Don’t Fight Hate with Hate
The Importance of Responding to the Concerns of the Populist Right
In any major city, you can find them. They roam in packs of no less than two, for they know that they are vulnerable on their own. They have an aura of palpable aggression, with a toxic countenance that fuses anger, hatred, and disgust. They are the kind of people who wear black shirts with skull prints and phrases like “RA INFIDEL — ISIS HUNTING TEAM” emblazoned on them in a font befitting of a website pulled directly from 1994. They are the kind of people who have a dazzling capacity to make others feel unsafe, especially if you’re different in any way. You may come across these people on social media, generally threatening to murder all Muslims as well as anyone else who stands in their way. You may be unlucky enough to see them in the street, where their audacious bloodlust is tempered by a superficial respect for authority.
These are people who, despite their hypermasculine assertions of dominance, could be relied upon to bring a knife to a fistfight. People who cannot comprehend the irony of fighting abhorrent, indiscriminate violence with abhorrent, indiscriminate violence. People who are radicalised by the same psychological tactics of polarisation and dehumanisation used so effectively by their sworn enemies. People whose attitudes quite simply represent the worst aspects of human nature.
And, terrifyingly, people whose numbers are growing.
One of the defining elements of the election was a continuation in the shift of interest away from major parties, particularly among younger voters. Despite a desperate smear campaign from the major parties and the mainstream media, the primary vote for the Greens breached 10% in the lower house, while Nick Xenophon is set to score three senators and two seats in the lower house. But there’s one name in politics that has cultivated obsession among commentators from all corners of the country: Pauline Hanson.
By now, we should all be familiar with One Nation, a party with a name almost as misleading as the Health Australia Party. “We’re all members of one mob,” One Nation promises. “We have shared values and an interest in protecting every member of our community.” But the instant one looks beyond the name of the party the façade falls away, and it becomes clear that hatred is afoot.
While there is some merit in the (now abandoned) pseudo-environmentalism that characterised the early iteration of the party, as well as the sceptical attitude to free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, much of the policy platform of One Nation is of the same character as Trump’s rhetoric in the US: A commitment to certain libertarian principles overlaid by superficial anti-multiculturalism, a tough-on-crime attitude, and extreme trade protectionism.
To be sure, most of One Nation’s policies are truly laughable. The party’s attitude to marriage equality and the proposed Royal Commission into Islam are simply intellectual non-starters. And while not quite reaching the dizzying heights of Trump’s fanatical sinophobic conspiracy theory, the party’s attitude to climate change is deeply troubling. The intellectual calibre of this platform truly speaks for itself.
Let’s be honest, though: some of One Nation’s politics are merely those of other parties painted a bright shade of racist. When Hanson speaks of the “Asian invasion,” she is actually voicing concerns about the economics of immigration and the effect of foreign land ownership on the agricultural industry and the housing affordability crises in our major cities (a concern she shares with the Greens). It’s just that instead of framing this problem in a way which conceals the paucity of her political prowess, Hanson does it all through the lens of the Clash of Civilisations.
As ludicrous as this sounds to most liberal readers, there are a lot of people who sincerely believe in every one of these ideas. In fact, if you include Rise Up and the Australian Liberty Alliance (who run on a similar platform), One Nation ideology has a support base of almost 700 000 people. You could populate Tasmania with them and still have enough left over to comfortably fill Darwin. How do we respond to that?
For much of the left, the appropriate response is one of dismissal. “Hanson is just a racist, and nobody cares about her views,” we are supposed to say. This is perhaps the most dangerous move we can make.
Populist right political parties are like sexually transmitted infections: wilful ignorance will only cause the problem to fester. We must remember that the reason that the Trumps and Le Pens of the world have garnered such impressive followings is because their message is resonant with a large bloc of the voting population. These are not concerns of the rabid, ultra-racist edges of society. They are concerns held by otherwise normal and compassionate people who have not heard a compelling response from mainstream politicians on issues which are important to them.
If you find this difficult to believe, look no further than the success of populist right parties overseas. Trump has recently been polling at around 40%. Despite most predictions, the Brexit referendum was successful. In Europe, some of these parties manage to form coalition governments.
We simply cannot afford to ignore the fears of the “losers of globalisation.” The question of what will happen to our Western cultures as the global population is redistributed is an entirely valid one, and one that demands an answer. Despite our grievances with the death throes of imperialism, the West has been responsible for myriad advances in human rights. It is absolutely worth defending the ever-strengthening culture of equality that we have established for ourselves. Does this mean denying rights to asylum seekers or marginalising ethnoreligious groups within society? Of course not. Indeed, one of the primary factors that makes our country so attractive to new Australians is the fact that our social institutions are often an effective catalyst for human flourishing.
As liberals, we also need to recognise that there are genuinely concerning views held by a large number of Muslims as a direct result of religious conservatism. We often rebel against the homophobia of the Judeo-Christian political establishment, for example, but neglect to mention it in an Islamic context. There is a good reason for this: we are afraid of people misreading our criticism of conservative Islamic beliefs practices as inciting hatred towards Muslims as people. And yet hate has found a way.
We have before us an opportunity to drive out hatred where we find it, to quell the fears of bogan Queenslanders, to soften hearts and open minds to a more diverse and interesting future. We can’t do this by telling people that they’re vile racists whose opinions and concerns don’t matter. We need a more fundamental cultural change. I propose we do that by asking ourselves:
How can we mobilise non-heterosexual and transgender voices to defeat the prevailing stigma against homosexuality in Muslim communities? How can we empower women who are trying to unshackle themselves from the prejudices of religiously conservative communities? How can we address the disenfranchisement many young Muslims feel toward the political status quo and democratic process? And, perhaps most importantly, how can we demonstrate the heterogeneity of the Australian Muslim community to regional and rural communities which lack the overt ethnoreligious diversity of our major cities?
This is the first step in combating the division of our society: to acknowledge the problems which occur within all of our communities, and to empower liberal and dissenting voices within those communities to promote positive change. Once we manage that, we will be on the path to becoming one truly unified nation.
