To The Age Chris Uhlmann asks whether Australians are willing to engage in a cowardly silence in the face of communist Chinese aggression towards Chinese people in our land ("Will we pay China's price?", 20/2). Are we prepared to kow tow for trading profits? One would like to say no, but the current moral and ethical confusion in Australia raises doubts about whether we have sufficient integrity to stand against tyranny. In any case, geopolitically we may be in a similar position to the Melians before the might of Athens overwhelmed them, as described by Thucydides. Let's give it a go in the Anzac spirit, anyway. To do so, we will need first class diplomacy to maintain a wall of alliances in south-east Asia to curb China's imperialism. We will also need a conservative and traditionalist renaissance to provide the necessary spine; and that in turn will need a profound religious reformation to bring Christian teaching into harmony with metaphysical truth. What we don't need is left-wing faux idealism, which currently rages like fever in our body politic.
Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic