[Pacific Empire’s Phil Howison brings us this week’s edition of Oceania Day – YH]

Home-grown street gangs are a growing threat to Oceania’s island states. In addition, criminal organizations from around the world have taken advantage of the economic vulnerability and weakness of the Pacific islands, using them as bases for money laundering, drug smuggling, illegal immigration and other nefarious activities. Australia and New Zealand, threatened by illegal immigrants, drugs and the possibility of terrorist cells gaining access from the Pacific, are at the forefront of efforts to maintain law and order in Oceania.

Street gangs

Street gangs in many Pacific islands are a byproduct of economic stagnation, overcrowding and urbanisation in island cities. However, for other Pacific states, notably Tonga and Samoa, the gang problem is imported via re-immigration from South Auckland (as featured in Time), Sydney, Los Angeles and other destinations for Polynesian immigrants. Some Polynesian kids find the gang lifestyle appealing, styling themselves on LA gangsta rappers. In turn, the imposing stature of many Polynesians creates a demand for their services as street enforcers.

A common response to teenage criminality is for either the parents or the host country to send them back to the islands, as veteran Pacific reporter Michael Field explains. He links US gangs to the riots which destroyed part of Tonga’s capital last year, and to the assassination of a Cabinet minister in Samoa in 1999. The gang problem may also have contributed to a growing teenage drug and suicide problem in Samoa and elsewhere in Oceania.

“Third-generation” street gangs have been called a “mutated form of urban insurgency”. If a third-generation street gang has political links and transnational connections, then the gangs of East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands would qualify. In those countries, it is difficult to distinguish between gang violence and insurgency. Port Moresby, capital of PNG, is consistently ranked as the worst city in the world due largely to murders, rape and robbery committed by heavily-armed and politically connected “raskols”. Urbanisation and the growth of squatter settlements provide fertile ground for raskol recruitment, and the lawless Highland areas are a source for guns and drugs, which can be traded across the Torres Strait with Australian gangs. As for East Timor, gangs are a frequent source of political violence as illustrated in David Axe’s “War is Boring” comic, and one report lists 107 such groups.

The growth of squatter settlements outside Suva, Fiji and Port Vila, Vanuatu will probably cause more problems in future. Massive overcrowding in other areas, for example the Marshall — where one island has a population density of over 23,000/sq. km — is also likely to create problems.

These problems are exacerbated by often-ineffective police and prisons in Oceania. While most Pacific states have a high ratio of police to population, some islands have no police presence, and in others the police take orders from tribal leaders. Police forces tend to be underfunded, underpaid and undertrained, and police weapons are frequently stolen or lost. The loss of police loyalty and weapons to militia and gangs in the Solomon Islands led to a civil war.

Transnational crime

However, as dangerous as these street gangs are, there are far more threatening groups targeting the Pacific. Their activities threaten the economic wellbeing, security and international reputation of the most vulnerable islands, and are affecting Australia and New Zealand as well.

Transnational crime in the Pacific includes:

• Illegal fishing, causing environmental damage and economic losses for states barely able to police their own waters.
• Illegal logging, causing erosion and environmental damage in Melanesia.
• Money laundering – billions of dollars every year, a strong temptation for small island states. Nauru, the worst offender, has been pressured into signing international agreements, but was previously accused of laundering billions of dollars for the Russian mafia, and may have helped launder cash for Middle Eastern funds linked to terrrorism.
• Immigration scams and passport sales – an American conman who became the “court jester” for Tonga’s late king sold $20 million worth of Tongan passports, embezzling the proceeds from the Tongan government. Nauruan passports were used by a group of Al-Qaeda suspects. Chinese illegal immigrants have arrived in PNG, Fiji and other countries, and these states have been used to gain access to Australia.
• Drugs: again, linked to Chinese organised crime. Large methamphetamine labs and shipments have been seized in Fiji, thought to be intended for export to Australia and New Zealand. Shipments of cocaine have been seized in Tonga. On a smaller scale, drugs are carried on ferries between Samoa and American Samoa. Papua New Guinea is of increasing importance as cannabis plantations spread in the lawless highlands.
• Arms dealing, usually on a small scale using weapons stolen from government armouries. However, in the 1980s containers full of arms were intercepted on arrival in New Caledonia and Fiji. And a Tongan flag of convenience was used on a freighter carrying 50 tons of weapons for the Palestinian Authority, prompting Tonga to stop offering no-questions-asked registrations.
• Asian gangs: Involved in the above activities, along with illegal gambling and prostitution, this is a growing phenomenon linked to illegal immigration from China, especially in Fiji and PNG, and contributing to an anti-Chinese backlash as seen in the riots in Tonga and Honiara last year. Brutal murders relating to turf wars have included a Chinese prostitute dismembered in Fiji, and two Chinese gangsters killed with hammers in Vanuatu. This Sydney Morning Herald article offers more details and background.

A regional response

The response has been for Australia and New Zealand to offer aid, training and partnership to Pacific police forces, along with a regional Transnational Crime unit set up in Suva and individual Transnational Crime units in most Pacific states. Money laundering in Nauru has been successfully dealt with by the international community. However, Oceania will probably remain an attractive target for criminals as long as the islands remain poor and isolated, with corruptible police and politicians.

Efforts to stamp out street gangs have been less effective. In 2005, an Australian plan to send police officers, judges and lawyers to help improve law and order in Port Moresby, PNG was sunk by a court action which challenged an immunity provision. And even full-scale military interventions in Timor and the Solomons have been unable to halt gang violence.

Hooray! It’s Oceania Day once again. This time the strategist gives us some insight into the changing power balance in the South Pacific. – YH

Oceania is often seen as a strategic backwater, isolated from the whirlpool of great power politics. This is far from true. In the 19th century, Western powers carved up Oceania’s islands. In World War Two and the Cold War, American preponderance in the Pacific was challenged, unsuccessfully, by Japan and the Soviet Union. For well over a century, Oceania has generally been a Western lake.

Rising Asian powers, in particular China, are now quietly contesting the West’s stranglehold. Over the past decade Beijing has boosted its regional profile and presence. This is visible in new embassies, lavish aid and loan packages, high profile political visits, red carpet treatment for Pacific leaders, and substantial commercial investment. This comes at a juncture when US interest in Oceania has waned, and Britain, a former colonial power, has left the region.

There are a number of reasons for Beijing’s interest in Oceania:

• Political machinations: China seeks to counter Taiwanese influence. Six Pacific states recognize Taiwan; the rest recognize China. Beijing wants to keep its allies onside and persuade the others to leave Taiwan’s camp. As inducements, Beijing spends lavishly on aid programmes, and provides soft loans and debt write-offs for struggling Pacific states.

• Raw materials: China needs oil, minerals and timber to fuel its burgeoning economy. East Timor and Papua New Guinea (PNG) have significant oil and gas deposits, while Melanesia is rich in minerals and timber. China has invested heavily in PNG’s mining, timber and fishing sectors. It has carried out extensive oceanographic research in Oceania – this includes surveying seabed minerals and fish stocks. Large Chinese fishing fleets exploit deep sea fisheries.
• Migrants: Beijing has consular responsibility for Chinese people who have recently migrated to Oceania. Migrant Chinese dominate the small business sector in island capitals. In PNG, Chinese businessmen have become influential in the mining and timber industries. Migrants provide Beijing with useful intelligence and links to local politicians and officials.
• Military threats: China keeps a watchful eye on US military movements in Micronesia. If China attacked Taiwan, Guam would be a key staging post for US forces moving to assist Taipei. Until recently the Chinese military maintained a base on Tarawa (Beijing closed the base when Kiribati recognized Taiwan). This base was part of China’s space warfare programme, and spied on the US missile testing range at Kwajalein Atoll (Marshall Islands).

China’s engagement has troubling implications for Pacific island states, and for New Zealand and Australia, which I will explore in a later post. It may also presage a wider Chinese ambition, one in which Oceania forms the outer zone of a Chinese sphere of influence.

One trend is evident. The increasing presence of China, and Japan, Korea and Taiwan, reflects a gradual shift from a Western dominated Pacific order to a more complex situation in which rising North Asian powers challenge the dominance and comfortable assumptions

[Special guest blogger Phil Howison of Pacific Empire brings us his second installment introducing Oceania’s geography for our Oceania Day series. Enjoy! — YH]

Last week I wrote:

But by the 1980s, it was clear that the region was no longer entirely peaceful… Democracy appeared to be weakening, and one academic warned of “Africanisation,” forecasting a dark future for Oceania.

…Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand are increasingly concerned with maintaining security in their Pacific backyard, fearing an influx of refugees, transnational crime and even terrorism from the “arc of instability”.

With that in mind, lets take a closer look at these influential concepts…

“Arc of instability”

The term “arc of instability” was first used to describe the region in 2000, following another attempted coup in Fiji – this time not bloodless – a civil war and coup in the Solomons, and international intervention in East Timor following Indonesian-sponsored militia violence. Since then, the idea has informed Australian policy towards the region, contributing to the negative “neo-colonial” perception of Australia among some regional leaders.

The idea has justified several regional interventions, in East Timor, the Solomons, Bougainville, Port Moresby and recently Tonga. Most of these were fairly successful, and have been accomplished with very few casualties. However the Solomons and East Timor have seen several resurgences of violence, even after intervention, while Papua New Guinea mounted a successful legal challenge to the presence of Australian police officers, and – despite unprecedented gang violence in the capital – they were sent home.

Curzon recently posted on how instability spreads. Just a few dozen guns or a few million in bribes in the right hands can be enough to bring down a government, due to the small size and poverty of most Pacific island states, making them almost uniquely easy to destabilize.

“Africanisation of the South Pacific”

These terms have been criticized for being alarmist and exaggerated. Perhaps the most extreme view was Ben Reilly’s November 2000 paper, The Africanisation of the South Pacific (.pdf). As the name suggests, Reilly compares the problems of the Pacific to sub-Saharan Africa. But despite all the criticism, events of the last seven years have hardly weakened Reilly’s argument.

According to Reilly, a professor at the Australian National University, there are four major features of African conflict which we can now see in Oceania:

1. Civil/military tensions: For example, coups in Fiji (1987, 2000) and the Solomons (2000), along with mutinies in Papua New Guinea (the Sandline affair) and Vanuatu (1997). Since Reilly wrote, there has been another coup in Fiji and further mutinies in PNG (2001, 2002 etc).
2. Ethnic conflict mixing with competition over natural resources: The Bougainville war, 2000 Fiji coup, and the Solomons civil war all revolved around ethnic conflict over resources. Since then, anti-Chinese riots in the Solomons, protests against corporate mining in New Caledonia and tensions in PNG and West Papua have threatened further ethnic conflict.
3. Weak governance: Political parties are unstable and focused on identity rather than ideology. Political institutions tend to be weak compared to traditional, tribal or religious institutions. This is perhaps most apparent in PNG.
4. Increasing use of the state to gain wealth and exploit resources: Corruption is endemic in many Pacific states, and the problem is exacerbated by the limited private-sector opportunities. This can be linked to traditions in some Pacific cultures of showing respect to leaders by giving generous gifts. This is the case in Samoa, for example, where a dispute over lucrative corruption led to the assassination of a Cabinet minister in 1999. A New Zealand MP of Samoan origin, Taito Phillip Field, is involved in an unprecedented corruption case involving alleged bribe-taking – the first such case in NZ history.

Clearly, these four trends have continued, although the comparison to Africa remains somewhat exaggerated.

“Arc of Instability” and “Africanisation” are both important in understanding security concerns in the Pacific. They have inspired several interventions by Australia and NZ, and are reflected in aid and assistance packages. While this has resulted in accusations of “neo-colonialism” and “imperialism,” most Pacific states admit that there is a need for international involvement to prevent conflict, as demonstrated by the Pacific Forum’s 2000 Biketawa Declaration which provided member states for the first time with a mechanism to request assistance.

[Special guest blogger Phil Howison of Pacific Empire brings us the second installment of our Oceania Day series. Rejoice! — YH]

The Strategist posted last week on conflict in Melanesia, a region within Oceania alongside Micronesia and Polynesia. To keep this series in context, we need to define these sub-regions, as they have distinct security concerns and challenges, as well as widely varying cultures and geography.

The Pacific contains up to 30,000 small islands. These can (broadly) be divided culturally into three regions: Micronesia (“small islands”), Polynesia (“many islands”) and Melanesia (“black islands”).

Micronesia includes the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Guam, the Northern Marianas, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. Most islands here are low coral atolls. The dominant external power is the United States, and they last suffered political violence in the 1980s (in Palau). The region is strategically important due to the presence of US military forces, and as such could be drawn into any conflict with China. China has increased its diplomatic involvement here, even more so than elsewhere in the Pacific.

Polynesia extends from Hawaii to Easter Island to New Zealand in a rough triangle. Geographically, this is an enormous and diverse area including all island types: continental islands, volcanic islands and coral atolls. Major powers include the US, France and New Zealand, while Chile and Britain also possess some small islands. New Zealand is by far the largest country in Polynesia, and is home to hundreds of thousands of Polynesians from the other islands. Important security issues include environmental damage and overcrowding, economic stagnation, opposition to French colonialism, increasing Chinese influence, corruption and democracy.

Melanesia faces the most serious internal security problems, which were covered last Oceania Day. It consists of several ethnically and tribally divided countries covering hundreds of large, mountainous islands. Papua New Guinea is the most ethnically diverse country in the world, with a population greater than all the other Pacific islands put together. France, Australia and Indonesia are major external powers. This area includes East Timor, the 20th worst failed state according to the Foreign Policy Failed States Index, while the Solomon Islands (30th), Papua New Guinea (52nd) and Indonesia (55th) also feature on the list. Issues here include resource conflict, civil/military relations, the clash between traditional and modern governance, street gangs, and ethnic conflict.

After 1945, the Pacific was almost entirely peaceful. Several territories were granted independence, and others made the transition to democracy. Foreign aid kept the Soviets out, and resulted in some economic growth. But by the 1980s, it was clear that the region was no longer entirely peaceful. Conflict in Vanuatu and New Caledonia, political violence in Palau and two military coups in Fiji resulted in growing concern in the region. Democracy appeared to be weakening, and one academic warned of “Africanisation,” forecasting a dark future for Oceania.

The geo-strategic environment has heated up as well, as Western dominance is challenged by aggressive Chinese diplomacy. Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand are increasingly concerned with maintaining security in their Pacific backyard, fearing an influx of refugees, transnational crime and even terrorism from the “arc of instability”.

Tune in next week for a more detailed look at the terms “Arc of Instability” and “Africanisation of the South Pacific.”

[Today is Oceania Day! The following is the first post in the series by special guest blogger the strategist. ”“ Younghusband]

Ask New Zealanders what springs to mind about Oceania, and the answer will involve palm-fringed islands and blue lagoons – paradise. Pacific islands are holiday destinations, places to escape winter. It’s easy to forget that there’s a dark side to Pacific life; people are surprised when an insurrection or coup occurs.

This is odd, as anyone who lived through World War Two, or was born in its shadow, will know. Names of Pacific battles – Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, Kokoda Trail, Tarawa – signified great violence. And since the 1960s Oceania has been plagued by political conflict, particularly in Melanesia – the chain of islands stretching from New Guinea to New Caledonia:

• wars of independence in West Papua (1963 onwards), East Timor (1975-99), Vanuatu (1980), New Caledonia (1980s), Bougainville (1988-1997);
• ethnic warfare in Solomon Islands (1998-2003) and Papua New Guinea’s highlands (ongoing);
• military coups in Fiji (four since 1987) and Solomon Islands (2000), and mutinies in PNG, Fiji and Vanuatu.

So, why the ‘trouble in paradise’? The causes of instability are complex. They include ill-disciplined armies and paramilitary police, volatile ethnic politics, and attempts by states, often weak post-colonial constructs, to impose authority over clans.

The rugged Melanesian terrain has influenced the development of many clan-based ethnic groups, confined to small territories, each with distinct languages. Fiercely independent, these groups resist state control. Large mines are a particular source of trouble. The state appropriates land, resources and mining income, and mining destroy forests, rivers and gardens. Local people protest, and sometimes protest turns violent.

A good example of this is Bougainville’s Panguna mine. From 1972-1989 CRA mined copper and gold on the island of Bougainville, which is notionally part of PNG. Expats who worked at Panguna talk about how the coastal town of Arawa resembled a resort, of scuba diving in crystal water, of playing on the golf course.

Paradise lost. In 1989 Bougainville rebels – angered by land loss and environmental destruction – attacked the mine. Fighting between the rebels and army forced the mine to close and expats to flee. A brutish state of anarchy and civil war ensued in which 10,000 Bougainvilleans died. The conflict also destabilized PNG’s economy and government – the army mutinied in 1997 after the government hired foreign mercenaries to take down the rebels.

In 1987/88 New Zealand brokered a peace deal. By then Arawa was a ruin. The port was smashed. Roads were trails in the undergrowth. The golf links were smothered in tall grass. Mine plant machinery lay rusting. The peace has held, but Bougainvilleans are determined that Panguna, a symbol of violence, must not re-open.

Bougainville is a salutary lesson of how order can quickly turn to chaos. It also suggests that a stable Melanesian government is one that leaves communities alone without trying to ‘develop’ or control them. Such governments, with help from New Zealand and Australia, could be guardians, protecting local communities against rapacious outsiders, such as Asian timber loggers who plunder Melanesia’s rainforests, and guarding maritime frontiers against dangerous intruders – terrorists, drug smugglers and gun runners.

At the bottom of the world is a vital region that is unduly ignored in the international press: Oceania. In our definition (and there are many other definitions) Oceania includes archipelago South East Asia, New Zealand, Australia and the islands of the North and South Pacific. Oceania contains a myriad of cultures and languages, is a rich source of energy and metals and is a new front in the fight against global terrorism. Many of the major security themes of the world are being played out in Oceania including issues of democracy and failed states, terrorism, resource scarcity and dealing with an active China. To explore these issues in depth we have recruited two experts from the region to give us on-the-ground perspective of the security challenges facing Oceania today. Over the next few weeks they will be guest-posting at Coming Anarchy covering the security challenges facing Oceania today. Both are successful bloggers so please check out their home blogs. Following is a short introduction of our esteemed guests:

The Strategist
New Zealander. Former government official, now working as a consultant. Degrees in strategic studies, history, and geology. Worked and travelled in Oceania including Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand.

Phil Howison
New Zealand student, currently studying Honours in International Relations at Victoria University in Wellington. Travelled in Tonga and the Cook Islands.

Thus, without further ado, I hereby declare that starting next week at Coming Anarchy every Monday will be Oceania Day!

What should a free society do when an organization arises in its midst to call for the overthrowing of the government to replace it with an Islamic superstate? That is a question that Australian officials may be facing shortly:

About 500 Muslims packed a hall in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba to hear speakers of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) outline the vision of a single Islamic state created by overthrowing “dictators, invaders and governments” in all Muslim countries of the world.

One of the group’s leaders, Indonesian firebrand cleric Ismail Yusanto, called on “all the sons and daughters of Islam, both domestically and externally” to support the establishment of a Muslim state under a single religious leader.

He said the members of such a state would have to be prepared for jihad, or holy war, to defend it.

The first issue I see here is one of idiocy on the hands of Yusanto, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and any Australian Muslim engaged in this. Muslim-Aussie relations haven’t been great since the Sydney Lebanese gang rapes. An extreme minority of Muslims advocating replacing the government with a Caliphate will achieve nothing but resentment and sanctions against all.

The second issue is one of free speech. Government restrictions on free speech is a fundamental right in most free societies, but what is a society to do when faced with an organization that advocates its overthrow? Australia’s policymakers and political leaders are presently split on what to do:

New South Wales state Premier Morris Iamma said the government should follow the lead of other countries and ban Hizb ut-Tahrir because “this is an organization that is basically saying it wants to declare war on Australia, our values and our people.”

The opposition Labor Party spokesman on immigration, Anthony Bourke, said Yusanto’s visa should be withdrawn as he wanted to impose Sharia law in Western countries.

But Attorney General Philip Rudduck told reporters while he regarded the group’s message as “unacceptable in a pluralist society like ours … it doesn’t mean they can be proscribed as a terrorist organization.”

Is the Attorney General correct? What about Albert Langer? What about treason or inciting civil unrest?

That Fiji is on the verge of a military coup is on a number of front pages today. But behind that headline is a harsher truth: a number of states across the south Pacific have been highly volatile since becoming independent from Britain and France several decades ago. Lacking cohesive civil society, sustainable economy, and reliable political leaders, a number of problems are coming to a slow boil that spell trouble for many island nations, and in turn, their larger continental neighbors.

Fiji: Armed guards patrol the streets as the Prime Minister and Army Chief meet in New Zealand for talks to try and avert a fourth coup in the past twenty years, while the army announces that it is ready to defend against any foreign invasion intervention. Although Fiji has perhaps the most developed economy of the island nations, with sugar exports and a growing tourist industry, it faces numerous hurdles, not least of which the fact the emigration of educated and professional Fijiians.

Solomon Islands: Previously covered here and here, Australia maintains a strong contingent of peace-keeping forces on the islands (with Kiwi troops on the way), but relations between the two governments soured recently when Australia called the island’s economy poor and plagued with corruption.

Tonga: Tonga is perhaps the worst example of political looting and crazy economic experiments. The country has over the past decade proposed or tried: selling passports; searching for oil (despite geological reports indicating no possible fields); making Tonga a nuclear waste disposal site; registering foreign ships, including some which turned out to be working for Al Qaeda; an orbital launch station; and plenty of other schemes that are so peculiar its hard to believe they are real. Perhaps most infamous was the former royal “Court Jester,” who became the country’s finance minister and used the post to embezzle US$26 million, after which he fled the country.

Vanuatu: This island nation faces problems similar to Tonga, mainly political leaders determined to loot the country, aggravated by a breakdown of civil society. One parliamentarian is advocating the legalization of marijuana to address the country’s economic woes.

New Caledonia: A French territory with the underpinings of an export resource economy, New Caledonia has faced an ongoing two month general strike that has shutdown the country. (The strikers are calling for the expulsion of Filipino workers and a reduction in living costs.) This means that New Caledonia is unable to reap the benefits of 19-year highs on nickel prices. What’s worse, another mining project has been shutdown with an injunction issued by a Paris judge in response to a complaint filed by an indigenous group on the island, so the regional economy is hurting and the people with it.

European colonial rule was no picnic. Practices such as blackbirding devastated local populations. But at least in the 20th century, a distant continental mentor guaranteed minimum standards of civil society and good government. This has evaporated with independence, which has brought a return to more primitive governance.

Is there any good news? How about this from Papua New Guinea: the capital of Port Moresby, one of the world’s most dangerous cities, is seeing a boom from Chinese migrants and investment.

Phil at Pacific Empire picks up an interesting piece of news, namely that terrorists attempted to setup a flight school in tiny Kiribati. He notes that

Transnational crime is a more obvious threat. Australia already gets boat people from South-East Asia, and there is some Aus-PNG smuggling across the Torres Strait. Also, some Pacific islands have been implicated in money laundering schemes, and governments like Fiji and Tonga have fallen victim to foreign con-men. As for terrorism, some incidents during the conflicts in New Caledonia and Bougainville in the 80s and 90s respectively might qualify as terrorism. But the only recent connection I can think of was the attempted transfer of 50 tons of munitions to Gaza via a freighter with a Tongan flag-of-convenience.

The worry, though, is that a Pacific state could be co-opted or subverted with little more than a couple of hundred weapons or tens of millions in USD. Terrorist groups, might, in the future, consider that a good deal. This attempt to set up a flight school on an remote island in Kiribati might just be the first such attempt, strengthening the case for greater attention to be paid to our smaller neighbours.

While most counterterrorism and Gap-shrinking concentrates on failed states, as black globalization empowers criminal networks, organized crime and terrorists, small states become especially easy prey. The risk of standing out more on a small island community may seem high but weighed against the opportunity, terrorists would surely risk it, not to mention criminal networks. Granted remote islands may seem the local of choice for archvillains, but despite communications technology, they are still difficult to get to and from. Nevertheless, as a logistics station, safe house or other rear base, there are benefits to such locations.

Meanwhile, as Phil notes, Austrailia is setting up its own Guantanamo. They continue to be a valuable ally in the war on terror and are slowly working to shrink the Gap in Oceania.

Australia is currently tightening its immigration laws and their PM gets it.

Australia toughens immigrant rules

Sydney (dpa) – Immigrants wanting Australian citizenship will have to wait four years instead of three under tough new rules announced Friday. Proficiency in English, a knowledge of Australian history and a grounding in civic duties would also be required before those holding permanent residency visas could graduate to become full citizens, Prime Minister John Howard said.

“I think most people will welcome it,” the prime minister said. “You’ll certainly need to know a good deal more about Australia and about Australian customs and the Australian way of life.” The proposed changes are intended to at least isolate, if not weed out, militant Muslims and others ideologically opposed to democracy, the rule of law, women’s emancipation and other liberal values.

The longer probationary period means that those who engage in criminal activity during their first four years in the country could not only be denied citizenship but also deported. “It won’t become more difficult if you’re fair dinkum (genuine) – and most people who come to this country are fair dinkum about becoming part of the community,” Howard said. “Cultural diversity should never come at the expense of a clear, strong, compelling national identity.”

I wonder if Europe is listening. Nevertheless, we’re already seeing similar reforms in Europe including Germany and while the reforms are necessary, I’ve yet to see anyone finally come out against multiculturalism. You can credit the French for being against it, but the Germans and others have yet to learn.