Let’s not falter at this threat to who we are

The white supremacist massacre in New Zealand is another ghastly milestone in the technological and cultural disruption of society raising the usual question: is this a ­departure point checking the slide towards the abyss or merely ­another step along the way?

There are two lessons after this terrorist slaughter that duplicated attacks seen in Europe and America: the threat to our society — moral, political and spiritual — from the hi-tech social media companies, and the capacity of identity politics to split and ruin the multicultural democracies we have constructed.

Rancour and polarisation are now endemic in Australia’s discourse. Yet this time our political leaders rose above it — at least briefly — with Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten invoking human respect, compassion and strength in tolerance following the lead of New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern.

Obviously the security agencies will assess the need for greater surveillance in this country of the racist, violent right wing and the subculture in which it thrives. New Zealand will reform its gun laws. Morrison and Shorten have both flagged action against the social media giants whose refusal to ­accept responsibility for what their platforms publish must be confronted with everything that ­involves. The Christchurch massacre should become a global turning point for these companies.

The government and opposition are right to censure renegade senator Fraser Anning, who initially entered the parliament as a One Nation representative. There is no place for Anning in the national parliament. It is vital the parliament repudiate his comments with their implied blame of the victims.

The comments of the Greens that he should be thrown out of the parliament typify the dangerous reaction to be avoided. Can you imagine a more counter-productive response? This notion is wrong in principle, against the current 1987 law, would turn Anning into a political martyr and ­embolden his supporters. Let the voters liquidate Anning at the election and advertise to the ­nation and world his humiliation at the hands of our democracy.

Morrison’s speech on Monday calling out “us and them” tribalism enunciated a fundamental truth. It is his finest speech as PM. If we succumb to tribalism, of the Left or Right, “we will lose what makes ­diversity in Australia work”.

Sadly, this is where Australia is now headed. Morrison said “hate, blame and contempt are the staples of tribalism” and that the “consuming modern debate” with its descent into “primitive appetites” threatens our social fabric. The task is to disagree “not less but better”.

This is a global dilemma. The rise of the far Right mirrors a historic failure of liberalism, its politics and its economic, social and cultural policies. The weakening of liberalism in Europe and the US lies at the essence of the crisis of trust in Western democracy. Liberalism is trapped by its flaws from within and the assault on its universal principles from the ­extremes of Right and Left.

The story plays out differently in each country, yet there seems a blindness in Australia in comprehending what is happening. This is not just an assault from the Right or the Left — it is an assault by both polarities.

This is its essence. The extremes feed off each other; just look at Trump’s America.

The document left by the ­alleged Christchurch perpetrator offers insights into his motivation, although parts are probably written to deceive as well. Home ­Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the man spent only 45 days in Australia in three years and his “manifesto” draws heavily on his overseas and European experiences.

This individual uses the title The Great Replacement from anti-immigration French writer Renaud Camus (who deplored the attack), a phrase used in European right-wing circles to depict the ­alleged replacement of white Western civilisation. The terrorist wrote: “I found my emotions swinging between fuming rage and suffocating despair at the ­indignity of the invasion of France, the pessimism of the French people, the loss of culture and identity and the farce of the political solutions offered.”

The cry has been taken up by white supremacists and neo-Nazis from America to Hungary. Influenced by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, the ­alleged Christchurch killer claimed his aim was “to take ­revenge for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks” and to “show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands”.

Such fanaticism has penetrated sections of mainstream European politics. Its followers demonise German Chancellor Angela Merkel and treat Donald Trump with disdain. The killer said his ­European experience in April and May 2017 had “dramatically changed my views” as he embraced the idea that “violence is the reality of history”.

Can we not see what is happening in Europe and America? The tactics of the extreme Right, as the “manifesto” made clear, is to provoke a divisive backlash from the Left. What are the policies of the extreme Left most likely to provoke a strident reaction from the far Right? Open borders and ­entrenchment of identity politics, the exact icons it is pursuing.

The identity politics of the Left is now matched by the identity politics of the Right. What is so hard to understand about these political realities? They are obvious. Yet the denialism is pervasive, an ominous sign for Australia. ­Unless our politics and mainstream media confront this reality — as distinct from being ideological drumbeaters for one side or ­another — then our national ­future is bleak.

Morrison’s effort to seek agreement among G-20 countries to impose responsibility on the tech companies is completely justified along with his core propositions — that it is “unacceptable to treat the internet as an ungovernable space” and that the companies must “meet their moral obligation to protect the communities which they serve and from which they prosper”.

This is an opportunity to lock in agreement from leaders off the back of the New Zealand tragedy. There is strong momentum from the global Left and Right for ­action. Last year George Soros said the monopolistic behaviour of these companies was a threat to the world: “The exceptional profitability of these companies is largely a function of their avoiding responsibility for — and avoiding paying for — the content on their platforms.”

Soros said social media companies “deceive their users by ­manipulating their attention”, their aim being to “deliberately ­engineer addiction to the services they provide”. In truth, the threat from these companies is only starting to be grasped and what it means for human consciousness and the human spirit.

“Something very harmful and maybe irreversible is happening to human attention in our digital age,” Soros said. “Social media companies are inducing people to give up their autonomy. It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called ‘the freedom of mind’.”

Yet the problem may be more serious. In his recent essay in The Washington Post, strategic analyst Robert Kagan puts his thesis that “authoritarianism has re-emerged as the greatest threat to the liberal democratic world” and he asserts “we have no idea how to confront it”.

The new authoritarianism is something never before encountered. In anti-liberal societies economics and science “are leading to the perfection of dictatorship” as the West falters. Kagan recognises that liberal societies are under ­assault at home from both the Right and Left — the truth Australia’s system blindly denies — but he warns of the looming menace: dictatorships now have efficient means to control their population courtesy of the digital age.

China is the pacesetter where its “government is rapidly acquiring the ability to know everything about the country’s massive population — where they travel, whom they know, what they are saying”. Larry Diamond calls this a “postmodern totalitarianism” where people appear to be free but are under state surveillance.

“Liberalism is all that keeps us, and has ever kept us, from being burned at the stake for what we ­believe,” Kagan says.

Yet that liberalism is under assault at home where its weakness is manifest and is facing a new authoritarianism from abroad that is winning more nations to its side.