Oh, Bolty...

Escape from Beirut
by Andrew Bolt

July 21, 2006
The Herald Sun

LOYALTY cuts both ways. So how much do we owe the dual-nationality "Australians" screaming to be rescued from Lebanon?

At least 25,000 of the Australians in Lebanon actually live there and the vast majority have Lebanese citizenship, too.

Does that make them really "ours", deserving all the help that we'd give to someone living in our own street who runs into strife overseas?

[...]

The real question is instead whether we have sold the right to be Australian too cheaply.

By allowing Australians to keep a second nationality have we have weakened our notion of what an Australian citizen should be in these fractured times?

And as this conflict warns only too graphically, does dual nationality mean we'll be sucked too easily into wars not of our making, just because some ersatz "Aussies" are in danger?

[...]

If we keep allowing or encouraging immigrants to treat Australia, not as a family but a camping ground, what do we get?

I'll tell you.

We get an Australia in which a crowded Bankstown Town Hall in April heard Islamist speakers say the "overriding commitment of a Muslim" was not to Australia but "Allah and Allah alone".

We get an Australia in which Islamist immigrants are arrested and some jailed for allegedly plotting to blow up Australians for a foreign-inspired jihad.

We get an Australia in which second-generation Lebanese form ethnic gangs in Sydney that fight for turf rights to beaches in Bondi and Cronulla.

[...]

We now have enough warnings that our community is fraying fast. Mass immigration, cheap travel and communication, multiculturalism and a loss of faith in Australia has given us the hyphenated citizen. The dual nationality. The split loyalties. And trouble.

The cries for help from Lebanese Australians should wake us up.

Help we can always offer, and will. We're generous.

But our Australian identity? We must remember that some things are too valuable to hand out for free, or as some optional extra. Choose us or choose someone else. We're too good for only half your loyalty and love.

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You know, i started to question this 'right' of citizenship when the single Australian passport holding David Hicks applied for a British citizenship because his own government would not lobby for his rights.

And since he mentioned it, let's remind Old Bolty what really happened at Cronulla...


But maybe Bolt's right. Maybe we have sold our 'right' to be Australian too cheaply. But the real question is, to who?