Page 108 - On Not Speaking Chinese Living Between Asia and the West

MULTICULTURALISM IN CRISIS

The slogan itself bears an uneasy resemblance to Hanson’s idea of ‘one nation’, and 1
Howard’s ideological inclination revealed itself when he failed to come up with a 2
quick denunciation of Hanson’s views, arguing that she had a right to speak her 3
mind. This convenient, evasive recourse to the dogma of freedom of speech raised 4
the suspicion that Howard privately sympathized with her views – a suspicion which 5
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he significantly has never explicitly tried to counter. Howard has made it very clear 6
that he is not a great fan of multiculturalism. Significantly, as soon as he gained 7
governmental power he abolished the Office of Multicultural Affairs, severely 8
slashed the migrant intake, and tightened up English proficiency requirements for 9
new migrants. He also restricted access for new immigrants to social welfare and 0
other benefits. His dislike of the very word ‘multiculturalism’ is so great that he 11
would have preferred to scrap it from the national vocabulary. For example, in 12
preparing a joint parliamentary resolution against racism in October 1996, which 13
was instigated by the increasingly loud calls for an official, high-level denunciation 14
of Pauline Hanson, he insisted on deleting the word ‘multiculturalism’ from the 15
text. 16
Howard’s reluctance to defend multiculturalism unambiguously, which, as we 17
have said, has had bipartisan political support for more than two decades, has 18
created an atmosphere of controversy around what came to be commonly referred 19
to as ‘the M-word’. In a government-commissioned discussion paper entitled 20
Multicultural Australia: The Way Forward, the National Multicultural Advisory 21
Council (1997) formulated the key question thus: ‘Is multiculturalism an appro- 22
priate term to describe a policy for managing cultural diversity or has it outlived its 23
usefulness?’ Given what is known about the Prime Minister’s own feelings on the 24
issue, his likely answer to the question would be quite predictable. This is despite 25
Howard’s reassurance that ‘the absolute, unqualified embrace of a culturally diverse, 26
harmonious and tolerant Australian community is not in question’ (Howard 1997). 27
In other words, while Howard, unlike Hanson, does not express an explicit desire 28
for a return to monocultural homogeneity – as the leader of a democratic country 29
in the late twentieth century he simply would not be able to do that – but 30
acknowledges the sociological reality of diversity, he refuses to use the term 31
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‘multiculturalism’ to refer to that diversity. The discussion paper itself elaborates 32
on some of the difficulties of the use of the word: it reports that some people 33
(it doesn’t mention who) are ‘uncomfortable’ with the term, or feel ‘threatened’ 34
by it, and that there is a general ‘confusion’ about its meaning. 35
Journalistic responses have been overwhelmingly critical of Howard: major 36
newspapers have generally declared in favour of ‘keeping the M-word’. As one 37
commentator says: ‘The simple fact is, when you have 150 different cultures, 38
80 religions and 90 languages living on one island, you need a welcoming phrase, 39
a word that promotes inclusion, tolerance and parity. Multiculturalism is such a 40
word’ (Carruthers 1997). In all the consternation around the word, however, there 41
has been little critical reflection on what it is about ‘multiculturalism’ that has 42
created the confusion and uneasiness about it; on how and why negative perceptions 43
of multiculturalism could have grown in the past decade or so to the point that 44

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