'Asianization' of Australia more myth than truth
The Asianisation of Australia? Some Facts about the Myths; By Laksiri Jayasurya & Kee Pookong; Melbourne University Press, 1999; Paperback, 113 pp.
MELBOURNE (JP): An international visitor to Australia commented recently how more cosmopolitan the cities had become since he first visited 15 years before. When asked what he meant, he observed that the non-Anglo-Celtic people he came across no longer tended to be only shopkeepers, cafe operators, tour guides or, in the case of the young ones, students.
"There are more students, that's true. But now you meet people from different Asian countries in various professions and vocations. That's very good," he added.
Still, in many country towns, five is the maximum number of Asian-looking men hanging around beyond a month (Asian women are relatively more acceptable provided they are married to local men where eligible local women are scarce). Many people immediately become closed when they see more than a handful of foreigners lingering in their towns, especially if they are speaking languages other than English.
The volume of the Asian presence in the country depends very much on the psychological tolerance of the beholder toward non- Caucasians, Asians in particular.
Officially, Australia abolished its White Australia policy in 1973, and has since committed itself to multiculturalism, a word even the present prime minister, John Howard, did not succeed in pushing completely off the nation's political screen. Many forward thinking Australians, politicians included, seemed to be blissfully thinking that from then on, Australia would be on a one-way street toward utopian multicultural society, where everybody accepts everybody else, whatever their creed, race and cultural background may be.
That kind of society, alas, would only be possible if everyone were happy. And reality points the other way. During the last two decades, like many nations in the world, Australia also has had to restructure its economy. And restructures create victims. In Australia, many of these live in regional areas, bypassed by growth and, unfortunately, in most cases bypassed by information. They feel resentful and disenfranchised, and understandably blame newcomers for taking their jobs and opportunities. The newcomers happen to be Asians this time.
Apart from genuine victims, some informed individuals who have inherent fear of non-white races bring this collective resentment to the surface. In 1984, for instance, a University of Melbourne academic, Prof. Geoffrey Blainey, in a public speech, warned the government against opening the door further to Asian immigration, which he said would undermine the racial harmony of the country.
In 1996 many Australians -- Asian, Aboriginal and Caucasian alike -- were taken by surprise by the support for the then independent member from Oxley, Queensland, Pauline Hanson, in her diatribe against Asians and Aboriginals. Her claims that Asians were flooding Australia, taking jobs, spreading disease and living in ghettos were laughable to informed Australians, yet they only reinforced suspicions of those seething with resentment and not bothering to verify the facts.
It became increasingly obvious that many people were actually unaware how many Asians actually migrated to this country, despite the occasional publication of these figures in various media. And how these migrants live has been told in anecdotal accounts, distorted by prejudice and personal vendetta. Professors Laksiri Jayasurya and Kee Pookong's book, The Asianisation of Australia? Some Facts about the Myths, hopefully will rectify the myths.
The book is informative without being judgmental. Apart from giving an overview of Asian immigration and detailing demographic trends from the 1970s to the 1990s, it also paints the social profile of Asian immigrants, traces the patterns of social integration and discusses possible emerging issues.
Kee and Jayasurya remind the reader of the continuing need to break the stereotypical concept of "Asia" and "Asians". Blainey, for example, linked the great diversity of Asia in monolithic entity, extending from the "Middle East" to the "Far East" -- including Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel. On paper, this kind of "pooling together" helped distort the statistics, which undoubtedly legitimized the anecdotal accounts based on personal prejudice.
In reality, Kee and Jayasurya point out, according to the 1996 census, the proportion of immigrants in the Australian population now is almost identical to that of nearly a hundred years ago, about 6.6 percent. Research in 1995 by one of Australia's leading demographers, Charles Price, estimated that by 2025 only 16 percent of the Australian population would consist of those of Asian descent, while 62 percent would be of Anglo-Celtic-Irish background, 15 percent of other European background and about 4 percent of Middle-Eastern origins.
With the exception of refugees from Indochina, most Asian migrants have had little difficulty adjusting and integrating into mainstream society, many being tertiary graduates and holding high-status occupations. According to the 1996 census, 30.5 percent of immigrants from Indonesia fall into this category.
The book is optimistic about Australia's ability to overcome problems in its journey toward a true multicultural society. As J. Gray wrote in his book Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought: "The challenge for Australia is to fashion a more inclusive pluralistic society in whose institutions and structures these new settlers must be able to participate fully and equally." Will it be possible?
-- Dewi Anggraeni