimetool.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/bocsar
(8) Australian Department of Home Affairs, “2020-21 Migration program Report”
(9) Australian Bureau of Statistics, www.abs.gov.au/statistics/national-accounts/australia...
CRIME IN AMERICA
There was a noticeable rise in homicides in the United States in 2020, in fact an increase of 30%. The actual rate per 100,000 of population rose from 6 to 7.8 homicides. Washington, D.C., had the highest homicide rate with 24.4 killings per 100,000, while other states with high rates were Mississippi, 20.5, Louisiana, 19.9, Alabama, 14.2, Missouri, 14, and Arkansas, 13 killings per 100,000.
Of a total of 17,754 homicide victims recorded by the FBI, the majority were male, 7,029 were white, 9,913 were black, 497, were other race and 315 unknown. Of 20,982 homicide offenders, 27.9% or 5,844 were white, 38.8% or 8,142 were black, 1.95% other, and 31.4% or 6,592 were unknown. It appears the majority of victims and the majority of killers were black.
There is some controversy about the reason for the rise in homicides. Some put it down to a drop in prison populations brought on by “coronavirus protocols”. In 2020 US state and federal prison populations fell by 15%, the lowest levels since 1992. There was also a big drop in prosecutions. In California for example there was a 66% drop in prosecutions.
The riots and other repercussions following the George Floyd incident seems to have led to less officious policing, as officers are no longer putting their heart, soul and knee into their job like they used to.
Unfortunately the rise in killings continued into 2021 with at least 12 major US cities having broken annual homicide records even before the year had ended. Philadelphia with 1.5 million people had at least 521 homicides, an increase of 13% over 2020 and more than either the nation’s two biggest cities, New York and Los Angeles. Chicago, the US’s third biggest city had at least 974 homicides in 2021, while Columbus, Indianapolis and Louisville had record numbers of slayings. Things don’t look to be improving as there were 344 deaths and 560 injuries in the week ending 11 January 2022.
Hate Crime:
Hate or “bias” crimes have also been increasing in the US. The number of single bias crimes was 7,103 in 2019 but this rose to 8,052 in 2020. The latter involved 11,126 victims. The major categories of single-bias were those involving race/ethnicity/ancestry, 61.8%, religion, 13.3% and sexual orientation, 20.0%. Of 6,780 known offenders, 55.1% were white and 21.2% were black.
Hate crimes against Asians are said to have increased by 73% in 2020, which is considerably higher than the general rise in hate crimes. It is also claimed that Asians are less likely to report crime and are the least likely to report hate crimes.
UN-ROMANCING THE STONE AGE
The picture of traditional Aboriginal life given to our children in school and shown in museums is sanitised of all the more unsavoury facts about their culture such as infanticide, warfare, cannibalism and the mistreatment of women. It verges on a fairy tale image. Some writers however have had the courage to look at the darker side of Aboriginal culture including those whose articles have been appearing in the Quadrant magazine.
In an article by William Rubinstein the incidence of cannibalism among Aborigines is described. Cannibalism existed as they did not grow crops or domesticate animals hence were often close to starvation. The cannibalism could consist of eating small children, women, and the elderly or enemy warriors slain in battle. They are also said to have eaten Chinese people who they thought tasted better than white people. Most of the people eaten by Aborigines had already died and their bodies were cooked and eaten rather than buried.
Rubenstein also writes of the mistreatment of women in aboriginal society which seems to have been pretty severe, in fact they had the status of slaves. Women had to do the laborious work, were beaten for the slightest offence and their lives were of “no account” if their husbands chose to destroy it. When a young girl reached puberty in some tribes she was, as white observers described, subject to “promiscuous coition with all the ‘bucks’ present” – or what we would call pack rape. Sometimes a corroboree would also be followed by a similar act. Violence was endemic and pervasive in traditional Aboriginal society. In some areas it still is. Violence by Aboriginal men against Aboriginal women occurs at a vastly higher rate than violence against white women by white men. Aboriginal women are 32 more likely to be hospitalised and five times more likely to be killed in family violence.
A more recent article deals with infanticide in traditional Aboriginal society. The actual rate of infanticide could vary but the average rate, based on contemporary observers of nomadic Aborigines is 30%. Various reasons for killing infants included getting rid of sickly or deformed children, population control so that scarce food resources would not run out, and the difficulty of nomadic mothers carrying more than two, or at most three children around with them. Some tribes are said to have buried the babies alive whilst others were eaten after being killed. Girl babies were the most likely to be killed. Australia’s Aboriginal population is thought to have numbered 350,000 before 1788 and about 10,000 babies were born each year. If 30% were killed each year, and there was a population of 300,000 that would mean 150 million babies were killed over 50,000 years of Aboriginal history. The British settlement of Australia led to the outlawing of infanticide and many who would have previously died were allowed to live – which means the distortion of the real nature of Aboriginal society is an attempt at anti-white racism.
The question of genocide is dealt with by Rubenstein who admits that the number of Aborigines in Australia declined significantly after 1788. We don’t really know how many Aborigines lived at the start of 1788 and estimates range from 150,000 to an unlikely 1.5 million. Rubenstein thinks the most likely estimate should be 350,000. There were massacres as in most conflicts although after the 1830s most of these were carried out by Native mounted Police. Allegations of genocide must contend with the fact that early colonial governments often set up offices of Protector of Aborigines and the British authorities were generally sympathetic to the Aborigines. Most of the decline in Aboriginal numbers in colonial times was probably due to epidemics of measles, tuberculosis, smallpox, influenza and sexually transmitted diseases. Fighting among Aboriginals may have reached genocidal levels. Records made in the 19th century claim that a tribe in the Monaro, NSW, were exterminated, man, woman, and child by warriors that came from afar as Bathurst and the Tweed.
Sources:
William D. Rubenstein, “The Incidence of Cannibalism in Aboriginal Society”, Quadrant, September 2021
William D. Rubenstein, “The Mistreatment of Women in Aboriginal Society”, Quadrant, November 2021
William D. Rubenstein, “Infanticide in Traditional Aboriginal Society”, Quadrant, December 2021
William D. Rubenstein, “Australia’s Aborigines and the Question of Genocide”, Quadrant, January-February 2021
SCIENCE
EGYPTIAN MUMMIES: A US forensics company using a tool called Snapshot has assessed the ancestry, pigmentation and face shape of three ancient Egyptian mummies believed to be about 2000 to 2800 years old. Their ancestry appears to have been closer to that of modern Europeans than modern Egyptians who show greater influence from sub-Saharan African populations. Their complexions appear to have been light brown, with dark eyes, dark hair and no freckles. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute said the genetic material was distinct from modern Egyptians and closer to Near eastern and European samples.
Rhys Blakely, “Mummies Looked Like Modern Europeans”, The Times / The Australian, 30 September 2021
INTELLIGENCE: To estimate the genetic and environmental effects on adulthood IQ a sample of 486 biological and adoptive families were studied. The offspring had been tested at an average age of 15 and tested again nearly two decades later when aged about 32 years. The findings provided further evidence for the predominance of genetic influences on adult intelligence over any other systemic source of variation.
E. Willoughby, M. McGue, W. G. Iacono, J. J. Lee, “Genetic and Environmental Contributions to IQ in Adoptive and Biological Families”, Intelligence, Sep. Oct. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101579
MILK FUELED MIGRATION: Nomads, known as the Yamnaya swept out of the southern steppes of Russia in the early Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago, migrating as far afield as Europe and Mongolia and the Altai Mountains. As they conquered new lands they introduced new technologies like wheeled wagons and may have also spread Indo-European languages. Analysis of skeletons of individuals who lived in south-western Russia between 4600 and 1700 BC showed that those who lived before the migration mostly showed no evidence of consuming dairy while those who lived in the early Bronze Age generally did. Dairy consumption gave benefits that allowed expansion of these people.
Rhys Blakely, “Milk Fuelled the Great Bronze Age Migration”, The Times / The Australian, 17 September 2021
EARLY AMERICANS: Footprints found at White Sands National Park in the US state of New Mexico confirm human presence with some of the tracks dating back 23,000 years. This dates back to the Last Glacial Maximum and is probably the oldest unequivocal evidence of humans in the Americas.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210923161340.htm 23 September 2021
DENISOVAN DNA PHILIPPINES: A Negrito group from the Philippines, known as the Ayta Magbukon, has been shown to have more Denisovan ancestry than the Papuan Highlanders who were previously thought to have the highest proportion of Denisovan ancestry. This is despite the Negritos having admixed with East Asian people.
CORONAVIRUS: Five separate coronaviruses have jumped from animals to humans in the last 21 years and another pandemic will happen again sooner or later according to Professor Peter Docherty of the Docherty Institute. The accelerated rate of viruses jumping species worldwide was due to air travel and China’s notorious wet markets where animals housed and slaughtered.
Jane Hansen, “Wet Markets are a Hot House for Covid”, Sunday Telegraph, 8 August 2021
WALLACEA: The oldest modern human genome from Wallacea, the area between Papua and western Indonesia indicates previously unknown relationships. Archaeological evidence indicate people lived in the region 47,000 years ago. DNA from human remains dated as 7,000 years old was found at Leanne Panninge (Bat Cave) on the island of Sulawasi. Parts of the DNA match that of modern Papuans and Aboriginals. The Leanne Panninge remains show some Denisovan heritage and it could be in the Wallacea area where modern humans interbred with these ancient people. There is also evidence of ancient Asian ancestry even though Asians were thought to have only arrived about 3,500 years ago. DNA from the remains of hunter gatherers from west of Wallacea does not show evidence of Denisovan ancestry.
NEANDERTHAL ART: Stalagmites in a Spanish cave are thought to have been painted over 60,000 years ago. This is before modern humans arrived in Europe indicating the work was done by Neanderthals. The pigments used were applied by splattering and blowing and appear to have come from somewhere outside the cave. (“A Brutal History of Cave Art”, Daily Telegraph, 4 August 202!)
HISTORY
RUSSIA – A Cruel History
While Russia has been mostly Christian since the 10th Century it has had a history marked by wars, dynastic struggles and cruel repression.
For instance the Grand Prince Vladimir the Great came to power in 980 AD after the killing of his two half-brothers. When he died in 1015 Vladimir’s two oldest sons were killed in a struggle for power.
In the year 1237 the Mongol army of Genghis Khan invaded and wiped out up to half of the Russian population and almost all the inhabitants of the capital Kiev. The Mongols were finally defeated during the 1350s.
The most notorious Russian leader was Ivan IV, generally known as Ivan the Terrible, who came to power at the age of three when his father died in 1533. His mother acted as regent until she died, probably poisoned, five years later. He is said to have ordered an assassination when he was only 13 years old.
Ivan extended his kingdom by the conquest of the Tatar Khanate of Kazan in 1552 and another Tatar Khanate in Astrakhan in 1556. Tens of thousands of Muslims were killed or driven out and replaced by Christian settlers.
Ivan was noted for his paranoia especially in regard to the “Novgorod Treason” of 1569. He believed the city of Novgorod was planning to secede from Russia and join Lithuania. This led him to having powerful nobles, merchants and officials, together with their wives and children, brought before him and tortured. Afterwards they were tied to sleds and dragged to the Volkhov River and men, women and children thrown in. Any who surfaced were speared or struck with axes.
In another incident Ivan had his Foreign Minister, Ivan Viskovati, who he accused of conspiracy strung up between two tall wooden stakes. He was then whipped about the head and body, had his nose, ears and genitals cut off, eventually bleeding to death.
Ivan had a number of wives over the years including Vasilisa Melentyeva who he suspected of having an affair with a prince at court. He forced Vasilisa to watch as her lover was impaled alive on a wooden stake. Vasilisa was then sent to a convent.
To help control his people Ivan set up a 6,000 strong secret police force, known as the Oprichniki, notorious for their brutality and ability to terrorise the population. To give themselves a macabre air they wore course black gowns and cut the heads of dogs and hung them from their horse’s bridles. Ivan’s paranoia however made him turn on the Oprichniki, many were denounced and hung outside public buildings. The sister of one leading Oprichniki was raped by 500 soldiers while he was forced to watch. Ivan died in 1584, leaving a drained and exhausted country. In 1601 Russia saw its worst ever famine in which a third of the population died.
Another notable leader was Peter I, one of the Romanov line, who wrested power in 1689. He enlarged his kingdom, taking the Black Sea port of Azov from the Turks in 1696. This gave the Russians a warm sea port.
Peter had a penchant for things Western and brought in foreign craftsmen and scientists. He promoted education and reformed his army, navy and civil service. He also went to war with Sweden in what became the Great Northern War of 1700-1721. He captured an area around the mouth of the River Neva, established a fort and by 1712 had built his new capital, the city of St. Petersburg.
In Moscow he was having trouble with an elite body of soldiers called the Streltsy. He had 1,200 of them tortured and killed, their bodies then publicly displayed. When Peter found that his first wife, Eudoxia Lopukhina, was having an affair he sent her to a convent and had her lover cut into quarters.
Despite the brutality of many Russian monarchs, none matched the large scale killings of the dictators of the Soviet Union, estimated to total 20 million deaths, and including the liquidation of 690,000 in the Great Purge of 1937-38 and at least 4 million in the Ukraine in 1932-3.
BOOK REVIEWS
“FARMERS or HUNTER-GATHERERS? The Dark Emu Debate” by Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2021 (ISBN: 9780522877854)
Bruce Pascoe’s book “Dark Emu” which came out in 2014 claimed that pre-white settlement, Aboriginal society had progressed beyond the hunter-gatherer stage and practised agriculture, built permanent settlements and constructed housing, sometimes from stone.
Sutton and Walshe argue against Pascoe’s ideas and show that Aboriginals were not agriculturalists but developed a complex hunter-gatherer society. Both seem well qualified to write about this subject.
Peter Sutton is a social anthropologist and linguist who has been working with Aboriginal peoples and recording their languages for 50 years. Keryn Walshe is an archaeologist with 35 years experience dealing with Aboriginal sites and objects.
Pascoe claims that Aborigines, or at least some of them were sedentary. The evidence is that they were all nomadic or at least semi-nomadic, spending some months but not years in one location. Even when staying in one area for a month or so Aboriginals could relocate small distances on a regular basis. Living in one area for a lengthy period would be necessary for the development of agriculture. This seems to have been alien to the traditional way of life of Aborigines.
It’s not impossible that at some time in the past Aboriginals experimented with crops like taro, yams or even bananas millennia ago but it is difficult to prove this.
Pascoe’s claims that Aboriginals lived in permanent dwellings is a bit misplaced as they spent little time in any one place. Some more substantial huts, made from wood and bark seem to have been re-used when Aboriginals returned to an area they had inhabited previously. Pascoe’s claims that Aboriginals constructed stone buildings seems to be based on a misreading of his sources although some experts claim stone was used as a base for wooden and bark houses. Stone was used as footings or support for walls, not actual walls. Overall stone was not used often for building and Pascoe cited the exceptional as the usual.
Pascoe tended to read more into historical writings than the authors intended. For instance Captain John Hunter described in 1788 an area dug up by Aborigines looking for “wild yam”. Pascoe incorrectly writes about “yam gardens”. His claims of Aboriginals living in large villages of thousands, as many as 10,000, is not substantiated.
Pascoe’s book tended to trim the evidence to fit his own model, lacked true scholarship, and ignored Aboriginal elder’s knowledge. Sutton also criticises Pascoe’s attention to material aspects of Aboriginal food production rather than the rich spiritual propagation philosophy of their culture. He finds Pascoe’s social evolutionist philosophy disturbing: But do they really consider that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is equal to a modern high tech society?
In an appendix to the book Keryn Walshe discusses the question of when Indigenous people arrived in Australia. There are claims that one archaeological site in northern Australia, Madjedbebe, could be 65,000 or even 80,000 years old. On the other hand estimates based on DNA indicates that modern humans, including the ancestors of Aboriginals, left Africa 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. If there were people in Australia 65,000 years ago they would be from an earlier people for whom we have no DNA.
“THE WEIRDEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous” by Joseph Henrich, Allen Lane, United Kingdom, 2020 (ISBN: 978-1-846-14796-8)
Henrich, an award-winning anthropologist and Harvard professor explains the development of us WEIRD people: Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. He claims we are psychologically peculiar in that we are highly individualistic, nonconformist, analytical and control-orientated, focussing on ourselves, our attributes, accomplishments and aspirations rather than relationships and social roles.
One of the surprising facts that Henrich brings up is that learning to read actually rewires our brain in a number of ways. For instance the corpus callosum that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain thickens, part of the prefrontal cortex is altered as are other brain areas engaged in neurological tasks such as speech processing. Verbal memory is improved but the ability to identify faces is diminished. This, according to Henrich is an example of how culture can change people biologically independent of any genetic differences. Widespread literacy is a recent development and only goes back to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Luther believed everyone should study the Bible hence he called for universal education to ensure everyone would be literate enough to read it. From the early part of the 16th century literary rates rose substantially in Europe, particularly those predominantly Protestant nations like Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Henrich even claims that higher literacy levels, and especially reading novels, actually made people more empathetic and led to a decrease in homicides.
This was not the first time that the Christian religion changed how Western society evolved. Important was what Henrich calls the Marriage and Family Program (MFP) of the Christian and particularly the Catholic Church. In a time when some major religions such as Zoroastrianism and Islam allowed Polygyny or having a number of wives, the Christians banned this as well as cousin marriage. This avoided the problem of inbreeding, meant that more men married and had children, and seems to have acted against the clannishness of many traditional societies.
Cousin marriages still occurred and there appears to be correlations, positive or negative, between the prevalence of such marriages and psychological traits. The more first cousin marriages the greater the traits of conformity-obedience. There is a reverse correlation in traits like individualism-independence, impersonal trust and impersonal fairness.
Places with fewer cousin marriages even have higher rates of voluntary blood donations.
It appears that the Church’s ideas on marriage and family not only dismantled intensive kinship and clannishness but opened the flow of information through a broadening social network that wired together diverse minds across Christendom. New religious ideas not only promoted literacy and schooling but also made industriousness, scientific insight, and pragmatic achievement sacred. Along with other institutions like universities, apprenticeships, transregional monastic orders, knowledge societies and their publications, urbanisation, and impersonal markets, as well as psychological shifts that made individuals more inventive but less fecund, these drove innovation and eventually generated unparalleled economic prosperity.
Henrich sees cultural evolution as driving our genetic evolution shaping our brains and psychology, as well as the more obvious physical changes in our bodies.
There is quite a lot of “data” in the book and insights into how things have evolved. Surprisingly war seems to have played a big part in urbanisation, social cohesion, deepened people’s Christian faith and entrenched a universalising morality.
Henrich quotes the ethnographer Robert F. Murphy:
“But warfare, it can be concluded, is an especially effective means of promoting social cohesion in that it provides an occasion upon which the members of society unite and submerge their factional differences in the vigorous pursuit of a common purpose.” (1957)
Henrich sees many of the changes over the last 15 centuries as largely cultural rather than genetic. He claims for instance that the genes likely to affect our educational attainment have been going in reverse while culture has driven up our time spent being educated. For instance in the 20th century, culture has raised American’s educational attainment by 9 to 11 years, while natural selection has lowered it by less than 8 months.
The book is complex and detailed and not the easiest to read. It does not have much to say about the welfare state or the flood of Third World migrants into Western nations like Australia and the United States. Henrich gives us a lot to think about how we got to where we are, but not where we are going.
“DATELINE JERUSALEM: Journalism’s Toughest Assignment” by John Lyons, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, 2021 (ISBN: 9781922464842)
John Lyons, a journalist with The Australian newspaper, spent six years in Jerusalem, a period he describes as the toughest of his career.
He found that much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not reported to Australians, and for that matter important and powerful groups tried to ensure that it was not reported. Intimidation, harassment and influence peddling was used to stop the truth being told. The result is that in this country we are told very little about the conflict.
For instance we are not told that in the West Bank there is one law for the Palestinian children and another for Jewish children.
Palestinians have inferior civil rights compared to Israelis living in the West Bank and they live in fear of attack by both the Israeli army and Jewish settlers. There are streets in the West Bank where only Israelis can walk and roads where only Israelis can drive. Even leaders of the Australian Jewish community know little of this reality.
The majority of Palestinians are not able to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque. If they are Christians many cannot pray at the Holy Sepulchre because the Israeli army will not give them permits to visit Jerusalem. The permit system determines where they can go, where they can work, where they can access medical care, and whether they can have equal employment opportunity.
The Israelis have their military in the West Bank under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1950 but the same convention prohibits construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Israelis are cherry-picking which parts of the law they will abide by.
Civil rights of Palestinians don’t receive the protection they should and Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not allowed to vote in Israeli national elections. In 2018 the Israeli Parliament passed the Nation State Law which entrenches Jewish superiority over Israel’s Arab population. This law says that Israel is the national home of the Jewish people and that the right to self-determination is unique only to Jewish citizens. Lyons describes this as discriminatory and racist.
To get Australian journalists and editors on side and favourable to the Israeli point of view, they are given free fly-in-fly-out, wining and dining trips to Israel of about six days. A large number of the senior editors of Australia’s major newspapers, including Lyons himself, have taken these trips that he describes as wall-to-wall propaganda.
Meanwhile the Australian media self-censors when it comes to Israel in fear of being described as ant-Semitic. Added to this is pressure from the pro-Israel groups such as the Australian / Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and Colin Rubenstein, its executive director, who seems to have a large influence on what the media says in relation to Israel.
The pro-Israel lobby in Australia appears to be one of the most powerful in the world considering the small size of the Jewish community in Australia – about 100,000. Many of the wealthiest men in Australia are Jewish, they come from a community that is more Zionist than Jews in the United States, are less likely to marry non-Jews and about 70% have visited Israel, a higher proportion than from any other country.
An example of disproportionate influence is the case of Mike Carlton who ended up losing his job with the Sydney Morning Herald after he wrote an article criticising the firepower used by the Israeli military against Gaza.
In another case The Australian newspaper employed Jennine Khalik, a Palestinian Australian, but after approaches from Jewish groups and lack of support from sub-editors at the paper she left journalism.
In 2011 another newspaper, The Age employed an editor of Palestinian heritage, Maher Mughrabi, and he was targeted by the Israeli Embassy.
This shows how useless and hypocritical are our anti-discrimination laws and claims about diversity and equal opportunity. Imagine what would happen if a white Australian tried to complain about what a coloured journalist was writing about us.
“DIE LAUGHING: The Biography of Bill Leak” by Fred Pawle, Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne, 2021 (ISBN: PB 978-1-922669-03-2)
Bill Leak, cartoonist, was noted the controversy his work generated as much as for its quality. One especially controversial cartoon pictured an Aboriginal father who did not know the name of his own son – the “Yeah righto what’s his name then?” cartoon.
Leak was born in Adelaide on 9 January 1956 but not long after the family moved to Goroke in Victoria where his father took up a position as postmaster. In 1961 the family again moved, this time to Condobolin in NSW. To widen the children’s opportunities the family moved to Sydney and eventually settled in the northern suburb of Beacon Hill.
Early in his life Bill showed an ability to draw and successfully studied art at school. As an adult he travelled to Germany where he met his first wife Astrid, the daughter of a German woman and an Afro-American serviceman. Bill’s son’s Johannes and Jasper would therefore be at least one-eighth part African. The marriage did not last but by then Astrid and their two sons were living in Australia.
Bill took up with Jeanne Ryckmans who also appears to have been of mixed race. He did not marry Jeanne but did eventually marry Rewadee “Goong” Phitnak, a native of Thailand.
Despite a penchant for hooking up with women of colour Bill was still vilified as “racist” after his “Yeah righto what’s his name then?” cartoon appeared in The Australian newspaper. Most people forgot about his cartoon depicting racist cops and the Don Dale Detention Centre, or another showing John Howard taking a big stick to Aboriginals over the stolen generation, Hindmarsh Island and Wik.
Bill unfortunately died from a heart attack during the controversy his cartoons had aroused. Admittedly his over indulgence in alcohol at various times in his life would not have been good for his health. Neither would have been the incident when while visiting John Singleton’s home he fell off a first floor balcony and did serious damage to his head.
His passing saw the end of a brilliant career and the end of his brave fight against political correctness.
DEPRESSING NEWS AND STATISTICS
USA: Life expectancy in the US actually went down in the year 2020 largely due to the COVID-19 epidemic which took the lives of 375,000 Americans according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). White American life expectancy fell 1.2 years and for blacks it fell 2.9 years.
A. Perry, C. Romer, and A. Barr, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue 20 December 2021
BLACK FUTURE: The world’s population has increased by a third in just two decades and is expected to reach 8 billion in 2022. Fertility rates in most of Europe are well below the replacement rate of 2.1. In much of Asia the problem is similar with South Korea having a fertility rate less than one per woman. Japan’s population was 128 million but is expected to fall to 106 million by 2050. China is expected to reach 1.45 billion by 2030 but fall to 600 million by the end of the century. The world’s population will continue to increase to 10.9 billion by 2100 but most of the growth will be in Africa which is expected to reach 4.28 billion. In fact in half of Africa’s 54 nations the population will double by 2050.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/20/by-205...
HUNGER: As of 2021 there were about 239 million people suffering from malnourishment in Sub-Saharan Africa.
https://www.statista.com
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NATIONAL NEWS SUMMARY
NEW TANKS have been ordered from America for the Australian army. More than 120 new tanks and other armoured vehicles, including 75 M1A2 main battle tanks, will cost $3.5 billion. Being replaced are 59 Abrams M1A1 tanks bought in 2007 but which have never seen combat (Anthony Galloway, “Australia Locks in $3.5b Tank Purchase from the US”, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/01/22).
ISLANDER GANGS being lured into carrying out assassinations in the Hamzy-Alameddine gang war have been subject to a police crackdown. Crews of poor young islander men, particularly Fijians have become guns for hire in the gang warfare (G. Clarke & J. Hanrahan, “Cops Nab Islander Kill Crew”, Daily Telegraph, 28/01/22).
AT LEAST six men have been killed in the Hamzy-Alameddine gang war, the latest being Ghassan Amoun who was gunned down outside a beauty parlour early January. Ibrahem Hamze has been described as the last man standing. Samuel Rokomaqisa, 31, was arrested last August in a suspected plot to murder Hamze (Anton Rose, “Last Man Standing”, Sunday Telegraph, 9/01/22).
A TRUTH and Justice Commission, costing $250 million, will be set up to oversee an Indigenous truth-telling process if the Greens get their way after the next federal election. The commission would investigate historic and contemporary examples of human rights abuses and provide recommendations on how to heal these incidents (Cameron Gooley, “Greens Push for Truth Commission”, SMH, 24/01/22).
UJWAL SHRESTHA, 25, a delivery driver from Nepal, has been charged over random attacks on women on Sydney’s North Shore. A police strike force had been investigating a series of sexual offences and had collected DNA from the skin and clothing of the victims (Emily Burley, “Driver a Danger to Women”, ST, 23/01/22).
ABORIGINAL CAVE art, hundreds or thousands of years old has been stolen from sites in the Hunter Valley. The art has been chiselled out or cut out with angle grinders. Some rock art has been vandalised with graffiti (Dan Proudman, “Our Culture is Being Stolen”, ST, 9/01/22).
OLD PARLIAMENT House in Canberra was affected by fire during a demonstration. This was the second fire in a week. Witnesses said that activists were chanting “let it burn” while videos on social media show protestors clapping as smoke rose into the air (C. Harris & A. Gleeson, “Fury as Symbol of Democracy Burns”, DT, 31/12/21).
FOUR CHILDREN, aged from one to 10 years, were killed in a house fire in Melbourne. The four were farewelled at the Al-Taqwa Mosque Caleb Bond, “Tears for Four Tiny Victims of a Fire”, ST, 28/12/21). The parents are believed to be Sudanese refugees.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, Labor party leader, has signalled that his party won’t back the federal government’s push to increase Australia’s permanent migration intake. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe believes there is a direct link between low wage growth and the high rate of immigration (James Campbell, “Albo: Mass Immigration is Out”, ST, 12/12/21).
SIXTEEN BABIES known to government welfare agencies died suddenly and unexpectedly while the department most responsible for at-risk children came under fire from One Nation MP Mark Latham for being “woke” and “de-gendering” its language. During 2020, 12 vulnerable children known to welfare authorities killed themselves. The youngest was 12 years and the oldest 17 (Clarissa Bye, “Woke Up and Save Children at Risk”, DT, 2/12/21).
THE BLACK flag of ISIS has been displayed in NSW more than 300 times since 2015 and the flag of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation shown almost 50 times since 2015. The flags were mostly flown in southwest Sydney. The Australian federal Police wants the government to ban the ISIS and other flags or insignia associated with extremism (Clarissa Bye, “Flagging the ISIS Idiots”, DT, 1/12/21).
FOUR YOUNG women, Michelle Duong, Monique Contemplacion, Cynthia Woo and Melike Puson, were hired by Yi Zhong as money launderers. They converted cash into bitcoin for a criminal syndicate (Carla Hildebrandt, “Cash Mules Come Clean”, DT, 23/12/21).
ANTI-ISRAELI PROTESTORS have boycotted the Sydney Festival and 11 events have been cancelled. Comedian Tom Ballard said the protest came after the Israeli embassy handed $20,000 to the festival and was in protest at the apartheid state. Hollywood heavyweights including KISS frontman Gene Simmons urged Australians to resist the boycott. Jewish interests pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party-controlled China Southern Airlines sponsored the festival for seven years and this never triggered outrage (Christopher Harris, “Festival Boycott Blasted”, DT, 7/01/22).
A MAN pleaded for help in Mandarin as he was bashed in the Sydney suburb of Burwood. A group of seven or eight punched and kicked him. Chinese national Yadi Zheng, 27, has been arrested over the attack (Anton Rose, DT, 19/11/21).
CRAIG THOMSON, former federal Labor MP has been charged over a migration fraud scheme in which he is believed to have made as much as two million dollars. He was arrested in Terrigal, NSW, by the Australian Federal Police and faces several fraud offences (Brad Norington, “Ex-MP in ‘Cash for Visa’ Fraud Raid”, The Australian, 18/11/21).
EVAN ISSHAK, 38, was arrested by the Australian Federal Police. He is said to be a “Mr Big” of organised crime and responsible for attempting to import 300kg of heroin from the “Golden Triangle” in Asia. Isshak was arrested in the Sydney suburb of Edensor Park and a second man was arrested at Cambridge Park where $300,000in cash and $50,000 worth of watches were found. The drugs may have come from Myanmar. Thai police in July found 134 shrink-wrapped packets of heroin (Mark Morri, “Mr Big Accused of Drug Scheme”, DT, 19/11/21).
AN ABORIGINAL man, Stanley Russell, 45, was shot and killed by police in the Sydney suburb of Seven Hills. A confrontation arose when police arrived at Russell’s aunt’s home looking for a man over an outstanding warrant. It appears Russell’s brother, Eddie, died at Long Bay jail in 1999 (Rhiannon Down, “Police Shooting Sparks Anger”, TA, 10/11/21).
MERAJ ZAFAR, 20, was arrested for murder after the body of his girlfriend, Aminah Hayat, was found in an acid-filled bath in the couple’s North Parramatta unit. Last November, Zafar faced Bankstown court over domestic violence against Hayat’s father (P. Duffin & G. Clark, DT, 1/02/22).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS SUMMARY
ANDREW HINTT, a 31-year-old white man and his two sons Benjamin, 7, and Sebastien, 5, were all murdered in the US town of Belvidere, Ill. Alize Smith, a black man, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Smith had spent time in prison for aggravated robbery (WIFR Newsroom, 23/12/21).
DONALD TRUMP could pardon those charged over the January 6 demonstrations in Washington if he becomes president of the US again (The London Times).
A PRISON RIOT in Guayaquil, Ecuador left 68 dead before authorities gained control over the overcrowded facility. In a previous riot last September, 119 prisoners were killed. The fighting was between rival gangs armed with guns and machetes (“Prison Riot Toll Hits 68”, Daily Telegraph, 16/11/21).
FOUR HOSTAGES were held for hours inside a synagogue in Texas during a standoff that lasted 12 hours. The hostage-taker, who was killed by police, had demanded the release of a Pakistani neurosurgeon who had been convicted of trying to kill US Army officers in Afghanistan (Jake Bleiberg, “Synagogue Hostages Released”, Sydney Morning Herald, 17/01/22). The man who held the four people hostage has been identified as Malik Faisal Akram, 44, a British citizen (“UK Hostage Link”, DT, 18/01/22).
MEXICO’S FORENSIC services have a backlog of 50,000 unidentified bodies, most the victims of widespread gang and drug violence. Many of the bodies are lying in mass graves in public cemeteries. Mexico has recorded 300,000 murders since 2006 (“52,000 Unnamed Bodies”, DT, 28/08/21).
A ROAD ACCIDENT in Mexico killed 55 people on a truck carrying refugees on a major transit route to the United States. The truck had 160 migrants on board, mainly from Central America, and hit a bridge overturning. The flow of such migrants has increased since Joe Biden became US president and scrapped the hard line border policies of Donald Trump (“This Horror is on You, Mexico Tells Biden”, Sunday Telegraph, 12/12/21).
A FUEL TANKER explosion in Sierra Leone killed at least 98 people and wounded dozens of others. The tanker had collided with a truck in Freetown and people crowded round to collect leaking fuel when the tanker exploded (“Scores Killed in Fuel Explosion”, Washington Post / Sydney Morning Herald, 8/11/21).
A MASSIVE FIRE tore through an apartment building in New York killing at least 19 people, including nine children, and injuring 60 others. The fire appears to have been caused by a portable electric heater. The area is home to many Muslim immigrants from the African nation of Gambia (“Nine Kids Killed in Horrific Bronx Fire”, DT, 11/01/22).
AN AIR STRIKE on a prison in Yemen saw at least 70 people killed. The prison had been used as holding centre for migrants including women and children. In another strike by the Saudi-led coalition three children were killed in the port city of Hodeida (“UN All Fired up over Strikes in Yemen”, Sunday Telegraph, 23/01/22).
A MUSEUM that opened up on the former Nazi Party rally grounds in Germany’s Nuremberg has been swamped by donations of Third Reich memorabilia (ST, 23/01/22).
56 PEOPLE were killed and 30 injured, including children, in an air strike in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Ethiopian federal troops have been at war with rebels in Tigray since November 2020 and there have been atrocities by both sides (“Drone Strike Hits camp”, Reuters / SMH 10/01/22).
THREE WHITE men have been convicted over the killing of a black man, Ahmaud Arbery, in the US state of Georgia. Travis McMichael, 35, and his father, Gregory McMichael, 66, were sentenced to life without parole over the shooting death of Arbery who was jogging through their neighbourhood and suspected of being a burglar. A neighbour, William Bryan, 52, was given the possibility of parole (“Jogger Killers Get Life in Jail”, ST, 9/01/22).
DARRELL BROOKS, a 39-year-old black man has been arrested over the deaths of six white people including a child who died after Brooks had ploughed his car through a Christmas parade in the US state of Wisconsin. Brooks is said to have steered his SUV into marching musicians, dancers and children in the city of Waukesha (“Parade Horror Worsens as Little Boy Dies”, DT, 25/11/21).
JEREMY WILLIAMS, has been charged over the death of Kamarie Holland, a 5-year-old girl in the US state of Alabama. Williams is black, as is the father of the child although the mother is light-skinned and the child apparently of mixed race (www.wtvy.com 16/12/21).
KYLE RITTENHOUSE, 18, was acquitted of the murder of two white men Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, on the grounds of self-defence. The killings occurred during civil unrest that followed the shooting of a black man by a white policeman in Kenosha in the US state of Wisconsin (“Backlash Fears as Teen Acquitted of Shootings”, ST, 21/11/21).
POLAND HAS stopped the entry of illegal migrants trying to cross their border with Belarus. The migrants came from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries but Belarus appears to using them to breach the border as retaliation for sanctions imposed by the European Union of which Poland is a member (M, Sibierski & B. Osser, “Poland Turns Back Refugees at Belarus Border”, The Australian, 10/11/21).
50 PEOPLE have been condemned to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the murders five years ago of United Nations investigators, Zaida Catalan and Michael Sharp. At the moment however the country has a moratorium on the death penalty (Jean-Yves Kamale, “Dozens Sentenced to Death over UN Murders”, SMH, 31/01/22).
CHRISTMAS DAY in England saw a teenager armed with a crossbow enter Windsor Castle in an apparent assassination attempt on the Queen. Jaswant Singh Chail, 19, was arrested and sectioned under the Mental health Act (“Queen’s ‘Assassin’ a Sci-Fi Villain”, DT, 29/12/21).
THE UNITED STATES has been accused of a cover up of an air strike in Syria that killed dozens of civilians. In a mistaken attempt to attack Islamic State in March 2019 a number of 500 and 2000-pound bombs were dropped by US jets on civilians, mainly women and children killing 50 (D. Philipps & E. Schmitt, “US Hid Evidence of Air Strike That Killed Dozens of Civilians”, SMH, 15/11/21).
45 FARMERS were killed in brutal attacks carried out by herders in Nigeria’s Nasarawa state. (DT, 23/12/21).
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