Mark Latham: The left’s division defeats democracy

LIKE a scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, left-of-centre MPs and activists are now practising the type of politics they had previously denounced, writes Mark Latham.

Mark Latham believes social democracy in Australia is in peril. Picture: Harold David

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SOCIAL democracy is dying. Like a scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, left-of-centre MPs and activists are now practising the type of politics they had previously denounced — a divisive, segregationist brand of identity fascism.

All our hopes for people working together — the social democratic dream of a community rich in social capital — are crumbling.

Today’s Labor/Green orthodoxy is to turn people against each other on the basis of their gender, race and sexuality. Left-feminists such as Tracey Spicer and Kasey Edwards are actively segregating women from males: refusing to let their daughters sit next to men on planes or to be supervised by men on play-days. Under the guise of “diversity”, the ABC has promoted Islamic supremacists on its roster, while refusing to report on segregationist practices in places such as Punchbowl Boys High.

Like a scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, left-of-centre MPs and activists are now practising the type of politics they had previously denounced. Picture: Supplied

The national broadcaster is running a protection racket for radical Islam.

Within the gay lobby, a militant tendency has also emerged, using boycotts and intimidatory tactics to censor anyone who disagrees with them. The group that, more than any other in Australian politics, has pleaded with people to respect “difference” has become intolerant of differing points of view.

I despair for what our nation has become.

Mark Latham.

Barely a day goes by without someone stopping me on the street to say: “Mark, what’s happening to Australia? We’ve made people from all over the world welcome here but now, because of my skin colour and my sex, I’m being made to feel unwelcome.”

The fed-up majority feels like an alien virus has been injected into our way of life.

They see their country being lost to the madness of political correctness and leftist social engineering.

And while the Greens and Labor egg on this process, Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition are too weak to stop it. Or perhaps Turnbull actually believes in the madness.

Unfortunately, the one politician seen as gutsy enough to make a stand, Pauline Hanson, is also viewed as ineffective. She’s not articulate or savvy enough on policy matters to get the job done.

When the voters were looking for a culture war champion in the West Australian election campaign, poor old Pauline was tangled up on vaccines and Vladimir Putin.

In the nation’s parliament, we are a nation without ­leadership.

The consequences in the community are horrendous, with a build-up of social distrust and identity resentment.

Instead of encouraging people to cross gender, racial and sexuality boundaries and find common cause with their fellow citizens, the Left is encouraging separatism.

So-called safe spaces in our universities (such as the Aborigine-only computer room at the Queensland University of Technology that provoked the recent 18C controversy) are harming the prospects of indigenous reconciliation.

Senator Sam Dastyari recently laid into “white rich men” as “f ... ers”.

How can students get to know each other and build trust across racial boundaries if white kids are kicked out of computer labs solely because of the colour of their skin? Similarly, multiculturalism is under threat because of the rise of “cultural appropriation” theories.

Prominent leftists now argue that white authors should not be writing about black people in their novels, that Australians of a European background should not be eating Asian food — that no one should “appropriate” the habits and customs of another culture. Yet the essence of Australian multiculturalism is for people to value their own heritage, while also embracing the things they appreciate about other cultures — a vibrant mix of the best of the world’s civilisations.

The pigs are in the farmhouse, walking upright on their hind legs.

Thus identity politics has firmed up into a new fundamentalist narrative. It insists that “privileged white men” are repressing so-called minority groups: women, non-whites and gays. The minorities are positioned permanently as victims, capable of nothing and responsible for nothing.

The fact that on Australia’s long-term welfare dependency rolls there are 100,000 more men than women is immaterial to the leftist elites.

They have moved past the point of analysing statistics and listening to reason.

They have lost interest in poverty and underclass as indicators of social injustice.

“White male privilege” is the Satan of their new religion and it’s being prosecuted fanatically. Who would have thought the word “white” could become a term of abuse in modern Australia?

Recently, at Sydney University, the Labor senator Sam Dastyari laid into “white rich men” as “f ... ers”.

Meanwhile, the ABC presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied has attacked her hometown of Brisbane for being as “white as f. k”.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied has attacked her hometown of Brisbane for being as “white as f. k”. Picture: ABC

Dastyari has praised Abdel-Magied as a model Muslim, “a thoughtful and intelligent young Australian”. In suburban and regional Australia, the rise of anti-white racism has fuelled a growing backlash. People who work hard and do the right thing in their family and community lives feel under siege for no other reason than being white, male and straight.

Quite legitimately, they are saying: “Our tolerance to minorities is being repaid with bigotry and censorship, so why should I be so generous in the future?”

Let me give another example of how bad things have become. This Friday I was to speak at a Labor fundraising event at Smithfield in Western Sydney, taking as my theme the contents of this column. In front of an audience including the NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley, I hoped to persuade people of how identity fascism is killing off the good society, and setting back multiculturalism and reconciliation.

But then the Left faction, led by Rainbow Labor and Rose Jackson, made a push to rub me off the speakers’ list. None of them were even going to the function. They wanted to run it by remote control, not trusting anyone from Smithfield to make up their own mind about my speech.

The pigs are in the farmhouse, walking upright on their hind legs.