Monday, December 19, 2005
IT JUST DON'T ADD UP
Front page headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age:
Voters disagree with Howard over racism
Howard got it wrong on racism, poll finds
Both stories refer to the same poll, which found that:
Voters have delivered a rebuff to John Howard over his response to the Sydney riots, with three-quarters of people disagreeing with his claim that there is no underlying racism in Australia.
So you’d expect three-quarters of those polled to themselves exhibit “underlying racism”, yes? Instead we find, in the same article:
Despite the majority of voters agreeing there was underlying racism, the poll also found that 81 per cent of voters supported the policy of multiculturalism.
Looks like Howard was right—the majority of Australians aren’t racist. But they are suspicious of other Australians (in fact, the majority of Australians) who for some reason are dramatically underrepresented in the Age/SMH’s polling. More poll news here; and do read Mark Steyn:
These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf.
Maybe all these Mohammeds are victims of Australian white racists and American white racists and Dutch white racists and Balinese white racists and Beslan schoolgirl white racists.
But the eagerness of the Aussie and British and Canadian and European media, week in, week out, to attribute each outbreak of an apparently universal phenomenon to strictly local factors is starting to look pathological.