I have transcribed below the article that appeared in the Courier Mail on Monday 19th January to demonstrate how out of touch the media are in their reporting of Pauline Hanson.
Not only is the “racism” slur on Hanson taken as fact, but it now becomes okay for her to be that way because she is “taking on the sins of our society”.
The palpable rubbish that journalists are allowed to publish in News Limited’s papers brings journalism and reporting down to new lows...
For Cotes to say, “So no matter how much we protest when Pauline Hanson spits out her racist bile, deep down we have the uncomfortable feeling that somehow she is speaking for us.” reveals the unethical manner in which journalists have, themselves, created a fallacy which they now continue to perpetuate like some living spitting pole that their masters (Rupert Murdoch and family) have identified as anti-establishment and to be reviled at any cost.
Hanson’s views on race are very simple, all people, all Australians, should be treated equally. Nothing complex, just a simple solution to a complex problem created by the politically correct lobby groups who collectively hold the mainstream political parties to ransom.
The guilt that should rest fair and square on the shoulders of Australian journalists is their open and blatant misreporting of facts to save their own skins, their own careers to serve the desires of their media masters.
Here is Cotes’ article:
The racism debate sparked by Pauline Hanson has a positive side in forcing us to confront our own deep-seated demons.
On the day of atonement, the ancient Hebrews used to carry out a ritual by which a goat, chosen by lot, was declared by the High Priest to carry the sins of all of the people of Israel, after which it was led out into the wilderness and left to its fate.
Its always handy to have something or someone else to carry our guilt for us - it relieves us of the need to admit our shortcomings individually, but satisfies our desire that sin should not go unpunished.
In Christian tradition the scapegoat is sometimes called the Judas-goat, after the disciple who betrayed Jesus and thus symbolises the sins of all humanity, but the concept is used in the secular world as well.
Currently in Australia we have a scapegoat of our own. With her ginger hair (the Judas colour) and red slash of a mouth, and that high pitched voice that bleats and whines until all we want to do is banish from our sight, she is tailor made for the part.
She is of course, Pauline Hanson, and most tolerant, generous, right-thinking Australians want nothing to do with her.
She voices racist opinions that we abhor, and we cringe whenever we see her appear on television or read her latest pronouncements in the newspapers.
What she has done to Australia’s image overseas, and especially in Asia, doesn’t bear thinking about, so we try to convince ourselves that she is headed for the political wilderness and that soon we will see her no more.
She is a silly ill-informed woman, and perhaps she is even worse than that - many people consider her to be positively evil. And because we hate evil and love the good, we allow ourselves to display a sacred hostility towards her, rejecting her views and pretending that she is nothing to do with us.
But it’s very disturbing to look at some of her supporters. They are not all ignorant red necks - some of them may be our neighbours and even our friends, who have found in her a voice that has been silenced for a long time.
As a Member of the House of Representatives, she represents the views of many Australians, some of whom are more willing than others to agree openly with her opinions.
She carries on her shoulders the dark skin of racism of which most of us deep down are guilty, even though we might deny it vehemently.
For racism is part of human nature, and most of us, if we are honest, feel more comfortable with people from our own racial and cultural background.
I suspect that’s why Paul Keating’s attempt to make Australia part of Asia was so strongly rejected by the Australian people - it may be where we are located geographically, but our hearts and our minds are elsewhere.
And as for the original inhabitants of this country - why, we had over two hundred years to justify our sense of separateness from them.
In theory, and even in practice, we may espouse complete equality of opportunity, and even affirmative action for those who are oppressed or have been dispossessed, but I suspect that many of us, myself included, lip service is the most we pay.
I may support land rights for Australia’s indigenous people and a more generous response to refugees, but although I am on warm terms with many individual Aborigines and people from South East Asia, I don’t number them amongst my closest friends.
They’re not the ones whom I invite to my well-oiled dinner parties, or ring up with the suggestion that we should go to a film together - but it works both ways, and they don’t ask me to their parties either.
When it comes down to the wire, we don’t speak the same cultural language, and it’s a rare and admirable person who can bridge those cultural gaps and become soul-friends with a person from another group.
So no matter how much we protest when Pauline Hanson spits out her racist bile, deep down we have the uncomfortable feeling that somehow she is speaking for us.
She represents everything that we hate about ourselves, those parts of us that we don’t want to acknowledge, and so we dump our guilt on her and let her carry our evil into the wilderness, rather than face up to it. By rejecting her, we believe that we can exorcise our own guilt.
But she is important because she is a manifestation of what Jung calls our dark shadow side, that part of our collective unconscious where the unarticulated fears of a whole society reside.
The collective unconscious is something that we have no control over, but if on an individual level we recognise that our fears are deep seated, and if we confront and come to terms with them on the level of justice, then perhaps we can forgive ourselves, and not have to rely on a scapegoat to carry our sins for us.
At the individual level, at least, we should be grateful for the wicked witch of the west, because she forces us to examine our own conscience.
And if we honestly try to face up to things about ourselves that are too painful to contemplate, that attempt in itself may be a bulwark against the mass hysteria that so often lurks at the level of the dark shadow.
And out of it may come a determination to work even harder for true justice, which may be the best any human society can achieve.