While fact checking Bill Stefaniak over his error regarding the Holocaust (Canberra Daily, 3 February 2022, p12), he should also have been queried over his use of the word “racism” to describe anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism does not stem from race hate, because Jews are from all races with Israel itself regarded as perhaps the most multi-racial country in the world. Genocide stemming from religion-based bigotry (the correct description) is in fact a crime against humanity and should be called-out as such.
That said, I am surprised that this dark chapter is not, according to Mr Stefaniak, taught in ACT schools. I would hope that Mr Stefaniak is just as, if not more, diligent in investigating whether the “frontier wars”, that is, the real genocidal racism practised against our First Australians, is not similarly ignored by ACT curriculum planners. There is plenty of evidence of its early existence much closer to home, if not actually within the ACT’s borders and, arguably, is much more deserving of close study and full acknowledgement by all non-Indigenous Australians (and not just schoolchildren).
- E. Hunter, Cook ACT
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