Something did seem a tad fishy when Australia, all of a sudden, decided the safety of white South African farmers was a top priority.

Maybe the Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, had watched Fox News’ Tucker Carlson talk about racist land grabs, whilst also adding that there was an apartheid going against Donald Trump’s picks for Cabinet.

That happened – you can watch the video here.

No, that wasn’t it. Speak to the right people, though, and it’s actually not hard to unearth what Dutton’s real motivation is. Greg Barns, a writer and barrister in Australia, who is also a spokesperson for advocacy group Australian Lawyers Alliance, knows what’s up.

Here’s what he had to say in his opinion piece on the Mail & Guardian:

Sadly, Dutton is not motivated by his love of humanity but rather he is shoring up support among the right-wing voter base in Australia. He is appealing to the racist element in the Australian body politic that doesn’t mind immigration so long as those landing on Australia’s shores are white and middle class.

Dutton [above] chose the forum of an interview with a well known right-wing columnist Miranda Devine of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph, Sydney’s biggest selling newspaper, to launch his invitation to farmers. Dutton told Devine last Wednesday: “If you look at the footage and read the stories, you hear the accounts, it’s a horrific circumstance they face.”

He says these farmers “need help from a civilised country like ours”. And why help South African farmers? “We want people who want to come here, abide by our laws, integrate into our society, work hard, not lead a life on welfare. And I think these people deserve special attention and we’re certainly applying that special attention now.”

We’re not discussing whether or not white South African farmers deserve help, but rather why Dutton is jumping on this situation, remember?

Barns goes on to further unpack why immigration, and the rhetoric around it, is such a hot topic right now:

Dutton, since he took over the Immigration portfolio, has been enthusiastically courting the hard right vote by attacking asylum seekers as “fake refugees”, accusing lawyers who act for refugees as being “un Australian” and in whipping up racial fears in Melbourne about so-called “African gangs”.

In relation to the latter, Dutton has seized on media reporting of home invasions and assaults which, in a few cases, have been committed by groups of young men who come from African nations such as South Sudan and Somalia.

Sounds an awful lot like the kind of things that a certain US president talks about, although he’s most into painting Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers.

Oh, and Muslims as terrorists, of course.

Back to Barns:

Dutton’s reaching out to white farmers in South Africa makes sense. He knows that among right-wing voters, particularly those who have borne the brunt of economic change or who live in regional Australia, there is fear of “the other”. But white farmers, according to this view of the world, are “like us”.

And Dutton’s snide reference to Australia being a “civilized country” is an extension of his “African gangs” rhetoric. Black Africans harassing innocent whites again, just like what is happening in Melbourne, is the message…

As many Australians have noted on social media over the past 24 hours, if Dutton is concerned about individuals who face land grabs from government, then why isn’t he equally welcoming of Palestinians and the Rohingyas? The answer, of course, is that these groups are not white and middle class.

The ‘us’ and ‘them’ strategy is alive and well in 2018, and it’s truly frightening to see what is going on with radical right-wing parties gaining so much traction across the likes of Europe, for example.

We see what you’re doing, Dutton.

[source:mg]