John Howard Quotes
I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else.’
John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, Quoted in "Howard reasserts right to decide cultural identity", The Age, September 20, 1988.
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was agreeing with the Right Wing racist Dutch politician Geert Wilders that one of the dangers of immigration of different races and ethnicities is that their children would not be capable or able to contribute to America or in his view make America Great Again as it has been diminished by all these immiogrant babies of the last few generations. There are very few areas of civilization where America is not greater today than ever before.
He was also anti-Semitic and biased against most foreigners. Lindbergh, a great aviator, was a Fascist who was a great admirer and supporter of Hitler and Mussolini.
Most social and demographic changes many people fear will continue on a trend and assume the extrapolation will become reality. Few ever do, and the fears turn out to be just fears.
At the time many Protestant evangelicals viewed Catholics as subversive to the American way of life because of their allegiance to the Pope and parts of Catholic Theology. The Christian Evangelicals in America have been split on their views of immigration. See {632914} for an example of a contrary position.
The congressman was distraught with the national immigration picture at that time. He believed that the influx of Hispanic immigrants into the United States would radically change the culture and the immigrant culture would then predominate. Throughout American history with every wave of immigration, there have been fears expressed about the culture of America. The Irish immigration, the Scandinavians, the Germans, Italians, Jews, the Chinese—all engendered fear that they would “take over” and radically change the country. The reality is that none of them took over but all made some changes and influenced cultural direction of the nation. The congressman was repeating an old refrain.
At the time there was no social safety net for immigrants, Many would arrive, sicken, and die from lack of food or shelter and health care.
This veiled endorsement of violence against immigrants is typical of Edwards whose show is funded by notorious hate groups. His knowledge of history leaves much to be desired. America was not accepted as a First World power for quite a while—especially by the First World nations of Europe. In 1900 Argentina was a richer country than the United States. The great growth in American wealth, culture and power took place in the 20th century with the help of large immigrations of the “dregs of Europe” and elsewhere. The Irish, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Chinese, Croations, Mexicans were all immigrants from other than the First World yet it was they who helped make America a First World nation.
This quotation became a very polarizing stimulus in the country with anti-immigration people using it in support of their program to restrict immigration and with liberals and Hispanic groups who saw the quotation as a discriminatory unfounded charge.
Nationalism produced negative effects on the society ranging from aggression, ethnic cleansing, war and hatred.
John Winston Howard OM AC SSI is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th Prime Minister of Australia (1996–2007) and Leader of the Liberal Party (1985–1989; 1995–2007). His nearly twelve-year tenure as Prime Minister is the second-longest in history, behind only Sir Robert Menzies, who served for eighteen non-consecutive years. He has also been the oldest living former Australian Prime Minister since the death of Bob Hawke in 2019.
