Empire typically involves violence-based domination of a large number of different cultures by a dominant society. We can quickly validate this assessment by considering the past Roman Empire, the residual British Empire and the present, globally-dominant US Empire. However, while military hardware and imperial soldiers are expensive items, WORDS are cheap and of huge strategic value. The racism implicit in Empire has to be hidden by honeyed WORDS – or else backed up by additional egregious violence. While huge military expenditure provides a huge lobbying budget for the US military-industrial complex, US military casualties remain an inescapable political LIABILITY. Racist US Empire accordingly requires massive propaganda and mainstream media lying by omission and commission. Crucially, the racist reality of US Empire must be comprehensively denied by “political correctness” and hence constitutes “politically correct racism” (PC racism).
Politically correct racism, British India & the WW2 Bengal Famine
Ruthless, violent domination of other races by a Master Race is clearly racist and this was the effective reality of the British Empire (as well as of the Nazi German Third Reich). However the stark reality of a brutally exploitative British Empire in which 90% of the subjects were non-European had to be intelligently “softened” by the WORDS of “Christian brotherhood”, “British civilization” and “Pax Britannica” –” the alternative to such words was an increasingly expensive investment in military hardware and imperial soldiers for colonial wars. The power of such seductive propaganda (as well as financial considerations for colonial subjects living on the edge) meant that millions of Indians loyally served Britain as soldiers in World War 1 and World War 2 and in enforcing Pax Britannica in the British Empire on which “the sun never set”.
The power of politically correct British propaganda is well illustrated by the example of British-ruled India during World War 2. A total of 2.4 million Indians served in the British Indian Army during WW2. It has been calculated that the British Indian Army consumed about 0.45 million tons of grain each year –” almost the same as the average yearly importation of grain into British India of 0.46 million tons in the years 1942-1945 (G. M. Polya, Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History, 1998; see: [1]). Yet 1943-1944 saw a huge, man-made famine in British-ruled Bengal that killed an estimated 4 million people and involved horrendous military and civilian sexual abuse of hundreds of thousands of starving women and girls that compares with the horrendous comfort women abuses of the Japanese army.
The man-made WW2 Bengal Famine has been almost completely wiped out of British history –” and for good reason. Colin Mason in his Short History of Asia (Macmillan, 2000) condemns the academic and political white-washing of this immense atrocity. Colin Mason speculates that the man-made Bengal famine may have derived from a deliberate British strategic decision to confront the threatening Japanese forces in adjacent Burma with a scorched earth reality of a starving province. Whether a man-made famine from “market forces”, increased price of rice and lack of “entitlement” afforded the Bengali British subjects (the view of 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen) or this arising as a result of deliberate, cold-blooded “scorched earth policy” on the part of British military planners (according to Colin Mason), the reality is that 4 million perished and indeed the 1940s saw a demographic deficit in Bengal amounting to over 10 million people. British “politically correct racism” meant that not only did the disaster happen –” but it has also been “rubbed out” from history. As we all know, history denied yields history repeated.
Politically correct racism & the “old’ and “new” White Australia policy
Historically, White Australia has had an appalling history of racist mass murder, dispossession and discrimination against non-Europeans: genocide of the Australian aborigines through violence and disease (between 1788 and 1900 the indigenous population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million); 19th century genocide of Pacific Islanders through violence, disease and slavery (about 1 million died); continuing participation in 2 centuries of horrendous, racist Anglo-American wars throughout the world (e.g. 1.0 million excess Korean deaths in the Korean War and 13.1 million excess Indo-Chinese deaths during the Indo-China War); the racist White Australia Policy (1901-1973); support for South African Minority Rule Apartheid; laws discriminating against indigenous Australians (who were not even “counted” until after a referendum in 1967); removal of tens of thousands of aboriginal children (the Stolen Generations) from their mothers (this ostensibly ceasing in about 1970); and horrendous excess deaths in custody of aboriginal Australians.
In the last 15 years we have seen further egregiously racist Australian policies: involvement in the US-led Gulf and Sanctions War against Iraq (1.8 million excess deaths); imprisonment without charge of thousands of adult and child Asian Muslim refugees in desert concentration camps; a surreptitious, politically correct racist political agenda directed at Asians and Muslims; the criminal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan (post-invasion excess deaths and under-5 infant deaths now totalling 1.7 million and 2.1 million, respectively, in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions); intrinsically racist and anti-Muslim Anti-Terror Laws that violate major international human rights conventions; and continuing differential aboriginal mortality, currently amounting to about 6,000 avoidable deaths every year (i.e. equivalent to the death toll from 2 World Trade Center atrocities each year- but out of an indigenous Australian population of only about 0.5 million as compared to a US population of 300 million).
Racist, lying Anglo-American mainstream media have given Australia a very good press but even this massive media lying by omission and commission could not stop the world becoming aware of the notorious White Australia Policy. When Australia became independent in 1901 as a Federation of former British-ruled States, its explicitly racist leadership sought to explicitly ban non-European entry into Australia. The British Government strongly objected for the key reason given at the beginning of this essay –” ruling an Empire of some 300 million mostly non-European subjects dictates that you endeavour to be as polite as possible to your subjects. In addition, Britain did not want to offend the Japanese who were growing in power and were driven by racist self-estimation comparable to that of the British. Accordingly, the Australian Federal Government brought in “politically correct” immigration laws that did not specify race but allowed for exclusion of “undesirables” through “executive interpretation” of “departmental policy”. For those “undesirables” persisting with a desire to enter Australia but unaware of the officially unofficial White Australia Policy, there was a “dictation test” in any European language, that could be applied by racist officials as a last resort.
The “old” White Australia Policy collapsed in 1973 due to the outlawing of explicit racism by the newly-elected Federal Labor Government. However, very few are aware of the “new” White Australia Policy that subsequently arose and which currently involves (as before) “executive interpretation” of “departmental policy”, but this time involving a “points system” and a list of countries (dominated by non-European countries) whose citizens pose a “risk” of “over-staying” if they enter Australia. What is more generally known, is that (mostly non-European) refugees and visa over-stayers are incarcerated in what amount to “politically correct concentration camps”.
The “bad old days” of racist White Australia involved the “politically correct” 1901 Immigration Act that everyone knew as the White Australia Policy. However public acceptance of explicit racism is evidenced by the public acceptability at the time of the following statements by top politicians: “Total exclusion of coloured and other undesirable races” (Labor Party platform, 1900); “It is our duty to preserve this island continent for all eternity for the white race” (King O.Malley in Parliament, 1901); “Two wongs don’t make a white”, “We will not let the yellow hordes contaminate our golden shores” and “We can have a white Australia, we can have a black Australia, but a mongrel Australia is impossible” (leading Labor politician Arthur Calwell, late 1940s).
Contemporary Australian Politically correct racism –” “right to life” for whales but not for Muslim infants
Expression of the racist sentiments quoted above would horrify many Australians today and would actually be illegal in some jurisdictions, such as the state of Victoria in South East Australia. Indeed an Australian public figure who recently referred to part-European children as “mongrels” was publicly excoriated. Current racial abuse directed at South African cricketers has been portrayed by the PC media as “Sydney’s shame” and the awful race riots in Sydney (involving thousands of white thugs beating and terrorizing Asians and Muslims) have been described as “Australia’s shame”. Most Australians would vigorously deny being racists.
However, talk to ordinary Australians one-on-one and you can encounter the most extraordinary racist and bigoted views about Muslims –” even though your interlocutor may well have good non-European or Muslim-origin friends and wouldn’t dream of explicitly supporting or indulging in racist abuse or racial discrimination. Indeed “moderate Muslims”, eager to establish their credentials as “true Australians” with “true Australian values”, have an appalling track record in recent years of attacking more “orthodox” Muslims as “extremists” and linking them to criminal terrorism –” while at the same time utterly IGNORING the horrendous civilian death toll in Coalition-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.
Australians in general are (quite reasonably) strongly opposed to commercial whaling and notably that conducted by the Japanese, who butcher these spectacular, intelligent, sociable and communicative mammals to the extent of about 1,000 WHALES ANNUALLY (3 WHALES DAILY). This issue has dominated Australian media in recent weeks as Greenpeace activists daringly confront the Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters. Yet Australian media resolutely refuse to report the latest UNICEF (2006) figures (see: [2]) indicating horrendous under-5 infant mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories due to non-provision by the US-led Coalition of life-preserving requisites demanded by the Geneva Conventions –” this war criminal passive genocide, mass murder and mass infanticide amounting to 0.5 MILLION MUSLIM INFANTS ANNUALLY (1,300 MUSLIM INFANTS DAILY). This appalling double-standard of Australian media demanding the “right to life” for whales but IGNORING gross, Australia-complicit violation of the “right to life” for Muslim infants cogently demonstrates the “politically correct racism” of White Australia.
Political correctness of US Empire & UK-US democratic imperialism
Politically correct racism permits immensely destructive and criminal UK-US democratic imperialism and US Empire –” because lying Anglo-American mainstream media IGNORE the horrendous HUMAN COST of UK-US state terrorism (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism, racist imperialism). According to the latest UNICEF report (January 2006) (UN-REPORTED by mainstream media), in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 122,000 in Occupied Iraq, 359,000 in Occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the occupying country Australia (noting that in 2004 the populations of these countries were 28.1 million, 28.6 million and 19.9 million, respectively)(see: [3]).
About 1,300 under-5 year old infants will have died in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan on Christmas Day alone, 0.5 million will die in the coming year and 1.7 million have died post-invasion due to non-provision by the US-led Coalition of life-preserving requisites demanded by the Geneva Conventions (see: [4]). Also UN-REPORTED by PC racist mainstream media, the post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now totals 2.1 MILLION and the post-2001 global opioid drug-related deaths now total 0.4 million (largely due to US Coalition restoration of the Afghan opium industry largely destroyed by the Taliban in 2000-2001).
What can decent people do in the face of bland, politically correct racism and sustained mainstream media lying? A detailed, formal complaint has been sent to the International Criminal Court charging the Coalition with war crimes in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan (see Countercurrents, 21 December 2005 [5]). As individuals we can resolve to ACT ETHICALLY in our business, social and sporting interactions with those people and countries complicit in the crimes of UK-US state terrorism. Thus, why should 300,000 mostly Asian and significantly Muslim overseas students pay A$6 billion pa to study in Australian universities when PC racist Australian people, corporations and institutions are COMPLICIT in horrendous crimes against utterly innocent and helpless Asian and Muslim infants and their mothers? Fundamentally we must oppose the utter evil of politically correct racism by INFORMING EVERYONE.
Notes:
[1]. http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/
2005/07/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-british.html
[2]. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html
[3]. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html
[4]. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm
[5]. http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya211205.htm
