by John Pilger
Little of this is true of Australia, where immigrants are encouraged to take out Australian citizenship and anti-immigrant groups are treated with public contempt. There is racism, deep and historic, but in everyday life the worst, perhaps, is indifference. ‘Most employers have neutral feelings,’ said the ANU study, ‘neither actively liking nor disliking immigrants.’44 One explanation for this is a consensus of support for immigration that has spanned the political landscape. In the 1960s the statements of Geoffrey Blainey and Ron Casey would have been unexceptional and might even have been regarded as the view of the ‘Silent Majority’. In the late 1980s they create ‘controversy’ and draw immediate fire. John Elliott, when he was the outspoken president of the Liberal (conservative) Party and chairman of Elder’s IXL (Foster’s Lager), publicly expressed his enthusiasm for immigration as a vital stimulant to the economy. These are not surprising conservative positions; the last conservative Government, headed by Malcolm Fraser, was considerably more ‘liberal’ in its refugee policy than the Hawke Labor Government, not simply because most of the refugees were ‘fleeing communism’, but because immigration is ‘good for business’. Since the end of the Second World War the phases in Australia’s immigration policy have brought economic boom. First-generation immigrants provide the flow of labour that is capitalism’s ‘reserve army’. They have no choice but to be pliant and controlled and to work at the bottom of the pile. Second-generation immigrants, having moved up the pile, provide a ready-made ‘consumer’ society.
Tragically immigration is now an ideological issue. The coalition leader in 1988, John Howard, having watched as the so-called ‘middle ground’ was taken from him by the right-wing policies of the Hawke Government, searched for an issue that could be his alone. He found it in the Bicentenary year. In August 1988 he announced that a future Government led by him would pursue a ‘One Australia Policy’. This meant, in effect, the White Australia Policy brought up to date.
Howard argued that this was necessary because the present level of Asian immigration was ‘imposing social tension and a lack of social cohesion’. Like Blainey and FitzGerald, he offered no hard evidence and made no acknowledgment of the racial peace in Australia since the adoption of non-racist immigration policies. All politicians stoop for power: the degree of stoop being a matter of personal conscience and taste. It is difficult to recall a contemporary politician who has sought his ends by such potentially destructive and wholly contemptible means.
At first Howard’s statement was rejected by his own party’s immigration committee and spokesman. Former Prime Minister Fraser reminded Howard that the issues of race and multi-culturalism represented ‘fundamental values’ for the conservatives. The Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Marshall Perron, a leading conservative, responded by calling for a ‘massive boost’ in immigration from Asia as well as from Europe. Asia, he said, was ‘an immense human resource which can play an integral part in the settlement and development of northern Australia.’45
Howard’s opportunism, it was clear, was bad for business. Worried by the results of a confidential survey that showed that most businessmen in Singapore and Malaysia now believed there were strong anti-Asian feelings in Australia, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said, ‘There may be billions of dollars at risk.’46 A Sydney headline asked, WILL WE BECOME THE POOR WHITE TRASH OF ASIA?, and beneath it a leading commentator on economics, Max Walsh, worried that a discriminatory immigration policy would close Australian capital out of Asia.47 A racist reputation, as white South Africans have learned, is extremely bad for business. That racism is, above all, bad for humanity is seldom mentioned by the ‘pragmatists’. In a vivid demonstration of this pragmatism, the Hawke Government, while pouring scorn on Howard, set out to implement much of what the FitzGerald Report proposed. In December 1988 the Government announced the biggest changes in immigration for twenty years, cutting the number of reunions of parents with their immigrant children by 40 per cent. This affected mostly people from Asia. In 1992 the Government was under increasing internal pressure to cut immigration drastically, with proposed arrivals of less than 50,000, or less than half the present annual immigration. The Opposition, led by John Hewson, is also believed to favour this. Ironically, the severity of the Australian recession has undoubtedly caused a record number of immigrants to return home; in 1991 there were 31,000 permanent departures.48 The politicians appear not to have noticed this phenomenon; or they see advantage in not noticing it.
So the ‘debate’ has continued, if debate it is. Geoffrey Blainey (who like Enoch Powell in Britain protests he is no racist) has questioned the loyalty of Asian Australians during a future war. The radio ‘personality’ Casey fulminated and smashed a glass in order to make his point on television – and has since exchanged punches during a television debate about republicanism. The Opposition has published a document claiming there has been a ‘loss of a sense of unified motherhood’ in Australian society. And the letter pages of newspapers reflect almost daily the anxieties of Asian and Arab Australians. My own view is that in the long term the Blaineys miscalculate. They miscalculate the strength of an attitude I have already outlined: that of good will and sensitivity at many levels of Australian society; and they miscalculate the depth of change now in everyday evidence. That Howard is no longer conservative leader is a striking example of this.
In 1984, when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bill Hayden spelt out the meaning of this change. ‘I think inevitably we’ll become predominantly a Eurasian country,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about twenty years’ time perhaps. That is a process which is under way . . . the very fact that I’ve been able to say this so often without the flood of letters one used to receive for expressing views critical of the White Australia Policy in the 1960s is an indication that [Australia] is already in that process.’49
Hayden’s prediction is supported by the conclusion of a study by Dr Charles Price, the leading Australian authority on ethnic populations. Dr Price has calculated that in one or two generations’ time 90 per cent of the Asian population in Australia will ‘marry out’ of their community. Asked what he thought the members of the Australian team would look like when they paraded at the Olympic Games in 2052, Dr Price said, ‘I think you would see a great variety of racial types. There will be some northern European types with fair hair, some Middle East types, some Asian types, some southern European types, but there will also be a sizeable number of mixtures and of these many will be Asian.’50
For those Australians seeking international acknowledgment of their country’s achievements and its place in the civilised world, the bonus of multi-culturalism is that it removes the old, occasionally stigmatic comparison with South Africa, which, until recently, could not play cricket with anybody. Of course, the flaw and brutal irony in this is the continued mistreatment of the Aboriginal people. Here the parallels with unreconstructed South Africa today are uncomfortably close.
There is another barrier to self-congratulation. About a million immigrants have not chosen to become Australian citizens. That represents almost a quarter of all those who have arrived since the Second World War. Politicians refer with caution to this ‘sleeping million’, whose enfranchisement could dramatically change voting patterns. For many, their grievance is the oath of allegiance to an English Queen which all new citizens must swear. When Hawke sought to address this, he said the oath was ‘not to the Queen of Great Britain, but to the Queen of Australia, the Head of State of a mature and independent nation’.51 This is sophistry, and Australians whose names are not Bruce and Smith, but Mohammed, Wilensky and Wong, know it. The imperial connection is not merely antiquated; it divides Australia as surely as trenches of class divide Britain.
My friend Franca Arena understands well this divide. Franca, born in Genoa, is a Labor member of the New South Wales Parliament and one of Australia’s few non-Anglo-Celtic politicians. In 1980 she became the first elected woman of non-English speaking background. She emigrated as a yo
ung girl, alone, in 1959 and graduated from the tin sheds of the former prison camp at Bonegilla. Eloquent and passionate, she can be heard on Sydney talkback radio, switching from English to Italian, cajoling, persuading on behalf of immigrants and Aborigines. ‘Listen, mite,’ she will say to an obstreperous caller, ‘we are all different, but our rights are the same, OK?’
She has done much for her adopted country, which she loves. In the Bicentenary year she was asked to write her vision of Australia for the journal of the Australian Bicentenary Authority. She wrote that ‘true Australian nationhood will be retarded so long as there is a psychological dependence on the symbols and traditions of another country; when national subservience is inculcated by clinging to colonial and imperial ties’.52
This displeased the chairman of the Bicentenary Authority, Jim Kirk, a retired oil company executive who describes himself as ‘just an Aussie dag’ (‘dag’ = ordinary person). Kirk banned Franca’s article, and at the same time withdrew funding for a documentary film which would have made light of the Queen’s endless tours of Australia.
‘Every time the Queen or one of her family comes here’, said Franca, ‘the Government worries. Where will the big crowds come from? So what do they do? Children are given a half-day holiday and bussed to where she is, and so are pensioners; and it all looks fine on TV. We have to live with this ridiculous illusion. Tell me what other self-respecting nation has to borrow its Head of State from another country.
‘Becoming a citizen was a big problem for me. I could not swear allegiance to the English queen, her heirs and successors, because I had no loyalty to her. So I asked the local council if I could have a ceremony of my own. I just couldn’t do it in public. I felt so ashamed on that day . . . I don’t want to be buried here if we’re still a semi-colony, as we are now. If we decide to become a republic, then I want my ashes thrown from the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I’ve already made my will!
‘I think I am typical of many. I love this place not because of some stupid jingoism. I tell you why. Some say it’s not possible for people of diverse cultures, regions and races to live peacefully together. I think we can show it can happen in Australia. We have 120 different ethnic groups, we speak 90 different languages and practise over 60 religions. The point is if we fail in Australia . . . we, a nation of only 16 million people, a country of such big open spaces . . . if we fail to live together there is really hardly any hope for the rest.’
Tourists wishing to glimpse something of the ‘real Australia’ are well advised to skip the ‘koala parks’ and drop in on a citizenship ceremony. Every week there is one somewhere in Australia. They are advertised in the local paper. The last one I went to was in Ashfield, an old part of Sydney where the streets are narrow, the houses small with verandas of dark Federation brick and roofs of red and green tiles. Inside, the voices are Arabic, Vietnamese, Farsi, Spanish; in the streets, the children call to each other in Australian English. It was here that Carlo brought his proxy bride, Maria, on the day she landed.
At Ashfield Town Hall I was directed to an auditorium, where I sat bemused as to why those about to be ‘naturalised’ as citizens had shaven their heads and dressed in orange. Was this a new attempt by the authorities at assimilation? When the God Krishna was invoked, I left and was re-directed upstairs, where the oath-taking, though equally abstruse, had a more familiar ring.
‘OK’, said Mayor Lew Herman in robes and gold chain, ‘I won’t dilly any longer. I’ll ask Mr Bob Gander if he would like to call out the first batch of names and then I’ll take you through the proceedings as we go along. Thank you very much and over to you, Bob.’
Bob Gander produced his list and intoned names in a manner marking them unrecognisable to all but students of Australian pidgin. They belonged to Argentines, Filipinos, Poles, Vietnamese, Turks, Jordanians, Fijians, Koreans, Chileans, Taiwanese, Britons, Italians, Sri Lankans, Chinese, Lebanese, Singaporeans, Thais, Yugoslavs, Iranians and an Irishwoman.
‘Rightee-o everybody,’ said Lew, ‘here we go. I won’t rush it. Now you mob just say after me . . . I swear by almighty God . . .’
‘I swear by almighty God . . .’
‘that I will remain faithful . . .’
‘that I will remain faithful . . .’
‘and bear true allegiance . . .’
‘and bear . . .’
At that point there was a noise like glass breaking. It was Lew’s gold chain disintegrating in slow motion.
‘ . . . true allegiance . . . to Her Majesty . . . (whispers – Hey Bob, get me a paper clip, will you?) Elizabeth the Second . . . (Come on, do something somebody. Jeez, I’m coming apart).’
A paper clip was produced and the gold chain was salvaged. Oath completed, Lew handed out certificates of citizenship. Said he as he passed along the ranks of recipients: ‘Gidday and congratulations . . . good luck . . . What a lovely smile you’ve got . . . Hang on, is this the right certificate? . . . Now, what’s your name? Is it Moon or Moonska? . . . Here we go . . . Gidday and congratulations . . . I’m really proud, too . . . Right, thanks everybody for coming. Now how about a big round of applause for these folk?’
The expressions borne by the multi-cultural assembly were of delight tinged with incredulity. The latter intensified as the Sweet Adelines Ladies’ Barber Shop Group advanced on them, dressed in baby blue and cooing the refrain from the musical Oliver!, ‘Consider yourself our mate.’
This was followed by tea, cup-cakes and photographs with Lew, the mayoral chain and paper clip. The oath of allegiance to distant royalty was patently ridiculous; but there was none of the joyless chauvinism that requires people to renounce their backgrounds and join some closed order, some non-existent ‘melting pot’. The only speech, apart from Lew’s ‘few words’, was by a Mrs Choong, a Chinese-Australian who made the most stirring call for internationalism I have ever heard. ‘Australia is the only continent at peace’, she said, ‘because we are re-making a history founded on fear and rejection, and because the world is now here.’
Mrs Choong left few eyes dry. That the world is here is irrevocable.
4
THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
A sick feeling of repugnance grows in me as I near Australia.
Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, 1941
Wherever the United States is resisting aggression . . . we will go a-waltzing Matilda with you.
John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia, 1969
President Lyndon B. Johnson always thought that Australia was the next large rectangular state beyond El Paso and treated it accordingly.
Marshall Green, US Ambassador to Australia, 1973–5
NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1901, was the day of Federation. The six Australian colonies came together as one nation, ‘a Commonwealth . . . independent and proud’ proclaimed the headlines. Rain deluged down in Sydney’s Centennial Park, where the Earl of Hopetoun, a hitherto unheard-of member of the British aristocracy, struggled to cope with dysentery (known then as the ‘antipodean scourge’) as he declared himself the nation’s first Governor-General.
‘The whole performance’, wrote the historian Manning Clark, ‘stank in the nostrils. Australians had once again grovelled before the English. There were Fatman politicians who hungered for a foreign title just as their wives hungered after a smile of recognition from the Governor-General’s wife, who was said to be a most accomplished snubber, having trained her eyes to brush the cheek of those who were desperate for a smile, no matter how watery, from an English noblewoman.’1
Most Australians did not want independence. They wanted extravagant assurances of imperial fidelity. They wanted Mother England to be more protective of her most distant colony which, they pleaded, was threatened by a host of evil spirits: the ‘Asiatic hordes’ and the Tsar’s navy and the Hun’s navy and the Emperor of Japan’s navy. Few heard what the new Head of State had to say. His sodden plumes and uncertain knees seemed to symbolise the day.
Australia still has not
gained true independence, as the historical record shows. We Australians remain one of the most profoundly colonised of peoples and Australian sovereignty the goal of dreamers: a goal which other, usually poorer, countries have achieved after struggle and bloodshed. It is a melancholy irony that Australians, proportionate to their numbers, have shed more battlefield blood than most, and that so much of this sacrifice has not been in the cause of independence, but in the service of an imperial master.
The Australian tradition is to fight other people’s wars, against those with whom Australians have no quarrel and who offer no threat of invasion. Australians fought in China during the Boxer Rebellion so that British mercantile interests could continue trading in opium; in New Zealand so that British interests could exploit that country and destroy the resistance of its Maori people; in South Africa so that the same British interests could subdue the Boers and dominate the Cape of Good Hope; and in Europe during the ‘Great War’ of mass slaughter, which was generated by a family squabble between Kaiser Wilhelm II and his cousin, George Saxe-Coburg; the latter, in the course of events, wisely changing his name to Windsor.
Until recently, the Australian national day was not the anniversary of the arrival of the British ‘First Fleet’ in 1788, nor the federation of the colonies, but Anzac Day, April 25, which commemorated the landing in 1915 of Australian and New Zealand troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula and their rout by Turks dug into the cliff face. For every 500 yards gained, at least a thousand Australians were lost. The bodies were piled four feet deep. The wounded lay in their blood and filth with little water and rancid rations; ‘Casualties?’ said the British General, Hunter Weston, ‘What do I care about casualties?’