Page 106 - On Not Speaking Chinese Living Between Asia and the West

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MULTICULTURALISM

IN CRISIS

The new politics of race and
national identity in Australia

With Jon Stratton

Multiculturalism is a centrepiece of official government policy in Australia. It is
a top–bottom political strategy implemented by the state to accommodate the
inclusion of ethnic minorities within the national culture and to ‘manage cultural
diversity’. This policy has been in place since the early 1970s – a few years later than
Canada, where the term ‘multiculturalism’ was first introduced into state discourse
– and it has been widely touted as a repudiation of an exclusionary, homogenizing,
even racist past, in favour of an inclusionary, pluralist and equitable recognition
of the diverse ethnic groups living within the boundaries of the nation. In this
sense, multiculturalism in Australia can be seen, to an important extent, as a form
of symbolic politics aimed at redefining national identity. By the early 1990s, the
description of Australia as a ‘multicultural nation’ had become commonplace
in public discourse, and then Prime Minister Paul Keating could characterize the
country fondly as ‘a multicultural nation in Asia’. This official discourse of
multiculturalism revels in the ‘enrichment’, both economic and cultural, provided
by the presence of a plurality of cultures within the nation, and appeals to the
citizenry by asking them to join in the chorus of ‘celebrating our cultural diversity’
(Hage 1994). Multiculturalism, in this sense, is ideologically inscribed in the very
core of the ‘new Australia’, a key element of national cultural policy which could
draw active support from Liberal and Labor governments alike from the early 1970s
onwards. 1
In the late 1990s, however, a backlash against multiculturalism gathered pace,
coming mainly from conservative circles. During the 1996 elections, Keating’s
Labor Government suffered a crushing defeat. Keating’s exuberant extolling of
the virtues of multiculturalism – together with his enthusiasm for Australia’s
integration with Asia and his high-minded commitment to reconciliation with
Aboriginal people – was widely cited as one major explanation for the defeat. These
same elections brought to the fore reactionary populist forces which explicitly

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