Pauline Hanson

The Burka Comes To Parliament: Pauline Hanson’s Panto

In few environments could this work. A member of Parliament (barely breathing, but still a parliament) running within a Muslim minority country (a small minority, at that) with mocking intent, dons a burka, sits in the stands, and receives appropriate mind bending outrage when she strips it off. One thing can be said: Australia’s Pauline Hanson of her self-described One[Read More...]

Burqa Stunt Failed To Stir Anti-Muslim Sentiments In Australian Senate

  Perhaps taking cue from the Trump fomented rising tide of ultra-rightists, Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, Australia’s rightwing One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson Thursday (August 17) staged a burqa stunt to stir anti-Muslim sentiments. Pauline Hanson Thursday appeared in the Australian Senate clad in ‘burqa’ but drew rebuke from the Attorney General George Brandis, who said: “Senator Hanson, I’m[Read More...]

Dreams of Detention

Detention comes in various forms, and all have a basic premise: the removal of liberty of the subject, the presence of permanent control and surveillance, the utter reduction of rights to life to obligations to the state.
The suggestion of internment of terror suspects by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson hints at a historical awareness of one thing: that rounding up citizens and keeping them under lock and key, assisted by firearms, is one way of dealing with a threat.  That such an idea is dangerously flawed is not something that enters the One Nation party room.

Australia’s One Nation Train

The global populist fever is catching.  Put the nation first before all else, patria before sense. Make America Great Again. One Nation before any other.  Australia has been a fairly non-responsive patient to that effect, keeping its symptoms to the rural fringes of the country, or the more bitter blue-collar edges disgruntled by immigrants.  While essentially conservative and reactionary, the[Read More...]