Allegations of racism fuels quiet resentments

YOU consider yourself enlightened and tolerant. Deep in your heart you hold a compassion for others that comforts you. If others knew your heart, surely they would think highly of you, they'd admire your humanity, your sense of international responsibility and your acceptance of all races and religions.

But how to demonstrate this? How to allow others to see inside your heart?

There is, of course, a standard but ill-advised method for parading these virtues and in parliament, recently, independent MP Andrew Wilkie adopted it. He attacked. "I stand today," he said in the House of Representatives, "to condemn the racism that eats at the Liberal Party."

Yes, you are a politician and you need to make your mark. You want constituents, media and contemporaries to admire and respect you. So to display your worthiness you attack someone you can brand as a racist.

"Australia's history is littered with politicians peddling hate," peddled Wilkie as he detailed his now widely publicised claims of racism and religious intolerance against Liberal MPs Scott Morrison and Cory Bernardi.

"Some politicians are as much to blame as the thugs themselves for episodes such as the Cronulla riots and the hate crimes which continue on our streets."

Within minutes the Tasmanian MP's spray was making news across the nation, dominating the ABC website.

To trumpet your tolerance all you need to do is wait until someone, preferably a conservative politician, says something that you can construe as racist or intolerant, then unleash your fury. The greater your venom, apparently, the more pure your virtue.

Surely if you condemn another as racist, people will know that you are not. If you denounce others for intolerance surely the praise will be upon you for the way you value all creeds equally.

Wilkie even found time to read to the chamber, and into Hansard, a 2004 letter given to him by an unquoted source, to an unnamed Asian woman, from someone who, apparently, was a supporter of Pauline Hanson.

The letter was vile and racist. But why, all these years later, was it shared with the parliament?

Was this the proof Wilkie needed that Australia is a racist nation full of "hate crimes" that are egged on by conservative politicians?

This was the shame of Wilkie's rant, the moral vanity that sees divisions highlighted, denunciations cheered, sensible debate stifled and individuals incensed. Few people will condemn words such as these from the independent MP for fear it invites a similar spray.

Who wants to end up on the wrong side of an ugly debate, accused of defending the racists? This is the protection Wilkie and his supporters in the commentariat rely on.

To be sure, Morrison made some uncharitable remarks at an appalling time. He suffered appropriate opprobrium and apologised.

Bernardi turned his strident comments against extreme interpretations of Islam. Most people would agree his remarks went too far, denigrating a whole religion for its most extreme elements. He certainly did not sufficiently qualify his words.

Again he was duly criticised and apologised.

And just as Wilkie dredged up a hate letter, Bernardi is guilty of republishing on his website hate mail that has come his way. This does not help sensible debate; rather, it inflames hostilities.

Yet, you would hope, these are transgressions to be discussed calmly and maturely.

If Wilkie and progressive commentators wanted to turn their attention to those who denigrate other religions, from Catholicism and the Brethren to Judaism and Hinduism, we could take them more seriously. Examples aren't hard to find. ABC favourite Catherine Deveny wrote this about her return to church: "Entering the cathedral of misogyny, deception, manipulation, chauvinism, hypocrisy and bigotry, all wrapped up in 'if you don't swallow this hook, line and sinker you're going to hell', felt like coming home.

"Time for communion, when bread and wine is turned into the actual flesh and blood of Christ by the priest. Because he's special. They call it transubstantiation; I call it bullshit."

Or another ABC regular, David Marr, interviewed about Christian churches: "All of the demonisation of homosexuality from these churches is essentially aimed at keeping erect the authority of marriage and sexual guidance for heterosexuals. And it is wicked. Wicked."

These comments are highly provocative, but most of us likely would agree that in our pluralist society they are tolerable as part of robust debate. If so, then the issues of democratic freedoms and the rights of women and homosexuals within other religious cultures are also worthy of discussion.

Perhaps we should be able to have a similar level of debate and show a similar tolerance for irreverent discussion of Islam. And maybe it is not too much to ask that we avoid being impolite, abusive or offensive. Predictably, Wilkie's accusations of racism did not act as a suppressant but as an accelerant in a white-hot parliament.

Even the Prime Minister allowed herself to use this as a political opportunity, first demanding resignations, then, in the heat of a parliamentary exchange, accusing the opposition of "race-baiting". This was not edifying for either side or for the parliament.

We last saw a major public overreaction to poorly expressed insecurities during the era of Hansonism. The strident condemnation of Pauline Hanson helped turn her from a none-too-bright deselected Liberal candidate into a national political phenomenon.

So with federal politicians talking about racism and Hanson announcing another tilt at politics through the NSW upper house on March 26, there could be no better time to remember what her previous incarnation taught us. It is that the perception of a double standard in the public debate fuels resentment rather than eases it.

And that when opportunists parade their own virtue by making shameless, intolerant attacks on others, no one wins.