By Suneeta Peres da Costa
I find it rather apt that as I write this, there is a program being broadcast on Radio National about the burning of black churches in the US south. When Pauline Hanson said in her maiden address to federal parliament that she does "not believe that the colour of one's skin determines whether you are disadvantaged", she rendered explicit a view that is gaining increasing potency not just amongst north Queensland voters, but also amongst the policy makers of the current Liberal government, who, ironically, she sought to criticise.
Contrary to the outcry by certain "liberals", Hanson's statement is a testament to the prevalence of racism both in mainstream Australia and in the democratic process which legitimated her candidacy. Her speech is an important signal of the insidious way in which racism functions in this country.
Whatever the cosmetics of multiculturalism and the legal frameworks now available, at least in theory, to prosecute racial vilification, racism continues to function — in an institutional and "invisible" sense — by collapsing cultural difference. How else could an non-English speaking background migrant see the cuts to migrant education programs and social services?
The white ethno-centrism which underscores such policies is evidenced even further in the approach toward Australian indigenous people, who are now, unbelievably, being told how to maintain the culture which white Australia so long attempted systematically to annihilate.
In light of this, we might regard Hanson's speech as racist not only because her claims about spending on indigenous welfare and Asian immigration were discriminatory distortions. It was also an explicit statement about the attitude of conservatives to the conduct of race relations: the notion that they best operate where cultural distinctions are invisible and when ethnic minority and indigenous interests are subordinated to the logic of white assimilationism.
My friend, a black South African, who recently arrived in Sydney, and who has been witness to the controversy over Hanson's speech, has been extremely surprised by the absence of an oppositional voice amongst ethnic minorities, particularly amongst Asian Australians.
I pointed out that there are perhaps two reasons for this. Firstly, unlike South Africa's situation, ethnic minorities and indigenous people are less of a physical threat to the dominant culture here, since we compose a "quantitative" minority. Second (and maybe due to the former), the ideology of "whiteness" succeeds in Australia by inserting itself as the norm in politics as much as popular culture.
All one has to do is switch on any of the three commercial television channels to see that multiculturalism, the supposed policy of inclusion — from breakfast cereal to toothbrushes to cars — has a white face and blue eyes. This is quite extraordinary when one considers that a significant and increasing proportion of local markets — from breakfast cereal to toothbrushes to cars — consists of Asian Australian consumers.
Any "liberal" spokesperson who reduces Hanson's comments to an embodiment of the wider community's alienation and disillusionment with the political system and government (as the Sydney Morning Herald's Geoff Kitney attempted to do), is avoiding a necessary examination of racism. In fact, much of the criticism so far levelled at Hanson has focused less on the racist sentiments of the comments than on her audacity in expressing them. Gerard Henderson, for one, asserted, "Certainly Pauline Hanson is not showing any sins of verbal inhibition". Should we interpret this as a suggestion that Hanson's racism is not in fact in her views but, rather, in her voice?
What we should be asking is whether a political system that enables a candidate such as Hanson to win power on a racist platform is flawed.
It is quite a misleading claim that Hanson and the electorate for which she stands should feel alienated by this government. Since assuming power, the Liberal government has moved further from the interests of ethnic minority groups and closer to the agendas of Hanson and her right-wing apostles.
Prime Minister John Howard, in his perfunctory visit to Indonesia, had the arrogance to tell the president that Australia "did not claim to be Asian". In fact, Mr Prime Minister, many Australians do claim to be Asian (whatever "Asian", an assimilationist category coined by white Australia, means, anyway).
Read between the lines of Howard's rhetoric ("we bring our own distinct culture, attitudes and history to the region"), and we find out just whose distinct culture he is referring to — the dominant white one present in every form of consumer culture. Howard said it himself during the televised election debates when he claimed Vegemite as a quintessential Australian icon which "we all grew up with".
What this government is doing — and the creed of Hanson only helps to circulate this — is replacing multiculturalism with a contempt for, and assimilationist threat to, indigenous and ethnic minority differences. By eradicating these differences or acknowledging them only as subaltern features of Australia's dominant racial character, the federal government is proving that its stance on race relations is regressive and, moreover, a gesture of endorsement to the racist views which those like Hanson harbour and are not afraid to express.
[Suneeta Peres da Costa is a student of cultural politics, writing and mass-media criticism at the University of Technology, Sydney.]