Words are powerful things, far more than we realise most of the time. Public debate can be led or changed simply by capturing the words that bring a visceral reaction and claiming them for our own. So much so, that when it’s done properly, we don’t even realise that it happened.

Cuckolding the Media

Recently a certain prominent newspaper columnist, much loved down at the stagnant end of the gene pool, was found guilty of racial vilification. The tsunami of columns, blogs and editorials written on the subject since fall into one or more of the following four categories: 1. Joyous schadenfreude from detractors and ideological opponents. 2. Wails of outrage from rusted-on supporters and ideological allies. 3. Bipartisan support of the ruling by those who feel that freedom of speech is trumped by the rights of the individual. 4. Bipartisan objection to the ruling by those that see any impediment on freedom of speech as deleterious to a truly functional democracy.

We can safely discount the first two categories as unworthy of consideration for the sake of this exercise, as they obvious fail even a cursory litmus test of objectivity. The remaining two categories are notable in their balanced and nuanced regard for the subject matter and their seeming disparity with regards to social and political divides. When you have David Penberthy of News Ltd and noted Left academics like Tad Tietz and Antony Loewenstein all united — not only in their revulsion at the subject of the columns in question, but in concern over the ruling — you can be forgiven for thinking that the world has turned on its head. This is clearly not an issue that can be cleaved neatly between ‘left’ and ‘right’.

Unfortunately, for all the worthy commentary on both sides of the argument (I use the term ‘worthy’ with some caution, as I am loath to view any argument with Andrew Bolt as a fulcrum as ‘worthy’), we’ve all been chumped. We’ve all fallen for the pea and thimble trick, fallen for it so badly in fact, that we never even realised the pea was the whole point of the game. Dictating the language is the key to owning the debate. To date, nothing I’ve read even acknowledges this simple fact. Some examples are needed that I fear will not be well received, but that’s kind of the point.

Exclusivity — Murder ain’t Murder

I’ve long struggled with the fact that society decrees I need a separate vocabulary when discussing the Jewish people, Judaism, or the fractured Israeli population and its government’s foreign policy. Why is it that if one disparagingly generalises the Chinese or the Dutch they are rightly regarded as racist, yet if they do the same about Jews, they are anti-Semitic? Racism, surely, is racism; it is equally abhorrent no matter what group is its target, why does racism against the Jewish people have its own special designation?

The answer is not just that Judaism is a religion not a race, because this is just simply not true, not to the Jewish people themselves, nor to the people who would vilify them. Jews who are not religious can still be, and often are, the victims of racism.

Nor is it a specific description of a race, the Semites were a group of Middle Eastern people, (which oddly enough, includes Palestinians) who spoke variations of the ancient Semite language originating in southwest Asia. Muslims, Christians and Jews can all claim Semitic heritage.

The term anti-Semitism is associated in most people’s minds with the horrific pogroms against the Jews during the Second World War, so terrifyingly well organised, so coldy calculated and yet so violent that it has different connotations to simple racism, despite the fact that racism was its source and core. Because language is so powerful the word alone conjures up horrors.

Likewise, genocide has been a constant throughout human history. From ancient India and Eygypt through to the Tamils and the Congolese today, it is an abhorrent reality and one in urgent need of recognition and outrage. The Jews weren’t victims of just a genocide, however, but of the ‘holocaust’, something unique to them alone. Russia didn’t have a holocaust under Stalin, nor did Cambodia under Pol Pot. They just had a ‘genocide’. Why is this distinction important? Because if you control the language, you control the tenor of the debate.

Some time after the advent of the Holocaust came the creation of the Holocaust Denier, a loathsome creature who seeks to ignore historical fact by claiming that the German program of genocide of the Jewish people never occurred, or is at least greatly overstated. At least a dozen people in Europe have been prosecuted and convicted of Holocaust Denial. At the same time intellectuals in Turkey are prosecuted for using the word genocide to describe the Ottoman Empire’s systematic slaughter of the Armenians during and just after World War I. Again, words and language are all-important in framing and controlling any debate.

Politicising Reality

Nobody has understood the importance of controlling the language as much as lobby groups. While it exists at both extremes of the political spectrum, it is the Far Right who has the shit down pat. The history is hard to trace, as we would expect when discussing corporate disinformation services, but you can rest assured they have existed in some form or another since at least the seventies. They are funded by false institutes and trusts, established on just barely this side of legal ground, for the purpose of muddying the waters of debate around social issues in which they have a vested interest.

The Heartland Institute is the most prominent of these on the international stage. Funded by oil and tobacco giants, their goal is to control the language of public debate, and in so doing force science to be argued on their terms. They have a poor cousin in our own Institute for Public Affairs, whose goal is identical, but lacks the same level of quality propagandists.

These groups failed spectacularly when the discussion was in its infancy and they shifted the catch phrase from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’. Scientists realised the latter was the more accurate term, given the complexity of the issue, and adjusted their language accordingly, as scientists are wont to do. Now the same charlatans who argued against ‘global warming’ have reverted to attempting to frame the conversation in terms of ‘warming’. Tellingly, those that deny the weight of scientific evidence, making a joke of their argument, resort to Godwin’s Law, claiming that by calling them a ‘denier’ (as they rightly are) their opponents are invoking the Holocaust, because ‘denier’ is now somehow inextricably linked to ‘holocaust’ (see what they did there?). Control the language, control the agenda.

The Pea

So how is all this relevant? Well, not at all really. At least until you consider the ruling. It was made clear that Bolt had slurred nine people on the basis of the colour of their skin. The Judged ruled unequivocally, in accordance with the law, that people are free to identify with any religion or ethnicity and vilification on the basis of racial identify is illegal. That is, if you identify as Aboriginal, you are Aboriginal and traducing you because of that identification is illegal. Full stop.

How was this reported? Every single news bulletin I saw — every single one — reported that ‘nine fair skinned Aborigines’ triumphed in a legal stoush with Bolt. The term was even used by the judge himself in his written judgement. The whole purpose of the case was that the shade of the complainants’ skin was not up for judgement by racists, yet the language Bolt crafted was taken up by every news service in the country.

We now have the term ‘Fair Skinned Aborigine’ bandied about in the media and the language we now use has been further shaped by an agenda that is far from what unites us. We have a rabble rousing idiot claiming martyr status, and, it would appear, an intelligentsia inadequately prepared to disarm him. He has the words, after all.

What is the point of free speech if your opponent is dictating the language and you’re happy to acquiesce?

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Heath hails from Sydney, by day he brings raw sexuality to the world of calculators. By night he scours the streets in search of underpriced cheese. Heath blogs regularly and splendidly at www.gibbot.wordpress.com and tweets a lot @Gibbot5000

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