![]() The Soviet Union collapsed, students largely abandoned socialism and capitalism triumphed - and how: turbo-charged by deregulation, it drove the globalization that has produced Australia's prosperity to this day. In the end, most Queenslanders agreed.ĭespite their current sense of gloomy defeat, these Cold Warriors were victorious. For most of us, the threat to democratic institutions was the Bjelke-Petersen government, not a communism that had long been a spent force. I well remember the apocalyptic sensibility of National Civic Council operatives during the 1980s, locked in an imaginary cosmic battle against the forces of communist evil, although you could count the far-left adherents at the University of Queensland on one hand. The new Democratic Labor Party formed a home for socially conservative Roman Catholics who became active against "the left" at Australian universities. A closer examination of the critics reveals a generation of Australian men who were politically socialized in the 1960s and 1970s when the clash between communism and the Roman Catholic Church split the labour movement. The sense of crisis and doom is unmistakable. We are on the precipice of disaster, they seem to believe. How to account for the hysterical discussion? Why would an otherwise level-headed commentator like Greg Sheridan commence his column in The Australian with the extraordinary statement that the ANU's decision "is a pivotal moment in modern Australian history"? Do members of the right-wing commentariat think that Western countries are succumbing to a poisonous cocktail of multiculturalism, Muslim immigration, political correctness and cultural Marxism that dilutes the white population and brainwashes young people at school and university? It seems that, much like Steve Bannon, they do. In any event, the study of European, North American and Australian societies, cultures, languages and histories dominates most university arts faculties in this nation - which is to say, Western civilization is already central to the curriculum. No university worthy of the name tolerates such interference. It is little wonder that the ANU backed off once it became apparent that the Ramsay Centre sought input into hiring decisions. The malign suggestions about Chinese and Muslim influence in Australian universities are, frankly, baseless. British and American universities benefit from many externally funded centres but they control the curriculum and staffing. They do not ask about the terms of such donations, nor do they understand that universities jealously guard their autonomy, upon which their international reputations depend. Others have accused universities of "double standards" for taking money from China and Muslim countries for area studies centres, while declining a centre devoted to Western civilization. Reaching for a familiar culture war trope, Kelly concluded that the "march through the institutions is real," because "a whole lot of leftist academics" dominate higher education to the detriment of Western civilization. Not a day has passed since the decision without The Australian carrying articles decrying political correctness in Australian universities - which, according to Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, are full of academics who "have a hatred of Western civilisation." The Australian National University's decision to break off negotiations with the Ramsay Centre about introducing an undergraduate program in Western civilization has provoked an avalanche of criticism in the News Corp press. Dirk Moses is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney and senior editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.
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