Be wary of blame and let’s not shut down debate

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Every time there has been an attack by Muslim terrorists, we condemn the evil killing of innocents and are at pains not to blame all Muslims. It would be immoral and factually wrong to blame an entire community for the murderous actions of a few. Yet it took less that 24 hours for political ratbags to exploit cold-blooded terrorism by a white supremacist in New Zealand on Friday for their narrow-minded, illiberal political agendas.

One political ratbag, Fraser Anning, blamed the murders in Christchurch on Muslim violence. Here is a man who would rather grab a headline from his bigotry than express compassion for the murders of 50 innocent Muslims who went to a mosque to pray. Now, to the other ratbags. They may be more articulate, use fancy words, have a smoother delivery, but they, like Anning, seemed to ­deliberately exploit the Christchurch terrorist attacks to further their equally illiberal political agenda.

They pointed the finger at one side of politics, blaming everyone from Donald Trump to Scott Morrison, John Howard, the Murdoch press and Sky News. Some of the blame-gamers are morally reprehensible, as well as moronic. Others are more dangerous. Those who want to shut down debate, to impose their views on us, they understand that robust debate is a certain death knell for their views. On Saturday, Phillip Adams blamed Anning’s response to the terrorist attack on former prime minister Howard. Adams said that “Anning was created by Hanson … Hanson was unleashed by Howard. Never forget she began her political career as an endorsed Liberal candidate.”

It reeks of foul desperation to engage in another round of Howard-bashing 12 years after Howard left office, and 23 years after Hanson was disendorsed — repeat, disendorsed — as a Liberal candidate.

It is sinister when smart people engage in blame games for political purposes. But even when the ill-informed do it, it warrants challenging. Yassmin Abdel-Magied blamed politicians in Western nations who have been beating the Islamophobia drum. In an extended Twitter thread, she said part of her wants to say to leaders “hay (sic) the shooter is one of your sorts”. Then she settled on root cause, “the othering, the scapegoating and demonising of Muslims throughout the West. The foreign policy positions that are self-centred and neo-colonial …”

The ABC’s Annabel Crabb called it a “great, passionate thread”. Sadly, it was neither. Abdel-Magied’s claims and the terrorist attacks sit side by side like a glaring non sequitur, blank assertions, sweeping generalisations, few connecting facts.

Waleed Aly exposed himself as a hypocrite. In the past, Aly has seemingly ducked for cover about mentioning Islam when Muslim terrorists have been Muslims murdering innocent people in the name of Islam. In 2013 he told us that “terrorism is a perpetual irritant”. Imagine the irritation of the families of those slain inside two mosques in Christchurch. Not this time. When a white supremacist killed Muslims in Christchurch, Aly couldn’t mention Islam enough. Those terrorist acts on Friday are not perpetual irritants, then? Because it involved a white supremacist? To coin your words on Saturday, “don’t change your tune now”, Waleed, either consider the ideological causes of terrorism in all cases, or don’t do it in any case.

Absolutely, we should analyse the words of the white supremacist terrorist in Christchurch to understand his political motivations. Just as we should study carefully the political motivations of Muslim terrorists who kill in the name of Islam. But none of that justifies using the Christchurch terrorist attacks to further one’s political agenda.

American writer Max Boot blamed the terrorist attacks on President Trump. A gaggle of voices on Twitter blamed our Prime Minister. Online anonymous activists Sleeping Giants blamed Sky News. GetUp blamed right-wing politicians and the Murdoch press. Imran Khan blamed “the current Islamophobia post-9/11 where Islam & 1.3 billion Muslims have collectively been blamed for any act of terror by a Muslim”. Some on Twitter blamed me too. The Washington Post described Australia as “fertile ground” for murdering white supremacists.

Those playing blame games with politics are trying to paint as mainstream what happens on the fringes of politics. That attempt to tar the centre-Right with the lunacy of the far-Right is wicked, politically driven and wrong in fact. Working in reverse, the blame-gamers are also trying to present entirely legitimate debates about immigration, integration, the self-evident clash of cultures and the rise of political Islam as fringe discussions that must be shut down.

The day after terrorist attacks in Christchurch, an editor at The Saturday Paper called for laws to “penalise media outlets, and figures that consistently promote fear and hatred” and “robust laws against the spread of hate speech”. It is one thing to condemn utterly an evil white supremacist who used his warped political agenda to mow down and murder Muslims exercising their right to religious freedom in a thriving and peaceful democracy. The law will punish those who kill and incite others to violence.

But we must stand up to those who seek to exploit terrorism as an excuse to censor views and shut down people they disagree with. The blame-gamers must not succeed in shutting down my views, or others in The Australian, or on Sky News.

And don’t fall for claims that this censorship, under the ruse of clamping down on hate speech, will stamp out terrorism. Shutting down robust debates about immigration and how cultures live side by side will create more white supremacists, more unhinged, self-professed martyrs, and more people with loathsome views, like Anning. These people will thrive in the dark woods of the internet, echo-chambers nurturing their hatred and bigotry away from logical argument.

The terrorist attacks in New Zealand have reaffirmed one eternal truth. If we tolerate the intolerant, whether on the extremes of the Left or Right, we condemn the West to totalitarianism.