Don′t tolerate the intolerant

IT is fashionable to accuse the Prime Minister of dog-whistle politics. Apparently the hysterical reaction to Schapelle Corby's verdict and the white-powder scare at the Indonesian embassy are examples of John Howard reaping what he has sown.

Evidently he is responsible for the dark corners of Australian society. And last week the Prime Minister was emitting to those dark corners coded calls to anti-Indonesian racism. Or so says the Left. In truth, the Left is much better at playing its own version of dog-whistle politics.

Indeed, the Left, historically, has done a better job of fanning dangerous discontent than anything Howard has done. Think back a few years ago when far-Right politicians such as France's Jean-Marie Le Pen were popping up across Europe. Their alarming popularity was precisely because, in those countries, the orthodox position had been to shut down debate on issues such as immigration.

Back then, in response to Europe's anti-immigration backlash, Howard remarked that "in a way we have seen off our Le Pen". Although Pauline Hanson was a lightweight compared with Le Pen, Howard was right. By confronting, in a sensible fashion, issues such as immigration, Howard denied Hanson the political oxygen she needed. Now Hanson is relegated to dance shows on television.

But, predictably, whenever Howard fails to slap down the suburban xenophobes in the way polite society on the Left prefers, he is derided as playing dog-whistle politics, whipping them up to new xenophobic heights. However, the Left's preferred response – inhibiting discussion of difficult issues – is just another form of fear-mongering. And it only worsens the reaction.

Just ask the Dutch. They learned the hard way that violence becomes the release valve when debate on cultural issues is suppressed. It's worth looking at the Netherlands because for years it was touted as the multicultural mecca, bursting with tolerance, to the point of tolerating the intolerant.

That pendulum swing was understandable given the atrocities inflicted by the Nazis in the name of race and culture more than 60 years ago. But we're still waiting for some equilibrium on these issues.

The Left continues to use its own form of dog whistling so that any discussion of race and culture, no matter how moderate, by members of a majority race or culture is perceived as tainted, illegitimate and dangerous. Even to talk of majority values is seen as distasteful, while minority values are treated as sacrosanct.

In the Netherlands, a growing Muslim immigrant community meant that issues such as forced marriages, genital mutilation of young Muslim girls and radical Islam were swept under the multicultural carpet. But with Muslims making up 6 per cent of the Dutch population, resentment has been brewing.

It found a release valve in the flamboyant gay politician Pim Fortuyn, who dared to suggest that tolerating those who were intolerant of the Netherlands' liberal society was a mistake. On the eve of sweeping into political office in 2002, Fortuyn was shot dead by an animal rights activist.

Then, last November, another provocative Dutchman, author and film-maker Theo van Gogh, was gunned down. Responsible for the book Allah Knows Best and the 2004 film Submission, van Gogh was a strong critic of Islam.

His killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old Dutch-born Moroccan-Dutch citizen, pinned a note to van Gogh's half-beheaded body that recited a mix of Islamic formulas and hip Dutch slang. As one observer has noted, Bouyeri cannot be fobbed off as a foreign fighter. Here was an Amsterdam homeboy.

For decades, Dutch society did not talk about the cultural conflict between Islam and mainstream Dutch values. But van Gogh's murder changed all that, prompting three responses.

The first was a stream of violent attacks on Muslim schools and mosques. That violence was caused by the Left's dog-whistle politics. By failing to encourage safer release valves – such as sensible, open debate about sensitive issues of race and culture – fear was left to fester.

The second response came from Dutch politicians who wanted to keep out radical Islamists by building higher walls: banning radical imams, deporting illegal immigrants and tightening security laws.

The third response is more interesting. From July 1, the Netherlands will require new immigrants to pass a test in "Dutchness" by learning the country's language, history and culture.

Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk – dubbed the Netherlands' Iron Lady for her role in managing mass migration – told Britain's The Daily Telegraph that multiculturalism meant "we were naive for a long while. We thought that everybody who wanted to live in the Netherlands would easily find his way around Dutch society. Now we have about 700,000 people who have been here for years but who don't speak the language or have a clue about our most basic rules and values."

And in a pincer movement that has the Left smarting, in the Netherlands those values mean respecting the rights of homosexuals and women.

With this recent reclaiming of Dutchness by the Dutch, their overwhelming no vote to the new European Union constitution last week was no surprise. Neither was the dummy spit by some elites.

While European politicians talked about casting further ballots until the people got it right, University of Melbourne academic Judith Armstrong wondered aloud, in The Age on Friday, "whether democracy is not wasted on voters".

That overt disdain for voters, normally the stuff of whispers, goes to the heart of the Left's dog-whistle politics. Ordinary people, after all, cannot be trusted to talk openly about sensitive issues, let alone answer the big questions.