John Howard had done it again.

It seems that John Howard had done it again.

Yesterday, his approval rate was the lowest since the Tampa, and the problems with corruption claims of wasting millions of dollars deceiving Australians about his Industrial Relation Vandalism (he calls them “reforms”).

His notorious minister, Philip Ruddock, was facing a hard time trying to sell Australians the needs to rush through the Anti-Terrorism laws, when there is no immediate need for them.

So today we woke up at about 3 am to the noise of the “Apache” to learn later on in the morning about the cowboy-like raids on homes of “suspected terrorists” in the poor suburban Muslim Ghettoes.

Peter Costello, whose eyes are still on the job of PM, declared that the new amendments last week to “strengthen” Anti-Terrorism Laws were crucial in such raids to “foil major terrorist attacks on Australian soil”. We learnt later that the suspects will be tried under the normal criminal code, and there was no need for the new amendments!

Do we need great thinkers and a lot of researchers to link the dive in the popularity of the government associated with the problems it is facing selling IR and welfare “reforms” ? Or to the simple fact that every Australian was laughing at the claims of John Howard that his government received specific information about terrorist preparation to strike in Australia so there is a need to strengthen “sedition” laws. Do we need a genius mind to tell us that all this is a farce from Howard and his ministers to cover-up their lies and failures?

The dangerous thing here is that this government is playing with fire by provoking anger and resentment in a large and largely law-abiding community by criminalizing every one of its members.


It seems that Howard and his ministers do not watch what is happening in France these days. It seems that they do not remember what happened in England a few years ago, when social unrest broke after decades of marginalisation and “criminalisation”.

May be John Howard and his ministers want to take us to some sort of “martial law” post-democratic era. Maybe they succeeded in sparking fear and dividing the society so deeply, that the majority of the society is turning blind eyes on what is happening in the suburban ghettoes, convincing themselves that “it is OK as it is not me who is targeted”.

Going back to what is happening in France, can I ask the simple question: why are the Australian government and Australian media avoiding pointing out that the trouble makers in France are Muslims? How can anybody convince me about the reason for this especially after Alexander Downer accused Somali pirates of being Muslim terrorists, against all the intelligence information for the last 2 decades?

So why did the Australian government, media and French government did not make big fuss of this fact?
I must admit here that the rioters are indeed Muslims. I must admit too that the actions they are taking involve terrorizing innocent people.


So why does our government and the French one not seize this opportunity to further the prejudice, stereotyping and dirtying the reputation of all Muslims on the earth? How come they are not keen to mention the Muslims for actions they are doing, while they were quick to link pirates to Muslim “possible terrorists” and to make arrests because there is “chemicals that could be dangerous if mixed with other chemicals”? ( any student who went through high school knows that any chemical could be dangerous if mixed with some other chemicals, including my laundry powder).

The other question I have to ask here: did the latest Anti-Terror laws in France stop such acts? Or can we ask the question another way: were the Anti-Terror laws the last straw to ignite the flame, which led to this social unrest?

The issue is more than the crusader war as Bin Laden is claiming. The issue is related to a criminal capitalist system, where the rich want to enslave the rest of the world for the sake of maintaining total control of the whole wealth of the globe. Such a process of slavery which was enhanced by the agenda of the new-liberal capitalist, who are aiming to strip the workers and poor from all their gained rights.

So what have the anti-terror laws in France achieved in preventing such actions?

Looking very carefully at the events, we can realize that it did not have any effect at all. On the contrary. The anti-terror laws further the feeling of marginalisation amongst the Muslim French in their suburban Ghettoes and led them to defend their dignity and rights in the only way they felt was open to them. The democracy failed them and left them to take justice on their hands.

What do you expect from community of few million that was criminalized by the constitution? What do you expect from youth that did not experience anything from democracy but unemployment, harassment, poverty, discrimination and finally mass-criminalisation?

No wonder Alexander Downer did not dare to mention that these youths are Muslims, who had enough from the new-liberal politics of fear and mass-criminalisation, to cover-up the failure of the Anti-Terrorism laws and indeed the responsibility of such laws for the latest wide-spread riots and unrest.

Should this government wake up before we will start to see French-like unrest in our backyards?

And why the state government was complacent in this matter? Does this have anything to do with state government’s inclination to cover up its own failures? Does this have anything with the try to seize the opportunity to justify the Labors complacency in passing the draconian Anti-Terror Laws?

It seems that there is bipartisan agreement on this mass-criminalisation!