Andrew Bolt: Sydney riots a warning to our nation of tribes
The stabbing of a bishop in western Sydney and the rioting that ensued confirms we’re increasingly a nation of tribes — and multiculturalism is less a strength than a stress.
Andrew Bolt
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It’s a warning.
The stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in western Sydney and the rioting afterwards confirms we’re increasingly a nation of tribes.
Multiculturalism is less a strength than a stress.
Bishop Mar Mari was preaching in his Assyrian Christian church when an Arabic-speaking 16-year-old boy suddenly – allegedly - stabbed him in the head.
Video records the boy saying: “If he didn’t swear at my Prophet I wouldn’t be here”.
ASIO says the attack was religiously inspired. If so, we now have many precedents, most involving Muslim refugees: Man Monis staging the deadly Lindt cafe siege; Numan Haider stabbing two police; Farhad Jabar killing a police accountant; and Yacqub Khayre murdering a worker and shooting three police.
But there’s a second disturbing part to this story. Some 500 locals rushed to the church and assaulted police, demanding the boy be handed over. There were shouts for tribal payback: “An eye for an eye!”
True, our Assyrians, most living near that church, are hyper-sensitive to Islamic terrorism, having suffered so much of it in the Middle East. Bishop Mar Mari was born in Iraq, where Christians were so persecuted that their numbers this century fell from 1.4 million to under 250,000.
Still, like the alleged attacker, the rioters had a different view of justice than our courts inherited from the British, shocking Reece Kershaw, the Australian Federal Police chief, into calling them “un-Australian”.
Yet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisted the multicultural project was fine and this was a tolerant society – belied by this stabbing and riot, and by the fear many Jews now have of being attacked, while radical Muslim hate-preachers go unchallenged.
Still, he conceded we must “stress what unites us”.
That’s rich from a man who’s imported a record 520,000 immigrants in one year, allowed 80 councils to scrap citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day; flown two race flags alongside the Australian one; and tried to divide Australians by race in the constitution.
That’s playing with fire, and now we see the flames.
Speaking as the son of immigrants, we’re all different enough without multicultural programs to reward our differences.
The urgent challenge of governments now is to make one people out of many tribes.
That means honouring our past and national symbols, not trashing them. It means insisting what unites us is bigger than what divides. It means demanding a common loyalty, sense of justice and love of freedom.
We’ve been warned.
Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Sydney riots a warning to our nation of tribes
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