tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/white-australia-policy-898/articles
White Australia policy – The Conversation
2023-04-16T20:04:07Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202828
2023-04-16T20:04:07Z
2023-04-16T20:04:07Z
Unpapering the cracks: sugar, slavery and the Sydney Morning Herald
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519933/original/file-20230407-28-asozhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Sea Islander women, Cairns, circa 1895 </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/islander-labourers">National Museum of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a splash of articles published over the past two weeks, the British <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cotton-capital">Guardian</a> has acknowledged and apologised for its historical links with slavery. The Scott Trust, owners of the newspaper that became a global news website, outlined how the Guardian’s founders were linked to transatlantic slavery and announced a programme of restorative justice. </p>
<p>John Edward Taylor, the journalist who founded the Manchester Guardian in 1821, profited from partnerships with cotton manufacturers and merchants who imported raw cotton produced by enslaved people in Jamaica and in the Sea Islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.</p>
<p>In Australia, our oldest surviving newspaper has its own historical links to the shameful practice of slave labour.</p>
<p>In 1841, John Fairfax (1804-1877) became the first of five generations of Fairfax family owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, which had been founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520397/original/file-20230412-14-mah6y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">John Fairfax c 1861.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikicommons</span></span>
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<p>The Fairfax family also became major shareholders in Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR). CSR was founded in Sydney in 1855 by Edward Knox, but it descended from the Australasian Sugar Company, established in 1842. The precise date on which the Fairfax family became sugar investors is not known, but the family was <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/paper-emperors/">certainly involved by 1855</a>, when John Fairfax’s daughter, Emily, married the general manager of CSR. </p>
<p>In the 1870s and 1880s, CSR expanded into milling cane in Queensland and Fiji. It profited from the use of what was effectively slave labour through the abduction and importation of tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders, who were disparagingly called “Kanakas” (a Hawaiian word meaning “man”). </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/publications/australian-south-sea-islanders-century-race">Australian Human Rights Commission</a>, between 1863 and 1904, “an estimated 55,000 to 62,500 Islanders were brought to Australia to labour on sugar-cane and cotton farms in Queensland and northern New South Wales”. They were forced to perform backbreaking labour in appalling conditions.</p>
<p>Most came from Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, but they also arrived from more than 70 other Pacific Islands. CSR chartered ships for the express purpose of <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/173160843">“recruiting”</a> labourers from these islands. Men, women and children, some as young as nine, were forced, coerced or tricked into coming to Australia. The practice of kidnapping them was known as “blackbirding” (“blackbird” was another word for slave). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-slave-state-how-blackbirding-in-colonial-australia-created-a-legacy-of-racism-187782">Friday essay: a slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism</a>
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<p>Although a system of indentured labour was later established, Pacific Islanders were still exploited, denied basic rights, and paid miserable wages. In 1901, two acts of parliament facilitated their mass deportation as part of establishing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">White Australia Policy</a>. </p>
<p>Although the Sydney Morning Herald was normally a strong supporter of the White Australia Policy, the paper wanted it suspended in the case of the cane fields. In August 1901, it argued there was a special need for “black” labour in the sugar fields of Queensland because the task was not suitable for white men. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/14404004?searchTerm=%22just%20sufficiently%20intelligent%20for%20work%20in%20the%20canefield%22">Sydney Morning Herald</a> wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The sun, so deadly to the white man, is to (the ‘kanaka’) only the source of a genial warmth […] these islanders are (like) the Australian aborigine (sic) […] just sufficiently intelligent for work in the canefield […] cheap, and […] inured to outdoor labour in a tropical climate. </p>
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<p>The paper argued that “white men” were still getting “all the work calling for intelligence”. And, if the “kanakas” had to go, then the sugar planter should be given some other form of help such as a duty on sugar. At no stage did the paper declare its owners’ interest in the issue.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520422/original/file-20230412-14-vok1kl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Pacific Islanders were brought in to work in the cane fields.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
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<p>Like the mining giant Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP), CSR became a powerful monopoly in Australia. Both were helped along by friends in the press, newspaper owners who were heavily invested in companies they were promoting and demanding government assistance for. (Aside from CSR, the Fairfaxes were also shareholders in BHP, as were other newspaper families, including the Symes and the Baillieus). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Although most Pacific Island labourers had been deported from Australia by 1908, CSR continued to prosper off the back of indentured (mostly Indian) labourers in Fiji, where there were severe working conditions and high mortality rates. By 1910, CSR was one of the three largest companies in Australia. </p>
<p>In 1915, the federal government granted CSR protection via an embargo on imported sugar. In 1923, the Queensland state government signed an agreement with CSR that meant the company effectively had a monopoly on sugar production (which lasted until 1989). </p>
<p>By 1930, CSR was the wealthiest company in Australia and the Fairfaxes were among the country’s wealthiest families. The family’s links with CSR were still active in the 1960s. By then, CSR had branched out into industrial chemicals, building materials and, disastrously, asbestos. </p>
<p>The longstanding connection between CSR and the Fairfaxes was not widely known in the mid 20th century, and nor would it have attracted much interest, then, let alone condemnation on the basis of CSR’s history of forced labour. </p>
<p>On the contrary, in a newspaper industry filled with ruthless proprietors, including liars, thugs and crooks, the Fairfaxes had a reputation for being decent, moral and ethical. They were known for being cultured, civically-minded and philanthropic. </p>
<p>The Fairfaxes controlled the Sydney Morning Herald for 149 years, until 1990 when a misguided takeover action mounted by young Warwick Fairfax ended in financial disaster. </p>
<p>Since 2019, the Sydney Morning Herald (along with The Age and The Australian Financial Review) have been owned by the Nine group, a television company that was founded by the Fairfaxes’ nemesis, Frank Packer, a rival newspaper and magazine owner in Sydney. Packer was not known for his philanthropy, nor for holding enlightened attitudes on racial equality. </p>
<p>Racism was often blatantly expressed in newspaper pages, encouraging oppression, discrimination and inhumane treatment to occur, including in the sugar plantations of Queensland. In 1935, the <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17232651?searchTerm=blackbirding">Sydney Morning Herald</a> conceded that “blackbirding” – a practice it had implicitly supported in the 1890s and early 1900s – was actually a “type of slavery”. Now would be a good time for Australia’s oldest newspaper to follow the lead of the Guardian and investigate and acknowledge how its own growth in the 19th and 20th centuries was connected to that slavery. </p>
<p><em>Sally Young is the author of Paper Emperors (UNSW Press, 2019) and its sequel, Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires (UNSW Press), which will be out in June. Comment was sought from the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald for this article but no reply was provided at the time of writing.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Young has received research funding from the Australian Research Council and the State Library of NSW. Between 2013-15, she wrote a monthly column for The Age (previously owned by Fairfax Media, now owned by Nine).</span></em></p>
Recently, The Guardian revealed its links to slavery and the cane fields – but less well-known is The Sydney Morning Herald’s links to sugar and the slave trade.
Sally Young, Professor of Political Science, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199409
2023-02-19T19:10:14Z
2023-02-19T19:10:14Z
I’m descended from a Baloch-Afghan cameleer and a Badimiya Yamitji woman: they battled racist government policies to save our family
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510749/original/file-20230216-22-bgkdoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3994%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Camels on Nullabor (at bottom right) supplied by State Library of South Australia B-7953. Other images are family photographs, supplied by author.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>I am one of 400 descendants of a Baloch-Afghan cameleer man, Goolam Badoola, and an Aboriginal Badimiya Yamitji woman, Mariam Martin.</p>
<p>As I share these stories told to me by my Elders, I pray they are used as a means for others to recognise the resilience in these historical lessons as a vessel for good action. As humans, we should be naturally inclined towards performing good acts in service of humanity. </p>
<p>In Islam, this concept is called <em>fitrah</em>, the natural predisposition to incline towards right action and submission to the Creator. In our faith, we are also taught that deeds are rewarded by their intentions and sincerity. </p>
<p>As I write this piece, I do so with the sincere intention that my words penetrate living hearts and provide a means of coming together to serve humanity in good action.</p>
<p>To me, as a fourth-generation descendent of an Afghan Baloch cameleer, the Uluru Statement represents an opportunity to come together and walk hand in hand as we build this country, with the same spirit as my great-grandfather.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510732/original/file-20230216-28-5or3po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sabah Rind is a fourth-generation descendant of Afghan Baloch cameleer Ghoolam Badoola.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Goolam, a Muslim cameleer in Australia</h2>
<p>Goolam was born in 1872 in British Balochistan, India. He was from a Baloch background, an ethnic group located on the Iranian plateau. From the age of six, he grew up looking after camels. During his teens, he would travel more than 22 kilometres each day with his camels to sell wood at Karachi Port, British India. </p>
<p>During the colonial exploration of Australia, camels and camel drivers were shipped to work on the arid land to cart goods for transportation. Goolam was determined to join this line of work and travel to Australia with his camels. </p>
<p>In December 1890, Goolam walked more than 40km from Gaddap to Karachi Port with his camels, only to be stopped at the gate by a tall Indian Sikh man with a turban. He was advised that the ship had met its quota and no one else was allowed to board. </p>
<p>As Goolam walked away, upset and disappointed, he noticed an agitated loose male camel that others were unable to subdue. He recognised the camel’s temperament as being caused by the winter mating season and decided to intervene before the situation escalated. He hurled a rope around the camel’s neck, dropped it to the ground and pinned the camel between the nostrils to bring him to a halt. </p>
<p>The captain of the ship witnessed this and without hesitation <a href="https://youtu.be/Dtn8c-wogF0">cried out</a>, “I want that kid on this ship.” In our Muslim tradition, we call this <em>naseeb</em> or <em>qadr</em>, which loosely translates to “destiny”. Although he didn’t speak the language, it was Goolam’s <em>naseeb</em> to board that ship, travelling over three months to unknown lands. What was to come, nobody could have known.</p>
<p>Goolam arrived in Port Augusta, South Australia, as an energetic adolescent. He worked as a camel driver for a telegraph company called Elders, delivering goods for them for the next ten years. A <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-gold-rushes-helped-make-the-modern-world-91746">gold rush</a> in 1900 then prompted Goolam to move to Western Australia and work for a company called T & J Camel Carting Company in the Murchison region, transporting water to the miners from local waterholes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510488/original/file-20230216-22-5m6wnt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Unloading camels at Port Augusta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australia's Muslim Cameleers, Wakefield Press/State Library of South Australia</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>During that time, there was a catastrophic cyclone, and flooding blocked roads in the isolated towns of the Murchison region. Goolam used his camel trains to bring people to safety. He also transported water and rations to flood victims. </p>
<p>The WA government of the time recognised this extraordinary effort by rewarding him with citizenship rights and monetary remuneration. He used this money to purchase a property in Mount Magnet, named Bulgabardoo Station. Goolam established a company in the cattle industry and became one of the most successful pastoralists in WA.</p>
<p>My great-grandfather worked tirelessly for this nation, in a racist climate where <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">the White Australia policy</a> created division between white Australians and people of colour.</p>
<p>A letter of recommendation by the Pastoralists’ Association of WA, written in 1922, remarks that “suffice to state that Goolam Badoola […] despite his colour, has served Australia well”. </p>
<p>Although Goolam contributed to this country for more than 40 years, he was still seen as inferior due to the colour of his skin. He was a man who served the community and always helped those in need, despite being disadvantaged due to his race and background. Goolam recalls this environment of racism in an article published in 1922, when he encountered racist abuse by a white man in Geraldton. </p>
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<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/long-history-with-islam-gives-indigenous-australians-pride-3521">Long history with Islam gives Indigenous Australians pride</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Goolam’s story, in his words</h2>
<p>He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is eleven years since I last came to Geraldton. I was born in Karachi, India [Balochistan] and under the British flag. As far as I know England has been the ruler of my country for over 200 years, and my benefit goes to England just the same. I was walking along a Geraldton street, when a gentleman who was smoking a cigar came up past me and said, “Good-day, White Australia,” and I answered “Good gentleman. Won’t you allow me to walk along your street if it’s man to man, I did more work in Australia, than what you did.”</p>
<p>So I am going to advertise what work I did in Australia, so that you can see it in the paper. I am a poor Indian man, and I won’t have any quarrel with anyone. In 1890 I was employed by Faize and Tagh Mahomet, who were the first men to bring camels over to Australia. In 1891 I landed in South Australia; in 1893 I arrived in Western Australia; in 1893 I saved 70 diggers at <a href="https://www.gold-net.com.au/archivemagazines/nov01/19048274.html">Siberian Soak</a>; one man died, and the rest I saved.</p>
<p>These diggers depend on the Siberian Soak, which gave in and there was no more water. These diggers sent in a report to the Government for help, and the Gov- ernment hired 40 camels from Messrs Faize and Tagh Mahomet. I was the man who did the work. I got an order from the boss to go to all the houses and save the people. Myself and three other employees went, and I was in charge of the team. </p>
<p>From Coolgardie to Rasar Soak is 30 miles through a rough track. From Rasar Soak to Siberian Rush is 42 miles. There was hardly any road. I pushed through 72 miles without stopping, and I saved 70 men, and one died before I got there. There was poor me who did that work. I was new to the country, and couldn’t speak the language, and got no thanks for what I did. I suppose my boss got the benefit.</p>
<p>In 1896 I was employed by the Octagen Mining Company in Menzies, 8 miles from Menzies west. I used to cart water for the miners from the condenser, 300 gallons every day, for these people. One hundred and eighty were working. One morning I went down to the condenser; the man told me that the condenser was broken. I turned back and went 8 miles home and I told my boss that the condenser was broken, and he said to me, “My God, Badoola, all these people will die for want of water. Next water will be 30 miles from Menzies to get. It’s too late now. Will you go early in the morning 30 miles to get it?” I said “All right, boss. You give me a letter to that boss who owns the condenser and I will get the water.”</p>
<p>He gave me a letter at four o’clock in the afternoon and I started straightaway, and I never told the boss. I pulled through with 10 camels with water casks all right on a very small pad. I did a special trip for the water and all that afternoon, and all night and next morning early I brought the water and supplied all these miners before the boss got out of his bed. </p>
<p>I just unloaded the last camel, when he came out of the door and said, “Hurry up, Badoola! Go and bring the water.” He said: “After you left at 5 o’clock more than 25 people gave notice to leave, because they were dying for want water.” I said to the boss, “I will bring water tonight.” He said, “You will be a good boy if you bring water tonight.” He thought I was just starting and bring the water. </p>
<p>I could not speak well enough English to make him understand that I brought the water last night. I told him I had been working ever since yesterday morning at 7 o’clock, and got him by hand and took him to the drums and told him to look, this one full, that one full, and all full. “Oh!” he said. “You been there since yesterday, 4 o’clock you did good work – saved 108 men from perishing for water, and now,” he said, “I give you £5 present and £2 rise in wages.”</p>
<p>In 1900 I was a camel owner and carrier from Cue to Lake Way. There was a big flood in 1900, and I saved women and children from starvation. All the country was flooded. I loaded 150 camels and 40 pack horses with food. They were all trying to get through the tucker to Lake Way, but they could not get through, on account of water and bog. I took my eight camels, loaded up with flour, seven miles through water and saved the women and children from starvation at Lake Way.</p>
<p>In 1911 I started sheep-breeding and squatting. I bought land from six different men with no wells or no improvements on the land – just all bushes I battled along and worked hard, built in Australia, yet in that little time. Last year, in May, I was offered £26,000 and yet that gentlemen who won’t allow me to walk the street and said, “Good-day, White Australia.” </p>
<p>My declaration shows I did more good for Australia than the man who was smoking the cigar and said, “Good-day, White Australia.” I think he want me to do his work yet. </p>
<p>It’s 20 years [since] they stopped the Indian man from coming to Australia, and it’s 20 years [ago] I remember plenty of my countrymen in India working the camels carting the stuff at small rates back in Goldfields, and giving a chance to the miners to find plenty of gold. They could not do it today. </p>
<p>Also that they carted the stuff out for squatters at a cheap rate, and gave a chance to the squatters to grow, and they called it cheap labour, and stopped them coming to Australia. </p>
<p>They did not know they had a good slave to work for them. Whoever the gentleman was who said “Good-day, White Australia” has enough <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259987439">in this paper</a> to read. I did not [do] any harm to him.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Brotherly friendships among camel drivers</h2>
<p>As a proud descendent of Goolam Badoola, I reflect on his story as it takes me on an emotional journey. I try to envision what it must have been like for my great-grandfather who migrated in the late 19th century as a Baloch camel driver, working tirelessly to build this country. </p>
<p>Goolam worked a hard life alongside other disadvantaged people of colour, ethnic blends of cultures existing simultaneously as they worked through the harsh, arid golden outback. </p>
<p>I reflect on the brotherly friendships that were formed between the camel drivers from <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-studied-afghan-refugees-for-3-years-to-find-out-what-life-is-like-for-them-in-australia-166498">Afghan</a>, Pashto, Baloch and <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-sikhs-and-what-are-their-beliefs-97237">Sikh</a> backgrounds. And I think about my own great-grandfather’s personal bonds with his fellow camel-driver companions whom he named his sons after – Numroze (my grandfather), Meerdost and Noordin – sons whom Goolam raised with his wife, Mariam Martin.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510494/original/file-20230216-22-b1ibwt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brotherly friendships were formed between camel drivers from Afghan, Pashto, Baloch and Sikh backgrounds. Pictured: Muslim cameleer Bejah Dervish in Western Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australia's Muslim Cameleers, Wakefield Press/State Library of South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1915, Goolam employed a Malay man by the name of Mohammad Kassem, whose name was changed by the British to Michael (Mick) Martin, to work on Bulgabardoo Station. Mick was married to Lizzy Little, a Badimiya Yamitji woman and they had three children – Fred, Ned and Mariam Martin. </p>
<h2>My great-grandparents’ ‘illegal’ marriage</h2>
<p>Mick, being Muslim, wanted his daughter to marry a Muslim man and had asked Goolam if he would honour his daughter by marrying her. Goolam was in his mid-forties and Mariam was 17 years of age. The marriage took place in 1917 at Perth Mosque on William Street with a traditional Muslim ceremony.</p>
<p>The marriage was not recognised by the state. Mariam was a half-caste Aboriginal according to WA law, and as such she was subject to <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/digitised_collections/remove/52791.pdf">section 42</a> of the Aborigines Act 1905, which stated: “No marriage of a female aboriginal with any person other than an aboriginal shall be celebrated without the permission, in writing, of the Chief Protector.” </p>
<p>The Chief Protector at the time, A.O. Neville, served a notice to the newlyweds stating the illegality of their marriage, and instructing that Mariam be relocated to a mission settlement to work as a domestic servant. Goolam and Mariam fought for their marriage in court in Cue. </p>
<p>Mariam wrote a letter to the Warden with her pleas: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Sir, I’m writing you a few lines and I hope you will take a great interest in it because I’m a poor unfortunate girl, and the Aboriginal department is trying to put me away from my good home. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Eventually, their marriage was approved, and Mariam was permitted to remain with her husband. They had four children together.</p>
<p>The injustice reared its head again when A.O. Neville demanded that Goolam and Mariam give up their children to be sent to mission settlements. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/catalogue_resources/52790.pdf">section 8</a> of the Aborigines Act 1905, “The Chief Protector shall be the legal guardian of every aboriginal and half-caste child until such child attains the age of sixteen years.”</p>
<p>Over the years, the state authorities paid visits to the station to take the children away; however, Mariam hid the children in boxes or underground within the 200,000 acres of their property. Despite Goolam having a good reputation among other white pastoralists, and being known as a “good man”, his family life was still disturbed by these unjust policies.</p>
<p>In 1929, Mariam passed away at the age of 29 and Goolam was left to look after their four children. He feared the children would be taken away and stripped of their <a href="https://theconversation.com/long-history-with-islam-gives-indigenous-australians-pride-3521">Aboriginal Muslim</a> identity. Goolam made plans with his nephew Ibrahim, who worked on his station, to accompany his children and transport them back to Balochistan, a safer environment free from persecution. </p>
<p>On July 6 1931, they boarded the Narkunda and sailed away from Australia. In their possession were Certificates Exempting from the Dictation Test, which at the time were issued under the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1901A00017">Immigration Restriction Act 1901</a> for non-white residents to travel overseas and return to Australia. Goolam stayed in Australia to sell some of his properties and departed a year later.</p>
<p>In the decades that followed, Goolam was granted approval for extension applications for himself and his children to return to Australia. In an application dated December 13 1947, Goolam said, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know my sons were born in Western Australia and as such they are the natural Nationals of Australia. This is also an urgent matter involving as it does the future of myself and my children. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This statement demonstrates that Goolam was a fighter who never gave up advocating for the rights of his children and for future generations to return to their native land when it was safe for them to do so.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510735/original/file-20230216-22-hdch27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ghoolam and Marian’s four children, Numrose, Sabah Rind’s grandfather, the eldest, is on the right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story of Goolam and Mariam, as recounted by my family, shows the determination they had in fighting against all odds to remain married and raise their children in the manner they wanted. Goolam fought against the 1905 policies and advocated for his marriage in court. </p>
<p>He took extreme measures in protecting the Muslim and Aboriginal identities of his children by shipping them away to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Balochistan">Balochistan</a>. Goolam also advocated against the status quo and the White Australia policy by establishing a successful business as a pastoralist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kudnarto-the-kaurna-woman-who-made-south-australian-legal-history-185390">Hidden women of history: Kudnarto, the Kaurna woman who made South Australian legal history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Policies shape lives and generations</h2>
<p>I believe this strength and resilience has been passed down to Goolam and Mariam’s descendants, as we fight for our right to remain on this land as Aboriginal Muslims. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510519/original/file-20230216-26-6b3hzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the same way, we fight for causes such as the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>. It is evident that policies and legislation shape lives and generations. My family’s story is one of many that have been dictated by the laws and policies created by the white man. </p>
<p>Australia should take heed of these stories and realise the importance of enabling First Nations people to make decisions for themselves and not go through what my family experienced. These stories demonstrate why Indigenous peoples need <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-many-ways-to-achieve-indigenous-recognition-in-the-constitution-we-must-find-one-we-can-agree-on-142163">a constitutionally guaranteed First Nations Voice</a>, so we can have a fairer say in laws and policies made about us. Such a measure might have prevented, or at least improved, some of the unjust policies of the past.</p>
<p>The Uluru Statement is an opportunity to bring communities together for generations to come. Just as Goolam Badoola served his community with good intentions and sincerity, we must also revisit our intentions and instil the sincerity in this good action, to enable the empowerment of First Nations people.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/statements-soul">Statements from the Soul: The Moral Case for the Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, edited by Shireen Morris and Damian Freeman (Black Inc.).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199409/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabah Rind does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sabah Rind’s great-grandparents, a Baloch-Afghan cameleer and a Muslim Badimiya Yamitji woman, had to battle the White Australia policy and the Aborigines Act 1905 in the course of their daily lives.
Sabah Rind, Lecturer, Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165314
2021-08-12T20:02:15Z
2021-08-12T20:02:15Z
Friday essay: Our utopia … careful what you wish for
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415223/original/file-20210809-23-10wntby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C31%2C1556%2C1223&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A slide by Gordon H. Woodhouse to accompany a 1901 lecture by his father Clarence entitled 'exploration and development of Australia'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1752211">State Library of Victoria</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Roman Quaedvlieg <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-01/border-force-commissioner-operational-matters-roman-quaedvlieg/6586274">standing tall in his smart black suit</a> — medals glistening, insignia flashing — looked every bit the man-in-uniform from central casting when he posed between then Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on 1 July 2015 to launch a new paramilitary unit to protect Australia’s borders. </p>
<p>Australian Border Force was modelled on a similar agency created in Britain two years earlier but with a distinctive accent. Its <a href="https://osb.homeaffairs.gov.au/">Operation Sovereign Borders</a> had changed the culture of military, policing and customs agencies in Australia as they were pushed out of their silos with a new shared priority: stop refugees arriving by boat. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414712/original/file-20210805-17-6kt9sy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just 14 months earlier Scott Morrison, then the Immigration Minister, had <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/we-will-stop-the-boats-promise-check/5474206?nw=0">announced</a> the formation of the new armed and uniformed force, describing it as the “reform dividend from stopping the boats”. </p>
<p>The 70 year-old department had gained a new role: “Border Protection”. The old tags — “Multiculturalism”, “Citizenship” and “Ethnic Affairs” — were artefacts of other ages when population growth coupled with social cohesion had been the goal. The armed Border Force that had emerged out of the chrysalis of the old customs service, complete with new uniforms, ranks and insignia, on that mid-winter day was another sign of Canberra’s increasing preoccupation with security and militarisation. </p>
<p>Fear and safety were still at the heart of the political narrative just as they had been for most of the time since 2001, when Prime Minister John Howard won an unlikely election victory by declaring over and over: “<a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22library/partypol/1178395%22">We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances under which they come</a>”. </p>
<p>He liked to reassure people that Australia would still be taking more than its share of refugees, but the proportion of overseas-born residents fell over the early years of his prime ministership. After decades of multiculturalism the Australian ear was once again being attuned to new arrivals as threat.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cruel-costly-and-ineffective-australias-offshore-processing-asylum-seeker-policy-turns-9-166014">Cruel, costly and ineffective: Australia's offshore processing asylum seeker policy turns 9</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Taking it to the streets</h2>
<p>By 2015, Australia’s proportion of overseas-born residents was nudging the all-time high of 30% reached in the 1890s, but multiculturalism was still a grubby word. </p>
<p>Without irony, Commissioner Quaedvlieg cut to the chase, reducing the new nearly 6,000-strong agency’s role to its essence: “to protect our utopia”. Decades before, the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin had <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=krN_n7UpJI0C&lpg=PA20&ots=wt6iRtQdd3&dq=The%20idea%20of%20a%20perfect%20society%20is%20a%20very%20old%20dream%2C%20whether%20because%20of%20the%20ills%20of%20the%20present%20which%20lead%20men%20to%20conceive%20what%20their%20world%20would%20be%20like%20without%20them&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=The%20idea%20of%20a%20perfect%20society%20is%20a%20very%20old%20dream,%20whether%20because%20of%20the%20ills%20of%20the%20present%20which%20lead%20men%20to%20conceive%20what%20their%20world%20would%20be%20like%20without%20them&f=false">elegantly demolished the idea of utopias</a>, suggesting they were “a fiction deliberately constructed as satires intended to shame those who control existing regimes”. </p>
<p>A month after the launch of Border Force, its first big public exercise, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/border-force-fiasco-operation-fortitude-cancelled-as-protest-shuts-down-melbourne-streets-20150828-gjah7n.html">Operation Fortitude</a>, was announced. Officers were to walk the streets of Melbourne and seek proof of the right of residence of “any individual we cross paths with”. The warning was clear: If you commit border fraud you should know it’s only a matter of time before you are caught. </p>
<p>The residents of the Melbourne branch of “our utopia” fought back with a dose of theatricality, to prove Berlin’s point, and the joint operation with the Victorian Police was abandoned in a flurry of protests and press releases. Prime Minister Abbott <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/prime-minister-tony-abbott-says-border-force-operation-fortitude-was-a-mistake-20150829-gjammd.html">declared</a>, “Nothing happened here except the issue of a poorly worded press release”. </p>
<p>Within a couple of years, the uniformed commissioner from central casting had gone. The intent, however, remained clear. Immigration might be at an all-time high, but exclusion was still the key, and national security was at the centre of Australian public life.</p>
<h2>Ills of the past and present</h2>
<p>Deciding who could come and the circumstances under which they could enter the country has, as we have been again reminded during COVID times, been central to the management of the Australian utopia since 1901. </p>
<p>Again <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87435.The_Crooked_Timber_of_Humanity?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=VF2HdXEbmH&rank=9">Isaiah Berlin</a> notes the: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] idea of the perfect society is a very old dream, whether because of the ills of the present which lead men to conceive what their world would be like without them … or perhaps they are social fantasies – simple exercises in the poetical imagination. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Australia at the time of Federation was awash with bad poetry by mediocre poets. So if conceiving the nation as a utopia was an exercise of the poetical imagination, it was inevitably flawed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="drawing of crowd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415199/original/file-20210809-17-gj6vul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom Roberts’ depiction of the opening of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia May 9, 1901, By H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York at Melbourne’s Exhibition Buildings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1660125">State Library of Victoria/Tom Roberts</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first step towards the creation of Australia’s white utopia was brutal and relentless. It depended on the humiliation and elimination, by design and neglect, of the million First Nations people who in 1788 still called the continent home as they had done for countless generations, managed with an elaborate, ancient patchwork of languages, social relations, trade and lore. </p>
<p>Although the Australian Constitution explicitly excluded them from the census, by the time the <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/facts-and-figures/population-and-households">3.7 million</a> new arrivals became Australians in 1901, the First Nations population <a href="https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-population-in-australia#toc0">had been reduced</a>, systematically and deliberately, to about 90,000 people.</p>
<p>The men who debated the legislation that would shape the new nation preferred to avert their eyes. They were not, however, ignorant of what had gone before. </p>
<p>Even in a world shaped by race there was argument, opposition and some shame. Months after Australia became legally, unequivocally white, the parliament debated whether to recognise the survivors who preceded them. </p>
<p>The senate leader and future High Court justice <a href="https://biography.senate.gov.au/richard-edward-oconnor/">Richard O’Connor</a> argued that just as the right to vote was being extended to women — because in some states, they already had the franchise — the same principle should apply to Aboriginal people who had the right to vote in four of the former colonies. “It would be a monstrous thing, an unheard-of piece of savagery”, he declared, “to treat the Aboriginals whose land we were occupying to deprive them absolutely of any right to vote in their own country”.</p>
<p>Not everyone agreed. The former Tasmanian premier <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/braddon-sir-edward-nicholas-coventry-5330">Edward Braddon</a> summed up the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=5zHAGNPTkqIC&lpg=PA121&ots=PSKZmhnR3f&dq=Evans%2C%20R%20'Pigmentia%E2%80%99%3A%20Racial%20fears%20and%20white%20Australia%2C%20Berghahn%20Books%3B%20Meaney%2C%20The%20Sydney%20Morning%20Herald%2C%2013%20March%201913.&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=pigmentia&f=false">majority sentiment</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are told we have taken their country from them. But it seems a poor sort of justice to recompense those people for the loss of the country by giving them votes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This argument prevailed. White women and Maori were the only <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/women#:%7E:text=Section%204%20of%20the%20Commonwealth,she%20was%20already%20entitled%20to">exceptions</a>: “no aboriginal native of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Islands of the Pacific” could enrol to vote. Within its first two years, the parliament had failed two moral tests.</p>
<p>At the heart of the Australia embraced by those who met in Melbourne in the Federation Parliament was the idea of a model society populated by men like them. Utopian dreams had played out in many ways in shaping the new nation. A decade earlier, nearly 300 colonialists sailed to Paraguay in a flawed attempt to create a more perfect, and even whiter, society called <a href="https://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/1893-the-new-australia-colony-collection/index.html">New Australia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white photo of huts" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415210/original/file-20210809-23-1b1xmra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looking for an even whiter utopia, several hundred people set off for Paraguay to establish the New Australia colony between 1892–1905.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3532740438/in/photolist-6obdDU">Flickr/State Library of NSW</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prime Minister Edmund Barton, in the middle of the first year of the century, firmly <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/APF/monographs/Within_Chinas_Orbit/Chapterone">grounded the new nation</a> in the “instinct of self-preservation quickened by experience”. Optimism tempered by fear. </p>
<p>What became known as the White Australia policy was necessary, he said, because “we know that coloured and white labour cannot exist side by side; we are well aware that China can swamp us with a single year’s surplus population”. </p>
<p>Future prime minister Billy Hughes spelt out the two steps of this dance when he <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15404648">candidly observed</a> that having “killed everybody else to get it”, the inauguration of Canberra — which they considered calling Utopia — as the national capital “was unfolding without the slightest trace of the race we have banished from the face of the earth […] we should not be too proud lest we should too in time disappear. We must take steps to safeguard the foothold we now have”.</p>
<h2>Fresh eyes</h2>
<p>In 1923 Myra Willard — a recent graduate of the University of Sydney — paid Melbourne University Press to publish its first monograph, her book <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/history-of-the-white-australia-policy-to-1920-paperback-softback">History of the White Australia Policy to 1920</a>. She wrote with a contemporaneous eye. </p>
<p>The debates in the colonies before Federation were still close enough for the lines between them and the 1901 legislation to be thickly etched with detail. She grimly recounted the way each colony penalised and excluded “coolies” and “celestials”.</p>
<p>“The desire to guard themselves effectively against the dangers of Asiatic immigration was one of the most powerful influences which drew the Colonies together,” she wrote. She quoted with approval the now infamous speech by Attorney-General Alfred Deakin in which he described the principle of white Australia as the “universal motive power” that had dissolved colonial opposition to Federation. At heart, he <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/APF/monographs/Within_Chinas_Orbit/Chapterone">declared</a>, was “the desire that we should be one people and remain one people without the admixture of other races”.</p>
<p>The Australian utopia depended on a “united race”. This would be ensured by “prohibiting the intermarriage and association that could degrade”. As Deakin declaimed in September that year, “inspired by the same ideas and an aspiration towards the same ideals of a people possessing a cast of character, tone of thought … unity of race is an absolute essential to the unity of Australia”.</p>
<p>The legislation was finally, if somewhat reluctantly, signed by Governor General Lord Hopetoun just before Christmas 1901. London was discomfited by the determination of the new nation to exclude and proposed amendments to save face with her imperial allies in Europe and Japan. Willard wrote in 1923, “Australia’s policy does not as yet seem to be generally understood or sanctioned by world opinion”. It was, she maintained, despite the negative connotations, really a positive policy that ensured Australia would be a productive global contributor of resources and supplies.</p>
<p>By the time the legislation passed, those with Chinese heritage were fewer than they had been in the 19th century. It did not take long before Indian residents who had lived in Fremantle for years, as British subjects, were denied the right to return to Australia after visiting their homeland. Those of German heritage, who made up about 5% of the population at the turn of the century, soon became pariahs — wartime internment was followed by the deportation of 6,000 Australians of German heritage.</p>
<p>Gough Whitlam <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/end-of-white-australia-policy">revoked</a> the policy as one of his first acts as prime minister. </p>
<p>“Right up to our election in 1972”, he <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/756135.100_Years">recalled</a>, “there had to be, from any country outside Europe, an application for entry referred to Canberra and a confidential report on their appearance […] The photograph wasn’t enough, because by a strong light or powdering you could reduce the colour of your exposed parts. It was said that the test was in extreme cases, ‘Drop your daks’ because you can’t change the colour of your bum’.” </p>
<p>For Michael Wesley, now deputy vice chancellor international at the University of Melbourne, and thousands of others, this meant that his Australian-born mother could return home with her Indian husband and brown babies without fear of deportation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/german-experience-in-australia-during-ww1-damaged-road-to-multiculturalism-38594">German experience in Australia during WW1 damaged road to multiculturalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The echoes still resonate. Fast forward to this year, when the average time in immigration detention rose to 627 days and the then Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/peter-dutton-defends-decision-to-deport-minor-to-new-zealand-following-backlash-over-trash-comments">described</a> deporting New Zealand-born long-term Australian residents who had been jailed as “taking the trash out”. </p>
<p>The suite of bills passed in that first parliament — at least as much as the Constitution — determined the social nature of Australia for much of the 20th century. As Deakin said a couple of years after the White Australia policy was adopted, “it goes down to the roots of our national existence, the roots from which the British social system has sprung”. </p>
<p>By the time he was prime minister, the bureaucratic method of exclusion was even <a href="https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1903-alfred-deakin">clearer</a>: “the object of the [language] test is not to allow persons to enter the Commonwealth, but to keep them out”. John Howard could not have asked for a better crib sheet than the speeches of the Federation Parliament when preparing his 2001 election campaign.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FxlunUpz-Nc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘It’s about this nation saying to the world, we are a generous open-hearted people … but we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Survival against the odds</h2>
<p>That Australia has emerged as a cohesive multicultural society, with people drawn from hundreds of different countries — and increasingly from those that were once explicitly excluded — is a remarkable achievement. That the First Nations people have survived is in many ways even more remarkable. </p>
<p>But the foundation story of our notional utopia is still undigested and recurs unwittingly in policy language and political rhetoric, in legal and administrative practice and personal abuse. </p>
<p>The brutal speed and wilful political rejection of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-has-brought-a-global-reckoning-with-history-this-is-why-the-uluru-statement-is-so-crucial-149974">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> would have shamed even the members of the Federation Parliament; the failure to turn enquiry into action on the oldest issue in the land — treaty, truth-telling and settlement with the descendants of those who have always been here — is unconscionable. </p>
<p>Methods of border control are now more likely to be couched in the convoluted small print attached to visas, employment conditions and bureaucratic processes, but at some level the old order prevails — there has been no national apology to those who were humiliated by the White Australia policy, no formal truth-telling to address these sins of the past at a national level. It has taken 23 years for the compensation recommended by Stolen Children inquiry to be parsimoniously granted.</p>
<p>Hands are thrown up in mock astonishment when another example of institutional or official racism, discrimination or maltreatment makes the headlines. Over a decade, the cost of detaining (and breaking) those refugees who felt compelled to leave their homeland reached double-digit billions. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/21/australia-address-abuses-raised-un-review">International criticism</a> is once again worn with bravado as a badge of honour rather than a mark of shame. It was surprisingly easy to jettison 50 years of careful relationship-building with China.</p>
<p>Ever since those first debates in the Federation Parliament there has been a moral deficit in Australian politics, a reluctance to go back to first principles, to meaningfully make amends. Until this is addressed there will always be an action deficit. The big public health campaigns have not extended to addressing the lingering racism that has equally pernicious consequences. </p>
<p>No national political leaders rose to the defence of Adam Goodes when the 2014 Australian of the Year was called “an ape” and booed off the footy field. None came to the defence of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/yassmin-abdelmagied-on-becoming-australias-most-publicly-hated-muslim-20170816-gxxb7d.htmlv">Yassmin Abdel-Magied</a> when she sought to contribute to public life. The response to the never-ending list of Aboriginal deaths in custody is couched in mealy-mouthed administrivia. </p>
<p>When Prime Minister Julia Gillard was battered by misogynist hectoring, the message to other women was clear: don’t get ideas above your station. Almost every week a woman dies at the hands of her intimate partner, but overwhelmed police seem powerless to help. </p>
<p>Our treatment of refugees attracts a global condemnation that is dismissed as readily today as it was in 1901. Behrouz Boochani will probably never set foot in the country he described so searingly in his much awarded <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39284186-no-friend-but-the-mountains?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=LjTkWE6v8u&rank=1">No Friend but the Mountains</a>, and despite public support, the Murugappans — <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56768529">the Biloela family</a> — spent nearly three years in costly detention on Christmas Island. </p>
<p>Yet when the government banned Australian citizens and permanent residents who happened to be in India as COVID raged from returning home under threat of fines and jail terms, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/01/coalition-condemned-for-outrageous-decision-to-fine-or-imprison-australians-returning-from-india">outcry</a> was impossible to ignore. </p>
<p>The brutality of the old ways still lives in the memory. A colleague recalled her traumatic fear, during the family’s first trip to India with their Pakistani-born father, that the White Australia policy would be reintroduced and they would be denied re-entry. It had happened to those returning to Fremantle Harbour a century earlier — and, astonishingly, again in 2021.</p>
<h2>Utopia out of step</h2>
<p>Public sentiment is at odds with that of those who are most committed to the old status quo. Survey after survey shows a populace willing to embrace change that means people are treated better. But there are few leaders willing to make the case, fearful of an imagined backlash, rather than embracing the need for big tough conversation. Transformation is left to the slow accretion of a new normal. </p>
<p>Tens of thousands turned up at the football waving “<a href="https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/istandwithadam-social-media-campaign-rallies-for-sydney-swans-star-adam-goodes-20150801-gip9p9.html">I stand with Adam</a>” banners years before the AFL officially apologised to Goodes. </p>
<p>Those affronted by official treatment of refugees engage in endless protest campaigns, travel to detention centres, provide support and lobby. The Black Lives Matter movement has galvanised some of the biggest demonstrations seen in the country, despite COVID, and the calls for action on the unfinished business of the 33-old Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the other inquiries are becoming impossible to ignore.</p>
<p>There is much to be learnt from First Nations people. Their survival and generosity is an inspiration that needs to be taken seriously and acted upon. Without righting this foundational wrong, this country will be forever stuck on a political treadmill, running but going nowhere.</p>
<h2>Art speaks volumes</h2>
<p>It is striking that one of the most important Aboriginal artists to have captivated the world came from a place called <a href="https://www.rahc.com.au/sites/default/files/documents/community_profiles/Utopia%20Community%20Profile.pdf">Utopia</a>. Hers was the land of the Alyawarr people for millennia before its brief life as a cattle station. It is a place as impoverished as any of the remote settlements in northern Australia, returned to their traditional owners with only grudging support from the state. But the semi-arid country is the source of dreaming and a culture that speaks to the world when brought to life on canvas. <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/utopia/emily-kame-kngwarreye">Emily Kame Kngwarreye</a>’s paintings are displayed in galleries, palaces and private collections around the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Indigenous painting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415191/original/file-20210809-27-r9u8wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of Australia’s most famous contemporary paintings, Earth’s Creation 1, by Emily Kame Kngwarreye.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photos-cdn.aap.com.au/Preview/20171116001324130248?assetType=IMAGE&path=/aap_dev6/device/imagearc/2017/11-16/d8/07/4c/aapimage-6xkxsl8bf9v1favm02vt_minihighres.jpg">AAP Image/Emily Kame Kngwarreye</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They are more than great works of art. It is what Australian art always aspired to be. In the <a href="https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/1387/homeland-sacred-visions-and-the-settler-state/">words</a> of the influential Aboriginal scholar and advocate Marcia Langton, Emily’s paintings</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] fulfil the primary historical function of Australian art by showing the settler Australian audience, caught ambiguously between old and new lands, a new way to belong in this place rather than another […] </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Creating a utopia, or at least an aspiration to do better, requires more imagination and courage than our current system of professional politics permits. </p>
<p>It needs more art and better faith. Politics, like everything else, is now in thrall to corporate modes of organisation and communication. </p>
<p>The emphasis is on the mission (to get elected) and KPIs (to deliver on promises). The headline of every corporate plan is the “vision”. It is always the hardest thing to define. But without a vision, any plan is meaningless. Our utopia needs a new vision, one not tinged by shame. The old ones have failed the test of time.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract of Facing foundational wrongs — careful what you wish for, republished with permission from <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/editions/hey-utopia/">GriffithReview73: Hey Utopia!</a>, edited by Ashley Hay.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julianne Schultz is Professor of Media and Culture at Griffith University, publisher and founding editor of Griffith Review and chair of The Conversation Media Group. Her book The Idea of Australia: a search for the soul of the nation will be published by Allen and Unwin.
</span></em></p>
Exclusion has been central to utopian ideas of Australia since before Federation. It still lingers. To progress in this climate-challenged century, Australia’s foundational wrongs must be righted.
Julianne Schultz, Professor of Media and Culture, Griffith University, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154821
2021-04-13T20:11:49Z
2021-04-13T20:11:49Z
‘Your government makes us go’: the hidden history of Chinese Australian women at a time of anti-Asian immigration laws
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385419/original/file-20210221-15-rmzgyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mrs Chan Harr, Marjorie Wong Yee, Annie Kwok, Norma Wong Yee, Ida Kwok, and Patty Wong Yee on their arrival in Sydney from Hong Kong on the SS Changte, 8 March 1938. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/permalink/f/1ocrdrt/ADLIB110620199">ACP Magazines Ltd Photographic Archive, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (ON 388/Box 043/Item 035)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chinese Australian history is primarily told as a history of men. <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article21925?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=1925&num=&view=">Population figures</a> suggest why — in 1901, there were almost 30,000 Chinese men in Australia, yet fewer than 500 women.</p>
<p>But despite their small numbers, emerging research reveals surprising and inspiring stories of Chinese Australian women’s lives. </p>
<p>Have you ever heard, for example, of Darwin-born Lena Lee — teacher, book-keeper and vice-president of the Chinese Nationalist Party in Darwin in the late 1920s? Or of Gwen Fong — activist, student Communist and doctor, who graduated from Medicine at Melbourne University in 1947?</p>
<p>What happens to our understanding of Australian history when we look at the lives of women like these?</p>
<p>By the turn of the 20th century, the Chinese community was an established, although marginalised, part of Australian society. For more than half a century, migrants from southern China had come to the Australian colonies in pursuit of new opportunities to support themselves and their families.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394694/original/file-20210413-17-algknw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tutoy Chinn and Charles Wong Hee with their wedding party, Launceston, Tasmania, 1904.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Frank Chinn Collection, Chinese Museum, Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost all of the Chinese who came to colonial Australia were men. Most were labour migrants who came to the colonies to work and send money home — often known as “sojourners”. Over time some established lives and livelihoods in Australia and saw a future for themselves there.</p>
<p>A comparatively small number of wives and children came out to join their husbands, while other men formed local families with white women or Aboriginal women. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/twelve-charts-on-race-and-racism-in-australia-105961">Twelve charts on race and racism in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Barriers to migration</h2>
<p>From the earliest days of Chinese immigration to Australia, Chinese men noted how the difficulties they faced meant that they would not, for the most part, contemplate relocating their families. As well as laws and policies that restricted the rights of Chinese, the day-to-day living conditions in the colonies could be harsh and isolating, particularly in goldmining settlements and rural districts.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394693/original/file-20210413-13-15z5g7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lula Chinn (seated) with her two eldest daughters, Tutoy (left) and Toogee (right), and her companion Leng Hen, Tasmania, c. 1891.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frank Chinn Collection, Chinese Museum, Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Can it be wondered at?”, asked Louis Ah Mouy, Cheok Hong Cheong and Lowe Kong Meng in their famous 1879 treatise on <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-390343150">The Chinese Question in Australia</a>. Since Chinese were treated as “outcasts and pariahs” and “subject to be insulted and assaulted by the ‘larrikins’ of Australia”, why would they bring out their wives and families too?</p>
<p>From the Chinese perspective, there were also strong reasons for women to stay put.</p>
<p>Most Chinese in Australia came from the rural Pearl River Delta region in the southern province of Guangdong. In their home communities, life was centred around the ancestral home and village, and married women took on the role of caring for their parents-in-law, bearing and raising their husband’s children, and tending to the ancestral shrines of their husband’s family.</p>
<p>Few women had the autonomy to migrate overseas except as wife or daughter, or perhaps as a maid servant. The migration of women and girls to Australia mostly therefore took place within the context of the family.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394696/original/file-20210413-17-oyelmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fanny Chok See, her husband James Choy Hing and their children, Dorothy May Choy Hing, James Choy Hing and Pauline Ah Hee, Sydney, 1912.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia: SP244/2, N1950/2/4918</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Overlooked, not absent</h2>
<p>Population figures show the comparatively small numbers of Chinese women in Australia over the 19th and early 20th centuries — but they also show that Chinese women and girls were, in fact, present.</p>
<p>The numbers of Chinese women and girls in Australia grew as the decades passed, through migration and, more significantly, through the birth of daughters on Australian soil. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391890/original/file-20210326-17-1yp4e1o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘A Chinese Lady at Home in Castlereagh-Street’, Sydney Mail, 15 February 1879.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was despite 19th-century anti-Chinese immigration laws and the continuation of discriminatory measures under the White Australia Policy after 1901. Keeping Chinese women out was central to the maintenance of White Australia. As Prime Minister Alfred Deakin <a href="https://hyp.is/oh93wo4GEeuoPzsq4xim0A/historichansard.net/hofreps/1905/19051206_reps_2_30/">remarked in parliament in 1905</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we were to throw open the door to an influx of Chinese women and children we should reverse the policy […] and undo all the good we have accomplished.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Researching the lives of Chinese Australian women in the past poses particular challenges, from the seemingly simple task of identifying their names to locating historical sources that tell us about their lives. The fragmentary traces of Chinese Australian women’s lives — particularly those in the 19th century — necessitate a creative approach. We need to use a diverse range of sources — from birth certificates to wedding photographs to interviews with descendants. </p>
<h2>Locating women in the past</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1239&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1239&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391884/original/file-20210326-13-1x9j0a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1239&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of Ham Hop, her husband Poon Gooey and their daughters, Lena (left) and Queenie (right), on their departure for China in May 1913, from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, 12 May 1913.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia: A1, 1913/9139</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our <a href="https://hkupress.hku.hk/pro/1811.php">new book</a> reveals the surprising, engaging and inspiring stories that emerge when we take the time to look for evidence of Chinese Australian women’s lives.</p>
<p>Ham Hop and Mary Chong are two examples.</p>
<p>Ham Hop was born in c. 1883 and came to Australia as the wife of a Geelong businessman in 1910. The couple had married a decade earlier in China but had lived apart ever since.</p>
<p>Arriving on a temporary permit under the Immigration Restriction Act, Ham Hop became a cause célèbre as her husband fought for her to be allowed to remain in the country permanently. </p>
<p>Despite widespread public support, particularly from the Christian churches, Ham Hop and her two Australian-born daughters left Australia in 1913 on the threat of deportation. Ham Hop was <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229840924">reported to have said</a> on her departure:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is your Government I don’t like. The people would let us stay. The people are very nice. But your Government makes us go.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mary Chong, like Ham Hop’s two daughters, was born Australia, in Dubbo in 1908. Mary became the first Chinese woman to graduate from an Australian university (USyd, BA 1929, DipEd 1930). Fluent in English and Cantonese, after graduating she became English Secretary for the Consul General of China in Australia.</p>
<p>Mary’s career then took her to China, where she learnt Mandarin and worked in government and the media in the 1930s and 1940s. Later in life she returned to Australia with her Chinese American husband and their children.</p>
<p>By looking closely at the stories of Chinese Australia women and girls — like Mary Chong, Ham Hop, Gwen Fong and Lena Lee — we learn new things about our nation’s history and about its long connections with China. </p>
<p>We also see how, growing up in and between countries and cultures, Chinese Australian women’s lives were shaped — but not necessarily defined – by social, familial and political forces around them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Bagnall has received funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia T. Martínez receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
In 1901, there were almost 30,000 Chinese men in Australia but fewer than 500 women. Despite their small numbers, emerging research reveals surprising stories of Chinese Australian women’s lives.
Kate Bagnall, Senior Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania
Julia T. Martínez, Associate Professor, University of Wollongong
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150283
2021-02-08T19:06:39Z
2021-02-08T19:06:39Z
From lurid orange sauces to refined, regional flavours: how politics helped shape Chinese food in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382917/original/file-20210208-13-3jscrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C7%2C2393%2C1812&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Chinese community dinner in Sydney, some time in the 1930s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">City of Sydney Archives</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/australian-culinary-histories-97720">this series</a>, our writers explore how food shaped Australian history – and who we are today.</em></p>
<p>The first whiffs of Chinese cooking in mid-19th century Australia would have emanated from tiny huts owned by Chinese workers in the <a href="http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/109917/life-on-the-goldfields-living-there.pdf">goldfields</a>. There, they faced racial hostility from the European miners, culminating in the Lambing Flat riots in New South Wales in 1860-61, where Chinese residents of the fields were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/07/the-riots-history-erased-reckoning-with-the-racism-of-lambing-flat">physically assaulted</a> and had their camps set on fire.</p>
<p>Chinese cooks were also employed in farms and factories and sold food from “cookshops” in the various urban centres for other migrants, such as Sydney’s Chinese furniture factory workers. </p>
<p>Locally sourced meat, seafood and vegetables were complemented by imported <a href="https://www.academia.edu/41138794/Voices_of_Sydneys_Chinese_Furniture_Factory_Workers_1890_1920">ingredients</a> such as Cantonese sausage, tofu, lychee nuts, black fungus and bamboo shoots. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C610&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C610&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373220/original/file-20201207-23-anyi0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Alloo’s Chinese restaurant traded in Ballarat during the gold rush, as pictured here in 1853.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the late 1800s, about <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-21/humble-chinese-diner-mapped-by-food-historians/7187218">a third of commercial cooks</a> in Australia were Chinese. </p>
<p>But when it came to the development of Chinese cuisine here, food and politics were deeply entangled. The <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/immigration-and-citizenship/immigration-restriction-act-1901">White Australia Policy of 1901</a>, its amendment in the 1930s and abolition in 1973; the Tiananmen Square protest and other political developments all had consequences for Australia’s Chinese restaurant trade. </p>
<h2>From the mines to the cities</h2>
<p>When the gold rush years ended, Chinese miners flocked to the cities to start restaurants. The public taste in the first half of 20th century Australia <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1320410">shifted from mutton to lamb</a>, before shifting further. While there were newspaper <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/209085277">caricatures</a> of Chinese people eating or selling cats and rats, some Anglo-Australians were soon attracted to flavours other than the one meat and three veg.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-story-of-fook-shing-colonial-victorias-chinese-detective-94017">Friday essay: the story of Fook Shing, colonial Victoria's Chinese detective</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Anti-Chinese sentiment and other factors led to the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 – known as the White Australia Policy — restricting migration from Asia and the Pacific.</p>
<p>Most of Australia’s Chinese population before the White Australia policy were from <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137522238">Guangdong and served Cantonese fare</a>. It was this food which took a foothold.</p>
<p>From the early 1900s, Chinese restaurants were concentrated in Chinatowns in Australia, as happened elsewhere <a href="http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781861891334&m=705&dc=899">around the world</a>. Alongside food, these enclaves provided <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443050309387854">networks</a> for Chinese labour, trade and provisioning Chinese ingredients. </p>
<p>The Australian public started eating at Chinese restaurants from the 1930s, or brought saucepans from home for takeaway meals. Chicken chow mein, chop suey and sweet and sour pork were the mainstays. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374742/original/file-20201214-13-26tpel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This photograph, taken for the Australian Consolidated Press in 1939, shows a Chinese Australian family eating dumplings together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The latter — together with other dishes smothered in sweet sticky sauces — became the lurid-orange epitome of Chinese cuisine for many Anglo Australians.</p>
<p>This fondness was aided and abetted by Chinese cooks who thought this sweetness was what Westerners thought of — and wanted from — Chinese food. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fried food covered in an orange sauce." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374991/original/file-20201215-20-12uluv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For many Anglo-Australians, ‘Chinese food’ was defined by lurid-orange sauces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Drew Taylor/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>After White Australia</h2>
<p>When the White Australia Policy ended, a new wave of more educated and affluent Chinese arrived. Settling in suburbs, they did not require the infrastructure of Chinatown. Later, from the 1980s, international Chinese students took up residence near university campuses. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of young Asian and white women talking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375012/original/file-20201215-20-86hd5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With increasing Chinese migration in the 1980s, Chinese food could be found in the suburbs as well as the cities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Victoria © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With this, Chinese restaurants and provision stores were no longer found only in Chinatown. Still, the survival of Chinatowns depends on the Chinese food industry: in restaurants, cafes and grocery shops. The <a href="https://cpes.org.uk/om/items/show/179">majority</a> of Chinese restaurants in Australia are of the mum-and-dad variety and not part of global fast food conglomerates. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sydneys-chinatown-is-much-more-of-a-modern-bridge-to-asia-than-a-historic-enclave-94482">Sydney's Chinatown is much more of a modern bridge to Asia than a historic enclave</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Both resident and transient Chinese consume and purchase Chinese goods in Chinatown for two reasons: to consume the familiar foods of home or childhood and to <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137522238">reconnect</a> with their culture. And in eating Chinese meals in Chinatown, Australians show off their global palate by tasting a foreign and yet familiar cuisine.</p>
<h2>Tiananmen and Hong Kong</h2>
<p>Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, the Australian government granted <a href="https://www.scmp.com/article/50114/chinese-students-win-right-stay-australia">permanent residence</a> to 20,000 Chinese international students. </p>
<p>They brought food practices from many different regions of China. Importing their own particular ingredients and cooking methods, restaurants started offering cuisines from Hunan, Sichuan, Beijing and Shanghai. </p>
<p>In the years before and after Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, numerous Cantonese chefs migrated to Australia. Locals at the time boasted that the best Hong Kong Cantonese food in the world was found in Perth’s Northbridge.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chinese greens" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374990/original/file-20201215-21-ee335h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Chinese food is becoming increasingly diverse and refined.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hanxiao/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today the discerning restaurant diner in Australia looks more for regional foods from China: the hot chilli lamb and noodles from Uyghur cuisine, the delicate dumplings of Shanghai, the Beijing hot pot. “Chinese food” is no longer a good enough descriptor for the variety of cuisines available in Australia.</p>
<p>But while Australians can now eat Peking duck and <em>xiao long bao</em> (soup dumplings), the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant — with its sweet and sour pork and chow mein — still exists across Australia in a culinary time warp. It is evidence of the enduring love for Chinese food here. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic means this week’s Lunar New Year will be different. Usually marked by an obligatory reunion dinner, this year not every family member will be at the dining table — but every dining table is sure to be piled high with food.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cecilia Leong-Salobir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From Cantonese sausage on the goldfields, to mid-century sweet and sour pork, to today’s delicate xiao long bao, Chinese food in Australia has come a long way.
Cecilia Leong-Salobir, Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150370
2020-12-27T20:41:52Z
2020-12-27T20:41:52Z
From curried wombat to rendang and doro wat: a brief history of curry in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373213/original/file-20201207-72125-1h8ivdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C3462%2C2580&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andy Hay/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In a new series, our writers explore how food shaped Australian history – and who we are today.</em></p>
<p>Curry occupies a <a href="https://eprints.utas.edu.au/23775/">grey area in Australia</a>: sometimes exotic and other, sometimes ordinary, often a bit of both.</p>
<p>Advertised in Australia as early as <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/628816">1813</a>, curry powder was a familiar ingredient for British colonists, developed in British India through a process of “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Food-Culture-in-Colonial-Asia-A-Taste-of-Empire/Leong-Salobir/p/book/9781138785151">negotiation and collaboration</a>”. </p>
<p>Curry powder was a food of empire. </p>
<p>For the British colonialists who moved to Australia, curry powder was an “<a href="http://australianhumanitiesreview.org/2011/11/01/nineteenth-century-experimentation-and-the-role-of-indigenous-foods-in-australian-food-culture/">agent of transformation</a>”. In a new country with unusual animals, these spices could <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2842722551/view?partId=nla.obj-2842722733">render</a> the unfamiliar into the familiar, as in “Iguana” tail curry and curried wattle bird.</p>
<p>Writing in the Melbourne Herald in 1874, journalist Marcus Clarke <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245308912">said</a> a man who had not eaten curried wombat “has not used his opportunities”.</p>
<p>In his 1893 dietary advice publication <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007668492">The art of living in Australia</a>, physician Philip Muskett proposed vegetable curry as a suitable national dish.</p>
<p>By the early 20th century, curry was a standard feature of Australian cookbooks and recipes. Curry powder was a given pantry item. In most discussions, curry barely rated a second mention: it was known, accepted and widely eaten. </p>
<h2>Sugar and spice and all things nice</h2>
<p>Keen’s curry powder was first blended in Hobart in the 1860s by British immigrant <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/keen-joseph-13019/text23539">Joseph Keen</a>. By the 1960s, the company was promising curries “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47473250">fit for a Maharajah</a>” such as <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46448968">Murgh Korma</a> and <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/5342149">Kare Daging</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A very ugly looking curry on spaghetti with lemons" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373211/original/file-20201207-72125-1epnbnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An issue Women’s Weekly in 1948 listed a recipe for ‘curried steak with spaghetti’, including one dessertspoon of curry powder, two dessertspoons of sultanas and two apples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/4784207">Trove</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But these promises of a “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/42113628">rich true Indian flavour</a>” were undermined by the use of stereotypes to sell their product. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46448968">advertisement</a> from 1965 read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To the Indian housewife, “curry” means a richly spiced sauce … Indians curry anything. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Keen’s suggested recipes included ingredients such as canned fruit, plum jam, sultanas and tomato sauce alongside the curry powder.</p>
<p>From the 1930s, Australians developed a fashion for sweeter curries — perhaps initially stemming from the need to substitute unavailable souring agents such as tamarind. </p>
<p>But it also reflected a sweetening Australian palate and successful marketing campaigns by companies such as Golden Circle, who suggested meat curries be <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/5524551#">topped with their</a> tinned pineapples. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373210/original/file-20201207-15-14qdcgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1965 ad for Golden Circle pineapples, the perfect topping for your curry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/5524551#">Trove</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A recipe for “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/166673616">Australian Curry</a>” published in the 1981 Catholic Women’s League of Tasmania cookbook is characteristic of these tastes, featuring tinned pineapple, a granny smith apple, two bananas, meat, a tin of tomato soup and one dessertspoon of curry powder. </p>
<h2>Looking outward</h2>
<p>From the 1960s, sweet Australianised curries increasingly competed with a trend of heightened (although often questionable) cultural knowledge in the context of Australia’s broader cultural, economic and political change. </p>
<p>Post the second world war, a booming economy allowed for greater emphasis on lifestyle and travel. Increasingly aware of our proximity to Asia, Australia shifted its gaze to its own neighbourhood. There was a boom in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/hic3.12071">international food</a> in restaurants, on television and in homes.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/colombo-plan-an-initiative-that-brought-australia-and-asia-closer-3590">Colombo Plan</a> and <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-vietnamese-refugees-who-changed-white-australia">Vietnam War</a> resulted in greater migration from Asian countries. The White Australia Policy was abolished in 1973, and an international movement for social equality and civil rights movements reverberated through the nation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colombo-plan-an-initiative-that-brought-australia-and-asia-closer-3590">Colombo Plan: An initiative that brought Australia and Asia closer</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Australians integrated foods from the Asia-Pacific region – including the incorporation of dishes from cuisines other than India under the label “curry”, such as Thai green curry. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Complete Asian Cookbook Solomon Charmaine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373208/original/file-20201206-15-1kxw9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1972, Charmaine Solomon published her first book, the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4649099-south-east-asian-cookbook">South East Asian Cookbook</a>, with recipes for Indonesian rendang daging and Burmese fish kofta curry. Her second, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1111992.The_Complete_Asian_Cookbook">The Complete Asian Cookbook</a> (1976), became one of the most influential cookbooks in Australia.</p>
<p>Solomon’s family heritage from Sri Lanka, Burma and India is reflected in <a href="https://www.booksforcooks.com.au/pages/books/0727100998-01/charmaine-solomon/south-east-asian-cookbook">her recipes</a>, moving Australian curries away from sweetened sauces and generic curry powders and towards more nuanced and complex tastes. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9382567-the-curry-cookbook">1980</a>, she pledged to work with Australian tastes, but would not put up with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>those strange and spurious dishes that masquerade under the name of curry and are only the leftover roast disguised in a yellow sauce thickened with flour and flavoured with what some people are pleased to call “curry” [with] bits of apple, banana and sultanas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Solomon’s history reminds us of how people move — carrying and adapting culinary customs but also contributing to the food cultures of their adopted homes. </p>
<p>From the late 1960s, Australian cookbooks and magazines shifted towards recipes for more subtle and refined curries. “Australianised” curries didn’t disappear, but knowledge of regional and cultural variations gradually increased.</p>
<p>South Asian migrants opened restaurants and takeaways, tending to offer a stable repertoire of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jul/21/they-wanted-tandoori-chicken-australias-slow-embrace-of-regional-indian-cuisine">North Indian dishes</a>, reflecting both migration patterns and an Anglo-Australian preference for familiar flavours. </p>
<h2>An evolving food culture</h2>
<p>Our understanding of curry hasn’t stopped evolving. Australians are still encountering and remaking foods from around the world as curry, and new migrants are expanding our cultural understanding and diets.</p>
<p>From Ethiopian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_(food)">Doro Wat</a> to Afghani <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/afghan-braised-chicken-yoghurt-and-turmeric-lawang">Lawang</a>, curry is still at once ordinary and exotic. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B4BkIFtFq5C","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Food is never just food. What we ingest becomes part of us, and can be a statement of who we are: a marker of identity. It has the capacity to unite or divide. </p>
<p>While food can signal the boundaries of cultures between “us” and “them”, it can also mark the spaces where these delineations break down.</p>
<p>I wonder what sort of curry Muskett might propose as a national dish today?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frieda Moran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Originally made with curry powders imported by British colonialists, Australia’s understanding of curry has come a long way.
Frieda Moran, PhD Candidate, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136257
2020-04-23T20:00:59Z
2020-04-23T20:00:59Z
Friday essay: Japanese Australian veterans and the legacy of anti-Asian racism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329732/original/file-20200422-47815-kenbgy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C8%2C2957%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Japanese internees starting to leave the train which brought them from Hay on their way to the Loveday Internment Camp Group in the Barmera area (1943, Renmark, South Australia).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C280130">Australian War Memorial/Photo: Hedley Keith Cullen</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on our usual way of life, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-coronavirus-pandemic-a-war-135486">language of war</a> proliferates. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/pandemic/12103600">called</a> it the “the battle that all Australians are enlisted in as we fight this virus”. French President Emmanuel Macron has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/51917380/coronavirus-we-are-at-war-macron">declared</a>: “We are at war”; and US President Donald Trump is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/donald-trump-boris-johnson-coronavirus">calling himself</a> the “wartime president”.</p>
<p>For Asian Australians, and temporary Asian migrants, this fervour has brought increased <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-01/coronavirus-has-sparked-racist-attacks-on-asian-australians/11918962">racist attacks</a> against them. This kind of xenophobia is common in wartime, and for Japanese Australians it was most pronounced during and after the second world war.</p>
<p>In considering the significance of the upcoming Anzac Day, we look back at the experiences of two of the estimated two dozen Japanese Australians (or Nikkei) who enlisted. Reflecting on their treatment during wartime, we ask what their stories reveal about the pressures on Asian Australians now. </p>
<h2>Under the radar</h2>
<p>Japanese people started migrating to Australia in the mid-19th century - before the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy">White Australia Policy</a> (established in 1901 as the Immigration Restriction Act). Some of the <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch02.pdf">earliest Japanese migrants</a> were circus performers, pearl divers, and sex workers. Japanese communities were established in cities including Broome and Darwin where the pearling industry was strong.</p>
<p>These migrants, referred to around the world as Nikkei migrants, established livelihoods and families in Australia, both within cultural groups and after marrying white and Aboriginal Australians. By the second world war, there were <a href="https://www.cowrajapanesecemetery.org/">more than 1,000</a> people of Japanese descent living in Australia.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://newvoices.org.au/volume-10/the-experiences-of-nikkei-australian-soldiers-during-world-war-ii/">28 Australians of Japanese descent</a> who served. However, there may be more. Unlike their American brethren, including the famous <a href="https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/04/05/this-japanese-american-army-unit-is-the-reason-we-celebrate-national-go-for-broke-day/">Japanese-American 100th/442nd Infantry Regiment</a> who became the most decorated unit in US military history, Australians of Japanese heritage were officially prohibited from enlisting. Those who did serve were only able to do so by hiding their roots.</p>
<p>There were two reasons for this. The first was a blanket ban on all non-Europeans from enlisting. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1910A00037">Defence Act on 1910</a> exempted all those who were “not substantially of European origin or descent” (as determined by an appointed medical professional) from miltary service. Nikkei were not considered for military armed service roles, or even translation and interpretation roles — despite the knowledge some had of both English and Japanese that made them suitable for such functions. </p>
<p>The second reason for their prohibition from military service was the classification of all Japanese as enemy aliens, leading to their <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/japanese-survivors-recall-australia-s-wwii-civilian-internment-camps">mass internment in civilian camps</a> during wartime. Around 4,000 Japanese (including Japanese Australians) were imprisoned. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329743/original/file-20200422-47815-1vttp53.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japanese internees at Tatura line up for dental parade in 1943.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike German and Italian Australians, who were selectively interned and largely consisted of adult men, a more blanket approach to the internment of Japanese. Australian-born citizens with Japanese heritage, young children and even Australian spouses were interned in camps, along with elderly residents who had been in Australia since before the White Australia Policy. Many were deported to Japan after the war.</p>
<p>In spite of this, we know at least 28 Nikkei did enlist.</p>
<p>One of them was a man named <a href="https://newvoices.org.au/excerpt-nikkei-australian-soldiers-world-war-ii-shannon-whiley-nvjs10/">Mario Takasuka</a>. Born in Mildura to <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/takasuka-jo-8741">Japanese rice cultivators Jo and Michiko Takasuka</a>, Mario worked as an orchardist before his enlistment. Although arriving at the height of the White Australia Policy, the Takasuka family were able to enter and remain in Australia for an extended period because of their important cultivation research, which eventually led to them being the first rice growers in Australia.</p>
<h2>Rejected twice</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329737/original/file-20200422-47815-1rcic07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mario Takasuka on leave in Cairo, 1941.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1735242">State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1940, Mario volunteered locally to join the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF). After being rejected twice at his local enlistment centre, he was eventually accepted after travelling to Melbourne, where his Japanese heritage was unknown and the recruiting officer happened to be unaware of the military regulations excluding non-Europeans.</p>
<p>Mario initially served in Crete and Alexandria in the 2/3 Light Anti-Aircraft regiment. However, after Japan entered the war at the end of 1941, military authorities went to great lengths to have him removed, including launching an <a href="https://newvoices.org.au/volume-10/the-experiences-of-nikkei-australian-soldiers-during-world-war-ii/">enquiry</a> into “the presence of a full-blooded Japanese in the Australian army”.</p>
<p>Within his unit, Mario was well liked, and his commanding officer fought hard to keep him deployed, <a href="https://newvoices.org.au/volume-10/the-experiences-of-nikkei-australian-soldiers-during-world-war-ii/">stating</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>His record as a soldier both in and out of action has been exemplary and in consideration of his outstanding service in Crete, I selected him for promotion as a bombardier. He is most popular with the men in his [battalion] and the recent declaration of war against Japan has in no way affected his popularity or his ambition to serve. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks to this support, Mario was able to remain with his unit and went on to serve in Palestine, where he received a written commendation from his general for his efforts in a train crash rescue. He was then promoted to gun sergeant and deployed to New Guinea. Mario returned from the war in 1945 and continued to live in Australia until his death in 1999, aged 89.</p>
<h2>Brother Sho</h2>
<p>The Takasukas were well-respected within their local community. Mario’s older sister Aiko was a school teacher, and his older brother Sho was the <a href="http://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/government---local/display/104960-sho-takasuka-">first Japanese born Australian citizen to hold a local government position</a>. Sho did not serve in the second world war, but was a member of the volunteer defence force until his internment in 1941. </p>
<p>Unlike Mario, Sho was Japanese by birth and the military was unwilling to consider him for service. He was interned as a result. The local community fought hard for his release, with some members going so far as to testify on the family’s behalf at the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/research/guide/pow-civilian">Aliens Tribunal</a>. </p>
<p>Sho is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1crmh.12?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">described</a> in the tribunal minutes as being “as loyal a citizen as any living in our district… always willing to help”, and the family reputation was “absolutely one of the best”.</p>
<p>The Swan Hill police force apparently felt ashamed and embarrassed at the prospect of arresting the Takasuka family, and sought advice from the Attorney General about circumventing the regulations. The Takasukas’s tomato farm was supplying food to the Department of Defence after all. These examples of community involvement led to Sho Takasuka being released and allowed to remain within a 14 kilometre radius of his farm.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329749/original/file-20200422-47794-3kamn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jo and Ichiko Takasuka surrounded by their rice crop, circa. 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1735234">State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Born in Japan</h2>
<p>Others were treated more harshly still. Unlike Mario Takasuka, Joseph Suzuki was born in Japan and migrated to Australia with his Australian mother just six months after his birth. <a href="https://newvoices.org.au/volume-10/the-experiences-of-nikkei-australian-soldiers-during-world-war-ii/">On June 19, 1940</a> he registered for service in the AIF in Sydney, falsely listing his birthplace as Geelong and raising his age from 17 to 22.</p>
<p>Joseph served in the 2/1 Survey Regiment in Australia until February 21, 1941, when his identity was discovered. He was discharged “on racial grounds” and was interned at the Japanese Internment camp in Hay, NSW.</p>
<p>Suzuki was steadfast in his fight to prove his loyalties to the Australian government. He applied for release from internment and on May 13, 1942 stood before a tribunal where he emphasised his desire to assist the war effort in any way he could, including being prepared to take the risk of being taken prisoner or shot as a traitor by the Japanese military. </p>
<p>Joseph had a tattoo of a map of Australia, and in an <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n3973/pdf/book.pdf">interview</a> with researcher Yuriko Nagata, his sister spoke of him as always being a loyal Australian, adding “the proof is that he got a medal from the Queen”. Suzuki later told The <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Unwanted-aliens-Japanese-internment-Australia-Goshu/19392567455/bd">Sunday Telegraph in an interview</a> that he was “an Australian to the backbone”.</p>
<p>Although the tribunal concluded in 1942 that Suzuki should be released, he remained interned until August 21, 1944. This was due to reports from the Australian Military Forces (AMF) Eastern Command in July 1942 which <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1037139022000036968">argued that</a> as a person with Japanese heritage born in Japan, Suzuki was under “the influence of the fatalistic Emperor cult; [and] the obligation on Japanese to report intelligence to the Consulate”. It said “evidence of conversion to Christianity was no argument for Australian orientation”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329733/original/file-20200422-47832-ivxqdx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two Japanese internees on a Holland celery planter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C199423">Australian War Memorial/Photo: Hedley Keith Cullen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The military was also concerned Suzuki’s skills as a surveyor would be useful to the enemy. Further, his Security Service assessment presented to the government argued that “the son of a Japanese is always regarded as a Japanese even if he had some other nationality”. Because of his prolonged internment, Suzuki’s mental health suffered and he was hospitalised. This eventually triggered his release. </p>
<p>Suzuki and several of the other “mixed race” or Australian-born internees did not get along with the Japanese nationals in the camp. They were referred to as The Gang and were segregated in a separate tent. Suzuki said the other internees were friendly enough, but they had to “try to speak English” to communicate with him, as he did not speak any Japanese. Suzuki’s actions at Hay served as the inspiration for a fictional character named Peter Suzuki in <a href="http://www.christinepiper.com/after-darkness">After Darkness</a>, the 2014 Vogel’s Literary Award-winning novel by Christine Piper.</p>
<p>After his release, Suzuki returned to Newcastle, where he was naturalised on June 12, 1945. He eventually changed his surname due to continued discrimination. In Yuriko Nagata’s influential book on Australian internment, <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Unwanted-aliens-Japanese-internment-Australia-Goshu/19392567455/bd">Unwanted Aliens</a>, Joseph’s sister Hannah stresses she does not want Joseph to be contacted for research, as it would upset him too much.</p>
<h2>A sense of belonging</h2>
<p>Mario Takasuka and his family experienced acceptance from the Australian communities around them. They had deep social ties and their loyalty was never in question. Suzuki, on the other hand, was continually rejected by his nation for being half-Japanese. Despite his loyalty to the nation and his white heritage, he was regarded an enemy and this resulted in significant psychological pain.</p>
<p>Many Asian Australians will be experiencing an array of feelings to do with their sense of belonging to the nation right now. Do they feel included? Are they targeted for their race?</p>
<p>Earlier this year, it was reported planned Anzac Day celebrations at RSLs in WA were going to take place strictly in English and without Aboriginal flags or Welcome to Country. Thankfully this divisive approach was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/21/calls-for-wa-rsl-to-reverse-offensive-ban-on-welcome-to-country-and-aboriginal-flag-at-anzac-day-ceremonies">overturned</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329740/original/file-20200422-47820-1b14cz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lest we forget.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562566898-65907ff8c9c7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=3334&q=80">Unsplash/Trevor Kay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other Anzac Day ceremonies proffer a more inclusive attitude celebrating <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac-day/atsivsaa">Aboriginal diggers</a> and other ethnically diverse soldiers – including <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-25/chinese-soldiers-reflect-on-forgotten-anzac-history/11037594">Chinese Australians</a>. Reflecting on Takasuka and Suzuki’s lives prompts us to imagine the version of Australia we want on Anzac Day – especially in these alarming times of social isolation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-22/racist-coronavirus-graffiti-sprayed-on-family-home-in-melbourne/12170162">Asian Australians</a> are among the vulnerable groups in our society during this pandemic. Wartime Nikkei histories may give us some perspective on the present. </p>
<p>It’s significant that so few Japanese Australian families share their internment stories. Just 141 Nikkei Australians were allowed to stay after the war; the rest were repatriated to Japan. As such, post-war Japanese Australian migrant identity was not built on the particular shared trauma of marginalisation that internment represents. Conversely in the US, <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-protestant-ethnic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism/9780231124218">internment galvanised the community</a> into a powerful cultural and political force.</p>
<p>Nikkei Australian stories raise questions about Asian Australian responses to marginalisation. Joseph Suzuki remained loyal to a nation that repeatedly rejected and ostracised him. Is this a likely response from Asian Australians in the current COVID-19 climate? </p>
<p>Many Japanese Americans rejected former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/01/andrew-yang-coronavirus-discrimination/">call in the Washington Post</a> early this month for Asian Americans to “embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before”. They recalled the pain of wartime internment, saying that now (and indeed, then) “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/japanese-americans-speak-out-against-andrew-yang-s-call-asian-n1176126">being American should have been enough</a>”. </p>
<p>It wasn’t possible to form an Asian Australian community response to racist attitudes during the second world war. It isn’t entirely clear if that is possible today. However, Mario Takasuka’s story does show us that Australians of different backgrounds can band together to defy racism and support each other in hardship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Reflecting on the wartime treatment of two Japanese Australians (or Nikkei) raises the spectre of our racist past - and can prompt us to consider the vulnerabilities of Asian Australians today.
Timothy Kazuo Steains, Lecturer in Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
Shannon Whiley, Researcher, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105961
2018-11-27T19:08:36Z
2018-11-27T19:08:36Z
Twelve charts on race and racism in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246954/original/file-20181122-149700-6apyr1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C1468%2C736&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s population is growing fast, ticking over 25 million in <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-small-cities-bigger-will-help-better-distribute-australias-25-million-people-101180">August 2018</a>. And as the population increases, it is also becoming more diverse.</p>
<p>At the time of the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7ECultural%20Diversity%20Article%7E60">2016 Census</a>, Australia’s population comprised people from more than 190 countries and 300 different ancestries. Almost half the population were either first- or second-generation Australian, and more than 300 different languages were spoken in homes.</p>
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<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-313" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/313/abc71c80f9ea0aa74e5db59f92735425556d36b9/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>But we are still predominantly an Anglo society, reflected in the number of people who identity as English, Scottish or Irish. Collectively, Anglo ancestries made up more than 50% of the population (excluding people who identified as Australian).</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the majority of the population are born here — about two out of three people (or about 67%) were born in Australia. </p>
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<p><iframe id="YZmqP" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/YZmqP/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>But this is changing. The number of overseas-born residents has steadily increased since the second world war.</p>
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<p>The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has also increased in recent years, with 2.8% of the population identifying as Indigenous in 2016.</p>
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<p>Prior to the war, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, commonly referred to as <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">the White Australia policy</a>, resulted in a <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3412.0Main%20Features32014-15?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3412.0&issue=2014-15&num=&view">rapid decrease</a> in the proportion of overseas-born residents, from almost 30% in 1894 to around 17% in 1911, reaching a low of 9.8% in 1947.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>After the second world war, the then immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, relaxed the policy to allow refugees from Europe to settle in Australia. The White Australia policy was completely removed by the mid-1970s. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247138/original/file-20181125-149320-1we2g9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>People from the United Kingdom continue to be the largest migrant group – more than 1 million people living in Australia were born in the UK. But the proportion of UK-born residents has decreased significantly, from about 12% of Australia’s population in 1921 to just under 5% in 2016. </p>
<p>Of the overseas-born population, nearly one in five (18%) people arrived since the start of 2012.</p>
<p>And nearly as many people had at least one parent born overseas (45%) as had both parents born in Australia (47%).</p>
<hr>
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<p>Though we tend of think of Australia as being multicultural, we actually <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-and-least-culturally-diverse-countries-in-the-world/">rank relatively low</a> in terms of diversity. But the above charts show that this is changing. And Australians generally seem to support diversity.</p>
<p>A survey done by the <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/challengingracism/challenging_racism_project/about_the_challenging_racism_project">Challenging Racism Project</a> (Western Sydney University) found that 80% of survey respondents felt positive about cultural diversity.</p>
<hr>
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<hr>
<p>The report also found that people’s views about different cultures and ethnic groups are complex, and sometimes contradictory. </p>
<p>Despite the positive views about diversity, people were not as supportive of non-discriminatory immigration policies, with only about 53% supporting that view and 23% opposed.</p>
<hr>
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<p>Almost 50% of Australians thought that overseas arrivals should assimilate into Australian culture.</p>
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<hr>
<p>Most troublingly, the report found that 32% of survey respondents have “negative” feelings towards Muslim Australians, and 22% said they have “negative” feelings towards Australians of Middle-Eastern heritage.</p>
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<hr>
<p>The <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/">Australian Human Rights Commission</a> received 409 complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act in 2016-17.</p>
<p>About 40% of these <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/commission-general/publications/annual-reports-index">complaints</a> were made by someone born outside Australia. And of those made by Australian-born complainants, about 25% were made by Indigenous Australians.</p>
<p>The grounds for the complaints are shown below, listed by the number of complaints:</p>
<hr>
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<hr>
<p>But modern Australia’s most strained relationship is its oldest. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have suffered greatly under European rule. On many measures, Indigenous Australians are still <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-why-the-gaps-between-indigenous-and-non-indigenous-australians-arent-closing-91561">worse off</a> than the non-Indigenous population. </p>
<p>For example, life expectancy is about <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-death/deaths/contents/life-expectancy">ten years lower</a>, unemployment is <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-not-closing-the-gap-on-indigenous-employment-its-widening-89302">higher</a>, and Indigenous students are considerably <a href="https://theconversation.com/closing-the-gap-in-indigenous-literacy-and-numeracy-not-remotely-or-in-cities-88704">behind</a> their non-Indigenous peers.</p>
<p>And 27 years since the end of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/deaths-in-custody-25-years-after-the-royal-commission-weve-gone-backwards-57109">Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in Custody</a>, more than 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2018/aug/28/deaths-inside-indigenous-australian-deaths-in-custody">died in custody</a>, and Indigenous Australians are still massively over-representated in our prison system.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="dJMNq" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/dJMNq/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>The over-representation of Indigenous people in the justice system is not confined to adults. Unfortunately, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people are also over-represented in the juvenile justice system.</p>
<p>About <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/youth-justice/youth-detention-population-in-australia-2017/contents/table-of-contents">53% of all young people in detention</a> in 2017 were Indigenous (on an average night during the June quarter). Indigenous young people aged 10–17 were 24 times as likely as non-Indigenous young people to be in juvenile detention on an average night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Australia is becoming more diverse, but these charts show we are still predominantly an Anglo society with strained relations with other cultures, particularly Indigenous and Muslim Australians.
Emil Jeyaratnam, Data + Interactives Editor, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101611
2018-08-15T07:49:24Z
2018-08-15T07:49:24Z
View from The Hill: A ray of bipartisan good comes out of obscure senator’s hate speech
<p>Immigration has become one of the most divisive issues in Australian politics. It has created open fractures within government ranks and sparked dog whistling; it’s being exploited to nefarious political ends by fringe and not-so-fringe players.</p>
<p>But an appallingly racist diatribe, by a senator who not one in a thousand Australians would have heard of, on Wednesday brought almost all the parliament together to reassert some core values of Australia’s policy.</p>
<p>Delivering his <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F3cee6e8f-15b4-468c-91dd-05ded6631e43%2F0136%22">maiden speech</a> on Tuesday, Fraser Anning called for a ban on all further Muslim immigration and invoked the words “final solution” – the term referring to the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews – when calling for a popular vote on immigration.</p>
<p>Anning arrived in parliament by chance, replacing the equally controversial Malcolm Roberts from One Nation, who fell foul of the citizenship crisis. But Anning immediately <a href="https://theconversation.com/hanson-loses-replacement-senator-before-he-is-even-sworn-in-87355">parted ways with</a> One Nation, and has recently joined Katter’s Australian Party.</p>
<p>Among much else, the Queensland senator told parliament on Tuesday that “the one immigrant group here and in other Western nations that has consistently shown itself to be the least able to assimilate and integrate is Muslims”.</p>
<p>“The first terrorist act on Australian soil occurred in 1915 – when two Muslim immigrants opened fire on a picnic train of innocent women and children in Broken Hill – and Muslim immigrants have been a problem ever since.”</p>
<p>Such are the rituals of first speeches that many Coalition senators and even crossbencher Derryn Hinch (who has been beating up on himself publicly ever since) went over to pay Anning the traditional congratulations afterwards.</p>
<p>But after that reactions were quick, and by Wednesday morning condemnation was raining down on Anning from almost everywhere.</p>
<p>Labor with the support of the government moved a motion in the Senate and the House; the leaders in both houses spoke.</p>
<p>The motion, which did not mention Anning by name, acknowledged “the historic action of the Holt Government, with bipartisan support from the Australian Labor Party, in initiating the dismantling of the White Australia Policy”.</p>
<p>It gave “unambiguous and unqualified commitment to the principle that, whatever criteria are applied by Australian Governments in exercising their sovereign right to determine the composition of the immigration intake, race, faith or ethnic origin shall never, explicitly or implicitly, be among them”.</p>
<p>The motion was the same (except for the addition of the word “faith”) as the one prime minister Bob Hawke moved in 1988 after opposition leader John Howard had suggested a slowing of Asian immigration. Then, the Liberals <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-lost-art-of-crossing-the-floor-20060812-gdo5rd.html">voted against</a> the motion, though with three defections. </p>
<p>In our frequently depressing and often toxic political climate, Wednesday’s bipartisanship was a small but significant and encouraging moment of unity on what we stand for as a nation.</p>
<p>Senate leader Mathias Cormann, an immigrant from Belgium, said: “This chamber in many ways is a true reflection of what a great migrant nation we are.”</p>
<p>“We have … representatives of our Indigenous community. We have in this chamber representatives of Australians whose families have been here for generations, who are the descendants of migrants to Australia of more than 100 years ago.</p>
<p>"We have in this chamber first-generation migrants from Kenya, Malaysia, Belgium, Germany and Scotland. What a great country we are. Where first-generation Australians can join First Australians and those Australians whose families have lived here for more than 100 years and all work together to make our great country an even better country.”</p>
<p>While the mainstream had its act together, on the fringe it was a wild ride.</p>
<p>Pauline Hanson denounced Anning’s speech. “I have always advocated you do not have to be white to be Australian,” she said. And “to actually hear people say now that, as Senator Hinch said, it is like hearing Pauline Hanson on steroids – I take offence to that”.</p>
<p>Never mind that in her own <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansards%2F16daad94-5c74-4641-a730-7f6d74312148%2F0140;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F16daad94-5c74-4641-a730-7f6d74312148%2F0139%22">maiden speech</a> as a senator Hanson had declared that further Muslim immigration should be stopped and the burqa banned. “Now we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own,” she <a href="https://theconversation.com/pauline-hanson-20-years-on-same-refrain-new-target-65433">said</a> in September 2016.</p>
<p>Later on Wednesday Hanson introduced her private member’s <a href="https://www.senatorhanson.com.au/2018/08/15/australians-deserve-a-say-on-the-levels-of-migration/">bill</a> “to give voters a say on whether Australia’s immigration levels are too high by casting a vote at the next general election”.</p>
<p>Then there was that force of nature, Bob Katter, who said he supported his new recruit “1000% … I support everything he said”.</p>
<p>It is never easy to navigate one’s way through Katter speak – on Wednesday it was at times close to impossible.</p>
<p>“Fraser is dead right – we do not want people coming in from the Middle East or North Africa unless they’re the persecuted minorities. Why aren’t you bringing in the Sikhs? Why aren’t you bringing in the Jews?” he told a news conference in Cairns – he could not fly to Canberra and parliament because of a sinus procedure.</p>
<p>As for the “final solution” reference: “Fraser is a knockabout bloke, he’s owned pubs and he’s not stupid – he built his own aeroplane. But he hasn’t read all the history books.</p>
<p>"He didn’t go to university, he was out working building pipelines for the coal and the gas and the oil with a hard hat on. He’s a member of the hard left, not the lily pad left. He didn’t go to university to know the significance of all these words.</p>
<p>"Fraser would have no idea about what that meant. For those of us, like myself that are fascinated by history and have read the history books – it is one of the worst statements in all of human history.”</p>
<p>“He like myself, has had constant meetings and addressed Jewish groups around Australia. We are strongly behind the Jewish people.”</p>
<p>Hanson wasn’t the only one complaining of being insulted. Katter turned on a journalist who referred to his Lebanese grandfather. </p>
<p>“He’s not. He’s an Australian. I resent, strongly, you describing him as Lebanese. That is racist comment and you should take it back and should be ashamed … No prouder Australian than my grandfather.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In our frequently depressing and often toxic political climate, Wednesday’s bipartisanship was a small but significant and encouraging moment of unity on what we stand for as a nation.
Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74084
2017-04-09T20:01:15Z
2017-04-09T20:01:15Z
Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162559/original/image-20170327-18980-m9wbgz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 'White Australia' ideology was commercialised and used to sell things from soaps and games to pineapple slices.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/library/media/Image/id/761.">Multicultural Research Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation is running a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/australian-politics-explainer-37192">series of explainers</a> on key moments in Australian political history, looking at what happened, its impact then, and its relevance to politics today.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-truth-is-our-successful-multicultural-society-is-built-on-secure-borders-20160519-goz3ro.html">has repeatedly claimed</a> that Australia is the world’s most successful multicultural nation. While the sentiment has bipartisan support today, for more than half a century after Federation Australia boasted not of multiculturalism, but of its monoculture. </p>
<p>In 1925, Prime Minister Stanley Bruce reassured a worried public that Australia’s racial makeup was <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/153840401?searchTerm=98%20white%20British%20population%20department%20of%20information&searchLimits=">98% British</a> and that this was unlikely to change. The means of maintaining this racial and cultural homogeneity is loosely termed the White Australia policy. </p>
<p>Immediately following Federation in 1901, policies were designed to keep Australia white and British. Non-racial language was used to minimise international condemnation, but the xenophobic concern was plainly evident. Australia’s first prime minister, Edmund Barton, <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/ImmigrationDebate#_ftnref20">explicitly stated</a> his belief in white superiority:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no racial equality. There is that basic inequality. These races are, in comparison with white races – I think no-one wants convincing of this fact – unequal and inferior.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The White Australia policy was in place for seven decades after 1901 and had a profound impact on the newly federated Commonwealth.</p>
<h2>What happened?</h2>
<p>The White Australia policy was not a single government directive but a series of acts with a common goal: to achieve and maintain a white, British national character. The <a href="http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/immigration-restriction-act/">Immigration Restriction Act</a>, <a href="http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-15.html">Pacific Island Labourers Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004C06062">Post and Telegraph Act</a> (all passed in 1901) formed the initial legislative foundation.</p>
<p>The Immigration Restriction Act in particular epitomises the spirit of the White Australia policy, and its hypocrisy. It never mentioned the words “white” or “race”, but the parliamentary debates – and its application – make clear it was a tool of racial exclusion. </p>
<p>The act’s most infamous feature was a dictation test. Migrants could be asked to write 50 words in any European language. Officers could manipulate the test to exclude any undesired person. </p>
<p>The most famous example was Jewish communist <a href="http://www.nswbar.asn.au/docs/webdocs/BN_032014_kisch.pdf">Egon Kisch</a>. Fluent in several European languages, he was arrested after failing to recite the Lord’s Prayer in Scottish Gaelic. </p>
<p>Between 1901 and 1958 (when it was dumped), only around 2,000 people ever took the test. Despite the non-racial terminology, its purpose was understood. As a direct result, non-whites largely avoided coming to Australia, and overseas shipping companies did not issue tickets to people likely to fail the test.</p>
<p>The White Australia policy received bipartisan support, but was gradually dismantled by both sides. Conservative governments introduced the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma1958118/">Migration Act</a> in 1958 and its significant modification in 1966. </p>
<p>Driven partly by the “<a href="http://slwa.wa.gov.au/wepon/settlement/html/populate_or_perish.html">populate or perish</a>” doctrine, non-Europeans were allowed to come to Australia based on skills and suitability rather than race. Eventually they were offered the same pathway to citizenship as Europeans.</p>
<p>The progressive Whitlam government symbolically buried the last remnants of the White Australia policy in 1973. The <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/">Racial Discrimination Act</a> made it illegal to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race. Those words are from Section 18C of that act, which the current government is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-21/australians-share-experiences-with-racism-after-18c-changes/8374372">seeking to amend</a>. </p>
<h2>What was its impact?</h2>
<p>The legal mechanisms of the White Australia policy were tied to a widespread belief in the superiority of British civilisation and the white race generally during this era.</p>
<p>The masthead of the popular Bulletin magazine read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia for the White Man. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The object of the White Australia board game was to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… get the coloured men out and the white men in. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were White Australia theatre productions, songs, pins and badges, soaps, and even a White Australia brand of sliced pineapple in syrup. It was as much a cultural as political phenomenon, and it could not be simply extinguished with an act of parliament. </p>
<p>The acceptance of large numbers of Vietnamese refugees under the Fraser government was seen as a litmus test of whether the White Australia policy was really gone.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162452/original/image-20170325-12142-7g93v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The White Australia Game was registered in 1914 and was popular throughout the 1920s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Migration Heritage Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are its contemporary implications?</h2>
<p>Both major parties have endorsed multiculturalism for nearly half a century. Even in this era of Trumpian populist politics, it is inconceivable that Australia would ever return to race-based immigration policies.</p>
<p>But if the White Australia policy is dead, has the White Australia ideology survived? </p>
<p>In the 1980s, the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/17491110">Garnaut report</a> made the economic case for greater Asia literacy. However, the region was – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-attitudes-to-asia-changed-in-60-years-not-as-much-as-youd-think-16697">still is</a> – viewed by many with suspicion. In 1996, Pauline Hanson warned parliament that Australia risked being “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pauline-hansons-1996-maiden-speech-to-parliament-full-transcript-20160914-grgjv3.html">swamped by Asians</a>”. </p>
<p>In the lead-up to the 2001 election, Norwegian container ship the <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/tampa_affair">MV Tampa</a> rescued 438 asylum seekers and attempted to enter Australian waters. Prime Minister John Howard refused to accept them, causing a tense diplomatic stand-off. The widespread support for Howard, which arguably helped him secure election victory, has been <a href="http://researchdirect.uws.edu.au/islandora/object/uws%3A37989">seen by some</a> as evidence of a lingering White Australia mindset. </p>
<p>Academics <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/sg/academic/subjects/sociology/demography-social-statistics/white-australia-woomera-story-australian-immigration-2nd-edition?format=PB&isbn=9780521697897">James Jupp</a> and <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/The-Long-Slow-Death-of-White-Australia/2005/05/19/1116361670087.html">Gwenda Tavan</a> have argued that the White Australia ideology is still shaping Australian immigration policies in the 21st century, especially in regard to refugees. The bipartisan commitment to offshore processing and the re-emergence of Hanson’s One Nation party following the 2016 election lend some weight to this view.</p>
<p>The dictation test was undoubtedly political spin to justify a racist agenda. A century later, similar charges have been levelled at the “stopping deaths at sea” defence, which is used to justify the current “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-21/q&a:-malcolm-turnbull-defends-tough-asylum-seeker-policy/7527990">harsh</a>” treatment of predominantly non-white asylum seekers. </p>
<p>As a policy, White Australia is gone. But as an ideology, it arguably lingers on. There certainly is a minority who want to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/19/reclaim-australia-in-asios-sights-intelligence-chief-tells-senators">reclaim</a>” an imagined idyllic Australia of yesteryear, with its white monoculture. </p>
<p>An <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/02/26/multiculturalism-good-australia-say-85-australians">overwhelming majority</a>, however, agree with the prime minister. Multiculturalism is here to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin T. Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
While contemporary Australia is proud of its multicultural status, the White Australia policy shows this wasn’t always the case.
Benjamin T. Jones, Australian Research Council Fellow in the School of History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/59473
2016-06-14T04:08:41Z
2016-06-14T04:08:41Z
On asylum seekers, our history keeps repeating itself
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125275/original/image-20160606-11611-1slcgbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C101%2C1000%2C648&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No progress will be made on asylum policy until the major parties move to a positive bipartisanship.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immediately after Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court unexpectedly ruled in April that the Australian detention centre on Manus Island was in breach of human rights and ordered it closed, Bill Shorten met his leadership group.</p>
<p>Inside the room, the shadow immigration minister, Richard Marles, mused briefly about revisiting Labor’s policy on asylum seekers. He was forcefully shut down.</p>
<p>The question is why Shorten shies away from discussing asylum seekers like Dracula from a stake, while Malcolm Turnbull is only interested in using the issue as a stick with which to berate the opposition.</p>
<h2>Historical context</h2>
<p>People have been travelling down the Malay Peninsula, across the Indonesian archipelago and into Australia for at least 60,000 years, according to the best available evidence. Fortunately for the First Australians, there was no Border Force, no patrol boats and no surveillance aircraft to stop them, and no people smugglers to exploit them. Nor were there any other human inhabitants to fret about their presence.</p>
<p>Many of the boats they used for the final stages of their journey were probably every bit as leaky as those employed by modern-day asylum seekers. Many are likely to have overturned, with many people dying along the way. </p>
<p>Did they come here to seek a better life or because they were chased out by waves of newcomers making the long trek out of Africa? Probably a bit of both.</p>
<p>Since white settlement in 1788, Australian attitudes to potential new arrivals have waxed and waned. In the initial days of the gold rushes in the mid-1800s, there was little opposition to the thousands of Chinese coming to Australia. This was partly because they provided essential services – notably food – for everyone else, and picked over tailings left behind by miners of other ethnic backgrounds.</p>
<p>It became a very different story when the easy gold started to dry up and economic growth slowed, coinciding with the rise of organised labour. Colonial authorities made it harder and harder for Chinese to land in Australia.</p>
<p>“Australia for the White Man” was the proud proclamation beneath the masthead of The Bulletin magazine at the turn of the 20th century, at the time Australia’s most influential political and cultural media outlet.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125267/original/image-20160606-11585-upx0cj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the anti-Chinese images published in The Bulletin magazine at the turn of the 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/1910-the-bulletin-magazine/">Migration Heritage Centre New South Wales</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Behind the protectionist barriers of Empire, with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_case">the Harvester case</a> having entrenched both the minimum wage and the power of the trade unions, the Australian settlement flourished, buttressed by laws making non-white immigration all but impossible.</p>
<p>The second world war had two consequences for this cosy arrangement.</p>
<p>First, the peril of invasion made politicians worry about ruling such a large continent with such a sparse population.</p>
<p>Second, by 1945 Europe was awash with tens of millions of displaced people, a problem exacerbated by the erection of the Iron Curtain, making it harder for many of them to return home even if they wished.</p>
<p>“Populate or perish” became the bipartisan catchcry, but even then Australian politicians worried about the reception non-English-speaking arrivals would receive. Fair-haired, blue-eyed northern Europeans initially received preferential treatment. It was only as labour shortages emerged in the 1950s that arrivals from southern Europe started to be encouraged.</p>
<p>Bipartisanship ensured that the <a href="http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/digibook/613054/the-white-australia-policy">White Australia Policy</a> remained intact until after Harold Holt became prime minister in 1966. Coincidently, full employment gave Labor the confidence to strip from its platform the insistence on keeping out people from Asia.</p>
<p>The big change came after the end of the Vietnam war when Malcolm Fraser shamed Bob Hawke, then president of the ACTU, into overcoming union opposition to permit the influx of tens of thousands of boat people and other escapees from the oppression and persecution of the Communist regime that had taken over the country’s south.</p>
<h2>Multiculturalism moves in</h2>
<p>Bipartisanship stepped up to another level with the official adoption of the policy of multiculturalism by both the Coalition and the ALP. This level of political harmony started to break down as Australia struggled out of the 1983 recession with its double-digit unemployment and the consequences of economic restructuring as Bob Hawke and Paul Keating wrestled to put the country on a firmer footing.</p>
<p>One of the first signs of the breakdown of bipartisanship were the remarks of John Howard in 1988, during his first stint as Liberal leader, when he declared that in the interests of social cohesion Asian immigration should be “slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater”.</p>
<p>In his bid to defeat Keating in 1996, Howard recanted, admitting the remark had done him great damage. But then along came Pauline Hanson and her maiden speech to parliament, in which she warned that Australia was in danger of being “swamped by Asians”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VsM6SQUYWjM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Pauline Hanson delivers her maiden speech to parliament.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The rise of <a href="http://www.onenation.com.au/">Hanson’s One Nation</a> came close to turning Howard into a one-term prime minister after he had gone to the 1998 election advocating the introduction of the GST. “A near-death experience”, he later called it.</p>
<p>It is often forgotten, though, that it was Keating who introduced mandatory detention for asylum seekers in the early 1990s in response to a surge in boat people trying to escape the war in Cambodia.</p>
<p>When increasing numbers of undocumented refugees started turning up in Australia in the late 1990s seeking to escape oppression in the Middle East, Howard introduced temporary protection visas as an added deterrent. And then a boat called <a>the Tampa</a> turned up off Christmas Island.</p>
<h2>The Tampa changes everything</h2>
<p>So searing was this episode for Labor that the only bipartisanship since then has been a contest between the major parties to prove who is more hardline.</p>
<p>Over much internal opposition and with an election imminent, then Labor leader Kim Beazley supported the excision of much of Australia’s offshore territory as places where migration law could apply. However, he opposed a Howard plan to prevent people on ships like the Tampa from gaining access to the Australian legal system, placing military personnel above and beyond the law.</p>
<p>Any semblance of bipartisanship was at an end.</p>
<p>“We will decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come,” Howard declared to the loudest of cheers at the Coalition’s 2001 campaign launch. Labor was slaughtered at the election.</p>
<p>Interestingly, at the same time as Howard was railing against asylum seekers he was quietly overseeing a record influx of migrants. They helped boost growth already being fuelled by the China minerals boom, while also keeping inflation in check by subduing wages growth.</p>
<p>Kevin Rudd’s 2007 policy of a “tough, but fair” asylum seeker policy foundered – the victim of so-called “pull” and “push” factors, as well as political mismanagement and the increasing sophistication of the people smugglers.</p>
<p>Julia Gillard’s plan to resettle asylum seekers in Malaysia was not only condemned by the then opposition leader, Tony Abbott, but also scuttled by the High Court.</p>
<p>Now, the major parties have settled on equally brutal policies and the polls suggest that most voters prefer it that way. Out of sight, out of mind. Shorten seems to think he has no alternative, while for Turnbull it is a powerful political weapon.</p>
<p>The deaths at sea may have stopped, but the suicides and self-harm persist in the detention centres. Nothing will change until and unless positive bipartisanship returns. It was ever thus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Middleton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Australia’s history of dealing with asylum seekers has been a long and chequered one, paving the way for the hardline bipartisanship we see today.
Jim Middleton, Vice Chancellor's Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/46458
2015-08-25T01:12:15Z
2015-08-25T01:12:15Z
Playing the race card in the China trade deal debate
<p>It’s not often these days that <a href="http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/hughes/in-office.aspx">Billy Hughes</a> gets a guernsey in political debate. But there was a time when this prime minister (1916-1923) was considered a national <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Equality_Proposal">hero in 1919</a> for his defence of the White Australia policy against the US and Japan.</p>
<p>These days Hughes is a national embarrassment for this same stance. Times change and Australia changes, and so does the nature of our political debate.</p>
<p>We can understand this by exploring Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s accusation last week that Labor was “channelling” Hughes and that notorious racial policy. According to Abbott, the opposition was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-accuses-labor-of-peddling--racist-lies-on-free-trade-agreement-20150820-gj3yvo.html">peddling</a> a “racist lie” that the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-17/australia-and-china-sign-free-trade-agreement/6552940">free trade agreement</a> (FTA) with China would allow corporations from that country to replace Australian workers with Chinese workers. Abbott continued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We know that the Labor Party played the race card prior to the NSW election and now it’s happening again.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gyrDGjWZ4Dg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Abbott accuses Labor of channelling Billy Hughes and the White Australia policy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’m not asking you to agree or disagree with his assertion. There are issues to be resolved around <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-could-the-china-australia-fta-lock-out-australian-workers-43470">labour market testing</a> in the FTA and around foreign state-owned corporations <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-we-should-be-talking-about-chinese-interest-in-the-transgrid-sale-20150819-gj3boc">owning</a> critical infrastructure.</p>
<p>Rather, I want to look at how we discuss race now compared to our past and how a speaker uses the available means of persuasion with an audience of a particular time and place. That has been known as the study of rhetoric for the last 2500 years.</p>
<h2>Racism was once a political positive</h2>
<p>Abbott’s indictment would not have worked during Hughes’ time. To call someone a racist would have elicited, in effect, the response “Yes, and your point is?” On that score, shame was the furthest thing from our ancestors’ minds.</p>
<p>Instead, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=yTKFBXfCI1QC&pg=PA46&dq=the+australian+people+an+encyclopedia+eugenics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAGoVChMIxpivibHAxwIVoeKmCh1wkQma#v=onepage&q=the%20australian%20people%20an%20encyclopedia%20eugenics&f=false">eugenics</a> girded the thinking behind the White Australia policy as one of the first acts of parliament in 1901. This rubbish pseudoscience placed races in a hierarchy of significance with the Anglo-Saxon race on top of an array of “lesser” races stretching all the way to so-called “Hindoos”, Chinese and other “Asiatics”. At the very bottom were Aboriginals. </p>
<p>Somewhere in between were Italians and Greeks. Although European, they were considered barely white because of their olive skin and were <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=yBTMi_XXCgYC&pg=PA71&dq=greasy+flood+of+the+mediterranean&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMIyq2JrLHAxwIVYuemCh2vOwfm#v=onepage&q=greasy%20flood%20of%20the%20mediterranean&f=false">referred</a> to as “the greasy flood of the Mediterranean scum that seeks to defile and debase Australia”.</p>
<p>This jumble of beliefs justified the “natural” superiority of the empire of the so-called British race to its beneficiaries. Newspapers of the 1920s were awash with exhortations to maintain <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/21087949?searchTerm=%22white%20supremacy%22&searchLimits=requestHandler=%2FtextSearch%7C%7C%7Cl-decade=192">“white supremacy”</a>. Parliamentary debate of 1901 aired <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Search?ind=0&st=1&sr=0&q=intermingling+mongrel+breed&expand=True&drvH=0&drt=2&pnu=1&pnuH=1&f=09%2F05%2F1901&to=01%2F03%2F1904&pi=0&pv=&chi=2&coi=0&ps=10">disdain</a> for the “intermingling” of races that may create a “mongrel breed”.</p>
<p>This is an alien world of thought, which was rightfully kicked into the dustbin of history by numerous events between the second world war, when the Nazis elaborated a horrific form of eugenics, and the 1970s, when an eruption of social movements and actions of governments permanently changed our political landscape.</p>
<p>I am not so naïve to think this upheaval banished racism from our midst. Rather, it transformed the nature of public debate. Our language reflects our post-1960s world and demonstrates why Abbott’s line of attack was literally inconceivable for Australians living in the first half of the 20th century.</p>
<p>As most people believe anti-racism is good and racism is bad, these beliefs were elevated into the rank of social values suitable for the cut and thrust of public debate. That is, in line with one of the basics of rhetoric, a speaker must appeal to what is commonly believed and treasured by an audience in order to win it over. So “racist” joined fascist, communist and Nazi as socially abhorrent things.</p>
<p>Once elevated, the terms are widely applied to numerous people and events. Whether this is valid or not is part of further debate and is in accordance with the judgements of people. But here I must spell out the political connections to those judgements.</p>
<h2>Adversarial politics goes over the top</h2>
<p>We have had an adversarial political system since the 19th century, which has had two increasing effects on our language as the institutions and franchise developed. First, politicians and pundits have sought to mobilise voters behind parties and causes. Second, they have sought to warn voters of the consequences of a wrong choice.</p>
<p>At times this system has been a continual stimulant of hyperbolic and exaggerated language, including <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/23/1093246439313.html?from=storylhs">character assassination</a> of others with “fascist” and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-nazi-taunt-backfires-sparking-questions-over-his-judgment-20150319-1m3ahp.html">Nazi</a> references.</p>
<p>In the early 19th century “Jacobin” was an insult in <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=jacobin&l-decade=182">Australia</a> and in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=HN5hzTRJAooC&pg=PA34&dq=robertson+language+of+democracy+jacobin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMItZb6hsDAxwIVpJ6mCh14xwOq#v=onepage&q=robertson%20language%20of%20democracy%20jacobin&f=false">Britain and America</a>. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, it had the insinuations of a revolutionary overthrowing the established order, much like communist did a century and more later. </p>
<p>It must be said, however, that “communist” has lost its potency due to historical changes affecting language usage, and that is also why we don’t use Jacobin anymore.</p>
<p>Given our adversarial political system and the importance that we assign to our beliefs, Abbott’s attempt to corner Labor with the accusation of racism was not surprising.</p>
<p>What was more disappointing, however, was the failure of journalists to critically analyse rather than just report this attack. They seemed to lack knowledge of our political history since 1901 to compare and contrast the situations.</p>
<p>But I’ve noticed this before. For years Abbott pursued the self-interested charge against Julia Gillard that minority governments were unstable. Journalists replayed this line without realising the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/a-political-history-of-leadership-chaos/6073558">first eight years</a> of federation (and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-westminster-can-learn-from-minority-government-in-australia-41239">last 30 years</a> in at least one house of federal parliament) and <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/1011/HungParliaments#_Toc320017743">large slabs</a> of more recent state history featured minority governments. </p>
<p>Journalists have also never critically examined the Coalition claim that, in opposition, John Howard helped the Hawke and Keating governments with their reforms. <a href="http://www.afr.com/opinion/columns/paul-keating-i-didnt-need-the-liberals-help-to-change-australia-20150817-gj0tx2">Paul Keating</a> partially belled that cat, although more can be said about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/identity-crisis-who-does-the-australian-labor-party-represent-25374">role of government</a> in advancing reform.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Rolfe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Charges of racism against Labor for querying aspects of the free trade deal with China are a mark of how much Australian attitudes have changed and how adversarial politics fuels hyperbolic attacks.
Mark Rolfe, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2685
2011-08-07T20:54:21Z
2011-08-07T20:54:21Z
The war in the Pacific: fighting the good fight, or something else
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/2648/original/PIC_-_Pacific_War.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian veterans of the Pacific theatre in WWII attend a VJ Day memorial</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sometimes an historian will challenge one of the key ideological myths of Australian capitalism.</p>
<p>Henry Reynolds does it in his work on the colonial treatment of Aborigines, a treatment some go so far as to label genocide. </p>
<p>To a lesser extent myth busting is true too of others in debunking the lies of nation building surrounding Gallipoli.</p>
<p>Tom O’Lincoln’s important new book <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/38883245?selectedversion=NBD46737678">Australia’s Pacific War: Challenging a National Myth</a> stands in the grand tradition of debunking pervasive myths.</p>
<p>O’Lincoln shows that the Second World War and its Pacific theatre were a consequence of imperialism and the needs of late blooming German and Japanese capitalism to expand and in doing that to challenge the established imperial order of a declining Britain and a surging United States.</p>
<h2>Us and them</h2>
<p>In the context of this imperialist rivalry, O’Lincoln argues that the reality is that the US viewed war as inevitable and the best strategy was to force Japan to make the first move.</p>
<p>A cornered but hawkish led Japan responded to US and other countries’ provocations and bombed Pearl Harbour. Part of that provocation had been the tightening of supplies to Japan making it necessary from the point of view of Japanese capital to expand southwards for vital material like rubber and especially oil in Indonesia.</p>
<p>Japanese brutality is one of the enduring stories of this war. This demonisation of the Japanese , who in Asia were sometimes welcomed as liberators by local populations keen to escape their brutal white colonial overlords, forgets an important point. The Allies were brutal too.</p>
<p>As O’Lincoln says “In reality the viciousness of camp guards is no more inherent in the Japanese people than dropping atomic bombs is inherently western.” </p>
<p>Prisoners of war were treated horribly, not so much at first, but as the war progressed. As O’Lincoln shows the mistreatment was not something inherent to the Japanese but rather “something specific to how the conflict developed.”</p>
<p>As Japan over-extended itself and its capabilities hunger and starvation spread among its people and soldiers. Prisoners of war were among the first targets and an ideology that those who were captured were weak developed among sections of the Japanese. </p>
<p>“Our” side had similar views and took it to a logical conclusion of sorts. Australians shot prisoners and the wounded. It was “the only safe way.”</p>
<p>O’Lincoln quotes a conservative ex-POW to make the point.</p>
<h2>The racial element</h2>
<p>The wider Pacific War was bitter, racial and merciless and the cruelties of which the enemy were guilty did not exceed those practised by us.</p>
<p>The racism of empire, and of the white colonial settler state that was Australia were part of the war hysteria and a tool to tie the working class to the war.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy">White Australia policy</a> had been one of the foundations of Federation, helping cement workers to the employing class on the basis of skin colour, especially after the defeats of the industrial labour movement in the 1890s. </p>
<p>Ideas of racial superiority, of white civilisation and yellow and black skinned barbarians dominated Australian society from its foundation. So too did anti-Irish and anti-Catholic ideas, ideas reflecting the seeming reality of the dominant Protestant ruling clique as it strangled and repressed Ireland. </p>
<p>O’Lincoln documents overt anti-Japanese racism during and after the war. It is not pretty.</p>
<p>From John Curtin’s exhortation not to forget the principle of a White Australia to Department of Information race hate broadcasts, the Japanese were variously described as sub-human, maniacal, crazed killers, with dwarfed, twisted souls. </p>
<p>Labor Prime Minister John Curtin argued the war was about maintaining the white race’s control of Australia, and in this context he proudly reminded Australians that they were the sons and daughters of Britishers, that is that they were white. </p>
<p>The cement that is racism binding the working class to the ruling class is clear.</p>
<h2>A war to maintain empire, not democracy</h2>
<p>This war was as much a war for democracy as Iraq and Afghanistan are. Not at all.</p>
<p>Empires that before the war repressed the local populations did the same thing after the war. From Indonesia to Vietnam the imperialist powers sought to re-establish their dictatorial rule over the peoples there.</p>
<p>This was not war for democracy but for imperial domination.</p>
<p>One of the enduring myths surrounding the war in the Pacific is that Japan wanted to and was going to invade Australia.</p>
<p>O’Lincoln points out that even the Japanese army thought that this was “gibberish”. It would divert resources from China and Manchuria. The Japanese navy couldn’t spare the ships. And seizing large parts of the country would mean that “long supply lines and Australia’s industrial capabilities would have beaten them”.</p>
<p>Labor Prime Minister John Curtin knew, probably from April 1942, that the Japanese would not and could not invade Australia. </p>
<p>This invasion threat was an important part of his fear mongering to bolster support for the war. He would continue to use it, despite the fact he knew it was untrue. What this fear did do was produce more and more hard work from the working class, and the economy grew 15 percent.</p>
<h2>A defensive war no more</h2>
<p>By 1943 it was clear the Japanese could not win. The war was no longer defensive from Australian capitalism’s point of view. It became an expansionist war in which Australian and American forces set out ‘to capture the South Pacific’. </p>
<p>One of the many strengths of O’Lincoln’s book is the reintroduction of class struggle into the analysis of the Australian war effort. He challenges the idea that Australia was a country totally united behind the war effort with class divisions and struggle banished to some backwater of history.</p>
<p>For a start some of the Australian ruling class and its military had pro-fascist sentiments, at least until fascism threatened Empire. More importantly, as O’Lincoln notes, based on Department of Labour and National Service figures:</p>
<p><em>Industrial disputes spiked in 1940,and were still high in 1941. They fell dramatically in 1942 under the impact of a seeming invasion threat, but revived as the apparent danger receded.</em></p>
<p>The decline in strikes also had much to do with the Australian Communist Party’s change of attitude to the war after the German invasion of the USSR in 1941. That change was dramatic – from a correct as far as it goes depiction of the war as imperialist to it becoming, after the “socialist” fatherland was invaded, the also partially correct war against fascism. </p>
<p>Part of the radical actions can be attributed to women and their lack of union traditions. The war bought millions of women into the workforce. Their lack of work and union experience meant they were less likely to listen to the conservative arguments of the trade union bureaucracy. </p>
<p>The labour market was tight so wages rose higher than prices during the war. However, increased taxation meant that workers were worse off.</p>
<p>The war sacrifices saw many workers long for a better world after the slaughter finished. The groundwork for the upsurge in class war after 1945 and the grand post war welfare state compromise between labour and capital were built during the war by the class struggles that broke out or were lidded during it.</p>
<p>This is a book that challenges all our preconceptions about the war in the Pacific. </p>
<p>Read it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/2685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Passant is a member of Socialist Alternative, as is Tom O'Lincoln. For more information about Socialist Alternative visit <a href="http://www.sa.org.au">www.sa.org.au</a> </span></em></p>
Sometimes an historian will challenge one of the key ideological myths of Australian capitalism. Henry Reynolds does it in his work on the colonial treatment of Aborigines, a treatment some go so far as…
John Passant, Tutor, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110
2011-07-13T21:14:33Z
2011-07-13T21:14:33Z
Why lessons from the past can help us understand the refugee debate
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/2234/original/Heretics_painting.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees fled the Crusades. This is a detail from St Dominic and the Albigenses by Pedro Berruguete.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/derechoaleer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Given the often hysterical media coverage of the refugee debate you could be forgiven for thinking that people seeking refuge in other countries is a new phenomenon. Not so. Refugees have been around since medieval times and we’d do well to learn from their stories.</p>
<p>Certainly the formal legal category of “refugee” is a product of the twentieth century, but they existed well before then. The very word “refugee” derives from the Latin term meaning “to flee” (fugere) and was first used in late sixteenth-century France to describe foreigners escaping persecution and in need of assistance (les refugiés). </p>
<p>Even earlier than that, groups of people we would now call “refugees” can be found in the historical record. Camps full of displaced <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/630568/Visigoth">Visigoths</a> grew up around the fringes of the crumbling Roman empire; the Crusades, both in the Middle East and in Europe, left populations displaced and unable to return home; the persecution of medieval Jews led to forced diaspora, especially from England, France and Spain. There are many other examples. </p>
<h2>Lessons from the past</h2>
<p>The presence of refugees in the past offers us a chance to see how experiences of displacement, fear, flight and exile are common to people across time and space. </p>
<p>Refugees from the crusade against heretics in thirteenth-century France, for instance, left behind records which document their attachments to family, community and location, and their despair and fear when armies forced them to flee homes they had occupied for generations. </p>
<p>French Jews of the late fourteenth-century who fled persecution to Italy wrote poignant poems of lament in which they tried to retain their previous identities as Frenchmen and women. </p>
<p>Such examples also tell us something about how “host” communities have dealt with new arrivals, both migrant and refugee. </p>
<h2>Tolerance and persecution</h2>
<p>Sometimes, surprising examples of tolerance can be discovered in these premodern records. In thirteenth-century France, refugees who were wrongly dispossessed of their property and assets as a result of their displacement were compensated. </p>
<p>These refugees became part of a longer national story of heroic self-determination in this region. The south of France now sells itself as “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/09/travel/20100509CATHARS.html">Cathar country</a>”, a place where thirteenth-century refugee heretics are said to have bravely fought against the encroaching French monarchy. </p>
<p>Sobering examples of discrimination can also be found, especially in the form of violence against foreign populations. </p>
<p>This was often the case in times of economic stress. The Fleming Clothworkers of London were attacked during the <a href="http://www.britannia.com/history/articles/peasantsrevolt.html">Poll Tax riots in 1381</a> in a massacre that shocked even <a href="http://geoffreychaucer.org/">Geoffrey Chaucer</a>, a contemporary observer, who described the violence as sounding like a “fox hunt”.</p>
<h2>Modern day empathy</h2>
<p>Recent calls to humanise the refugee debate in Australia have emphasised the need for empathy and the need to listen to individual refugee stories. The SBS programme “<a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/goback">Go Back to Where you Came From</a>” introduced individual refugees and their families to Australian men and women with strong views about refugees and asylum seekers. </p>
<p>At the heart of this programme was the idea that if only people could meet refugees and listen to their stories, then perhaps they would be more compassionate, empathetic and understanding of the situations which lead people to flee their homes.</p>
<p>Almost at the same time, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser argued in his <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/how-australia-can-solve-its-asylum-seeker-problem-20110624-1gjlt.html">Australian Refugees Association Oration</a> last month that the tone of political debate around refugee issues is impoverished, and appeals only to the “fearful and mean sides of our nature”. </p>
<p>Fraser accused politicians of arousing “fears of the unknown of people who come from a different background, a different history, a different culture and also a different religion”. </p>
<p>He also recognised that history must play a part in the conversation about refugees, citing both Australia’s bleak past in the form of the <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/08abolition.htm">White Australia Policy</a>, but also its obligation to observe the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1954/5.html">Refugee Convention</a>, ratified by Menzies in 1954. </p>
<p>Fraser’s recommendations were numerous, but were encapsulated by his call for a “humane and compassionate” response to people in distress and a policy shift towards humanitarianism rather than punishment.</p>
<h2>Linking history to modern times</h2>
<p>Premodern examples of refugees do more than provide interesting analogies to modern refugee experiences. They remind us that it is people who are at the heart of the historical record and that to understand them, we must listen carefully to their stories. </p>
<p>History does not just tell us what happens: it tells us how to listen. It is this humanising capacity of history that may link the distant past with current debate. </p>
<p>If the tone of the refugee debate in Australia is to become less fearful and more compassionate, then perhaps an exercise in empathy – an understanding of history – is a good place to begin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/2110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Cassidy-Welch receives funding from the Australian Research Council through a Future Fellowship. The research for this article was completed with the assistance of an ARC Discovery Grant (2007-10).</span></em></p>
Given the often hysterical media coverage of the refugee debate you could be forgiven for thinking that people seeking refuge in other countries is a new phenomenon. Not so. Refugees have been around since…
Megan Cassidy-Welch, ARC Future Fellow, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.