Page 148 - On Not Speaking Chinese Living Between Asia and the West

RACIAL/SPATIAL ANXIETY

terms with its future. In this future, the alignment of race and space – part and parcel
of the project of white settler colonialism – will have to be disarticulated. The
Australian land can no longer be the exclusive possession of one ‘race’, but will
be a space of sharing and coexistence. FitzGerald actually comes up with an image
for such a future of togetherness, a future he romantically describes as ‘honey-
coloured’:

If race is to be one thing which identified what is Asia, then with
immigration and intermarriage, and the prospect this brings of a honey-
coloured society (honey ranging as it does all the way from white to black),
the heritage of the Australian Australian will be an enriching blend
of European and Asian, a cosmopolitan truly fitted to be a member of an
Asian regional community.
(1997: 71)

We can end, however, with a positive note. For all the panic, fear and anxiety
expressed in public rhetoric left and right, large pockets of Australian society are
already acquiring, through daily interaction and ordinary interconnections, the
multi-colours of honey.

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