Editorial: Racism and elections
Racism and elections
For almost six months now, the federal Coalition government and the big business media have been scaremongering about a possible "race-based election". If the Senate doesn't pass his 10-point plan, threatens Howard, he will force a double dissolution election hinged on the issue of native title.
The threat is clearly intended to convince the parliamentary opposition and native title supporters to accept further compromises with a bill aimed at taking back the restricted land rights won by indigenous Australians in the 1992 Mabo decision.
The Labor "opposition", having already accepted almost all of the 10-point plan, has responded by emphasising the social divisiveness of such a poll. A race-based election, it laments, would tear apart the social fabric, reopen old wounds and destroy the prospects for reconciliation.
"Race-based election" is a euphemism. What is really meant by the term is a campaign in which the Coalition parties openly attempt to stir up racism. "Openly" should be stressed here, because it is the only real change that is threatened.
With its Wik bill, its myriad cutbacks to Aboriginal funding and its restrictions on migrants' access to social security, the government is already doing everything it can do to promote racism under other names. This reality needs to be taken into account in deciding how to deal with Howard's threat.
Caving in to the threat by "compromising" with the government on Wik would encourage racism, not defeat it.
It would encourage Howard to continue to use racial prejudice to create scapegoats for the broader social crisis his policies in all areas are generating. It would allow him to continue unchallenged making indigenous Australians the soft targets for government funding cuts. He would continue to try to roll back all indigenous land rights, to clear the way for even greater corporate profit-making, especially in the mining and pastoral industries.
This is a racist government. Its racism cannot be stopped by trying to persuade it not to express its racism openly. The government's racism has to be confronted head-on — not only in election campaigns, but certainly including them. The next election campaign, whenever it comes, should openly challenge the Howard government's racism, regardless of how openly it chooses to express that racism at the time.
The reason that ALP leaders are talking about further concessions on Wik is that they fear that a federal election campaign focused on racism will further expose the fact that the party is not prepared really to oppose or campaign against racist policies, that it puts the interests of big business and its neo-liberal project well ahead of the interests of indigenous Australians. In its own, somewhat different, way, the ALP is as racist as the Coalition.
There must be no compromise with racism — before, during or after election campaigns. The Senate should reject the 10-point plan in its entirety. If and when the government calls a double dissolution election, the anti-racism movement must be ready, willing and able to force both Labor and the Coalition to respond to the strongest, most mobilised and most uncompromising anti-racist movement we can build.
With at least a few months before an election, now is the time to build such a movement.