By Stuart Russell
A centrepiece of the Howard government's ideological offensive against last month's "Canberra riot" has been to label those associated with the protest as "un-Australian". John Howard and other members of the cabinet have used the term against the trade union movement, the left and the student movement in a crude attempt to stigmatise, isolate and put down all those who have the temerity to oppose his budget and desire a decent standard of living.
It is part of a scare campaign, rooted in a phobia of "foreign" or "dangerous" beliefs, and a crude attempt to create a new ideological apartheid between the Australians and the "un-Australians".
In this supposedly "post-modern era", characterised by pronounced historical amnesia, it is easy to forget the bleak past associated with a term the Howard government has consciously attempted to bring back to life: un-Americanism. In the 1950s the American government unleashed a ferocious campaign against the left, branding it and its allies "un-American".
Prominent left-wingers, Hollywood stars, lawyers and musicians were hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee or the Senate committee of Joe McCarthy. Anyone who was a member or sympathiser of the Communist Party, as well as many other leftists and trade unionists, were labelled "un-American" and black-listed. Many lost their jobs, their careers and their futures.
McCarthyism spread to many western countries, where the state used this loaded ideological term to attempt to destroy the left and militant trade unionists.
John Howard obviously had this history in mind when he unleashed his verbal assaults against the demonstrators in Canberra. Words are powerful instruments because they embody emotive imagery and coded messages. "Un-Australianism" is an extremely dangerous and divisive term, because it has the potential to whip up a new anticommunist hysteria and witch-hunt.
Inspired by the time-tested dictum "divide and rule", it seeks to intimidate the vast majority of people who refuse to accept the Thatcherite agenda of massive budget cuts and the dismantling of the welfare state being promoted by the Howard government. In these days when republicanism receives such wide support, fuelled in large part by neo-nationalism, who would want to be tarred with the "un-Australian" brush?
By refusing to explain what it means to be "Australian", the Howard government has engaged in the intellectual cowardice so much in vogue with right-wing governments. It is much easier to sling labels than to engage in informed debate. Such governments have used charged ideological put-downs against a variety of opponents in the past, including those they consider to be un-Christian, unpatriotic, non-believers, unmarried mothers and countless others.
Such offensive labels are designed to harm the labelled and whip up public opinion against these "outsiders". They constitute a form of verbal fascism.
The use of the term "un-Australian" also demonstrates that, contrary to a widely accepted view, the Cold War is not over. The red scare is only one step away from "un-Australianism", which was at the heart of the Cold War. The recent right-wing phrase-mongering against Australian historian Manning Clark is part of this new Cold War ideological offensive. So too is the denunciation by members of the Howard government of "old-fashioned notions of class struggle", supposedly propounded by trade union leaderships.
The Cold War continues in Australia, as it always has, against the left, trade unionists and movements for social change. For the Cold War was not only or even principally a conflict between the US and Soviet governments, but rather an ideological war between capitalism and socialism. It will continue as long as capitalism exists.
Of course we could argue that it is the Howard government that is "un-Australian", because it is attempting to dismantle the welfare state, increase unemployment and wage war against the poor. But that would only be to stoop to their level. The "un-Australian" bogy has been pulled out because the Howard government, and the business community which it represents, fear more than anything else more militant demonstrations, and a real resurgence of class struggle.
They prefer to whip up emotions with verbal slanders, invoking the same kind of reactionary nationalism that has led to war and destruction in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, in an attempt to clobber us back into the 19th century. The verbal fear-mongering and mud-slinging must be met by stepped-up militant action by the trade unions, the left and all movements for social change.