PROF. FRASER REPLIESVarious people have made complaints to Australia's "Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission" about statements made by Prof. Andrew Fraser of Macquarie University in Sydney. Below is the reply Prof. Fraser sent to the HREOCMy Public Comments:
The complaint lodged by Mr Hareer focuses on a letter written by me to the editor of the Parramatta Sun and published on 6 July 2005. The text of that letter was as follows:
Now that a large number of Sudanese refugees have been settled in the Parramatta-Blacktown area, Anglo-Australians are once again expected to acquiesce in the steady erosion of their distinctive national identity.
Australia, it seems, can no longer remain the homeland of a particular people. Instead, it must become a colony of the Third World.
Thirty years ago, no one in the world had any difficulty identifying an Australian. Today, if the headline in the Sun is to be believed, black Africans and Muslim Afghanis “are Aussies just like” the descendants of the Anglo-Celtic pioneers who settled and built this country.
Community Relations Commissioner Stepan Kerkyasharian declares that “Australians…have a responsibility” to help those on the losing side in Third World civil wars to settle here, wherever and whenever it suits governments and the ever-expanding refugee industry. He assures us that the ethnic and religious conflicts endemic to every other part of the world will be magically dissolved by the state-enforced “commonality of Australianism.”
That utopian fantasy is particularly likely to unravel as local African tribal groups grow in size and confidence. Experience practically everywhere in the world tells us that an expanding black population is a sure-fire recipe for increases in crime, violence and a wide range of other social problems.
The fact is that ordinary Australians are being pushed down the path to national suicide by their own political, religious and economic élites. Shutting our eyes to that fact will not make it go away.In the course of media interviews conducted after that letter was sent to the Parramatta Sun, I expressed the view that the White Australia Policy had been based upon the perfectly sensible premise that ethnic homogeneity in any nation is a source of strength and unity. Conversely, I argued, multiracial societies breed ethnic division and intractable conflicts by their very nature (as is demonstrated by these very proceedings.) More specifically, in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, published on 16 July 2005, I observed that migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were not the only sources of ethnic friction in contemporary Australia. I stood by the comments I had made in a private e-mail to David Shoebridge that East Asian immigration posed other, no less intractable problems, suggesting that one need only “Look at the annual HSC results—the consequence of which is that Oz is creating a new heavily Asian managerial-professional ruling class that will feel no hesitation…in promoting the narrow interests of their co-ethnics at the expense of white Australians.”
Did My Public Comments Breach s18C(1)(a) of the Act?
(i) In relation to black Africans
Mr Hareer alleges not just that my public comments in relation to sub-Saharan African immigration were likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” refugees and migrants from Sudan and other African countries but that they “incited hatred” against such persons leading him and his family to feel “great fear of violence and exclusion from the mainstream community.”
In fact, my comments were not likely to offend, insult, or humiliate, much less intimidate a reasonable person of black African ancestry. Mr Hareer is quite simply wrong to assert that I, at any time, alleged “that black people are inferior human specimens and are untrustworthy and criminal by nature.” What I did say is that races differ across a whole range of attributes, carefully noting that no one race can claim comprehensive superiority on every measure of human excellence or fitness. This can be confirmed quite readily by examining the article I have included in the appendix to this response, entitled “Rethinking the White Australia Policy” (due for publication in the Deakin Law Review until political pressure and legal threats from Mr Hareer’s lawyer caused the Vice-Chancellor of Deakin University to order the law review’s editor to pull the article from the current issue), the full, unedited film of interviews with Channels 7 and 9 and also in the transcripts and film footage of the two-hour talk-back program I did with Kwame Koramoah on the African program at Radio Skid Row in Marrickville (the first hour of which was filmed by Channel 7.)
Modern science has confirmed that race is not merely a “social construct.” Despite the myth of equality, race is not merely skin deep. There are significant differences between racial groups in cognitive and athletic ability, behaviour and temperament. Now, as the references in “Rethinking the White Australia Policy” make clear, there are substantial differences between the average IQ levels of sub-Saharan Africans on the one hand and white Europeans on the other with Africans at the lower end of the scale. But, I have stressed also that, if one values athletic and certain sorts of musical ability, for example, black Africans clearly have an edge over both Europeans and East Asians.
Similarly, when it comes to the issue of crime, Mr Hareer clearly does not understand my point. In every interview, I have emphasized that violent criminals,
whatever their race, tend to be people with low IQ and poor impulse control. It follows that, if persons of low IQ and poor impulse control are over-represented within a particular racial group, no one should be surprised if that group, as a whole, is over-represented, as well, among people engaging in violent criminal behaviour.
Such observations are not “reasonably likely” to offend everyone of black African ancestry. I have attached an article by Leighton Levy, a black columnist for the Jamaica Star newspaper who has as much claim as Mr Hareer to represent the reasonable black person. In that article discussing “the dark side of black people,” as revealed by the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, Mr Levy declares that he is “beginning to believe that black people, no matter where in the world they are, are cursed with a genetic predisposition to steal, murder, and create mayhem.” His view is very similar to the point I made in my letter to the Parramatta Sun. If a reasonable black man can express that view, a similar opinion found in my letter to the Sun cannot be characterised as “plainly malicious or scurrilous” and “designed to foster hatred or antipathy” simply because the author happens to be a white man. Discussions about the nature and significance of race must be an equal opportunity activity.
After all, leaders of the Sudanese community in Parramatta themselves have acknowledged, frankly and publicly, the reality of racial differences. So long as they draw attention to the ways in which black Africans shine by comparison with white Australians, African spokesmen, in fairness, must swallow the bitter with the sweet. On 24 August 2005, L’amahz Baz, president of the African Communities Council, was quoted in the Parramatta Sun as follows: “African Americans have dominated athletics and runners from Kenya and Morocco excel in events like the marathon.” Mr Baz clearly is not reluctant to boast of African superiority in sports; indeed, he suggests that Australia will win many more Olympic medals in the future due to the presence of African athletes in this country. Surely, few white Australians feel insulted or offended by his claims of African athletic superiority. Why, then, should Mr Hareer take offence when I, or anyone else, points to areas in which the performance of Africans has been less than stellar, especially in comparison to white Europeans or East Asians (specifically in their comparative cognitive ability or predispositions to the sort of behaviour that is criminalized in almost every society?)
(ii) In relation to Chinese migrants
Mr Hwang and Mr Wong contend that my comments are reasonably likely to offend people of Chinese origin and are capable of inciting racial hatred against them. Such an allegation is demonstrably false; it most definitely flies in the face of my own experience with Chinese students and friends. Certainly, it is hardly credible to suggest that Chinese migrants would take offence at my flattering observation that, on average, their IQ is higher than either black Africans or white Europeans. Nor would any and all Chinese persons automatically take offence at my suggestion that large-scale immigration of East Asians will tend to create serious conflicts of interest between a relatively ethnocentric, Chinese cognitive elite and the predominantly Anglo-European host society. In fact, many Chinese people of my acquaintance have not taken any offence at my public comments on Asian immigration.
I have had many Chinese students and Chinese friends to whom I have on many occasions made such arguments. None of my Asian students have supported the view that my public comments amount to racial vilification. On the contrary, many Chinese and Vietnamese students have stated publicly that I am “not a racist” and that they have never been insulted or offended by the manner in which I have raised these issues in class. Several of my long-time Chinese or Taiwanese friends are writing you to confirm that we have often discussed my views on this subject and, while they may not agree with me, they have never had any reason to feel insulted, offended or humiliated, much less intimidated by such conversations.
I also attach the report of an interview conducted by the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, with Lee Kwan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore. In that interview, Mr Lee confirms the essence of the point that I was making in my own interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, namely that in a multiracial society, people act to promote the interests of their own racial and religious groups, even if those ethnic interests might conflict with other economic or social interests. This is the view of a leading Chinese politician, confirming that if Singapore had a democratic polity, “Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese.” Clearly, Mr Lee would not be offended by the suggestion that a heavily Chinese ruling elite, once concentrated in Australia’s largest cities, would tend to favour the interests of co-ethnics. That view is also supported by Amy Chua, the Chinese author of an important book (World on Fire: How Exporting Free-Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability) about “market-dominant minorities” such as the overseas Chinese (I have attached an appreciative review of that book for your information.)
(iii) In relation to people of Mr Wajnryb’s background
There is little that I can say in relation to Mr Wajnryb’s allegation that my comments are likely to offend people of his or his wife’s background. He states that he is the grandson of an immigrant but neglects to specify his grandfather’s race or ethnicity. I assume he is neither of sub-Saharan African nor of Chinese ancestry so I cannot imagine why he should feel offended on behalf of such people. Similarly, in relation to his wife, who is of Argentinian background, it is impossible to know what that means in ethnic terms; she could be of German, Italian or Spanish background for all I know and, if so, would have no reason at all to be offended by anything I have said, no matter how much she or her husband may disagree with my comments.
Certainly nothing I have said could engender “hatred against immigrants to Australia from a non-Anglo-Saxon background.” My argument is simply that a sensible immigration policy, in any nation, would favour the kith and kin of the existing population so as to preserve a desirable ethnic homogeneity. That does not mean that I “hate” or encourage anyone else to hate non-European migrants; it simply means that I believe Australia was a more cohesive society when its people were overwhelmingly of British stock—a view that Mr Wajnryb’s grandfather may well have shared. Following the same logic, Japan should be preserved for the Japanese, just as I believe that Icelanders would be entitled to resent and resist a massive influx of aliens into Iceland. The massive majorities of Icelanders and Japanese who share that view cannot be said, ipso facto, to “hate” foreigners.
There can be little doubt that Japanese (or Chinese, for that matter) patriots would hate to see Japan (or China) become a country like the Sudan, forever fated to be riven by insoluble racial and religious conflicts. There can be no Sudan for the Sudanese simply because there is no agreement among Arab Muslims, black Christians and the welter of other tribal and clan groupings on how to constitute a Sudanese nation. Political unity in polyethnic societies, where it can be achieved at all, is an artificial construct, usually depending upon the creation and maintenance of complex ethnic hierarchies.
Adding the refugees generated by countless black African tribal conflicts and civil wars to the vast numbers of other Third World migrants streaming into Australia will fracture further this country’s already visibly weakening sense of shared national identity. But, patriots who want to preserve Australia for the Australians are not consumed by hatred of African or Asian migrants; instead, they are expressing a deep love for their own people and their own country. No true patriot anywhere, least of all in black Africa or China, will suffer in silence while his beloved ancestral homeland, with its distinctive way of life, is overrun by ever-swelling masses of alien colonists, however peaceful and productive, polite or personally likeable those foreigners may be.
I recognise, of course, that s18C sets a very low threshold; anyone can claim to have been insulted, offended, humiliated or intimidated by my public comments. But I have shown that there are many reasonable people of African or Chinese ancestry who not only would not be offended about my comments on their co-ethnics, they would, in fact, agree with those remarks. But the complainants here may not be such reasonable and open-minded people and may wish to persist in their thin-skinned sense of grievance, transforming mere disagreement into claims of unlawful racial vilification. In that case, the likely effect of my conduct should not be assessed from the perspective of a “hypersensitive victim.” It would be a mistake for the Commission to take the view that insult, offence, humiliation or intimidation is in the eye of the beholder.
The Applicability of s18D Exemptions
Even if the Commission mistakenly adopted a purely subjective test of “insult, offence, humiliation or intimidation,” my conduct could not be characterised as unlawful racial vilification. In what follows, I will demonstrate that my public comments fall squarely within the exemptions to s18C as set out in s18D(b) and (c) of the Racial Discrimination Act.
(i) “Reasonably and in Good Faith”
It is easily demonstrable that any and all of the acts that are the subject of complaints to the Commission were done by me “reasonably and in good faith.” The original letter to the Parramatta Sun, for example, was published only after the letters editor, Mr Gerard Sutton, interviewed me on the phone for upwards of half an hour. During that interview, I explained my reasons for writing the letter and the basis for the argument made therein. Only after Mr Sutton was convinced that I was offering in good faith a reasonable view on the subject of race and immigration did his editor decide to publish my letter along with the front page story and an editorial.
After the letter was published, I received critical e-mail from a number of persons, including Mr David Shoebridge, ( a Woollahra councillor) and Mr Daniel Davidson. To show that my letter was based upon a reasonable understanding of the issues and that I was acting in good faith in criticizing current refugee policy, I responded to my critics with a detailed defence of my position, including in most cases full copies of major sources and references supporting that case by e-mail attachments. My e-mail correspondence with Mr Shoebridge, in particular, was incorporated into Tim Dick’s report in the Sydney Morning Herald on 16 July.
That report, in turn, sparked interest among the producers of the Channel 7 and Channel 9 current affairs programs. In dealing with the producers and journalists from those programs, I, once again, had to demonstrate that I had reasonable grounds for my criticisms of current immigration and refugee policy. I believe I proved my bona fides in the course of my dealings with both Channels. In particular, in putting together Ray Martin’s program for the evening of 19 July, I was confronted on camera for over an hour by a group of about a dozen angry, hostile Sudanese men and women. Anyone who watches the film of that lengthy confrontation will see that I responded in a calm, reasonable manner to a barrage of insults and offensive remarks, trying, as best I could, to demonstrate that I bore the Sudanese no ill will and was concerned only to make a good faith effort to defend the interests of ordinary white Australians.
My good faith willingness to deal openly and honestly with hostile criticism from anyone who claimed to be insulted or offended by my public comments was evident as well in my two-hour appearance on Mr Koramoah’s African community program on Radio Skid Row. Once again, the host and his callers seemed largely uninterested in a reasonable discussion or debate on the merits of ethnic homogeneity or the problems of black crime, in particular. Instead, they happily harangued and insulted me, accusing me of crimes and misdemeanours ranging from my alleged efforts to promote hatred and terrorism in the community to the falsification of my academic credentials. Throughout, I remained calm, taking every opportunity to respond reasonably and in good faith, that is to say, without malice, to every point raised by every speaker.
My determination to act reasonably and in good faith, whatever the provocations aimed at me, was also on display at the “Racism Within” forum held on 5 August at Macquarie University. This event was sponsored by several academic departments of the University and had the blessing of the Vice-Chancellor’s office. The meeting was organized around a panel discussion between seven academic staff members of the threat posed to pluralism and our “common humanity” by my “hateful” and “racist” public comments. Members of the three- to four-hundred person strong audience were also invited to speak. It was made clear to me before the meeting began that I would not be permitted to participate as a member of the panel. I could attend as a member of the audience but would be allowed only two minutes to speak.
The forum was essentially a show trial in which the panel members and audience joined in ritual denunciations of my “racism,” many calling for my full public confession of wrong-doing. One member of the audience labelled me a “racist scumbag” with the apparent approval of the meeting’s chairman. I accepted this lengthy excoriation with as much dignity as I could muster and, in the two minutes allotted to me at the end of the meeting, I sought to make a brief case for the reality of racial differences. Not surprisingly, in what has taken on the atmosphere of a lynch mob, I was howled down and soon surrounded by angry Africans. Even then, I did my best to respond reasonably and in good faith to their heated comments until concerned security officers hustled me out the back entrance.
My conduct will stand the most rigorous, objective test of reasonableness and good faith behaviour. One final example was provided by the anonymous referees assessing the article “Rethinking the White Australia Policy,” that I had been invited to submit to the Deakin Law Review. They read my initial offering, made criticisms, comments and suggestions for change. In light of their initial remarks, I made substantial revisions to the draft article and re-submitted the piece. On reading the revised article (which explicitly articulated and expanded upon the arguments I had made publicly in relation to Asian and African immigration), the referees declared that they were satisfied that the article presented a reasonable, well-constructed argument that deserved to be published in a scholarly journal. And so it would have been, but for the intimidating tactics employed by Mr Hareer’s lawyer against Deakin University to stop its publication.
It would be impossible for the Commission to make a finding that my conduct throughout this entire affair has in any way smacked of “dishonesty or fraud; in other words [of] something approaching a deliberate intent to mislead or…a culpably reckless and callous indifference” to the possibility that Africans or Chinese persons might take offence at my public comments. I have done everything reasonably possible in the circumstances to assuage the feelings and meet the concerns of my critics of whatever race.
(ii) Genuine Academic Purpose
In this matter, it has been my opponents who have acted unreasonably and in bad faith. By contrast, my acts have been good faith and reasonable efforts to carry on activities serving genuine academic purposes while also making fair comments, based on my genuine belief, on matters of public interest. In what follows, I will provide evidence in support of both aspects of that proposition.
The complaints here relate to things that I have said or done, “reasonably and in good faith,” as we have just seen, “in the course of” statements, publications, discussions or debates” that were made or held for genuine academic purposes. As is well known, academics are expected to engage in various forms of community outreach apart from their normal teaching responsibilities and scholarly research. Community outreach is usually related in some way to an academic’s area of expertise. In my case, it was my teaching and research experience in the areas of American constitutional history (and the associated problems of race relations) and Australian immigration law and policy that gave me special knowledge of issues related to race, racial differences and immigration. Accordingly, I was able to offer the readers of the Parramatta Sun a unique academic perspective on the question of Sudanese immigration into our community.
Indeed, it was because I am an Associate Professor of Public Law that Gerard Sutton, the letters editor, decided to take my letter seriously. Soon after receiving that letter, Mr Sutton had a long phone conversation with me in which I explained that, in my view, the academic world is on the cusp of a paradigm shift in thinking about race and racial differences. For the past half century or so, academics across many disciplines have accepted the egalitarian view that racial differences either do not exist or are merely superficial. But, as James Mackintosh makes clear in his letter to the Commission, the work of psychologists such as Arthur Jensen and J Phillipe Rushton (from whom you may also expect a letter), paleo-anthropologists such as Vincent Sarich and numerous geneticists and medical scientists has rendered the egalitarian myth scientifically unsustainable.
The work of scientists such as Rushton and Jensen was highly controversial ten or fifteen years ago; they were rogue academics working in isolation. But, as is clear from the Ottawa Citizen article by Alan Duffy, “Revisiting Rushton,” (included in the appendices attached herewith), today Rushton is part of “a small army of scientists…exploring the genetic foundation of intelligence, and the genetic differences between people of African, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and European descent.”
My public comments on IQ differences between racial groups and the behavioural and temperamental differences that also help to explain comparative propensities toward criminal behaviour drew upon my reading of the work of people such as Rushton and Jensen, Michael Levin and Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele. In my own research and scholarly publications over the past few years, I have made my own contribution to the academic debate around issues of race, multiculturalism and mass Third World immigration into the Western world. As I made clear to every journalist from the print and electronic media to whom I spoke, my public comments grew out of both the shifting paradigm of academic discourse on race, in general, and my own work which attempts to explain the implications of the new racial science for a wide range of public policy issues.
That fact was recognized most recently by the anonymous referees for the Deakin Law Review who approved the publication of an article, “Rethinking the White Australia Policy,” repeating at greater length the arguments and analysis that I tried (with only limited success) to squeeze through the media filtering process over the past few months. Their assessments provide an objective foundation for the conclusion that the acts or statements which have become the subject of complaints to the Commission were said or done as part of a continuing course of statements, publications, discussions and debates which have been made or held for genuine academic purposes. Further support for that conclusion will be found in letters to the Commission from James Mackintosh, Frank Salter and J Phillipe Rushton. Everything I have said or done over the past few months bearing on the subjects of race and immigration can also be justified as “fair comment” on matters of public interest made as an expression of genuine belief on my part. It is to that issue that I now turn.
(iii) Fair Comment
Even if I had not been an academic, my public comments would not amount to unlawful racial vilification because they are nothing more than fair comment, based upon a genuine belief on my part, on matters of public interest. The mere fact that so many different media organizations in so many states and even other countries for so long found my public comments significant and worthy of extended discussion and debate demonstrates, beyond question, that they touched on matters of public interest. That my comments on the downside of both Asian and African immigration were fair and within the legitimate scope of public debate is confirmed by a number of things. One could point to the overwhelming response in the Channel 9 phone poll asking viewers of Ray Martin’s A Current Affair whether they agreed with my view that Asian and African immigration were bad for Australia. Over 36,000 callers responded with 85% expressing agreement with my position.
It must also be significant that the Higher Education Supplement in The Australian chose to publish an edited version of my article on “Rethinking the White Australia Policy.” So, too, did the OnlineOpinion.com.au. That latter version included the passages from that article dealing with racial differences in cognitive ability as well as the discussions of black criminality and the potential problems posed by “market-dominant minorities” such as the overseas Chinese. Clearly, the editors of OnlineOpinion were right in their assessment that my remarks on such subjects are fair comment on important matters of public interest. There has been an overwhelming reader response, with over 120 comments at the time of writing.
Many of those responding to my work will, of course, disagree with it. But few agree that my views should be forbidden public expression. Even many of those who disagree with my views will have to concede that considerable evidence can be advanced in support of my position. To demonstrate that my views rest upon a solid evidentiary foundation is perhaps the best way to establish that they represent fair comment on what no one could deny are matters of public interest.
The public comments that have been the subject of complaint to the Commission fall into two categories: those relating to black African migrants and those dealing with the problems posed by East and South Asian immigration. On the first issue, the complaints concentrate on my suggestion that “experience practically everywhere demonstrates that a large and expanding black population is a sure-fire recipe for increases in crime, violence and a wide range of other social problems.” Complaints relating to the second issue cite my prediction that large-scale East Asian immigration will produce a heavily Asian ruling class that will favour the interests of co-ethnics at the expense of white Australians. To show that my public comments on both issues represent fair comment on matters of public interest, I will review the evidence supporting my observations and predictions, beginning with the issue of black criminality. I will then address the problem of “market-dominant minorities” posed by continued large-scale immigration from East Asia, in particular.
(a) The problem of black criminality
As suggested above, the problem of violent crime, within any racial group, is associated with people characterised by low IQs and poor impulse control. The evidence that persons of black African ancestry are, on average, more likely than white Europeans or East Asians to have low IQs is overwhelming. It is also clear that black Africans have higher levels of the serum testosterone associated with poor impulse control. Not surprisingly, therefore, black Africans are, by comparison with white Europeans and, especially, East Asians, much more likely to be involved in violent street crime. (I have identified the major sources providing support for that claim in footnotes 8 and 52-54 in “Rethinking the White Australia Policy,” included in the appendix.)
Apart from the academic sources cited in “Rethinking,” there exists a plethora of readily available journalistic evidence demonstrating that black criminality is a widely recognized problem not just overseas but already in Australia. In the appendix, I have provided copies of newspaper articles detailing the upsurge of crime in Dandenong, Victoria that has been associated with the recent influx of Sudanese refugees. The outbreak of massive civil disorder in the wake of Hurricane Katrina sparked widespread discussion of the taboo topic of black criminality in the USA. I have included several pieces by Steve Sailer, a well-known commentator on racial issues, which make it clear that blacks are, indeed, more prone to violent crime than other racial groups.
That conclusion has been reinforced by the recent release of a report compiled by the New Century Foundation entitled The Color of Crime. The appendices include a piece by Jared Taylor pointing out, inter alia, that, according to US government statistics, blacks in the USA “are just 13 percent of the population but they commit more than half the muggings and murders in the country.” In general, the best single indicator of how dangerous an area is turns out to be the proportion of blacks and Hispanics in the population. Moreover, blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against fellow blacks or Hispanics. As the piece by John Woods (also included in the appendices) indicates much the same picture emerges from Home Office crime statistics in the United Kingdom.
My public comments on the potential for the increases in crime and violence that might be associated with immigration from the black populations of sub-Saharan Africa were solidly grounded in a study of the information available through a wide variety of academic, official and media sources. I accept the credibility of those sources, and my own comments were a fair summary of that material. The same conclusion applies to my comments on the very different dangers posed by Asian immigration, particularly from northeast Asia, i.e. China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
(b) East Asian cognitive elites and the problem of “market-dominant minorities”
Mr Hwang and Mr Wong object to my statement that, if present trends continue, in twenty or thirty years time Australia will have a “market-dominant minority” of overseas Chinese likely to favour the interests of co-ethnics at the expense of white Australians. My prediction is based upon Philippines-born, Chinese-American, Amy Chua’s analysis (in her book, World on Fire) of the intractable conflicts between the overseas Chinese and the host populations of just about every country in Southeast Asia. I also draw on discussions of the overseas Chinese to be found in the works cited in footnotes 44 and 47 in “Rethinking the White Australia Policy.” In the Philippines for example, the Chinese minority, representing only 1 percent of the population, controls over 60 percent of the economy. Such a lopsided situation generates widespread resentment among Filipinos. This simmering tension boiled over onto Chua’s own family when an elderly aunt was murdered by her Filipino chauffeur, a crime all but ignored by Filipino police. Similar conflicts are an inescapable fact of life almost everywhere in Southeast Asia, most famously in Malaysia where the dominance of the overseas Chinese forced native Malays to adopt various forms of “affirmative action” to protect their ethnic interests.
In his review (included in the appendices) of Chua’s book, Matt Nuenke suggests that the best explanation for the ability of the Chinese to establish and maintain their position as a “market-dominant minority” is the significant IQ gap (in favour of the Chinese) between them and the native populations. The IQ differential between Chinese and white Australians is not as large but it does exist and already it has had a striking effect on the competition for places in higher education and access to professional careers—with white Australians being the big losers.
There are also good reasons to expect that a market-dominant minority of East Asians would tend to practice forms of ethnic nepotism usually frowned upon by more individualistic white Australians. This is certainly the norm for both Chinese both overseas and at home. As discussed above, Lee Kwan Yew simply takes it for granted that Chinese in a multi-racial society will always favour their co-ethnics. It is well known that Chinese have long harboured deeply xenophobic, even downright “racist” attitudes. Such ethnocentric attitudes have been powerfully reinforced in recent times by a Communist government that, having lost its Marxist ideological mooring, is fearful of losing control over its vast empire. Immigrants from mainland China have been taught to hate “the foreign devils” and cherish the Motherland, “which never has done, and never could do, any wrong.” Steeped from childhood in an ever-more aggressive Chinese nationalism, such immigrants are unlikely to resist powerfully ingrained habits of ethnic nepotism. Indeed, John Derbyshire (in an article also included in the appendix) warns that Chinese immigrants pose the very real danger of an imported Sino-Fascism.
That danger may become ever more pronounced as China itself advances in military and economic might. But, even if we leave that geo-political dimension of the problem aside, there is no denying that individualistic white Australians, taught from infancy that white racial pride is a grave moral failing and that ethnic nepotism is an unlawful form of racial discrimination, will be extraordinarily vulnerable to competition from a much more cohesive cognitive elite of overseas Chinese. Janet Landa points out that in overseas Chinese society, Confucian ethics prescribe “differences in patterns of mutual aid obligations between people with varying degrees of social distance within a well-defined social structure-near kinsmen (e.g. family members), distant kinsmen in extended family and lineage, clansmen, fellow villagers, and people speaking the same dialect.”
The strongest ties are within the family where social distance is at a minimum. Trustworthiness in trade relations is generally measured in terms of concentric circles extending outward from family and near kin. On Landa’s analysis, “Chinese social structure, unlike Western social structure which is individualistic in nature, consists of a careful ranking of people who are classified according to distinct categories of social relationships.” Clearly, the greater in-group solidarity of Chinese operating within such a social structure gives them a powerful edge in competition with unorganised, individualistic white Australians. For white Australians, even the nuclear family had lost much of its former power to bind people together in cohesive units.
Whether one agrees with that analysis or not, it is impossible to deny that any public comments based upon that evidentiary foundation represent “fair comment” within the meaning of s 18D(c)(ii) of the Racial Discrimination Act. It follows that none of the statements or acts that are now the subject of complaints to the Commission can be considered unlawful racial vilification.
Conclusion
In light of the foregoing analysis, I submit that all of the four complaints ought to be summarily dismissed as altogether lacking in substance. Indeed, it is clear that they are best characterized as frivolous and vexatious in nature, being designed mainly to end public discussion of important matters of public interest.
NOTE: Since the above was written, the two complaints submitted by Chinese have been dismissed on the grounds that the remarks attributed to Prof. Fraser by the SMH were originally made in a private e-mail. Another complaint, from the guy married to the Argentinian, was dismissed on the grounds that he was of some indeterminate ethnicity uninvolved in any of Prof. Fraser's public comments. As a consequence, the only live complaint at the present is the one submitted by Newhouse Lawyers, ostensibly on behalf of Mr Hareer, a Sudanese colony leader.
