Census Wash-up
The Australian’s Paul Kelly wrote a revealing column on last month’s release of Census data, showing the continued demographic transformation of Australia from its traditional Anglo-Australian base. Alongside that change, and perhaps receiving the most mainstream attention, was the drop in the proportion of the population claiming that they are Christian below 50% for the first time.
In typical Kelly fashion, he states that
“These trends will only intensify in the coming decade. The politicians aren’t really in control of the forces that drive Australia’s directions. More often than not, their task is to manage the change and keep the ship afloat.”
At the same time, he sounds a note of caution:
“The data on multiculturalism and religion come with a defining challenge – the future success of Australian democracy depends on integrating into a united country people from different cultural backgrounds and different religious backgrounds, including the non-religious.”
One detects a struggle within. Mr Kelly is finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile his conservative instincts with his ideological commitment to free market liberalism.
Being on the conservative side of the liberal establishment, he wants to have his cake and eat it too… let’s try and keep some of the unifying and civilising effects of Christianity, ameliorating the fallout from the disintegration of ethnic solidarity wrought by free market capitalism, lest the whole applecart tips over into the dreaded ‘ethnic majoritarianism’ of his ideological nightmares.
One suspects that Kelly is not really talking about any thoroughgoing, rigorous national Christianity though, more a light dusting of cultural Christianity to keep rival tribes focused on the main game: working harder to boost those GDP numbers!
And of course, this all assumes that the managerial class decision to transform Australia’s ethnic composition has not itself been a large contributor, Bowling Alone-style, to the decline in the institutional heft of Christianity within Australia, a notion commented on at length by Alex Walsh in a strong piece at The Spectator.
The Campaign that Never Ends
The Federal Government is launching a new anti-racism campaign, to be administered by the helpful folk of the Australian Human Rights Commission, and assisted by a very sympathetic media response, as shown by the many glowing reports it received.
But don’t worry all you Anglos! Just in case you were worried this was a perverse case of your own government using taxpayer funds to whip up a hermeneutic of racist suspicion against your entire ethnic group despite the impression that Anglo-Australians are overwhelmingly courteous and civilised: rest assured! The Canberra Times assures us that this campaign is in response to ‘spikes’ in negative sentiment against Aborigines, Asians, Muslims and Jews!
So bad are these spikes that we now need a coordinated national strategy to curb racism. What’s that? You want to actually see the data quantifying those spikes? Don’t ask too many questions like that fellow citizen… you wouldn’t want to be branded a racist would you?
The rise of the box-tickers
The Age covers the explosive phenomenon of the indigenous ‘box-ticker’ – the person with a purported but tenuous link to aboriginality, who suddenly declares themselves indigenous for official purposes.
It’s long been noted that the statistical growth in the indigenous population could not be driven solely by natural increase, but was instead driven by an increased readiness to identify with that background among the general population.
This phenomenon has only been supercharged by the growing availability of DNA tests, making it easier to establish an otherwise unknown or unnoticeable genetic link. Combined with broader societal incentives we have seen an increase in the indigenous proportion of the population to 3.2%, up from 2.5% in 2011.
This trend puts the lie to the white supremacy / structural racism myth. If Australian society was so detrimental to the prospects of the indigenous, we would expect to see the exact opposite data to what we see now.
As anyone who has worked in a major business or government department would tell you, finding out that you’re 2.6% indigenous on your 23andMe test can only have a positive effect on your career prospects.
The box-tickers also raise the thorny question of identity: of what does it consist? Is it that the box-tickers are not genetically indigenous enough? Do they not have the requisite cultural connections to be ‘genuine’? What then for the many relatively Anglo-assimilated people with significant indigenous DNA?
Or those who are significantly, even majority non-indigenous in blood but know the right people to be vouched for as ‘one of us’? As the statistical population of indigenous grows these are issues which will need to be confronted, but it raises questions which the current mainstream Australian ethnic paradigm is not well-equipped to answer.
Bits and bobs
The fascinating etymology of the Australian vernacular use of the word ‘bloody’. Meanwhile, other languages seem to be making a move up in the world.
The NSW Premier had strong feelings about a certain flag. Not this one though. Isn’t it great we’ve got such a strong conservative in charge of Australia’s largest state.
Another day, another diaspora weaponised against the Australian population.
