I had a delightful conversation with a colleague in Vancouver the other day, a genuine ‘canuck’. Now, before you all start daydreaming about getting rescued by a Mountie while tied up to a chair, let me tell you what he said. He said, grinning gladly, that by 2045, white people would be a minority in Vancouver. I of course answered correctly, saying, “Wow, Canada is so progressive. Not like Australia which might as well be stuck in the palaeolithic era!”
(That is how you have a conversation with left-wing friends, by the way. Say things you both agree with, boast about leftist objectives being met, and complain about your own country for not having done so yet.)
I shared that conversation with you as a way of introducing this week’s topic, which is diversity. But before I get into the nitty-gritty, I’m going to present a little ‘snare’ in which our friends on the right might try to trap you. Let’s say there’s a rightist named Robby. And Robby comes up to you, all warm and welcoming, and says, “Say, friend. What do you think is a good percentage of Muslims in Australia? It’s currently at about 3%.”
The first thing is NEVER TALK TO ROBBY. You should have screamed at him that he was a bigot as soon as he walked into your field of view, and then run away to your safe space whence you could tweet about the encounter and how you survived it. He’s trying to trick you using a devious patriarchal discourse called ‘reason’.
But say you don’t do any of that, and you decide to talk to Robby. You’re young, you’re naive, and you believe in the Cause. Robby’s given you a number, and to show your leftist, pro-Islamic credentials, as my friend in Vancouver did, the obvious answer is to give a higher number. So you think about it and you settle on 20%, which seems about right, given the overall numbers of Muslims in the world. 20% Muslims leaves enough space for all the other races and creeds. So you say, “Gee Robby, I don’t know. Say, 20%?”
Well, Robby’s got you now. You were a fool for engaging him in conversation. He says, “So, you’re saying that 80% of Australian people should be non-Muslim? Wow, that sounds pretty Islamophobic. So what, are you going to stop immigration from Muslim countries when we get 20% Muslims? What are you, Donald Trump?”
In your panic not to be smeared as an Islamophobe or as someone who supports Donald Trump, you stutter that the number should be higher. Maybe 60%. So Robby says, “60%? So what, you’re going to turn boats around and stop immigration from Muslim countries when we reach 60% Muslims? What are you, Donald Trump? Don’t you support refugees?”
You freak out. You’re a leftist, after all, so you lack intestinal fortitude. There seems to be only one correct answer, so in your utter panic you blurt it out. “Okay, 100% then,” you say. Well, that was a big mistake, kid. You want to know what Robby’s thinking right now? He’s thinking ‘Checkmate’. He says, “100%? That’s not very diverse! What, you want an Islamic monoculture for 100% of the country? What about diversity? Wow, I never took you for someone who hates diversity!”
Robby’s grinning now, because (in his mind) he’s just demonstrated that you suffer from cognitive dissonance. You (correctly) think that more diversity is good, and you think (also correctly) that more Islam is good. According to him you have two contradictory thoughts in your mind, which suggests that you are a fool who does not even know his own thoughts.
There are two things you must do now. First, tell him he’s a bigot, change the subject, answer nebulously, use circumlocution, get hysterical, then run away and dob him in to the HRC. Second, wait for Waleed Aly to do a lecture about this on The Project, let it go viral on the internet, and then quote the number of views it’s had as proof that Robby is wrong and you are right. A viral lecture from Our Waleed is a real argument stopper.
Robby’s Reason Snare seems like a problem for our leftist ideals, but it’s not. That’s because diversity doesn’t mean having equal numbers of all the different races, creeds and languages in your country. It just means having less white people, exactly as my friend in Vancouver said! It means less English, less Jesus, less masculinity, and less capitalism! Doesn’t really matter what we replace them with! And that’s why it’s quite reasonable to have two values which seem to contradict one another; like Islam and diversity, or Islam and gay marriage, or feminism and Islam, or atheism and Welcome to Country ceremonies, or global warming and science, or freedom of speech and political correctness, or even reason and illogic! See how it all makes perfect sense now?
But we don’t want people like Robby to know that. It might make us look bad. So just avoid Robby whenever possible, shut down his freedom of speech if you can, scream that he’s a bigot, and wait for a virus by the name of Waleed Aly to ‘wipe out large segments of the population’.
—
Time for other news. I got more hatred in my inbox this week. Comic MS Cat has returned, as he said he would. Just as 97% of the world’s scientists agree about the cause of global warming, I myself am 97% sure this comic was made by ex-Deakin employee Todd the Electrician, who was recently fired after I made a complaint to the HRC about him. The clue is the power socket in panel 1. No non-electrician would ever draw one of those. Anyway, as this contains neither an image of Muhammad nor Sarah Hansen-Young with visible crow’s feet which she definitely does not have, I’ll show it to you. It’ll give you an idea of how much abuse I get, even here in my sacrosanct ivory tower safe space! Ugh, this darned cat! I am thinking about getting a dog to chase it away. Not an American Staffordshire, though. I don’t want anything with the word ‘American’ in it, because of Trump.
An XYZ no-prize to the person who can figure out the strange code in panel 3. I hate showing this thing to people and not knowing what it means.
—
Correspondence time. My humble call for Water Hour and my fondness for French water caused a ‘storm in a teacup’ in the comments section last time! I will refrain from the usual thing where I change the subject and scream bigot, because I have a strange rash on my fingertips and must stop typing soon due to the agony each keystroke causes. Perhaps I picked up a computer virus? Also I’m heading down to the refugee centre soon to give blood. Anyway, I’m sure Waleed Aly will support Water Hour. I can’t wait for his video on it. Maybe we can schedule Water Hour during daylight hours during the next Ramadan? That’d be convenient for him. He might like my next idea, which is going to be called Air Hour. Not sure of the details of that one yet, though.