Redneck

What makes this country great is the contribution and sacrifice of countless forebears from many ethnic origins. To suggest that it is a result of skin colour is simple ignorance. The first humans were racially identical, and our physical differences are more a consequence of geography. Similarly, the civilisation we enjoy in Australia is more a consequence of the good fortune of geography, in allowing the mixing of technologies and ideas of many cultures. And a simple knowledge of European history would reveal the great sacrifice of many to create freedoms we all enjoy today. It therefore seems a contradiction and a great insult to your forebears for you to suggest that all we enjoy today is the result of skin colour.

Redneck, so you accept then that 1500 years ago, when the “white” people of Europe were living in the Dark Ages, while the Muslim, Chinese and Native American people enjoyed stable, peaceful, prosperous civilisations, that whites were then “less intelligent”? Even in the 20th century I’ll think you’ll find far more violence and genocide has been instigated by whites (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Milosevic, etc.) than anyone else.

Fester, I don’t agree with increasing Australia’s population just because it is technically feasible. I would be more than happy to see the skilled-migrant worker program scaled down considerably, at least until we water availability, housing affordability and infrastructure development (especially public transport) in a far better state.

Ozzie, when did I use the word “hunch”? The evidence of a gathering momentum of recognition among powers-that-be that environmental degradation can’t continue on much longer is pretty good, although there’s no question it has been frustratingly slow and a rather late arrival.

Anyway, what alternative is there? Either industrial nations do make a serious efforts to turn our technological capability towards environmental sustainability, or we continue to de-forest, over-fish, pollute, and over-heat the planet until it can no longer sustain us, and human progress will be sent back thousands of years, our population reduced to a fraction of what it is now. The reality, as far as long term global sustainability goes, is that whether millions are living amidst poverty and warfare in Africa, or are resettled in prosperous technologically advanced countries is not really going to make a huge difference in the scheme of things, but it certainly makes the lives of those millions better. Further, we all already do all sorts of things that increase our ecological footprint – we buy bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger TVs, bigger air conditioners, drive more, fly more…so to argue against bringing 3rd world citizens to our shores because it will increase the total environmental harm done to the planet is a bit rich.

That's quite right, Wizofaus. Many civilised empires rose and fell in Asia and the middle east while caucasians were beating each other with stone tools.

Comforting as it would be to believe that whites are superior, the fact is that Asians and arabs are just as capable and intelligent. We are simply fortunate to live in an era which has delivered white supremacy - but it's on the wane. This century belongs to Asia, and we'd better get used to it.

However, I think the case for African equality is closed. Blacks simply do not have the capacity for running civilised societies that other racial groups do. Countries like Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Sudan are prime examples of the type of society Africans create when left to their own devices. And, as if to prove the point, we have Zimbabwe and South Africa, both of which were prosperous under white rule, but have declined hugely under black governments.

Despite the horrors of apartheid, at least it allowed some South Africans to live without fear of crime and violence. Now, no-one has that luxury. And can you imagine a white president denying the existence of HIV and recommending garlic as a cure for AIDS?

Sancho, I agree that is easy to look at sub-Saharan Africa and conclude that there might be some genetic trait among the indigeneous population there that works against running a modern nation state. But to suggest it's lack of "intelligence" is not supportable - there's no shortage of highly intelligent black people, even by Western cultural standards, and if measured by the standards of hunter/gather tribes, whites must seem rather dimwitted in comparison (see chapter 1 of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel). There does seem to be consistent theme of corruption running through governments in most African nations - but the same occurs in many Latin American nations, where the population is predominantly Caucasian, mixed with genes from native peoples that were previously capable of highly sophisticated civilisations. On top of all this is the fact that genetic variation among sub-Saharan African tribes is far far greater than the genetic variation among the rest of humanity (appearances are deceptive!). So the case for it being a genetic issue is, at best, tenuous. Even it could be shown to be so, I'm not sure it helps inform anyone as to what the best solution is.

I consider some views that have been put on this forum which seem to be overtly racist, and it is necessary for me to take my distance from those views.

Having said that, I would hasten to add that I consider the motives who have expressed those opinions on this forum are still more honest than those who have expressed 'anti-racist' views. In reality, 'racism', to some degree, exists in virtually human being on the planet. Anyone in the 'anti-racist' camp who insists that, unlike the Reverend Jesse Jackson, they would remain on the same side of the road as a group of black youths is not being honest.

I think all races and cultural groups including Anglo-Celtic Australians, who once comprised the majority of this country, have both good and bad characteristics. Even the attainment of literacy by one group does not make that group more intelligent than another.

As illustrations:

* It was observed that Aboriginals were better able to learn English than the original settlers of this country were able to learn their language.

* Pastoralists on Cape York have attested that it was only local Aboriginals who far better understood the local land than they who saved their enterprises from ruin.

Aboriginals had maintained the sort of society for tens of thousands of years that was in harmony with its ecology, unlike modern industrialised society, which is now stands on the brink of catastrophic collapse after barely 200 years. I would add that many trapped in the rat race of 21st century Australia would, if given the choice, gladly exchange that for the lifestyle of Aboriginals and other hunter-gatherers who were able to live largely carefree existences requiring far fewer hours of work in their typical day.

If we don't change course soon our descendents will be very lucky if they can re-establish the lifestyle previously enjoyed by Aboriginals.

So, I am with Ronald Wright, Jared Diamond and Richard Heinberg (http://www.primitivism.com/primitivist-critique.htm) in my view that the supposed progress of humankind is an illusion. Only when we ...(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)... can learn to properly look after our natural environment, as well as hold on to some of the technological advances gained since our ancestors ended their hunter-gatherer lifestyles, can we truly claim to have progressed.

Whilst other posters can point to grave shortcomings in many African societies, I still think it needs to be acknowledged that colonialists, particularly British colonialists, by having destroyed earlier more sustainable forms of society in those countries, have set in motion the chain reaction in countries like Zimbabwe now unfolding before our eyes.

Another relatively sustainable society which was destroyed by the British colonialists was that of rural pre-industrial England. Those who lived comfortable existences on what they thought was their own land were driven off the land as a consequence of land enclosure laws. This was in order to drive them to work in the dark Satanic mills as Dickens later described and coal mines. Many ended up in prison and were transported to this country as convicts, so the treatment of many of this country's original Anglo-Celtic settlers that many on this forum now consider a blight on the face of this planet to be eradicated as soon as possible through Jennifer Clarke's program of ethnic replacement, was no better than the treatment of Australian Aboriginals.

The open-border solution to the mess largely created by colonialism must be rejected on two grounds:

1. The current inhabitants of this country are entitled to maintain a decent standard of life that is in harmony with their natural environment, as well as their cultural predominance,

2. Mass immigration will, at best, only help an insignificant fraction of the people in the Third World, mostly from those societies' elites. For the rest left behind it will only make matters worse as larger numbers of people in industrialised nations inevitably draw even more of the earth's natural resources to maintain their lifestyles. An immigration program that, instead, permitted a significant proportion of people from the Third World to settle in industrialised nations would have immediate catastrophic effects for all the world's population, both rich and poor alike.