farmdoc's blog post number 667

What’s a racist? My dictionary defines one as a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others. I honestly don’t know if I’m a racist. I don’t see myself as one. But I’ve never been in a situation to test myself out, i.e. where my response would have been different if I was a racist compared with if I wasn’t one. I’m a member of a minority Australian racial group, and one that is frequently and increasingly vilified – which I think makes it less likely I’d be a racist. But who knows? And who knows if 55-year-old Pauline Hanson (pictured) thinks she’s one. But I say she’s one. Her record as co-founder and leader of the One Nation political party stand for itself. In her 1996 maiden parliamentary speech she as good as declared herself a racist. And nothing’s changed since then. As an all-too-public misfit in a modern multi-cultural Australia, she's been an attractor of the lunatic fringe; a divider rather than a combiner. Now she’s reported to be leaving Australia to live in Britain. (She’s already a British citizen, so perhaps she’s not really migrating.) Who knows why she’s going? And who cares? In yesterday’s Age, the Goanna highlighted the ironies of the situation, and especially the challenges Ms Hanson will face living in a multi-cultural Britain. Me? I don’t wish her well. Good riddance to her. Australia’s gain is Britain’s loss.