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

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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 monoculture 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 received 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 mutual 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

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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. It is my contention that the white teleology of nationhood and its perspectives of the Galbally, Gobbo discursive framing of asylum seekers as and Roach reports corresponded to the the demonised ‘Other’, so that a ques- first, second and third of Castles’ definition mark hangs over its future direction, tions, respectively responding to eco- if not viability. There has been a journey nomic and political considerations of the from a point where society reached out time. to its marginalised migrant groups to a point where they grew and prospered,

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and appeared threatening to a disaf- genitors of Australian multiculturalism fected sector of the host society, disen- (Zubrzycki 1964; Martin 1978), in the late franchised by globalization. A discourse 1980s posited the proposition that nor- of territoriality and managerial capacity mative multiculturalism had been mis- over the national space has ensued, in managed or misunderstood, and issues the words of Ghassan Hage (1998), and policies regarding ethnic identity which has challenged the prescriptive and social cohesion needed to be re- framework of multiculturalism, and calls solved (Zubrzycki 1987:49). He was refer- for a re-definition. ring to perceptions of divisiveness within the Australian social fabric when ethnic Mark Lopez’s revelatory work, The Origins lobby groups were seen to pressure poli- of Multiculturalism, demonstrated that ticians and public organizations for self- the advent of multiculturalism as public serving policy outcomes that did not policy sprang neither from a grass roots necessarily coincide with mainstream movement nor any political epiphany, concerns. The implication was that sup- but was rather a long and painstaking port for migrant group welfare should be lobby for the recognition of the mi- interlinked with Australian identity, and grant’s plight and aspirations by a select not function as a foundation stone for a few activists (Lopez 2000). The uptake of nation of self-perpetuating migrant this cause by a number of academic tribes, with a potential for conflicts of researchers and finally some individual interest. Similar arguments were made politicians culminated in a social justice by academics such as psychologist policy of access and equity to disadvan- Frank Knopfelmacher (1982), philoso- taged groups, including a multilingual pher Lauchlan Chipman (1980), historian delivery of services to people of varying Geoffrey Blainey (1982) and one-time migrant group backgrounds. This member of parliament and leader of the marked the end of the assimilationist One Nation party, Pauline Hanson ideal. The ascent of normative and pre- (1997). scriptive multiculturalism occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Foster Jamorzik, Urquhart and Boland’s book, and Stockley in Multiculturalism: The Social Change and Cultural Transforma- Changing Australian Paradigm noted tion in Australia used a core/periphery the Fraser Liberal government’s co- metaphor to describe Australian multi- opting of ethnic leaders and tying their culturalism as a monocultural core of interests in with that of the government, social institutions surrounded by forms of when mutually suitable, in a celebration ethnic and cultural diversity of ‘ethnicity’ as a form of micro- (Jamorzik:1995). Jon Stratton, in Race management of socio-cultural issues Daze, surmised, (Foster and Stockley 1984:68). Jon Strat- ton in Race Daze observed with a It is the claim to a core culture which touch of irony some twenty years later enables conservatives to argue for a re- that John Howard criticised the Labor turn to assimilation. Assimilation, in the Party for doing the same (Stratton Australian case, implies that the core culture remains the same whilst it is the mi- 1998:41). grant who is transformed (Stratton 1998: 16). Within a decade of its inception, however, popular perceptions of multicultur- Expanding this argument, Stratton noted alism were beginning to sour. Professor that one could find in Hegel’s master- Jerzy Zubrzycki, who along with Jean slave argument a ‘Foucaultian’ site of Martin was one of the academic pro- power, where one’s position was vali-

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dated through the objectifying experi- otherness. Professor Zubrzycki empha- ence of the other (Stratton 1998:209). sised, Appropriation of the ‘other’ as a form of knowledge could be likened to the pro- the culture of a group cannot be seen as ject of nineteenth century imperialism. a static fossilised entity which remains Thereby, deduced Stratton, the meta- unchanged from the time a particular phor of the imperialist project could be group sets foot on Australian soil, but as a living, dynamic, changing and interact- seen to resonate through the structure of ing set of life patterns (Zubrzycki 1987:52). official multiculturalism it was the core culture which was privileged while the Leader of the Labor Opposition, Mark marginal, ethnic cultures were formu- Latham, speaking at the Global Founda- lated as ‘objectified spectacles’ for the tion forum in Sydney on 20th April, 2004, members of the core culture. Ethical ob- concurred, declaring, ligation on the part of the objectifier was therefore negated, as objectification If we treat multiculturalism as a static was a dehumanising process. In this way, concept, as something frozen in time  Edward Tyler’s nineteenth century an- each of us pigeon-holed into past habits thropological definition of culture as an and past identities  then inevitably, it object of study delimited in space and will be a policy based more on differ- an unchanging, timeless whole (Tyler ence than diversity (Latham 2004:5). 1871)─by means of which official multiculturalism in Australia has been con- The question arises, then, as to how, ceptualised ( Migrant Services and Pro- within a democratic, pluralist society, is grams 1987:104)─had ‘Othered’ the transitional support for newcomers (pro- members of those cultures. viding a sense of community, security, maintained traditions and language en- This distillation of an objectified multicul- vironment) reconciled with a core An- turalism as a functionally assimilationist glophone culture that objectifies these model has been critiqued by protago- people? David McKnight, in Beyond nists of a more subjectified multicultural Right and Left: New politics and the cul- philosophy, who highlight the ‘subaltern’ ture wars, rejects mosaic multiculturalism position of ethnic minorities in Australia. as ‘group thinking’ dangerous be- Their agenda proposes replacing the cause it is a form of stereotyping in delineated and unchanging definition of which generalised judgments are made ‘culture’ with an open and evolving ac- about particular groups (Aborigines are knowledgment that cultures hybridise lazy, Jews are greedy, the English are and transform. For instance, Stratton illus- snobs, Asians are hard-working …etc.). trates, a person’s Australian culture is He makes an important distinction, that, inflected by their background and the although issues involving competing and migrant history of that background is antagonistic cultural values are usually transformed within Australia. This requires settled by reference to Australian law, an ethics of reciprocity in human rela- which favours individual over group tions which acknowledges difference rights, the public debate over the limits but denies objectification. It evolves out of cultural diversity is not ‘settled’ so eas- of the experience of marginalisation, but ily (Mcknight 2005:216). culminates in an understanding of culture (Stratton 1998:210). It is an ethics of The National Multicultural Advisory mutual responsibility in the tradition of Council (NMAC) was commissioned in Levinas (1997) of alterity as opposed to 1997 to undertake a report ‘aimed at ensuring that cultural diversity was a uni- fying force for Australia’, in light of the

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upsurge in popularity of the simplistic, life through many cultural habits’ anti-cosmopolitan nationalism repre- (Latham 2004:5). sented by Pauline Hanson. Its recom- mendations, contained in Australian Notwithstanding that the Howard gov- Multiculturalism for a New Century (the ernment continued the tradition of im- Roach report), outlined a critique of mul- plementation of multiculturalism as pub- ticulturalism held by a sector of the Aus- lic policy (albeit in a truncated form of tralian community. They believed that service delivery and academic analysis), multiculturalism applied only to migrants it was the rhetoric and cultural politics of from a non-English-speaking back- the neo-conservative political ascen- ground and seemed to deny Australian dancy that, I argue, breached trust culture. The report also acknowledged amongst the stakeholders of multicultur- that past practices had focussed on alism. The paradox of the Howard gov- rights rather than obligations and submit- ernment and the Roach Report has ted that a new emphasis on inclusive- been that public debate has centred on ness and obligation would remedy this. It adherence to core Australian values, recommended that terms such as ‘Aus- that is implied assimilation, rather than tralian multiculturalism’ and ‘inclusive- embracing diversity. The effect has been ness’ be focal points to convey: com- to divide rather than unite. mon membership of the Australian community; a shared desire for social Suvendrini Perera has noted that instead harmony; the benefits of diversity; an of a focus on equal access for all to the evolving national character and iden- institutions of citizenship, Australian ‘mul- tity. These sentiments are conducive to ticulturalism’ in recent years has been the promotion of a hybridised cultural confined to exhorting the Anglo majority identity which can accommodate both to display ‘tolerance’ toward racial and cultural blending and the persistence of ethnic minorities (Perera 2002:18). Toler- diverse cultures, but, argues McKnight, ance is a word which carries negative they should occur within the framework connotations it means forbearance, of the values of an evolving common putting up with something that you do culture (McKnight 2005:218). He cites not necessarily like or agree with. Ghas- Laksiri Jayasuriya (1990) and Sunder san Hage, in his deconstruction of toler- Katwala (2004) as protagonists of hybrid- ance in multicultural Australia contained ity theory, and Ien Ang offered a practi- in White Nation: fantasies of white su- cal description of it in On Not Speaking premacy in a multicultural society , con- Chinese. She wrote, tended that the ‘ethnic caging’ of boatpeople was an expression of the it is a form of micro-politics of everyday actuality of the treatment of ethnicity life informed by the pragmatic faith in within Australia. Howard, according to the capacity for cultural identities to Jon Stratton, argued that multicultural- change, not through the imposition of ism threatened national identity be- some grandiose vision for the future, but cause he saw that as an expression of slowly and unsensationally … In this way, a cosmopolitan ethos can be fostered the historical experiences of the people from below … (Ang 2001:159). rather than a statement of shared values (Stratton 1998:109). In January 1989 he Presumably, this is what Latham meant imparted to Gerard Henderson, ‘The ob- when he pronounced that ‘multicultural- jection I have to multiculturalism is that ism lies not so much between individuals multiculturalism is in effect saying that it as within them the habit of living one’s is impossible to have a common Austra- lian culture’ (Henderson 1995:27). He fol-

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lowed this, in office, with an implemen- enough, or too British, too American? tation of a white teleology of nation- We’ve suddenly realised what we’ve hood. been all along, we’re just 100 per cent Australian. Judith Brett noted that by appropriating the rhetoric and symbolism of radical Brett has further identified Howard’s nationalism, such as ‘practical mate- speeches since 1997 as filled with char- ship’, once left to Labor, Howard acterisations of what he variously calls thereby promulgated an assertive na- the Australian way, Australian values, the tionalism (Brett 2003). She identified how Australian identity or the Australian his ‘conservative populist’ style focussed character (Brett 2004:84). The problem on Labor as captive to minority interests was that the founding culture of the and out of touch with ‘mainstream Aus- ‘Australianness’ Howard relied on was a tralia’ (Brett 1997). This included multicul- white Anglo monoculture, so that every tural and indigenous groups, which by time he addressed an audience that inference were influencing Paul was not wholly part of that foundational Keating’s espousal of a vision of ties with culture, it nuanced a feeling of ‘other- Asia, Aboriginal reconciliation and a re- ness’ and exclusion from the essentialism public (Day 2002) concerns distant of Howard’s Australianness. Howard’s from the lives of ordinary Australians. harking back to the Anzac tradition, Howard thus defined his sympathies mateship, military valour, remembrance, within the discourse of identity politics as the martial defence of Western values being ‘nationalist’, alongside those of demonstrated a nationalism rooted in Geoffrey Blainey and Pauline Hanson. the past (Manne 2004). No new Michelle Grattan opined, ‘He lacks that nationalist image was produced that special quality of imaginative empathy included the different strands of political that would allow him to enter the minds community, binding them in a new and souls of those whose experience is exhortation. A report by the Civics totally outside his own’ (Grattan Expert Group (1994) on attitudes 2002:458). towards the Constitution, citizenship and civic participation showed many Howard’s critics, among them Robert disparate groups excluded from the Manne, accused him of creating a divi- post-federation settlement (non-whites, sive agenda on issues such as Australian indigenous people, women, people of history, Aboriginal affairs and asylum non-Anglo-Celtic background) wanted seekers, through branding opponents as to be included in a new definition of the minority ‘elites’ and claiming his opinion Australian nation. represented that of average and there- In his discourse on hospitality within the fore the majority of Australians, thus nation in Against Paranoid Nationalism, putatively shutting down debate Hage argued that when a defensive so- (Manne 2004). His own view was that he ciety lived in paranoid fear of an alien was healing divisions by equating cul- ‘other’, it suffered from a scarcity of tural homogeneity with social harmony. hope, becoming non-nurturing and in- In an Age interview of 29 February, 2002, tolerant (Hage 2003). This was a cultural titled ‘Thoughts of a Bypassed Lazarus’, expression of the political reality that he emphasised, developed under the neo-conservative ascendancy. With a political ‘wedge’ We’ve brought to a respectable conclu- (Marr and Wilkinson 2003:310) having sion this perpetual seminar on our na- been driven between ordinary Austra- tional identity that went on. We ago- lians and the intellectual elite over the nised were we too Asian or Asian totemic issues of multiculturalism, Abo-

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riginal reconciliation and the republic, who believed government rhetoric as this ‘cultural rollback’, maintained threatening the social and political or- Robert Manne, served the government der. A moral panic driven by govern- well. When it came to political divisions ment rhetoric conflated the Tampa inci- to be reopened by ‘an extremely tough dent, the attack on New York of Sep- border protection policy aimed against tember 11, 2001, and the ‘children over- the ultimate ‘Other’, the unwanted Mus- board’ affair of 7 th October, 2001, into lim asylum seeker’, Manne claimed one issue: terror. Muslim Australians un- Howard had ‘found the issue where he derwent the impugning of their moral could simultaneously gazump One Na- and cultural standards by slogans such tion and destabilise a Labor caught be- as, ‘we decide who comes to this coun- tween its conflicting constituencies’ try and the circumstances in which they (Manne 2004). A discursive framing of come’, and John Howard’s infamous, ‘I asylum seekers and by association their don’t want people like that in Australia. Australian Muslim bretheren as the de- Genuine refugees don’t do that … They monised ‘Other’ was juxtaposed against hang on to their children’ ( Herald Sun the white teleology of nationhood to 2001). produce the most explicit attack on multiculturalism since its inception. Statistics tell us that over two-thirds of the population believed the government’s The politicisation and militarisation of the rhetoric and acquiesced in its cultural Tampa incident in the pre-election politicking. The mendacity of the de- months of 2001 marked the zenith of the humanising of desperate people for multicultural assault. A signification spiral short-term political gain rebounded on occurred (Hall et al., 1978) in which dis- its perpetrators with ironical embarrass- crete events, such as the Sydney rape ment. The racialising displayed towards trials, were ideologically associated and asylum seekers and the Islamic commu- linked to wider discourses of national nity (the latest arrivals in a country experience by which a whole commu- whose history is built on difficult arrivals nity (Australian Muslims) was made to (Wills 2002)), with inferences of their har- share the burden of blame and carry bouring a fundamentalist, culturally un- responsibility (Jones 2001; Devine 2001). accommodating mentality, was ex- Notwithstanding pejorative and legally posed as a projection of the attitude of, false terms such as ‘queue jumpers’ and firstly, the Australian government itself, ‘illegal immigrants’ (Menadue 2001) be- and secondly, that of its Immigration ing used to vilify mostly Muslim inmates Department. of immigration detention centres who were fleeing totalitarian regimes, the Revelations that the London Under- ‘dog whistle’ in this exercise was that ground bombings of July 2005 were car- these people were contravening a ried out by three British-born citizens out moral order (Poynting et al of the four perpetrators prompted a re- 2004) queuing and obeying rules are evaluation in Britain of the culture of the seen as a proper and fair way of acting. ‘ethnic’ enclave. Guardian columnist Dog whistle politics involves pitching an Jonathan Freedland commented, implied message to a particular group of voters that other voters do not hear We could shut out every last asylum (Oakes 2001:8), so by criminalizing boat- seeker, expel every illegal immigrant, people and asylum seekers and inferring and it would make us no safer. This at- that they were committing an immoral tack came from within (Freedland 2005:9). act, these people were seen by those

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Baroness Kishwer Falkner, a Pakistani- cerned intelligentsia debated their poor born member of the House of Lords treatment, particularly in reference to asked, ‘Do we tolerate segregation in traumatised children (HREOC 2004), but the guise of multiculturalism?’ She ex- it was the graphic revelation of the horted a rethink of the multicultural treatment of a white Australian girl, Cor- compromise─that Britain spell out more nelia Rau, with all the callousness and clearly what it was prepared to ask from, indifference meted out to the ‘Other’ as well as give to, its migrants (Freedland that caught the public’s attention and 2005:9). The point was not lost on Austra- embarrassed the government (Palmer lia. Suddenly the Prime Minister became 2005). Political journalist Michelle Grat- receptive to meeting with Muslim civic tan, commenting in The Age on the and clerical leaders, to recognise and Palmer Inquiry into the detention of Rau embrace their position as stakeholders in and Vivian Alvarez Solon, and by infer- Australian society, and to enlist their par- ence the racialised assumptions by ticipation in combating radical agitators which the immigration department de- (Zwartz 2005:6). There was an about- humanised its victims, wrote: face recognition that demanding commitment from newcomers required the department’s culture intolerant and mutual respect, not a position defined always assuming the worst of detainees  by policies that told them their cultures or those who have not complied has were irrelevant and inferior (Jakubowicz been the Government’s culture … in tak- ing its uncompromising line, the depart- 2005:13). It remains to be stated, there- ment was doing what was wanted by a fore, that legitimate avenues to social Government that was so ready to insist participation in nationhood do not that asylum seekers had thrown their emanate from a static definition of cul- children overboard. If it had not mistaken ture and the importance of privileging a couple of Australians for foreigners, it’s the comfort, cohesiveness and exclu- quite likely its general bad behaviour siveness of the white Anglo founding cul- would be continuing unquestioned ture of Australian statehood. The pros- (Grattan 2005:6). pect of a re-badging of the evolving and hybridising nature of Australian so- It was only through the prism of racial- ciety remains one of hope for the future. ised whiteness and Australian residency The neo-conservative legacy of ‘toler- that the public began to comprehend ant’ multiculturalism has been a meta- not only that no one with those attrib- phor for subaltern relegation of migrant utes should be treated the way Rau and groups. Solon were, but also that no one should be treated that way at all. The static The second point of exposition of the prescription that ‘Australian’ meant a prejudice underlying ‘tolerant’ multicul- core privileged culture and marginalised turalism concerns the culture of a dys- stakeholders like migrants and refugees functional Immigration Department. For were alien and objectified because of as long as ‘Othered’ asylum seekers their differences, was exposed for the were showing signs of disturbance over intolerant, prejudiced mindset that it  the wilful neglect and emotional abuse is a callous rejection of the Kantian to which they were subject in manda- view of human self-worth. tory detention, neither the government nor the public were moved or cared Once it has been recognised that mi- much (A.C. Nielsen 2001; Roy Morgan gration tides contribute different attrib- 2001). Health care workers, church utes to the common good, then the groups, journalists, lawyers and a con- evolving common culture hybridises. Logically, a statement of shared values

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should change over time, as does the Australian flag. What I condemn is loutish composition of society. Simpson and his behaviour, criminal behaviour’ (Editorial donkey might mean less to Italian, Chi- 2005), was reminiscent of his similar reti- nese, Lebanese or Vietnamese immi- cence to acknowledge the racial over- grants than the descendants of the An- tones of Pauline Hanson’s 1996 parlia- zacs, but does that mean that these mi- mentary debut. In response to her xeno- grant groups have made no contribu- phobic notions as politics of grievance, tion to society? If they have put their Howard had applauded the arrival of a trust in the laws, civic institutions and new era of free speech instead of de- democratically elected politicians of ploring the arrival of a new politics of Australia, then it is a breach of trust to race (Abbott 1998). Journalist Shaun diminish their cultural signifiers. Carney analysed the Prime Minister’s words as ‘a positive message about the Perhaps a transformative metaphor can good nature of the Australian people  be seen in the Cronulla riots of Decem- not most of us, or the vast majority, but ber 2005. The image of drunken white all of us’(Carney 2005:29). By this he youths draped in the Australian flag and meant the white, insular, parochial, anti- carrying bottles with which to harass multicultural constituency of his power ‘Lebs’ and/or people of Middle Eastern base, the neighbours and mums and appearance resonated around the na- dads of the Cronulla rioters, were not tion and throughout the world media. being judged, threatened or rebuked. Historian Marilyn Lake seemingly He was inclusively telling his xenophobic summed up the Howard era when she voters that they should continue to feel wrote, ‘Militant nationalism also breeds relaxed and comfortable. A former po- racism’ (Lake 2005:19). More specifically, liceman turned academic, Michael Milad Bardan, executive officer of the Kennedy, after a compelling analysis of Australian Arabic Council, cautioned: ethnic culture and violence, concluded the matter was about politics and im- There is a thin line between verbal and plied it required leadership (Sheahan physical abuse, and the riots in Sydney 2005:25). Marilyn Lake and Shaun Car- are but proof of systematic natural pro- ney both demonstrated how negative gression of years of ethnic hounding, leadership inflected multiculturalism. taunting and stereotyping. If Australia is to avoid a repetition of the weekend riots, it is vital that the media and the au- thorities refrain from using this practice in Despite an Age readers’ poll showing 68 their quest to provide a safer and more per cent did not agree that multicultur- integrated Australian community (Bar- alism was dead in Australia ( The Age dan 2005). 2005:18) and positive community action implyin-g the same, the politics of multi- It appears that his words were heeded cultural victimisation has vitiated the phi- at least by the community, if not the losophical and public policy discourse Prime Minister. until such time as its propagators are re- placed by a different political culture ─ one that displays positive leadership. Amidst a plethora of spontaneous community initiatives undertaken to condemn violence and mitigate com- Poynting et al. in Bin Laden in the Sub- munity tensions, the Prime Minister again urbs maintain that the hysteria associ- damned a site of multicultural disjunc- ated with the attacks on multiculturalism ture with faint praise. His ‘I would never represents the ideological agendas of condemn people for being proud of the

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conservative politicians and the com- Adamovic, L. 1944. Nation of Nations, New mercial imperatives of tabloid journalism York: Harpers. more than it does popular opinion Age readers poll 2005. Age, 15 December. (Poynting 2004:259). However, they urge Ang, I. 2001. On Not Speaking Chinese: a rethink on the nature and direction of Living Between Asia and the West, Lon- multiculturalism and national belonging don: Routledge. in Australia in the twenty-first century. In Bardan, M. 2005. ‘ … or years of ethnic this, they echo the sentiments of Profes- hounding’, Age, Letters to the Editor, sor Jerzy Zubrzycki (1987). Ien Ang asks Age, 14 December. for an ethics of multiculturalism. She ar- Brett, J.1997. ‘John Howard, Pauline Han- gues that Australian multiculturalism has son and the politics of grievance’, in always been ambivalent─it claimed to Gray, G., and Winter, C., (eds), The Re- be anti-racist but propagated a re- surgence of Racism: Howard, Hanson pressed sense of race (Ang 2001:104). and the Race Debate, Dept. of Social Unless we interrogate this ambivalence, History, Monash University. she urges, we will maintain a multicultur- ~ 2003. Australian Liberals and the Moral alism that preserves a conservative ele- Middle Class: from Alfred Deakin to John ment of racialisation (Ang 2001:111). This Howard, New York: Cambridge Univer- concurs with Jon Stratton’s observations sity Press. in Race Daze. Whilst fashioning hybrid ~ 2004. ‘The New Liberalism’, in Manne, R., lives and intercultural relations that cut (ed.), The Howard Years, Melbourne: across assumptions about ethnic en- Black Inc. Agenda. claves takes generations, Hogg and Burnside, J.2005. ‘The abuse of one of us Brown (1998:177) argue in Rethinking exposes what we’re doing to them’, Law and Order that we need a ‘politics Age, 7 July. of civility’ which challenges the unwrit- Clark S., 1999. ‘The Annales Historians’, in ten social codes of incivility and moves Clark S. (ed.), The Annales School: Criti- towards greater recognition of shared cal Assessments, London: Routledge. responsibility. Carney, S. 2005. ‘Howard plays the Spin’, Age, 17 December. Author Note Castles, S. 2001. ‘Multiculturalism in Austra- lia’, in Eric Jupp (ed.), The Australian People, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- Jeanette Krongold has a legal back- sity Press. ground, specialising in immigration law. Civics Expert Group, 1994. Whereas the She is working on a doctoral thesis about People … Civics and Citizenship Educa- asylum seekers and 'breaking the rules' tion, AGPS, Canberra. over the last decade. Her areas of inter- Chipman, L. 1980. ‘The Menace of Multi- est include immigration, multiculturalism, culturalism’, Quadrant, October. human rights, and critical whiteness the- Devine, M. 2001. Sun Herald, 12 August. ory. Day, D. 2000. ‘Paul John Keating’, in Grat- tan M., (ed.), Australian Prime Ministers, References Sydney: New Holland,. Editorial, 2005. ‘Finding the words to ad- vance Australia fairly’, Age, 14 Decem- Abbott T. et al. 1998. , Two Nations: the ber. cause and effects of the rise of the One Foster, L. and Stockley D. 1984 Multicultur- Nation Party in Australia, Melbourne: alism: The Changing Australian Para- Bookman Press. digm, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. A.C. Nielsen poll, 2001. Age, September, 4.

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