THE INSIDIOUS SCOURGE OF RADICALISATION

As is the case for most reasoning people I’m sure, the issue of ‘radicalisation’ concerns me deeply.

Once radicalised by the proponents of an extremist doctrine, extremists will stop at nothing to impose their ideology on everyone.

Their tools for achieving this end are many, including dividing communities into groups of 'us' and 'them', abuse of the right of free speech to achieve that end, and the corrupt manipulation of various other democratic freedoms and processes too.

Those who oppose their will are treated to a relentless stream of disparaging rhetoric contrived to dehumanise the ‘unbeliever’, portraying them as wicked people to be shunned by a community of the devout.

They distrust government to the point of paranoia, seeing some dark intent behind every decision and process and they have no respect for the servants of government unless they subscribe to the same extremist ideology as their own.

Extremists are not born, they are manufactured. They are indoctrinated with an unrelenting stream of one-eyed, intolerant, extremist hyperbole and it would be a great mistake to assume this applies only to radical Islam.

In Jumping the Gun [Letter, Bay Post/Moruya Examiner, December 18th] we read the allegation Eurobodalla Councillors are pushing some corrupt hidden agenda that can be addressed only by a regime change of true believers.

The community is coerced to take a certain view, that the presence of HuntFesters will deny the community access to facilities for 7 years. In fact HuntFest occupies the facilities in question for only one long-weekend a year, during which the community is invited to attend.

Perhaps most bizarrely, the community is again advised that the failure of Council to bend to the will of a tiny fraction of the community responding to a survey – approx 85% of 166 respondents – amounts to a failure of the democratic process.

Democracy is not a tool for the oppression of minorities. In fact it assures their right to exist and to conduct their legal activities without fear of constant harassment and vilification, which in the past has included references to not wanting “people like that in our beautiful Eurobodalla”.

It has been estimated that at least 2000 supporters of radical Islam currently call Australia home.  Are we to believe their attitudes and actions speak for the entire Australian community?

Or do we simply acknowledge that the views of 2000 radicalised ideologues – as with the 0.4 of 1% of Eurobodalla residents opposing HuntFest in the much misrepresented consultation – represents only the views of a tiny fraction of the community sufficiently obsessed with their ideology to quite predictably and always angrily rattle their sabres?

Such people do not speak for the community. In fact, they do not even speak for the majority of Greens, many of whom grow increasingly concerned about the extremists within their ranks.

As our population grows, so the number of people radicalised under a variety of symbols and battle cries will also grow. This is inevitable!

Also inevitable is the fact their places of worship – their meetings and rallies – are doomed to poor attendance and their manipulative, often paranoid propaganda will continue to be rejected by a community intent on resisting radicalisation in all its manifestations.

Anyway, I'll get outaya way now...


Jumping the gun

Letters to the Editor

Bay Post/Moruya Examiner

December 18th, 2015

The Eurobodalla Greens are shocked a further five-year licence for the Narooma HuntFest looks likely to be issued whilst the current licence has two years to run.

The licence, controversially awarded in 2012, expires in 2017. In September HuntFest organisers applied for a renewal for the period 2018-2022. They have been told Eurobodalla Shire Council will process the application in February/March 2016.

You would have thought, with sensitivity around this issue, the council would stick to due process. The renewal of a five-year licence so far in davance [sic] renders the council liable once again to legal challenge.

If issued, the licence locks out the community from that venue until after 2022.  It holds a gun to the heads of the next elected councillors, who will be unable to re-visit the issue for the full term of their election.

HuntFest has realised a less sympathetic council will be elected next year, so the only option was to go early. The council needs to acknowledge the cynical, undemocratic and questionably legal nature of the application and tell HuntFest to wait their turn until early 2017.

The Eurobodalla Mayor’s announcement last week that an independent audit committee had found the council acted correctly in granting the license and that the agreement was watertight is meaningless.

The initial licence made no reference to guns and ammunition, yet through amendment creep, such sales are permitted.

If the council had determined to refuse the sale of weapons on public land the same audit committee could have easily supported that position as well.

When the people were formally and directly asked about guns and ammunition sales they mostly said NO. At this point, on this issue, what  the councillors “feel” is not relevant.

What the community has said must prevail.

Otherwise, why bother to ask?

Nick Hopkins

Convenor, Eurobodalla Greens

[ends]

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