Disturbances in Australia: Introspection now required

Farish A. Noor, Berlin

Australia is, by any standards, an anomaly these days. Geographically located in Asia yet culturally Western and with its face turned to Europe and increasingly tilted in the direction of Washington, she seems to be searching for an identity and a place in the world.

There remain millions of ordinary decent Australians who feel that their and their country's future lies in Asia, and who feel that Australia as a nation as well as a geographical entity is big-hearted enough to open its doors to a plethora of diverse cultures, races and creeds. This is the smiling face of Australia; the one the welcomes you to the neighborhood barbeque and invites you to the beach to swim and surf together. Those of us who have visited the country know that this smiling face is no mere advertising ploy: It is real, it does exist and the smile is as genuine as it is warm and welcoming.

But at the same time there is the other face of Australia, one that bares its teeth should you find yourself in "their" part of the beach and will do its best to kick you out of "their" space. This other face of Australia is rooted in the residues of the country's colonial past, as well as its legacy of maltreatment of aborigines who were systematically subdued, marginalised and even hunted down to near-extinction. One should not forget that on the island of Tasmania, for instance, the aborigines were herded and "culled" like vermin a century ago, and that this deliberate wiping out of the aborigines accounts for their near-invisibility in their own country today. One should also not forget that Australia once had a "white Australia" immigration policy -- abandoned only in the 1970s -- that sought to ensure that new migrants to the state were mostly from Western Europe, while closing the door to neighboring Asians and other peoples of color. This is the other Australia that voted for Pauline Hanson and her One-Nation Party that ran on an anti-immigration ticket.

In the train of Washington's latest adventure otherwise known as the "War on Terror", Australia was one of the first countries to step forward to play the role of abiding lapdog and watchman. Aptly dubbed Washington's "deputy Sheriff" in Asia, Australia's foreign policy now has implications for the region worldwide: The Australian government stated last year that it would seriously consider the need for pre-emptive strikes on countries that might host terrorist groups that may jeopardize its own security, much to the chagrin of the ASEAN regional bloc.

The Bali bombings provided further justification for Australia's new-found cavalier spirit as well, with Australians commemorating the event as their own "Sept. 11", despite the fact that the primary victims of the Bali bombings were Indonesians and the Indonesian economy. Of late reports have filtered out, both in the Indonesian and Australian press, of Australian tourists abusing local Indonesians in Bali whom they suspected of posing a threat to them. The image of the ugly Australian has become tiresomely commonplace, and with this the image and standing of Australia in the Asian region has suffered as well.

The anti-Arab riots in Sydney recently adds further proof to the claim that Australia and Australians need to do some serious soul-searching of their own. After several days and nights of street-fighting, the editorials of the country's papers have denounced this outburst of racist violence as "un-Australian" and antithetical to everything the country stands for. Liberal broadsides against the culture of embedded racism do not, however, prevent such violence from reoccurring. Nor should they serve as a convenient means to ignore the real questions and issues at hand. If, as the editorials claim, such racism is "un- Australian", then the question remains: What exactly is "authentically Australian" then?

Australia prides itself as a decent country where decent people can come to live and find a better life. Yet this image does not sit comfortably with the country's own biased immigration policies that have, for decades, sought to keep out Asians, Arabs, Africans and other non-European races. Australians claim that theirs is an equal society free of feudal class barriers and distinctions, yet it is all too easy to overlook that in the regional context Australia is far from an equal partner vis-a-vis its Asian neighbors: Even the poorer Australians are able to travel to Bali to live out their latter- day Orientalist fantasy of hedonism and luxury, while ordinary Indonesians would be hard pressed to even get a visa to come to Australia for a weekend break. And Australia's self-image and self-understanding as a decent nation falls short of accepting the fact that successive Australian governments worked hand in glove with dictatorial regimes abroad, including the government of the US-backed President Soeharto who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades. Which in turn prompts the question: Does Australian decency stop short at the borders of the country?

The violence in Sydney, primarily directed as it was at Arabs and people of Mediterranean descent, has therefore given Australians more than enough to think about. Immigration to Australia has been rising steadily for the past 50 years: A testimony to the success of the country and the highest compliment that can be paid to any county. Millions of people wish to come and live there, and for them at least the cherished ideal of an Australia that is decent, just, fair and open to all remains alive and true. Yet this ideal has taken a severe battering on the hard rocks of reality recently and what we see now are the undercurrents of bitterness, prejudice and communitarianism that threatens to render all of the country's achievements thus far futile and imaginary. Australia, like any other country, needs to have a sense of pride and belonging in the world. But that pride cannot come from false and ultimately dangerous notions of racial homogeneity, or worse still racial superiority.

In retrospect it was ironic that some of the hooligans chose to write the words "100 percent Aussie Pride" on the beach where the fighting took place. What pride can come from such scenes of booze-induced mob violence, when hundreds of thugs and bullies choose to pick on the odd solitary Arab or Mediterranean man incapable of defending himself against such odds? The same pride that stems from the knowledge that theirs is a country that was once colonized and whose original inhabitants were nearly wiped out of existence?

Dr Farish Noor is a Malaysian Political Scientist and Human Rights Activist.