In discussing the Voice, I said:

‘Racism’ or ‘racist’ are not terms that I use.  They are too broad in their reach, and they are too often applied as unfair and unwarranted labels of abuse.

But as I understand it, ‘racism’, at least in its pejorative sense,  involves more than a recognition that people can be in some way classified according to race.  It entails a belief that people of some racial backgrounds are in some way inferior to others, or may be discriminated against, on the ground of their race.  And history is replete with stories of the misery that this vice has led to.

Such beliefs are irrational on the part of those holding them  – such people are described as ‘prejudiced’ – and hurtful to the objects of such beliefs.  Those holding such beliefs are open to the accusation that they are not seeing the dignity of other  people that arises merely because they are human.

‘Prejudice’ is almost irrational by definition.  It is irrational to hold that all people of the same tribe or colour have the same character.

But it is equally irrational to hold that reasoned criticism of some in a group evidences a prejudice against members of that group generally.  Those expressing such a view are often trying make themselves out as victims and get sympathy or support that way.

And where two groups are in conflict, people on both sides will tend to be irrational  – prejudiced – in assessing the conduct of either  side.  Their side cannot do wrong.  The other side cannot do anything right.

You can see all this in the history of Ireland.

The English regarded the natives of Ireland with a contempt greater than that with which they greeted the natives of Australia five centuries later.  The Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366 put most of the natives ‘beyond the pale’.  It was apartheid that resembled the Spartan treatment of helots – to the discomfort of Oxbridge. 

You could still find this racist contempt in polite circles much later.  The sometime historian J H Round in 1899 in The Commune of London said:

We went to Ireland because her people were engaged in cutting one another’s throats; we are there now because if we left, they would all be breaking one another’ s heads….The leaders of the Irish people have not so greatly changed since the days when ‘King’ McDonnchadh blinded ‘King’ Dermot’s son, and when Dermot, in return, relieved his feelings by gnawing the nose of his butchered foe.  Claiming  to govern a people when they cannot even govern themselves, they clamor like the baboo of Bengal against that pax Britannica, by the presence of which alone they are preserved from mutual destruction.  No doubt… .they would rather be governed badly by themselves than well by anyone else.  But England also has a voice in the matter; and she cannot  allow the creation of a Pandemonium at her doors.

The white man’s burden – you could not beat that even by crossing Hitler with Kipling.

So, the Irish arrived in Australia with centuries of history of being victims of racism.  To which was now added discrimination against Catholics.  Those two factors led to raw prejudice on their part.  And that led to bitter division in Australia – right through to the end of my childhood.

Ned Kelly was taught ‘Death to any Judas Iscariot who betrays an Irishman to an English  policeman.’  Kelly was a cold-blooded murderer, but many in the Irish diaspora – including otherwise sane lawyers in my lifetime  – treated him as a champion of the dispossessed against the Protestant dominated Philistine society of Melbourne.  It went beyond the Irish.  Manning Clark said: ‘Yet Ned lived on as a hero, as a man through whom Australians were helped to discover our national identity.’   It was another sad instance of our saluting losers.

Daniel Mannix came from Ireland to be Archbishop of Melbourne.  Just as the conscription issue got going here in the First World War, he launched an appeal for victims of the Easter Rising.  He was righteously vehement in his  opposition to the government and conscription.  To whom did he and Irish Catholics owe allegiance – Ireland, Rome, or Australia?   Part of this quandary had plagued England since Becket ran into Henry II.  Australia was dangerously, and venomously, split by Mannix and his followers.  Manning Clark said:

He was the mystic who saw in the face of the Irish peasant the image of Christ.  He was the Irish patriot nursing a grudge against those guilty of that ancient wrong against the Irish people…. For him, any reflection on his people and their reputation was like the sin against the Holy Ghost – something which could never be forgiven.  In Catholic countries, legend had it that when a person committed mortal sin fell across the face of the Virgin.  For Daniel Mannix, any slur on his faith by or on his own people by the eternal enemies of the Irish caused a shadow to pass over his face.

All that proved a fierce cocktail of imported division in the brand-new Commonwealth.  You can see that the fear and loathing felt by Mannix for the English and Protestant establishments, more than matched that felt by the English against the Irish five or so centuries before.   And then you get to the phase where the ultimate insult is for the conduct of your team to be compared with that of the other.  The inarticulate premise is of course that the members of the other team are inferior.  Which takes us back to where we started.

Then, after the next war, Catholics were, fairly or otherwise, seen to be the drivers of the ‘Split’ – the breakdown of the Labor Party that effectively left Australian as a one-party state for a generation. 

It is a notorious fact of history that religious conflicts are the worst of the lot.  And that conflicts within one faith – say Sunni and Shiite, or Protestant and Catholic – are the worst of those.  The stakes are so high.  Which is worse – treason, or heresy?

Well, all this comes to you from a lapsed Prot who now looks askance at most religion (and who could not give a hoot about the schism in Christianity) .  I have no doubt those brought up as Catholics, whether Irish or not, may well see things very differently – and possibly say so; possibly, vehemently. 

It is both natural and inevitable that people will associate with others of the same tribe and faith.  It is equally natural and inevitable that such associations will affect the way we think, frequently with results that bespeak raw prejudice.    It is not a good idea in Melbourne to engage your cab driver in discussion about the governance of Kosovo, Lebanon, or India.

But the few instances mentioned here, which reflect wrongs wrought on people over centuries,  and which fed bad tensions here over generations, show that we must be wary of those whose interest in foreign conflicts leads them to seek to interfere with our own domestic politics here in Australia.  Such people are dangerous.

Racism – Logic – Diasporas – Ireland – Gaza – Kosovo – Balkans – India.