John Howard speaks in praise of western civilisation

John Howard says while western cultural tradition isn’t perfect, our nation can’t ignore that it has made us who we are | LISTEN

John Howard launches his book in Sydney tonight. Picture: Hollie Adams

John Howard has cautioned against forgetting what Australia owes western civilisation ahead of his book launch in Sydney tonight.

The former PM said on 2GB radio this morning that while western civilisation had its faults, it was the backbone of the nation.

Host Alan Jones said Mr Howard’s 2006 speech which celebrated the 50th anniversary of conservative culture journal Quadrant was still relevant today given the Australian National University’s controversial decision to reject a new degree on western civilisation and a Melbourne University dance piece that separates white audience members from people of colour.

“Well the western cultural tradition, it’s not perfect, no tradition is, but essentially it’s made us who we are, it’s where we came from.” Mr Howard said. “Western civilisation has given us parliamentary democracy, it’s given us freedom, it’s given us an enormous inheritance of literature and music and culture.

“By all means debate it, analyse it … For heaven’s sake, don’t pretend it hasn’t moulded us. I’m not using this as a platform to attack other civilisations, I’m using it as a vehicle to which to remind the Australian people of just who we are and where we came from and what we owe to all the constituent elements of western civilisation.”

Mr Howard said he had “tried to live” by the belief that Australia’s achievements were overwhelmingly positive instead of looking for reasons to apologise.

“Well we still have that in many areas of society, the determination to apologise for the past. Apologise for your own mistakes, recognise that our civilisation like many is flawed, recognise the blemishes, but you’ve got to look at the aggregate achievement. The aggregate achievement of Australia is massive. I look at Australia’s past in positive terms, not in negative terms.”

Mr Howard warned the tendency to deride and diminish Australia’s achievements had wormed its way through the nation’s intellectual institutions and would impact future generations.

“Unfortunately that determination to denigrate and pour scorn on our past, to elevate the failures and diminish the successes is still going on. It goes on in universities, it goes on in schools, it goes on in sections of the media … not all sections of the media of course.” he said.

“We need to remind ourselves that this attitude embeds itself in institutions it has an impact on generations into the future.”

Howard’s book The Art of Persuasion, a collection of his speeches, will be launched tonight by Cyber Security Minister Angus Taylor in Barangaroo.