Page 109 - On Not Speaking Chinese Living Between Asia and the West

NEGOTIATING MULTICULTURALISM

it could have become the target of such massive attack, not only from the radical
right (of which Hanson has been the most prominent face) but also from such
a powerful, middle-of-the-road politician such as John Howard. In this chapter we
will attempt to provide a partial answer to these questions, emphasizing multi-
culturalism’s complicated role in the construction of Australian national identity. 7

Multiculturalism as ideological discourse
Multiculturalism in Australia has operated as an ideological discourse designed to
provide Australians with a favourable, flattering, even triumphant representation
of the national self in two respects. First, in historical terms, it tells the Australian
people that with the adoption of multiculturalism the nation has discarded an
important part of its shameful, racist past. Second, in symbolic terms, it presents
the people of Australia with a public fiction that they live in a harmonious, tolerant,
and peaceful country where everyone is included and gets along. Again and again
public figures, including John Howard himself, have announced with pride that
Australia is one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world. Here is
an example from a speech he delivered in 1997:

Australia has been a remarkable success story. We are sometimes, as
a community, not assertive enough about how successful we have been.
We sometimes think, well, maybe we can’t really be so confident about
how successful we have been. When you look at what has occurred
elsewhere, when you look at what Australia has faced, when you look at
the 140 to 150 different ethnic groups and nationalities which now make
up this remarkable country of ours, we have been an astonishing success
story. And we should never cease to say that to ourselves and, frankly, we
should never cease to say it to the world.
(Howard 1997)

In so far as such rhetoric is addressed to the Australian population as a whole, it
operates as an ideological project which interpellates all Australians to be proud of
this ‘astonishing success’ and to rejoice in their own imaginary ‘unity-in-diversity’.
However, it is in the nature of ideological interpellations that they may fail to
resonate with the concerns, aspirations and desires of the interpellated, in which
case the latter will resist identifying with the ideology’s representations. This,
we argue, is what happened with the discourse of multiculturalism in Australia
around 1996. While there had been enthusiastic support for the creation of a
‘multicultural Australia’ among the governing and intellectual elites, popular
support for it has always been less than whole-hearted. Indeed, what the crisis
around multiculturalism signified, at least in part, is the fact that sections of ordinary
people – mostly referred to by the highly problematic term ‘Anglo-Celtic’
Australians, or sometimes simply as ‘old Australia’ – could not recognize themselves
in multiculturalism’s rosy narrative of the ‘new Australia’.

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