Originally Posted by
Gnadenburg
Trouble is, the future will require smart Australians, to secure and grow our economy, as well as negotiating and working within complex national defence pacts with new allies as the rise of China goes who knows where?
There in lies the problem. We’ve never valued intelligence, academia or book smarts in this country. We salivate over dumb sports “stars”, cashed up tradies and pollies who “speak like a true blue Aussie”. “Academic elite” is a term of scorn in Australia. In Asian society it’s the highest thing someone can aspire to. One look at the Australian media and political landscape and you see all of them pandering to the lowest common denominator. Asian society values higher education and learning.
Lee Kwan Yew was right. Australians are the “poor white trash” of Asia.
In an aviation context the one thing we can promote (basic flying training for foreign students) is attacked by locals afraid of the “Yellow menace” and populist politicians who claim these flying schools are a backdoor for a Chinese invasion. Media scaremongers about it and then politicians pander to those easily influenced by the scaremongering.