Tribalism
Saturday, January 01, 2000
Racism is not an idea, like flat-earth-ism, that will yield to rational information and be dispensed with once and for all. Racism is an inflammation of the mind, a contagious condition, to which we humans will always be vulnerable.
It is a mistake to think that a certain percentage of people are racists and the others not. If there is enough irritation, “racists” will multiply overnight. When the going gets rough, we easily flip into hostility against a visibly different tribe.
When racial conflict breaks out, justice, reason, order, … civilised behaviour breaks down. No matter which side you take, aggressive and extremist opinions are dangerous to Australia.
Once the agitators have had their fun, thousands of innocent people – including children – will suffer an aftermath of bitterness which can take many years to die down.
One must resist the temptation to score points out of this issue, to try to prove what a good guy one is by beating one’s breast, romanticising or morally elevating either side. Stay calm, even boring. But methodically discuss the concrete issues of fairness and need, and doggedly continue to implement solutions – without demonising either side.
The longer periods of quietly constructive measures we can achieve without racial strife, the more inter-racial communication there is, and the harder it becomes for racist propaganda to gain that small critical mass of credibility it takes to trigger off inter-tribal antagonism.
Philip O'Carroll