An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion

James Jupp

Description

A book that seeks to get a little bit closer to the truth of two hundred years of creating a liveable society in what was once a remote and unknown part of the world.

‘An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion’ is based on current events and developments in Australia and seeks to illuminate them using historical and contemporary issues. It is not a formal or chronological ‘history book’. Its sources are soundly based on the scholarship of existing history books. The transformation of Australia into a complex multicultural society comparable to the United States or Canada has not been fully dealt with by most conventional historians or taught extensively in schools and universities. Many conservative scholars either ignore this or even deplore the changes which have become so noticeable since the 1950s.

The most important of these changes has been the decline and virtual disappearance of the British Empire from the Asian regions and the growth of dozens of political powers and systems previously only subject to European control. These changes have created an international environment for Australia which is increasingly focussed on Asia and on powers as large and strong as China and India or as threatening as North Korea or some of the Islamic world. These may have been exaggerated, as was Communism in the past, but recently public policy is being reshaped to cope with them. This has normally exchanged British for United States protection, which may not be acceptable to some of Australia’s neighbours. In particular the newly discovered ‘Anglosphere’ may look just like the old British connection on a broader scale.

The Australian population reflects these changes in its quite recent nature by accepting and even welcoming immigration from the same Asian regions despite some official attempts to control and limit it after the end of the White Australia policy in the 1970s. Refugee pressures have even extended the intake to cover some parts of Africa. While some official policies have welcomed these changes, others have sought to limit them or to seek cohesion in what might seem like a dissolving society. There have been a series of public debates surrounding ethnicity, values, dangers and tensions, even though these are much less obvious than elsewhere. The book tracks backwards through history to show that dislike and even fear of non-British, non-white and undemocratic elements have existed since the earliest days of British settlement. These were first motivated by contact with the indigenous population, which was drastically reduced in size and driven from their lands within the first generation. This created lasting problems with which Australians have grappled with limited success right into the present, two centuries later. Others followed, including ‘enemy aliens’ such as Germans who were originally welcomed as civilized and Christian. Other potential enemies of British Protestantism and authority were soon included – the Irish, socialists, radicals and, eventually by 1920, Communists.

Most potential disturbers of stability were seen as foreigners in one sense or another, extending to Jews, Catholics, Chinese, Asians, Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Displaced Persons after 1945, Japanese and, most recently, Arabs and Muslims, including Muslims who were not Arabs and Arabs who were not Muslims. These latter were the victims of the only mass race riot of recent history at Cronulla (NSW) in 2005. The reality of Middle Eastern conflicts which were largely religious were distorted into claims that some such elements could never be accepted in Australia, despite the fact that the Arabic language by then was the fourth most widely used in Australia because of permitted immigrations. Fear of political disruptors is traced back to the Industrial Workers of the World in 1918, who were made illegal by the Hughes wartime government. At the same time Hughes was trying to recruit Australians into the massacres of the World War by urging support for King and Country.

‘An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion’ traces many of the fears, real or imaginary, which characterized Australians in the past. As most citizens had become literate by 1900 they were subjected to a mass press which fanned these fears right through to the present. As adult Australians (and all British migrants until recently) could vote, political parties had an interest in maintaining the myths surrounding these enemies of progress and safety, whoever they were. The fear of Communists and other radicals was often combined with fear of the power of trade unions, although these were controlled by laws from the early years. Racist and fascist organizations did not arouse so much fear during the unstable 1930s or even post-war more recently. The fear of Communism was strong enough to rend the Australian Labor Party for two decades. Yet the Communists only won one parliamentary seat at the Commonwealth level in the whole of their half-century of existence. They were an agent of the Soviet Communist state but that was the cause of their eventual collapse and demise in the 1960s. It also ignores the fact that the World War II was turned against the enemy of Australia, Britain and the United States largely by the efforts of the Soviet Red Army. As in many other respects, history becomes very malleable in the hands of those with an interest in rehearsing it. The outstanding example in Australia has been the legend of Gallipoli, where the disastrous defeat of Australian volunteers invading Turkey was soon turned into a glorious victory and national legend.

‘An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion’ presents Australian traditions, myths and legends in an understanding but often critical light in the belief that such devices have often been used by interested parties and even governments to maintain social solidarity and to mould a very complex people into a coherent and obedient whole. In the process Australians have often been misled about their failures and problems in the interest of consolidating their belief in their superiority. Australia is not and never has been an equal society. It has not always been a peaceful and tolerant society but it is more so than most other states and especially many of those sending immigrants. It is not a perfect democracy. Many have been mistreated and even persecuted but not as severely as in many other still-functioning societies. That most of those suffering at present are either indigenous or refugees should not be a cause of indifference. But at least some protest and assistance has been present since the passing of the original convict state in the 1860s. Australians may be suspicious of foreigners and social and political deviants. But they have passed a whole series of reforming laws since the Federation in 1901, not all of which have been as racist as the White Australia policy. In general, Australia has been a successful society, which does not mean that problems and mistakes need to be wiped off the slate. This book seeks to get a little bit closer to the truth of two hundred years of creating a liveable society in what was a remote and unknown part of the world. Nothing is perfect. Australia might have been served by better politicians and journalists or even by academics and intellectuals. But of how many societies in the modern world could that not also be true? The point is to record and contemplate specific faults and triumphs and act accordingly.

Preface; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; Part I; 1. Prisons in the Pacific, 1788–1850; 2. The British Inheritance; 3. White Australia and the Golden Age; 4. Peace, Order and Good Government; 5. Indigenous Australia and the South Pacific; 6. Rural Settlers, the Irish and the Chinese; 7. Radicals and Rebels; 8. Communists and their Allies; 9. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization; 10. Refugees before the UN Convention and Enemy Aliens; 11. Crime, Corruption and Terrorism; 12. The Multicultural Era; 13. Islam as the New Threat; Part II; 14. The Post-War Promise Ends; 15. Refugees and War; 16. The United Nations and Refugees; 17. Mandatory Detention; 18. ‘Stop the Boats’; 19. Finding a Decent Dumping Ground; 20. History as Tragedy and Farce; 21. Facing the Real World; 22. Cohesion and Humanity; 23. From Nation-Building to Border Protection; 24. An Unstable World; Chronology; References; Index.

Sujets

• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Public policy
• Civil and political rights
• Human rights
• LAW
• Immigration

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 10 avril 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783087686
• Langue: English

Extrait

An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion
Anthem Studies in Australian Politics, Economics and Society
This series showcases the most significant contributions to scholarship on a wide range of social science issues, dealing with the changing politics, economics and society of Australia, while not losing sight of the interplay of other regional and global forces and their influence and impact on this region. Anthem Studies in Australian Politics, Economics and Society is intended as an interdisciplinary series, at the interface of politics, law, sociology, media, policy, political economy, economics, business, criminology and anthropology. It is seeking to publish high quality research which considers issues of power, justice and democracy and provides a critical contribution to knowledge about Australian politics, economics and society. The series especially welcomes books from emerging scholars which contribute new perspectives on social science.
Series Editor-in-Chief
Sally Young – University of Melbourne, Australia
Series Editors
Timothy Marjoribanks – La Trobe Business School, Australia
Joo-Cheong Tham – Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia
Editorial Board

Iain Campbell – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia
Sara Charlesworth – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia
Kevin Foster – Monash University, Australia
Anika Gauja – The University of Sydney, Australia
John Germov – The University of Newcastle, Australia
Michael Gilding – Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Simon Jackman – Stanford University, USA
Carol Johnson – The University of Adelaide, Australia
Deb King – Flinders University, Australia
Jude McCulloch – Monash University, Australia
Jenny Morgan – University of Melbourne, Australia
Vanessa Ratten – La Trobe University, Australia
Ben Spies-Butcher – Macquarie University, Australia
Ariadne Vromen – The University of Sydney, Australia
John Wanna – Australian National University, Australia
George Williams – The University of New South Wales, Australia
An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion
Australia from 1788
James Jupp
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2018
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
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© James Jupp 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-766-2 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-766-8 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
Preface

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Part I
1. Prisons in the Pacific, 1788–1850

2. The British Inheritance

3. White Australia and the Golden Age

4. Peace, Order and Good Government

5. Indigenous Australia and the South Pacific

6. Rural Settlers, the Irish and the Chinese

7. Radicals and Rebels

8. Communists and Their Allies

9. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

10. Refugees before the UN Convention and Enemy Aliens

11. Crime, Corruption and Terrorism

12. The Multicultural Era

13. Islam as the New Threat

Part II
14. The Post-War Promise Ends

15. Refugees and War

16. The United Nations and Refugees

17. Mandatory Detention

18. ‘Stop the Boats’

19. Finding a Decent Dumping Ground

20. History as Tragedy and Farce

21. Facing the ‘Real World’

22. Cohesion and Humanity

23. From Nation-Building to Border Protection

24. An Unstable World

Chronology

References

Index
PREFACE
My personal experience of politics began as a boy in South London, heavily bombarded by Hitler’s Luftwaffe and rockets. I came to Australia in 1956 as a newly qualified master in sociology from the London School of Economics. My first host was the Salvation Army in Fremantle as I had no money and was alone. I am grateful to them. Australia was wide open to British migrants then. It was also notably more affluent than post-war England. However, it was rather old-fashioned and conservative and very white. It was protected from others by immigration policies preferring the British and excluding non-Europeans; it was protected from new ideas and controversies by a censorship system based on the Vatican Index of prohibited items administered at the landing place by customs officers; its Sundays were devoted to closing down innocent pleasures such as newspapers, cinemas and above all the consumption of alcohol; it banned birth control and abortion, kept women in a secondary role and made divorce as hard as possible. On the international scale it was protected from potential enemies by the alliance between Britain and the United States, left over from the Japanese defeat. This ‘saved’ Australia from a tiny band of communists, which got steadily smaller and has now vanished. Potential enemies never attacked.
Melbourne University reflected much of this safeguarded provincialism. Although renowned, it was inbred, with most academics born and raised locally. My later teaching posts have included Canada, Yorkshire and Canberra, with research sessions in Sri Lanka and Vanuatu. But Melbourne started me off as an academic, teaching compulsory Australian Politics One as the equivalent of a base-grade tutor.
My impressions of the world since then have largely come from international travel, which I recommend to scholars who need to get out of their studies for a look at reality. This includes regular returns to London to see the changes in my home town, which is now far more multicultural than anything in Australia; two years teaching in Canada, which showed me that a bilingual, multicultural society can be more intelligent than the officially created Australian model; years of studying and publishing on Sri Lanka, a tragedy which arose from being unable to accept ethnic variety; a field study on bicultural politics in Vanuatu as it came to independence; voyages by bus, car and train through a very wide variety of nations in Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific. To understand the world, you need to go there. Many Australian academics, journalists and politicians should be better informed. It is hard for them to get away as often as they would like. Truly the ‘tyranny of distance’ has always been a problem. The core perspective in this study is international rather than local. An international perspective was more difficult for scholars until ships were replaced by planes in the 1960s and then by the Internet. This was not their fault.
This is not a ‘black armband’ history, to use a phrase popularized during the 1980s, except where reference is made to obvious failings, such as White Australia, refugees, racism, Aborigines, the convict system and suspicion of the outside world. Rather it is a historically based discussion of the unique experience of creating a viable modern society from a sparsely populated country by the hard work and serious planning of human beings over 230 years. It is not a ‘history book’ in the usual sense, but uses historic instances to illuminate issues often spread over many years or even centuries. In the course of two centuries many wrongs were committed, many projects launched and many lives changed. Overlooking much of this could create a false report about building a unique nation at the end of the world. The alternative to black armband has too often been flag-waving. However, Australian academic history is very professional and forms the basis for my own references and studies. These I owe to my colleagues in political science and historical studies in Australia and elsewhere over a period of many years.
Among those who have helped and encouraged me in this effort have been my colleagues in the Australian National University School of Demography and especially Peter McDonald, who invited me to join them. They left me to get on with whatever I was doing, which is a priceless gift in modern academia; earlier colleagues at the University of York, especially David Coates, now in the United States; Ian Hume, now in Wales and bilingual in Chinese and Welsh; Phil Cerny, moving between York and New Jersey; founders of multiculturalism such as Peter Shergold and Sev Ozdowski; Sri Lankan friends like Vinod Moonesinghe and Don S. Abeygunawardena; Olavi Koivukangas; Nonja Peters; Barry York; Eric Richards; Hanifa Dean; Andrew Jakubowicz; and many others, including the contributors to my three encyclopedias of 1988, 2001 and 2009; the late Andrea McRobbie, who ran the office, before moving to the United States; and Liz Wayman (now in Los Angeles), who created the amazing illustrations for each of them. Their work has been maintained by Gillian Evans into the present, for which I am very grateful. I should