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A Breach of Trust: the Vitiated Discourse of Multiculturalism at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

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A Breach of Trust: the Vitiated Discourse of Multiculturalism at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century ACRAWSA e-journal, Vol. 2 , No. 1, 2006 A BREACH OF TRUST: THE VITIATED DISCOURSE OF MULTICULTURALISM AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY JEANETTE KRONGOLD Abstract nity, the latest arrivals in a country with a history of difficult arrivals. This paper sees the discourse on Austra- The latent ambivalence of the Australian lian multiculturalism at the turn of the multiculturalist model, containing a re- twenty-first century as conflicted, and pressed sense of racialisation, needs to tries to analyse how this might be re- be resolved. It is argued that it is an im- solved. perialist project that privileges the core white Anglophone culture over ‘subal- A division is noted between the ‘static’ tern’ migrant groups, when what is definition of culture implicit in the struc- needed is public policy with a code of ture of ethnicity as a form of micro- ethics or politics of civility to facilitate a management of socio-cultural issues, hybridising society. and the ‘dynamic’ meaning of culture in a postmodern, globalized world. I ex- Introduction plore the argument between those that adhere to a core/periphery functionally assimilationist definition of multicultural- The looming approach of the Norwe- ism (emphasising otherness) and those gian cargo vessel MV Tampa into that urge a re-definition of the term to Australian waters on the 26 th August emphasise notions of alterity (de- 2001, carrying 438 potential asylum emphasising otherness) and hybridity seekers stowed on deck, caused the through some recent historical meta- Australian government to arguably phors of cultural racism. breach its obligations under the Convention Relating to the Status of Events such as the Tampa affair, the Refugees (1951) and the 1967 Protocol ‘War on Terror’ and the Cornelia Rau and other instruments of international matter have tested belief in the civility of human rights law by interdicting the our society and mutual respect. I use vessel and ‘warehousing’ its passengers these sites as metaphors of cultural ra- (the Pacific Solution). The excision of cism to show how normative multicultur- certain territories from the ‘migration alism has been demeaned in the neo- zone’ further created a legal fiction not conservative political climate of How- recognised at international law (Germov ard’s Australia. I argue that a breach of and Motta 2003:37). According to public trust has occurred within Australian soci- opinion polls (A.C. Nielsen 2001; Roy ety between the stakeholders of multi- Morgan 2001) at the time, this did not culturalism, whereby the rhetoric and bother the Australian public unduly, but cultural politics of the government of the it threw the media into a frenzy and day have promoted emphasis on a na- ignited a furore amongst the tionalism that is antithetical to the plural- intelligentsia which has not subsided. istic dynamics of a multicultural society, and foster intolerance. This has particu- The issue was not simply one of the rights larly impacted on the Muslim commu- of asylum seekers that was quickly sub- ISSN 1832-3898 © Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association 2006 KRONGOLD: BREACH OF TRUST sumed into a larger paradigm, fear of complementary top-down, bottom-up global terrorism, and subsequently models of implicit racialised prejudice sharpened to an even more blatant ex- meet at a juncture of signification for the ercise in racial and cultural vilification by multicultural edifice that normative the ‘children overboard’ affair. Hardly multiculturalism has been demeaned in had this been resolved by the Senate the turn of the twenty-first century politi- Report (2002), Select Committee on a cal climate. A breach of trust has oc- Certain Maritime Incident , than the Cor- curred within Australian society between nelia Rau matter surfaced, culminating its constituent groups and the propo- in the Palmer Inquiry (2002) into the cul- nents of a return to a mythical monocul- ture of the Immigration Department. By ture. American sociologist Louis Ada- now the ‘jig’ was up! Julian Burnside QC movic (1944) observed that it was old- penned a prescient analysis that ‘the stock Americans who tended to view abuse of one of us exposes what we’re virtually everyone else as a menace to doing to them’ (Burnside 2005:17). the ‘historic pattern of the country’ ‘Them’ or the ‘Other’ are the asylum when in fact diversity itself was the pat- seekers who received the same ‘care- tern. He believed that only when Ameri- less, cruel indifference’ that Rau re- cans recognised that Americanness re- ceived at the hands of the Immigration sided precisely in the country’s status as Department. Burnside asked, a ‘nation of nations’ that its loftiest ideals why is it acceptable to treat asylum could be realised. seekers this way, but shocking when it is done to one of us … why did it take Cor- My paper outlines the discourse on Aus- nelia Rau’s case to provoke widespread tralian multiculturalism between its pro- public concern about immigration de- ponent and critical ideologies and ar- tention? His answer was that it happened be- gues that either way, the current defini- cause she looked like a typical Aussie girl tion needs changing. A division is noted ‘she is uncomfortably like us’. Her between ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ defini- treatment at the hands of the Immigra- tions of multiculturalism that highlights tion Department, Burnside contended, the problematic─the issue of social mi- was a reflection of a society that is indif- cro-management. I contend that the ferent to the fate of those perceived as temper of the times, marked by such not like us. events as the Tampa affair, the ‘War on Terror’ and the Rau matter, has tested A Breach of Trust belief in an open civil society and mu- tual respect and promoted a defensive, fortress mentality. Negative political Both the Tampa incident and the Rau leadership on multiculturalism has not affair are metaphors of prejudice that helped, and there has been a blurring of reflect on the site of the multicultural the distinction between Australian val- debate in Australia at the turn of the ues and Australian history. The latter be- twenty-first century. The Tampa incident longs to the place, in the ‘Annalesian’ represents a publicly sanctioned scape- sense (Clark 1999), the former is an indi- goating of the unfortunate ‘Other’ by a cia of the beliefs of a society which government in election mode, whilst the changes in composition over time. It fol- Rau matter encapsulates the phenome- lows therefore that propositions such as non of a groundswell of public indigna- an emphasis on mutual responsibility tion at the subjection of one of ‘us’ to and reciprocity in multicultural interac- the dehumanising treatment we reserve tions are more likely to harmonise society for the ‘other’. Taken together, these than the propagation of monocultural 2 KRONGOLD: BREACH OF TRUST iconography as national belief. The lat- The Galbally report ( Migrant Services ter reinforces cultural ranking and is divi- and Programs 1978 ) addressed the is- sive, notwithstanding that everyone sues of access, equity and cultural main- should obey the same law. It is also im- tenance in Australia, to ameliorate prob- plicitly racialising. If the aim of multicul- lem areas of the migrant settlement ex- turalism is to harmonise diversity rather perience, such as poverty and high rate than ostracise difference, I contend, of return. It noted the growing recogni- then alterity is preferable to ‘otherness’. tion that a homogeneous society was Through the epistemology of others, I neither possible nor desirable. The argue that an ethics of multiculturalism Gobbo report ( National Agenda for a or code of civility should be developed Multicultural Australia 1989) defined mul- to ameliorate the unwritten code of in- ticulturalism as based on a set of rights civility that has framed the disjuncture to cultural identity, social justice and within multiculturalism at the turn of the economic efficiency, as well as obliga- twenty-first century. tions to national interest, civic structures and reciprocal responsibility regarding For definitional purposes, I refer to the freedom of expression and belief. The three successive reports on the imple- Roach report (NMAC 1999) stressed the mentation of prescriptive multicultural- concept of Australian multiculturalism ism commissioned by the Fraser, Hawke and inclusiveness as a panacea to the and Howard governments (the Galbally, objections of the Hansonite constituency Gobbo and Roach reports, so-called to being ‘swamped by Asians’ and over- after their respective chairmen) as the catering for the welfare of minority templates of public policy settings on groups. It noted the removal of access multiculturalism, relevant to their era, to welfare benefits for migrants in the first and then proceed to discuss how the two years, and, significantly, the Howard various governments finessed them. government abolished the Office of Mul- ticultural Affairs and the Bureau of Immi- Stephen Castles (2001) pointed out that gration, Multiculturalism and Population whilst the dominant understanding of Research on coming to office in 1996. Australian muliculturalism could be seen as a model for public policy, designed Whilst there has always been bi-partisan to ensure the full socio-economic and support for normative multiculturalism, it political participation of all members of is obvious that successive reports have an increasingly diverse population, it narrowed and qualified its definition and was also perceived in other ways. It reach, so that its meaning has run the could be viewed as a multi-ethnic soci- gamut of Castles’ definitions in its reso- ety, with a potential for conflictual inter- nance throughout Australian society. It is group relations (like apartheid South Af- my contention that the multicultural dis- rica), or a negative identity statement, course has been most vitiated during seen as legitimating separatism and cul- the neo-conservative Howard Liberal tural relativism and antithetical to na- ascendancy, with its emphasis on a tionalism.
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