Just recently, it was reported that one of the few remaining respected journalists made a comment at a writers’ festival that Australia was a ‘racist country’. What, I suspect, was jolting for many Australians was not that the country was being labelled as ‘racist’, but that its status as a ‘racist country’ was no longer in doubt.
Mind you, any sensible discussion about racism in Australia hits the rocks fairly quickly due to disagreement about what amounts to racism. A visit to different dictionaries does not resolve the matter. Some define racism as belief that ‘race’ is itself a determinant of human abilities and capacities, and that certain races are ‘superior’ to others in terms of those abilities and capacities. Others chose to define racism as a prejudice or antipathy to particular individuals based entirely on their race or ethnicity. There is also the definition that racism is simply a set of rules or behaviours that result in a continued unfair advantage to particular individuals based on their race or ethnicity.
When the subject of ‘racism’ comes up, almost always I find that the person or people with whom I am having the conversation will admit that ‘there are racist people in Australia’ but point out quickly that he/she/they are not one of them. They might even point to an ‘ethnic’ friend or service provider as proof-positive that they are not racist. If you are rude or imprudent enough to point out, subsequently, that some of their views seem rather racist, then you are likely to face a barrage of self-justification (“I am just stating what is true”) and indignation, as well as accusations that you are being ‘woke’ or ‘politically correct’, which in turn triggers a general rant about elites stifling free speech. Rather gives me the vibe that they are protesting too much. More likely, it is that we all understand that the label ‘racist’ in this country is not something one wishes to wear, and if it is directed at us personally, we deny and engage in all manner of intellectual wiggles to shake it off.
That sensitivity also allows others in the community to use the term ‘racist’ as a sword rather than shield. If one expresses a view that in some touches on race, ethnicity or culture that another does not like or want to accept, then an accusation of racism is often very effective in shutting a debate down, or even better, eliciting a retraction or apology. Worse still, there are some who use the term racism to silence any view, by stating a view relating to race, ethnicity or culture, and asserting that anyone who disagrees must be racist. This contributes to the insanity that each ethnic grouping can only talk about themselves, but cannot talk about any other grouping. How this leads to reconciliation and understanding is anyone’s guess.
While I have no expertise or body of research to back up view, my belief is that for all of us – I repeat, all of us – racism is something that is hardwired into our brains. It is a remnant of an evolutionary survival tactic that humans grouped together in cluster, tribes and villages of other humans who looked like and spoke like them, and that other humans from outside that cluster, tribe or village were threats. However, humans are (allegedly) intelligent creatures capable of self-reflection and thought, and the capacity to face and overcome any hard-wired behavioural traits. Racism is not inevitable, but I do think it is exhibited unconsciously by many. We may tell ourselves that we have no animus or ill-will to persons of another race or ethnic group (and believe it) but it is when we have an encounter with such person that is unpleasant, threatening or instils fear or anger that are true beliefs are known. Fear and anger are not rational, and not a good base on which to make decisions, but each certainly has the capacity to distil one’s feeling about another human being that is the source of that fear or anger.
For context, the comment attributed to the journalist to which I referred above was, reportedly, made in relation to two recent issues in our society. The first was in relation to the outcome of a referendum to change our constitution to recognise our indigenous First Peoples, and to give them a right to be consulted on legislation that affected them as First Peoples. The second was in relation to a speech given by the leader of the federal Opposition in which he attributed many of Australia’s current ills to the level of migration into Australia.
The change to our constitution was rejected by a very sizable margin. However, a very significant factor in the referendum being rejected, at least from my perspective, was that the campaign for the ‘Yes’ case was a monumental failure, and that the ‘No’ case was successful in commanding the narrative; they made the proposition put forward sound half-baked and vague and the people, not surprisingly, rejected it.
As for a politician’s speech placing the responsibility for house prices and congestion (amongst other things) on migration, it should be seen for what it was: an opportunistic, cowardly craven dog-whistle that blames a minority of the population for something to which we have all contributed.
So, Bee, is Australia a racist country? My answer to that question is ‘maybe’, but that the existence of that racism is merely a symptom, and that the outcome of the referendum and the apparent resonance of the ‘anti-migrant’ debate, and indeed many other troubling social issues, is attributable to a much more troubling malaise in this country.
Much like our American cousins, the Australian population is becoming small: it is increasingly narrow-minded, irrationally fearful and insular. One manifestation of this is that many in our community view change and social development through a prism of ‘what will that change or development cost me, what will be taken away from me, and will someone else get something that I do not?’. At the point at which people perceive that they are losing out and/or, worse, that someone other than them is benefiting, they say ‘no’. Such is their narrow focus that they do not care to understand (or try to understand) that their society may well become more effective, more cohesive and most just.
It was not racism that caused close to 60% of the population to reject a voice for our First People, but a sense, first, that our First People would be achieving a special benefit not enjoyed by the rest of us, and secondly, that in obtaining that benefit, the rest would in turn either ‘miss out’ or, worse, have something taken from us. That this belief did not reflect the substance of the proposal, and that any ‘benefit’ given to First People was (very) small step towards them redressing two centuries of Europeans making decisions for them, and failing each and every time.
Similarly, the anti-migration debate works on people’s fear that ‘outsiders’ will come in and take something from them, and/or achieve benefits that should be reserved to those who are already ‘here’. (Our First People will see the irony of this, no doubt). It does not matter that it is nonsense, and apparently it is not convenient for Australians to acknowledge that, without migration, a range of industries and sectors would grind to a halt. Fear and a narrow perspective override everything else in this country, including logic and rationality.
Those who reject the notion that Australia is a racist country like to point to our multicultural society and the success of different waves of non-British migrants. This is dubious and based on a ‘rose-tinted’ view of history. The fact is that each wave was met with resistance or hostility by the ‘incumbent’ population and that the members of that wave, through tenacity if nothing else, succeeded not only in making a home here, but changing our way of life and enriching our population through their descendants. More recent history shows that the wave of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East not only face the same resistance and hostility from the incumbent population but also demonisation from politicians who garner support by poking the population’s narrowmindedness and fear.
Australia has bigger concerns than whether or not it is racist. Its population open their minds and their hearts, because if they do not, we will return to being a backwater, just we were in the 1950s.
