Fair Dinkum
Nazi and China flags tied to a tower in central Kyabram, Victoria, Australia
Among the many racist attacks against innocent Chinese in Australia in recent weeks, including senseless racist attacks on Chinese and Asian international students and the deeply disturbing assassination threat against the Consul General of China in Sydney, another strange form of racist or perhaps even terrorist attacks (as the two go together) are the Australian idiots going around planting Chinese and Nazi Swastika flags together on prominent sites – one in rural town in Victoria; the other involving two Chinese flags and a Nazi flag planted above Telstra phone tower in Kyabram, north of Melbourne on 14 April. Scrawled across the Chinese flags was the hashtag #COVID-19. Pure unadulterated racism at its worst.
What is interesting, however, is that if planting Nazi and Chinese flags together represents the Australian understanding of history, then they fail totally. These racist White Australians have confused political ideologies. Planting a Chinese flag against a Nazi flag is historically incongruous. This is because Nazi ideology was vehemently opposed to Communism. Nazis considered communists their main enemy which is why Nazi scientists received a warm welcome into the US after World War 2, finding a good home there.
In Australia, the closest ideology to Nazism is far-right political ideology. Let’s not forget the Nazis were ideologically far-right themselves. Given that members of our Australian government have been espousing anti-Chinese statements over many years because of their political system, it would have more accurate to put an Australian and Nazi flag together. It makes sense. A Chinese and Nazi flag is historically wrong.
Let’s pray that Australians who don’t know history don’t find their way into jobs in DFAT. Let’s not forget that it was a far-right extremist White Australian who committed the evil terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, a year ago that resulted in the deaths of 51 innocent Muslims. That fact barely gets a mention in the Australian media because Australians and the government are ashamed of it, and don’t like to be reminded of it. That White Australian represented the same far-right political ideology that is most closely allied to the Australian government than any other political doctrine. So, if Australians want to combine flags then they should get their facts right and match flags with similar ideologies. The flames of racism are burning bright in Australia thanks to right-wing conspiracy theories.
Moreover, the Australian government have acted prematurely and irresponsibly to come out accusing China of being responsible for COVID-19 given that scientific investigations into the virus and the gathering of evidence is still ongoing. It has yet to be determined what caused the virus, where it originally came from and how it traveled around the world.
Recent evidence from scientists working at the University of Cambridge suggest that the strain of COVID-19 detected in the US and Australia is not the same as the COVID-19 strain found in Wuhan and China but is closer to the strain found in Europe.
While Australia closed its border with China on 1 February, something the Australian Prime Minister is proud of, he failed to close the borders with the US and Europe for almost a month, even after it became clear our source of COVID-19 infections were mainly coming from the US and Italy. Why did Scott Morrison delay closing down the borders with these two countries earlier? He did it for political reasons – because he loves Donald Trump and will go into bat for him anytime as he did recently when he launched his own attack on the World Health Organization – the only Western leader to do so. In the end, when it comes to understanding COVID-19, Trump doesn’t matter anymore. In attacking the WHO, Scott Morrison said the WHO is not immune from criticism. Well, neither is Scott Morrison. And by the way, the WHO have never claimed to be immune from criticism and have more transparency and accountability procedures in place that the Australian government which invokes secrecy laws to prevent the same.
Why is this research of the University of Cambridge absent from the mouths of Australian and US government leaders? Why are the US and Australian governments recklessly pointing the blame at China that fuel the flames of racism before the scientists have completed their investigations? It is like speculating on the cause of an air crash before air investigators have arrived on the scene. Only an idiot would do that. The governments of Australia and the US need to calm down, stop pointing the finger at China, concentrate their efforts of a unified response to destroying the virus, and let science do its job without political interference that fuels the fires of racism in Australia and the US.