A post has shown up in the Facebook updates of a couple of people I know which got me a little wound up.  Being me, I quite naturally fired off a response and moved on, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.  It kept nagging at me, so I did a bit more digging.  Turns out it’s good thing I did.

The gist of the post states that the Prime Minister of Australia made a public statement that Muslim immigrants who want to live by Sharia Law should go elsewhere.  It alleges that she then went on to say that if they wish to stay, they should learn english and accept that Australia is a Christian country founded on Christian values etc.  Basically, the entire rant is blatantly racist and offensive to anyone who takes the time to think it through.  The idea of the leader of a major nation saying something like this was frankly nauseating.  To see it re-posted and applauded by people I know and care about was even more so.

When I saw the post I only had my phone with me, so I just replied from there and made a note to check it out later.  Well, later is here and here’s what I learned.  It’s a fraud.

It was originally attributed to then Prime Minister Howard back in 2005 based on some much more generic comments made by one of his cabinet ministers.  Over the years, it has mutated and been expanded to include material from an article written by a retired U.S. airforce pilot for a newspaper in Georgia.  Absolutely none of it has anything to do with current Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard or her government.

What is fascinating about this to me is the context in which I encountered it.  The people who posted and endorsed this stance are themselves the descendants of immigrants.  Those immigrants certainly didn’t learn the language or respect the culture, or religious beliefs of the people who were already here.  In point of fact, our ancestors murdered them in wholesale lots, deliberately destroyed their culture and beliefs and forced them to learn the language of the immigrants.

So what is the difference between the immigrants of today and those of yesterday?  In both cases, they dream/dreamed of building a better life for themselves, their families and descendants.  Each considers/considered their way of life to be one worth maintaining.  They want/wanted the freedom to be who they are, live how they want to live, speak their own language and worship as they see fit.  Oh yes, that sounds evil to me too.

The whole point to this post is to underline the need to actually think things through.  Instead of just accepting what we read or see as being the gospel truth, we need to be willing to look a little deeper.  We need to see if someone isn’t just playing us and feeding off our dissatisfaction to push their own agenda.  We need to be just a little more critical in our thinking and step outside of our comfort zone.  It’s important to listen to people we don’t agree with to help us understand why we think the way we do.

Uncritical thinking is dangerous.  That’s the kind of thinking that leads to wars, genocide, prejudice and hate crimes of every sort.  That’s not how I choose to live and I hope it’s not how the rest of society chooses to live.  The greatest threat to our freedoms and our way of life is, “The Uncritical Thinker”.

Cheers, Winston