Now, when you consider the model severity of the Australian Immigration Act, encouraging, as it does, the entry of Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, English, French—in short, all those white of skin and Christian of soul, while relentlessly excluding any trace of yellow, black, or brown—you will understand that, for the Australians, champions of the Western World stuck away in the farflung hinterlands of Asia, this reminder was intended to rally public sentiment. It encouraged the Australians, in rather veiled terms, to steel themselves against undue compassion, and served notice on the Ganges fleet to keep its distance.
Australia is a free country, and its press releases aren’t censored. In no time the news had circled the globe. In the sickest of the Western nations, it crackled through the air like a racist manifesto, to a caustic accompaniment of slur and aspersion. It was clear to the beast that the battle had at last been joined. In London, Paris, Washington, Rome, The Hague, great mobs of young people, shaggy but well behaved, laid peaceful siege to the Australian embassies, with rhythmic chants of “Ra-cists Fas-cists We’re-All-from-the-Ganges-Now!”…
And so, once again, opinion was shaped to believe that racism in the cause of self-defense is the scourge of humanity…
It must have been written in the Book of Fate, in the chapter on the white man, that flashes of good sense, twitches of courage, or simple reflexes of self-preservation, were destined to remain rare exceptions, hidden or deformed, never able to add up to a meaningful whole. That could be one explanation…
