Great comment by Paul Kelly. He gets it. He understands what going on, it’s origins and where it’s headed….
“….What happened to Bill is simple in essence. He came into conflict with the self-righteous bigotry of the educated class — the belief that across the spectrum of expression from artistic work to cartoons that progressive ideology (often called political correctness) must be affirmed, not challenged. Bill saw this for the fraud and repression it embodied.
Bill understood that the ideology making his job more difficult was actually dedicated to dismantling the cultural norms and traditions that have made Western societies such as Australia so successful. Bill saw the heart of political correctness is denial and avoidance of truth. The purpose is to reject rational debate through new norms of so-called polite behaviour — that people must not be offended, that feelings must not be insulted and that identity, whether arising from race, religion, sexuality or gender, must always be honoured.
This is the progressive ideology. Its dogma, now pervasive in the academy, is that the West is founded on a bankrupt morality of imperialism, racism, exploitation, patriarchy and male violence and that these evils, still embedded in our existence, must now be identified, denounced and corrected. This is the origin of identity politics.
It dictates that people be treated and honoured differently according to their race, religion, sex and gender and that this be incorporated in law, administration and institutional norms. The idea is presented as a moral good and its opponents depicted as moral retards, racists, sexists etc. It nurtures the cult of victimhood where the victim of a morally corrupt power structure must be honoured, rewarded and compensated.
Bill did not just provoke the barbarians who wanted to kill him. He offended those who wanted our norms on freedom of expression restricted lest Islam be offended. Progressives complained that he indulged in caricature and stereotyping of Muslims — yet these are the tools of the cartoonist. Bill’s sin was that he refused to abide by the new culture of special rules for Islam, as distinct from Christianity or any other religion.
This is now entrenched in our culture. Large sections of our media simply refuse to report frontline stories revealing the problems of Muslim integration in this country presumably on the basis they are non-stories. That is not the view of the public. It is an ideological stance in betrayal of media obligations and the public interest. It is also reflected in politics, where there is public anger at the willingness of the political class to tolerate the erosion in Australian norms in favour of Muslim sensitivities. Without correction, this will lead inevitably to the demise of support for multiculturalism in Australia….”
FULL COLUMN BELOW
Bill Leak, an ordinary bloke with extraordinary talents, would have been happy to draw cartoons, make people laugh and have a good life — yet in the final phase of his life Bill became an iconic figure in the culture war poisoning this country.
That was not primarily Bill’s choice. The divisions over his legacy and the spiteful response to his tragic death from some quarters would not have surprised him. They testify to something far larger than Bill himself — a nation at war over its core values.
Bill became a target, a participant and, eventually, an iconic figure in this struggle. In some ways he became the most important local symbol in the cultural disruption afflicting Western societies, most apparent in the US but now on destructive display in Australia.
What happened to Bill is simple in essence. He came into conflict with the self-righteous bigotry of the educated class — the belief that across the spectrum of expression from artistic work to cartoons that progressive ideology (often called political correctness) must be affirmed, not challenged.
Bill saw this for the fraud and repression it embodied. First, it made his life as a cartoonist much harder. He quoted The Australian’s former cartoonist, Bill Mitchell, telling him: “Mate, a cartoonist only has to be funny once a day but it’s a lot harder than you’d think.” It got even harder with political correctness, which Bill saw as “a poison that attacks the sense of humour”.
In his final speech last week to the Centre for Independent Studies Bill complained that the PC atrophy makes people so sensitive they get to the stage where “they lose the ability to laugh” and take resort to “feeling offended” with a good cartoon providing “an excuse to parade their feelings of moral superiority”.
He wrote in this newspaper that “with the sanctimonious hordes lying in wait, armed to the teeth with Twitter and Facebook accounts and ready to ambush anyone who transgresses the unwritten laws of the new puritanism, the cartoonist’s job gets harder each day”.
But second and more importantly, Bill understood that the ideology making his job more difficult was actually dedicated to dismantling the cultural norms and traditions that have made Western societies such as Australia so successful. Bill saw the heart of political correctness is denial and avoidance of truth. The purpose is to reject rational debate through new norms of so-called polite behaviour — that people must not be offended, that feelings must not be insulted and that identity, whether arising from race, religion, sexuality or gender, must always be honoured.
This is the progressive ideology. Its dogma, now pervasive in the academy, is that the West is founded on a bankrupt morality of imperialism, racism, exploitation, patriarchy and male violence and that these evils, still embedded in our existence, must now be identified, denounced and corrected. This is the origin of identity politics.
It dictates that people be treated and honoured differently according to their race, religion, sex and gender and that this be incorporated in law, administration and institutional norms. The idea is presented as a moral good and its opponents depicted as moral retards, racists, sexists etc. It nurtures the cult of victimhood where the victim of a morally corrupt power structure must be honoured, rewarded and compensated.
It is an attack on the idea of common humanity and equality in law and administration. It repudiates Martin Luther King’s immortal appeal when he said he wanted his children “to not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. Indeed, it reverses that template. It has seen the rise of the anti-racism movement in the US, wedge politics dressed up as religion, where people are intimidated into declaring disadvantage and inequalities are the result of racism. The charges of racism are now exploding in Australia courtesy of this ideology.
Bill’s cartoons provoked a backlash from two groups that shared a strange common bond: the Islamist militants and potential terrorists who threatened his life, forced him to move home and became a psychological cross he carried; and the warriors of the progressive Left who denounced him, campaigned against him, tried to break him, branded him a racist and triggered the section 18C provisions against him.
The Islamists hated his cartoons. Indeed, they were offensive to many Muslims. With Islamist extremism responsible for thousands of deaths around the world including killings and threats at home, he satirised the religion. What else would a cartoonist do? A cartoon published after the killings at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris saw our counter-terrorism officials warn Bill the Islamists wanted “to hunt me down and kill me”.
Bill did not just provoke the barbarians who wanted to kill him. He offended those who wanted our norms on freedom of expression restricted lest Islam be offended. Progressives complained that he indulged in caricature and stereotyping of Muslims — yet these are the tools of the cartoonist. Bill’s sin was that he refused to abide by the new culture of special rules for Islam, as distinct from Christianity or any other religion.
This is now entrenched in our culture. Large sections of our media simply refuse to report frontline stories revealing the problems of Muslim integration in this country presumably on the basis they are non-stories. That is not the view of the public. It is an ideological stance in betrayal of media obligations and the public interest. It is also reflected in politics, where there is public anger at the willingness of the political class to tolerate the erosion in Australian norms in favour of Muslim sensitivities. Without correction, this will lead inevitably to the demise of support for multiculturalism in Australia.
Bill was a man of courage and principle. He refused to be intimidated by the Islamists or crack before the pressure of the progressives. Dismayed at the disappearance of Australian larrikinism, he stood for the values that once made Australia distinctive — authenticity, public honesty, irreverence and plain common sense. He knew they were dying.
With one of the worst social problems being the breakdown of parental responsibility in indigenous communities, he produced a cartoon about a brutal truth often denied. His target was the pathetic debate about abuse at the Don Dale detention centre. Leak offended people — yet he was right. Speaking truth, however, is no defence in Australia today once you cross the offence threshold.
American academic Jonathan Haidt is the most brilliant exponent of where this destructive progressive culture will lead. It makes people weaker, not stronger. It is bad for the people and bad for society. As Haidt said — if you refuse to have your views confronted, you cannot really know what you think.
The more Bill Leak is denounced in death, the more his memory will soar. He stood for enduring values against the fashionable delusion of the times. He was an ordinary bloke who became a great Australian. Bill Leak: funny once a day, courageous for a lifetime