Piers Akerman: Sydney University awards peace prize to ‘radical Left-wing group’
SYDNEY University’s in-house Lefties have again trashed Sydney’s good name and reputation by awarding a trumped-up “peace prize” to a radical Left-wing group, Piers Akerman writes.
Opinion
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SYDNEY University’s in-house Lefties have again trashed Sydney’s good name and reputation by awarding a trumped-up “peace prize” to a radical Left-wing group whose reputation rests on a series of untruths.
This follows the past awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to such luvvy heart-throbs as Noam Chomsky (the anti-Western, pro-Socialist academic) and Hanan Ashrawi, a former spokesman for Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group, who has refused to condemn terrorism-linked organisations.
We don’t tolerate Anzac being used as props in advertising or political stunts, why do we permit Sydney to be associated with these “luminaries”?
The Sydney Peace Prize was established by emeritus professor Stuart Rees of the University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (which is always at war with the only democratic state in the Middle East, Israel).
On Thursday night, the centre awarded its prize to an organisation called Black Lives Matter (BLM), which came to international attention after the unfortunate death of a young black man, Mike Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer.
It was the first time the prize has been given to a group.
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In an interview with sympathetic ABC hosts conducted after her arrival in Sydney last week, one of the founders of BLM Patrisse Cullors stated unequivocally that Brown had been murdered. Neither of the ABC’s much-touted marquee names — Fran Kelly and Philip Adams — challenged this claim.
The public broadcaster, which swallows more than a billion bucks of taxpayer funds each year was broadcasting fake news again.
Just as reprehensible was the invitation to the BLM representatives from Sydney University’s US Studies Centre on Friday to enjoy an interview from the ABC’s Stan Grant, another riding the current wave of racial division.
According to the Left-leaning USSC, Grant will help us all discover what we can learn from the BLM and the American experience.
BLM has long been exposed as a radical front organisation in the US where it has morphed into a ragtag protest movement replacing the ratbags of an earlier era, such as Al Sharpton.
Brown’s death, which triggered rioting in Ferguson, thanks to BLM and other radical outfits, was the subject of one of the largest investigations ever conducted under the President Obama’s administration and was run by his Attorney-General Eric Holder, who is also black. Neither of these men were ever considered to be Uncle Toms or even Oreos (brown on the outside, white on the inside).
Given its history of selecting dodgy recipients, it’s clear that facts don’t matter as much as ideology to the peace prize team but it is salutary to note that some blacks in the US have recognised the underlying falsehood behind the BLM’s rise in popularity with the radical Left.
Under the headline ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ was built on a lie, The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart (another black) conceded that he had gone off half-cocked when he initially decried what he believed was the death of another unarmed black man at the hands of a white police officer.
He said after the Justice Department “released two must-read investigations connected to the killing of Brown” they “forced me to deal with two uncomfortable truths: Brown never surrendered with his hands up, and Wilson was justified in shooting Brown”.
Unlike the ABC’s highly-paid presenters, I have read the same reports as Capehart.
Obama’s Attorney-General’s Justice department is quite unequivocal in its findings. It stated that the evidence, “when viewed as a whole, does not support the conclusion that Wilson’s uses of deadly force were ‘objectively unreasonable’ under the Supreme Court’s definition”.
It noted that prior to the shooting, Brown was captured on a local store’s surveillance video, stealing. When the store clerk tried to stop Brown, “Brown used his physical size to stand over him and forcefully shove him away”.
It’s clear that facts don’t matter as much as ideology to the peace prize team but it is salutary to note that some blacks in the US have recognised the underlying falsehood behind the BLM’s rise in popularity with the radical Left
It also found that far from being shot with his hands up (a lie promoted by BLM which subsequently triggered the “hands up, don’t shoot” chant from the mob), Brown reached into the police vehicle through the open driver’s window and punched and grabbed Wilson.
“This is corroborated by bruising on Wilson’s jaw and scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown’s DNA on Wilson’s collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson’s DNA on Brown’s palm.”
The officer responded “by withdrawing his gun because he could not access less lethal weapons while seated inside the SUV. Brown then grabbed the weapon and struggled with Wilson to gain control of it. Wilson fired, striking Brown in the hand.
“Autopsy results and bullet trajectory, skin from Brown’s palm on the outside of the SUV door as well as Brown’s DNA on the inside of the driver’s door corroborate Wilson’s account that during the struggle, Brown used his right hand to grab and attempt to control Wilson’s gun.”
According to three autopsies, Brown sustained a close range gunshot wound to the fleshy portion of his right hand at the base of his right thumb.
Soot from the muzzle of the gun found embedded in the tissue of this wound coupled with indicia of thermal change from the heat of the muzzle indicate that Brown’s hand was within inches of the muzzle of Wilson’s gun when it was fired.”
Further, the report states that there is no credible evidence to disprove Wilson’s account of what occurred inside the SUV. Murder? Hardly.
We won’t hear this from BLM or Stan Grant and others who promote the racial divide.
Australia can always learn a thing or two, but we can actually teach America a whole lot more.