Nicole Conner
ABSTRACT
Recent history has witnessed an increase in global
conflict since the 1990s. This factor, along with natural
disasters, has resulted in the number of displaced
persons exceeding 50 million, unparalleled since World
War II. As the world frantically seeks to adjust to this
crisis of destitute and vulnerable people, Australia has
taken an increasingly austere approach to those seeking
asylum on its shores. This paper examines the harsh
attitudes and policies from an ideological perspective.
The ideologies that will be discussed includes banal
nationalism built on British-Anglo ideals, racism built
on fear of economic competition, national security ideals
built on political tactics that labeled asylum seekers as
a ‘threat’, and ideals formed through geographical
insularity evidenced by a disengagement from global
affairs. These ideologies have developed successfully
since European settlement because they have resonated
with society’s fear of the ‘others’ and been promoted
through political rhetoric and mass media. These
ideologies, formed amidst hardship and survival fears of
European settlers, are so deeply entrenched that they
often go unrecognised or are denied. In order for
Australia to address the complexity and plight of
traumatised asylum seekers from a responsible, global
position, it has to start by addressing the ideologies
that have shaped its current bellicose attitude and
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Nicole Conner policies towards those seeking refuge.
INTRODUCTION
In 2014 the humanitarian chief of the United Nations,
Valerie Amos, warned of an unprecedented global crisis as
millions of people are displaced by conflict or natural
disasters.1 In the midst of such vast and devastating
people migration, Australia has become more severe in its
attitude towards asylum seekers, especially those
arriving by boat. This project will seek to answer the
research question: ‘How have ideologies, shaped by
Nationalism, Racism, Insularity and National Security,
influenced current Australian attitude and policies
towards ‘Boat People’?’ It will discuss the current 1 ‘UN issues 2014 appeal to tackle global humanitarian crisis’, DW, 2014, http://www.dw.de/un-issues-2014-appeal-to-tackle-global-humanitarian-crisis/a-17338859, accessed 24 August 2014.
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Nicole Conner hostile attitude and policies towards boat arrivals and
examine how sentiments have been shaped by these four
embedded ideologies that have developed during the period
of European colonisation. Each ideology will be traced
historically and highlighted through events that played
catalyst to the current social climate and culture. A
brief explanation on how ideologies are developed in a
national context will serve as prelude into the
investigation of the effects of the four central
ideologies. This study will reveal how these four
embedded ideologies have shaped the Australian psyche
into one of antagonism and indifference to the desperate
and persecuted.
HOW IDEOLOGIES DEVELOP IN A NATIONAL CONTEXT
The term ‘ideology’ was first coined by Antoine Destutt
de Tracy, who used it to refer to an aspect of his
‘science of ideas’ of our ‘intellectual faculties, their
principal phenomena, and the most remarkable
circumstances of their activities.’2 He believed that the
soundness of ideas could be tested through the sensations
that produced them in the first place.3 Karl Marx applied
de Tracy’s concept of ideology to cultural determinants;
specifically how material and economic conditions can
impact ideas often resulting in false views of a supposed
2 Antoine Destutt de Tracy, Projet d'dl~ments d'iddologie, Paris, 1801, p. 4.3 Robert J. Richards, ‘Ideology and the History of Science’, Biology and Philosophy, 8, 1993, p. 103.
3
Nicole Conner reality.4 Over the years, the concept of ideology has been
fiercely debated and in the last several decades re-
emerged as a vital field of enquiry amongst students and
practitioners of social sciences. McLellan dubbed it ‘the
most elusive concept in the whole of social science.’5
Erikson & Tedin defined ideology as a ‘set of beliefs
about the proper order of society and how it can be
achieved.’6 Denzau and North highlight the importance of
social groups in their definition:
… ideologies are the shared framework of mental models that groups of individuals possess that provideboth an interpretation of the environment and a prescription as to how that environment should be structured.7
Shared ideologies communicate beliefs, opinions and
values of various social groups, societies or nations.
These ideologies shape worldviews by ‘making assertions
or assumptions about human nature, historical events,
present realities, and future possibilities.’8
Ideologies, which are a modern phenomenon, primarily
relate to the economic and political events of the
4 Ibid., p. 105.5 David McLellan, Ideology, Minneapolis, 1986, p. 1.6 Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin, American Public Opinion: Its Origins,
Content, and Impact, 6th edn, New York, 2003, p. 64. 7 Arthur T. Denzau and Douglass C. North, ‘Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions’, in Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice and the Bounds of Rationality, Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. McCubins and Samuel L. Popkin, eds, New York, 2000, p. 24.
8 John T. Jost, Christopher M. Federico and Jaime L. Napier, ‘Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions and Elective Affinities’, Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 2009, p. 309.
4
Nicole Conner nineteenth and twentieth century. They are a set of ideas
often held and used by hegemonic structures and
governments to communicate complex realities. For
ideologies to develop on a national level they must
resonate to some degree with people’s experience; they
must engage with the wants and desires that people
already have.9 Ideologies develop successfully, even when
absolutely false, if they contain important propositions
that communicate to the social reality of the audience.
What follows is the examination of four embedded
ideologies that have been part of, and progressed from,
the Australian colonising mentality, a mindset or
worldview shaped by fear, vulnerability, hardship and
scarcity of a convict culture seeking to survive in a
foreign and isolated country. The methodology of
examining the four ideologies involves defining each
ideology, the discussion of historical events and
evidence that demonstrate its development and progression
in the Australian social psyche, and the effect it had,
and continues to have, on asylum seekers. Some of the
main sources used to discuss ideologies of nationalism
includes Michael Billig on ‘Banal Nationalism’ and the
studies conducted by Pederson, Attwell and Aveli, that
explores at how false beliefs and nationalism have had a
negative effect on asylum seekers. Racist ideologies will
draw on Humphrey McQueen’s A New Britannia, where he argues
that racism is the most important component of Australian
9 Terry Eagelton, Ideology: An Introduction, London, 1991, p. 14.
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Nicole Conner nationalism. This argument will be bolstered by Phillips
and Boese’s study on the continued effect of the White
Australia Policy on the attitude towards asylum seekers.
Ideologies of national security will discuss Australia’s
invasion anxiety examined in the writings of Anthony
Burke. It will compare this to the studies of Trudy Hoad
and some of her unqualified statements surrounding
security threats and moral responsibility; rhetoric that
has been used by political leaders and created a negative
attitude towards asylum seekers. Lastly, some of the main
sources used to discuss Australia’s insular imagination
and the ideology shaped through these ideals is
Suvendrini Perera’s Australia and the Insular Imagination and
Joseph Pugliese’s paper discussing the myth of terra nullius.
THE EFFECT OF NATIONALISM ON THE TREATMENT OF
BOAT PEOPLE
Addressing the Anglican congregation of St Andrew’s in
Sydney in 1924, Rev. Arthur Garnsey warned that although
nationalism may be an influence for good, most often it
is one of evil. It is easy to forget, he said, that other
nations have the same rights as we do; nationalism often
reduces a nation to narrow hatred and unnecessary wars.10
However, Australian nationalism has been difficult to
define. Some would say there’s no real Australian
10 Arthur H. Garnsey, ‘Nationalism’, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April 1924, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16132440, accessed 3June 2014.
6
Nicole Conner identity, rather, a set of continuous evolving ideas used
most effectively by the ruling class.11 Anderson argues
that no nation could possibly know the ideologies and
practices of the majority of their fellow-members, and
therefore the whole idea of nationalism remains a
cultural construct, an ‘imagined political community’.12
Meaney agrees that nationalism is a socially constructed
idea or a ‘myth’ about a people and that it is based on
historically conditioned imagining. He contends that
‘Britishness’ is the dominant cultural myth that has
provided meaning to the people of Australia since
European settlement, even more pervasive in Australia
than Britain itself.13 He provides ample examples to
bolster his claim historically, including the oaths of
loyalty in public schools to the British Empire, the
celebration and centrality of Empire Day until 1958, and
the commemoration of ANZAC day as Australian Britons’
contribution to the Empire’s cause.14 The Nationality and
Citizenship Act of 1948 retained the concept of ‘aliens’ for
11 Richard White, ‘Inventing Australia Revisited’, in Creating Australia: changing Australian history, eds Wayne Hudson & Geoffrey Bolton, St Leonards, 1997, pp.12-22.
12 Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, revised and extended edn, London, 1991, p. 6.
13 Neville Meaney, ‘Britishness and Australian Identity: The Problem of Nationalism in Australian History and Historiography’, Australian Historical Studies, 32, 2001, pp. 76-90. Also see article from 1888 highlighting two types of interwoven nationalism; the one building patriotism in Australia, whilst the other holds allegiance to the British Empire. Anon, ‘Nationalism', Capricornian (Rockhampton, Qld:1875 - 1929), 11 August, 1888, p. 17, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65792899, accessed 1 July 2014.
14 Ibid.
7
Nicole Conner all non-British subjects. All citizens were British
subjects and the idea of citizenship itself was built on
British law and tradition. Progressive changes were made
in the various amendments that followed, including
removing the idea of ‘Britishness’ as the heart of what
it means to be Australian. The concept of ‘alien’ was
finally removed in a 1986 amendment to the act.15
To this day the discourse about nationalism in Australia
remains somewhat fragmented.16 Ideologies that frame and
fashion a nation are often unnamed and therefore
unnoticed. Billig has introduced the term ‘banal’
nationalism to define the ideological habits that enable
established nations in the West to be reproduced. This
term underscores his claim that these ideological habits
that give definition to nationalism are not removed from
everyday life; rather, they are the endemic condition of
a nation. These ideologies are reinforced in simple
things such as a flag in a garden or a bumper sticker on
a vehicle.17 Ideologies that translate into national
identity are embodied in the habit of social life,
including thought process and language. It is a way of
talking about nationhood, about who ‘we’ are.18 Tajfel
15 ‘Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948’, Documenting a Democracy, http://foundingdocs.gov.au/ item-sdid-97.html, accessed 1 July 2014.
16 Stephen Castles, Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope and Michael Morrissey, Mistaken Identity: Multiculturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia, Sydney, 1988, p. 7.
17 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism, London, 1995, p. 8.18 Ibid., p. 78.
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Nicole Conner stresses that nationalism is a way of talking and
thinking about the first person plural. It defines ‘us’,
who ‘we’ are without ‘them’.19 In other words, nationalist
ideologies always create the ‘other’ by the sheer
practice of self-identification. Gunew argues that
Australian national identity is predicated on exclusion.20
Sexism and racism play integral roles in what it means to
be Australian. In seizing what was called empty land or
terra nullis, colonists refused to acknowledge the
traditional owners, ‘for white invaders, there was no
history before 1788.’21 Australian nationalism regarded
itself as part of the British Empire and the ‘British
race’.22 These nationalistic racist ideals continue to
linger to this day, recently reinforced by Prime Minister
Tony Abbott when he addressed the Australian-Melbourne
Institute of Economic and Social Outlook: ‘Our country is
unimaginable without foreign investment. I guess our
country owes its existence to a form of foreign
investment by the British government in the then
unsettled or, um, scarcely settled, Great South Land.’23 19 Henri Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology,
Cambridge, 1981, p. 254. 20 Sneja Gunew, Feminist Knowledge (RLE Feminist Theory): Critique and Construct,
London, 1990, p. 1.21 Castles et al., Mistaken Identity, p. 7. 22 Jens Lyng, Non-Britishers in Australia, Melbourne, 1935, p. 1. For
example: ‘…it may be said that to all intents and purposes, the history of the British in this country is the history of Australia.’ p. 2.
23 Patricia Karvelas, ‘Australia ‘unsettled’ before British arrived: Tony Abbott’, Australian, 4 July 2014, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/australia-unsettled-before-british-arrived-tony-abbott/story-fn9hm1pm-1226977438408?nk=132532c4c6799e420b82c4b7d5f1c9bd, accessed 5 July
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Nicole Conner In regards to sexism, White documents the ideal
Australian with an emphasis on ‘masculinity, masculine
friendships…or ‘mateship’…Women were excluded from the
image of the ‘Coming Man’, and the image of the
Australian type as well.’24 Not much has changed with the
current Prime Minister nominating himself as the Minister
for Women and appointing only one woman in a cabinet of
nineteen.25
Nationalist ideologies that are built on Anglo-Celtic,
racist and sexist ideals do not bode well for those
seeking asylum on Australian shores as they create
negative imagery of ‘otherness’. A study by Pedersen,
Atwell and Heveli reveals that the stronger an individual
identifies with the embedded ideals of a group or nation,
the greater influence these ideals will have on the
individual’s behaviour and belief towards those deemed
‘other’ by that group or nation.26 Pettigrew and Meertens
demonstrate a direct link between national pride and
blatant and subtle prejudice. Both blatant and subtle
prejudice is discriminatory, but subtle prejudice is more
pernicious as it can be expressed negatively whilst
2014.24 Richard White, Inventing Australia, Sydney, 1981, p. 83.25 Geoff Winestock, ‘Tony Abbott’s boys’ club’, Financial Review, 17
September 2013, http://www.afr.com/p/national/tony_abbott_boys_club_KQosOrhJfGhE8pUuCbrrxN, accessed 5 July 2014.
26 Anne Pedersen, Jon Attwell and Diana Heveli, ‘Predictions of negative attitudes towards Australian Asylum Seekers: False beliefs, Nationalism, and Self-esteem’, Australian Journal of Psychology, 57:3, 2005, p. 150.
10
Nicole Conner remaining socially acceptable.27 In the Australian
setting, studies reveal that national identity and what
it means to be ‘an Australian’ have created prejudice
against Indigenous Australians.28 This study upholds the
position of Jones who discovered a relationship between
national identity and prejudice towards Indigenous
Australians, Lebanese Australians and Vietnamese
Australians.29 Pedersen, Atwell and Heveli constructed
their study from a Perth audience in order to determine
whether the negative attitude towards Indigenous
Australians, discovered in previous studies, would be
found with respect to asylum seekers using the same
method of data collection.30 The results were
discouraging.
Firstly, there was the discovery that a large proportion
of the Perth community expressed extremely negative
attitudes towards asylum seekers based on false beliefs.31
These included the belief that asylum seekers were ‘queue
jumpers’, without understanding that there are no
Australian consulates within or surrounding Afghanistan
and Iraq, or that they had neither the information nor
ability amidst persecution to find or join a ‘queue’. Dr
27 Thomas F. Pettigrew and Roel W. Meertens, ‘Subtle and Blatant Prejudice in Western Europe’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 1995, p. 68.
28 Pedersen et al., ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’, p. 150.29 Frank L. Jones, ‘Ethnic Diversity and National Identity’,
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 33, 1997, p. 301. 30 Pedersen et al., ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’, p. 153.31 Ibid., p. 158.
11
Nicole Conner Samantha Thomas from Monash University did a similar
survey with 585 people. She also discovered that ‘queue
jumping’ emerged as the major irritant of respondents’
negative attitude towards asylum seekers.32 At the heart
of this reaction is a strong nationalistic ideology. Dr
Thomas said that the hostility towards people who are
seen to ‘sneak in’ as ‘a very Australian attitude’, which
has been bolstered by political rhetoric and media
reporting. Both the current Prime Minister and Minister
of Immigration still refer to asylum seekers as
‘illegals’ (despite the fact there is nothing illegal
about their actions), providing a good example of how
false beliefs are perpetuated by politicians and the
media. ‘What’s at the core of a lot of disquiet within
mainstream Australia is that unannounced boat people
violate people’s sense of sovereignty — that is, they’re
choosing us rather than we’re choosing them,’ argued the
Reader in Sociology at Monash University, Dr Birrell, of
the research.33 Another false belief was that asylum
seekers were ‘cashed up’ to pay people smugglers, without
understanding the dynamics of the sacrifice by extended
family to help those who are being persecuted.
Secondly, nationalism was found to play the most powerful
role in predicting negative attitudes towards asylum
32 Matthew Thompson, ‘Queue jumping’ the hot button for Australian thinking about asylum seekers’, Conversation, 26 October, 2011, http://theconversation.com/queue-jumping-the-hot-button-for-australian-thinking-about-asylum-seekers-4004, accessed 8 July 2014.
33 Ibid.
12
Nicole Conner seekers.34 When it comes to political issues, group
identity is more salient than personal identity.
Nationalism, defined by Cullingford as a cultural and
political phenomenon, can create extreme aggression where
‘the other’ becomes ‘the enemy’.35 According to Hage, it
was Prime Minister John Howard that began to steer
Australia into a narcisstic, paranoid form of
fundamentalist nationalism, as he successfully positioned
Australian values as the cornerstone of Australian
political vision.36 With his notions of ‘the Australian
way’ and ‘a fair go’ he caught the fantasy of an
increasingly insecure society who were ‘hoping that their
national identity will be a passport to hope for them.’37
A hope built on ideologies of imagined nationalism that
have to be guarded with a paranoid vindictiveness,
resenting all ‘others’ who seek access to that hope of a
better life. The Tampa Affair of August 2001 highlights
this paranoid ideology and became a hinge factor for the
harsh treatment of asylum seekers in modern Australian
history.38 In response to the Tampa Affair, Howard ushered in 34 Pedersen et al., ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’, p. 158.35 Cedric Cullingford, Prejudice: From individual identity to nationalism in young
people, London, 2000, p. 212.36 Ghassan Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking
Society, Sydney, 2003, p. 43. 37 Ibid., p. 21.38 Peter D. Fox, ‘International Asylum and Boat People: The Tampa
Affair and Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’, Maryland Journal of International Law, 25, 2010, p. 356, http://digitalcommons.law. umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1529&context=mjil, accessed 9 July 2014. On 26 August 2001, 433 ‘boat people’ from war-torn Afghanistan were rescued by the Norwegian cargo ship, MV Tampa, when their vessel became distressed. The Australian government denied access to Australian shores when requested by
13
Nicole Conner a Border Protection Bill into the House of
Representatives on 29 August 2001, which became a turning
point for Australia’s history and law, with the view that
Australian sovereignty will ‘determine who will enter and
reside in Australia.’39 On 1 September 2001 the Pacific
Solution was implemented where asylum seekers arriving by
boat were sent to detention centers on Pacific Island
states for processing, rather than allowing them entry
into Australia.40 The events and policies surrounding the
Tampa Affair dramatically changed the discourse and
treatment of asylum seekers. They were now perceived as a
threat to Australian sovereignty and discussed in terms
of border protection and their legal relation to
Australian State.41 National imagining played the key
factor in changing the debate of the treatment of asylum
seekers in immigration detention to border protection;
they were no longer connected to Australia, but excluded
Captain Arne Rinnen, creating political tension with Norway and leaving refugees, many dehydrated and malnourished, at sea for weeks, before allowing them to be detained in Nauru.
39 ‘Border Protection (Validation and Enforcement Powers) Bill 2001’, Commonwealth of Australia Bills, 2001,
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/bill/bpaepb2001522/, accessed 10 July 2014; and, John Howard, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Representatives, 27 August 2001, p. 30235.
40 Janet Phillips, ‘The Pacific Solution Revisited: A statistical guide to the Asylum Seeker caseloads on Nauru and Manus Islands’, 4 September 2012, http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament /Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/ PacificSolution# Toc334509636, accessed 10 July 2014.
41 J. Olaf Kleist, ‘Remembering for Refugees in Australia: Political Memories and Concepts of Democracy in Refugee Advocacy Post-Tampa’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34:6, 29 January 2013, pp. 665– 683.
14
Nicole Conner as non-citizens.42 Rev. Garnsey was right, nationalism has
the ability to reduce a nation to narrow hatred, and, in
Australia’s case, to dehumanise the asylum-seeking
refugee.
THE EFFECT OF RACIST IDEOLOGIES ON THE TREATMENT OF
BOAT PEOPLE
It was the Marxist historian, Humphrey McQueen, who
created a storm of controversy when he dismissed Ward’s,
The Australian Legend, challenging the self-congratulatory tone
and optimistic national self-image of the book. He
accused Ward of politely ignoring key features of the
Australian historical landscape.43 Racism presented itself
as one of the disputed points that ensued from McQueen’s
publication and the bitter discourses that followed. Ward
saw racism as a legacy of the gold rush and ‘the great
influx of middle-class migrants’, whereas McQueen
contended that racism was the ‘most important single
component of Australian nationalism.’44 McQueen claimed
that at the heart of endemic Australian racism is fear of
economic competition manifested in the ‘destruction of
the Aborigines, the dominance of the Pacific, and the
42 Ibid.43 Frank Bongiorno, ‘Two Radical Legends: Russel Ward, Humphrey
McQueen and the New Left Challenge in Australian Historiography', Journal of Australian Colonial History, 10:2, 2008, pp. 201 - 222.
44 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend, Melbourne, 2nd edn, 1977, pp. 129 –133.
Humphrey McQueen, A New Britannia: An Argument Concerning the Social Origins of Australian Radicalism and Nationalism, Ringwood, Penguin, 1970, p. 42.
15
Nicole Conner fear of an Asiatic invasion.’45 This paper argues that it
is this fear of economic competition that continues to
shape Australia’s racist ideology, an ideology that has
contributed significantly to the current antagonistic
attitude towards asylum seekers.
Australia became a colony of Britain through the total
disregard of the Traditional Owners of the land.
Declaring the country terra nullius and dismissing the many
Aboriginal tribes as barbaric and entirely destitute of
even the rudest forms of civil policy, ‘that their
claims, whether sovereign or proprietors of the soil,
have been entirely disregarded.’46 Reynolds estimated that
at least 20,000 Aborigines died as a result of white
settler genocide. 47 The full degree of atrocities will
never be fully known. Ideologies shaped by racism towards
Indigenous Australians and naïve notions like that of
Keith Windshuttle, who asserted that the British colonies
in Australia were ‘civilised societies governed by
morality and laws that forbade the killings of the
innocent’, have etched their mark on the Australian
psyche.48 To this day the invasion of Australia is
celebrated on a day that continues to be a day of
45 Ibid., p. 31.46 British Parliamentary Papers, Vol. VII (425), 1837, p. 82, cited in
Michael Conner, The Invention of Terra Nullius, Sydney, 2005, p. 72.47 Henry Reynolds, The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the
European Invasion of Australia, Ringwood, 1982, p. 122.48 Keith Windshuttle, ‘The Fabrication of the Aboriginal Death
Toll’, Quadrant Online, November 2000, https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2000/10/myths-of-frontier-massacres/, accessed 25 August 2014.
16
Nicole Conner mourning for the Traditional Owners. Ideologies of racism
are so deep and blind that as a national collective
there’s no recognition that Australia Day is a
celebration of one race at the expense of another.49
Economic competition justified the murder of thousands of
Aboriginal Australians by settlers in the frontiers.
Surviving letters and journal entries describe the
frontier mood and the attitude towards Aboriginal
Australians. A settler from the Western District said new
pastoral stations could be won if ‘the conscience of the
party is sufficiently seared to enable him without
remorse to slaughter natives right and left.’50 Dominant
suppressive ideologies hardened after the 1850s, shifting
from ideas about difference as a result of environment to
explanations around race. These ideas were fuelled by a
sense of European superiority in establishing dominion
over Indigenous populations.51 This sense of superiority
and an imagining of a ‘British’ Australia did not bode
well for the influx of non-white immigrants in search for
gold and a better life from places such as China, Japan
and the Pacific Islands during the nineteenth century. It
did not take long for the dominant group to feel
49 Michael Mansell, ‘The Meaning of Australia Day for Aboriginal People’, Creative Spirits, http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australia-day-invasion-day#toc1, accessed 14 July 2014.
50 Niel Black, Journal of the first months spent in Australia 1839 - 1840, 9 December 1939, cited in Ian D. Clark, ‘Squatters’ Journals’, The La Trobe Journal, 43, 1989, http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/ latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-43/t1-g-t7.html, accessed 15 July 2014.
51 Andrew Markus, Australian Race Relations, Sydney, 1994, p. 4.
17
Nicole Conner threatened by economic competition and to establish
measures to restrict non-Europeans from entering
Australia. First came the Chinese Immigration Act of 1855,
limiting the number of Chinese passengers on a vessel
bound to Australia to one for every ten tons.52 The Pacific
Island Labourers Act of 1901 allowed for the mass deportation
of Pacific Islanders working in Queensland and northern
New South Wales. Approximately 7,500 Pacific Islanders
were deported amidst this horrific act of racial
exclusion.53
In 1901, the new Federal Parliament passed the now
infamous Immigration Restriction Act, excluding all non-European
migrants. It became the foundation of the ‘White
Australia’ Policy.54 This policy would shape Australian
national imagination for the next six decades as it
sketched images of the ‘ideal’ Australian citizen that
would fit with Australia’s national character.55 The
rhetoric surrounding this policy incited fear of economic
competition as the possibility of an Asian ‘invasion’ was52 ‘Chinese Immigration Act 1855’, Documenting a Democracy,
http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-82.html, accessed 16 July, 2014.
53 ‘Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901’, Documenting a Democracy, http://foundingdocs.gov. au/item-did-15.html, accessed 20 July 2014; and, Kay Saunders ‘The Black Scourge’, in Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: a history of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination, Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin, Sydney, 1975, pp. 193-234.
54 ‘Immigration Restriction Act 1901’, Documenting a Democracy, http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/ item-did-16.html, accessed 16 July2014.
55 Melissa Phillips and Martina Boese, ‘Attitudes to Asylum Seekers: from White Australia to now’, SBS News, 21 June 2013, http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/06/21/attitudes-asylum-seekers-white-australia-now, accessed 16 July 2014.
18
Nicole Conner touted, referred to as the ‘yellow peril’.56 Even though
this policy was relaxed in the 1960s the fear lingered
and flourished into alarm with the direct arrival of
Vietnamese and Indo-Chinese refugees via boat. The term
‘boat people’ was coined as public awareness rose on the
plight of those fleeing persecution. Under the courageous
and flexible leadership of Malcolm Fraser over 200,000
Indo-Chinese refugees were resettled in Australia between
1976 and 1982. It became known as the ‘golden age’ of
asylum.57 This ‘golden age’ drew to a close after Bob
Hawke allowed 42,000 Chinese students to remain in
Australia after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
It was Paul Keating’s Labor government that first
introduced mandatory detention through a legislative
amendment on 5 May 1992.58 He was acting on the growing
public concern of ‘control crisis’ over a new wave of
Cambodian asylum seekers that had landed in the north and
the Coalition’s criticism of the government’s leniency
towards ‘individuals abusing Australian generosity’.59
McAllister contends that it was this angst over race and
immigration that took center stage in the 1996 election
and saw the return of the Liberal-National coalition to
office after thirteen years in opposition.60 Racism is a
56 Ibid.57 Ibid.58 Adele Garnier and Lloyd Cox, ‘Twenty years of mandatory
detention: the anatomy of a failed policy’, Australian Political Studies Association, 2012, Hobart, pp. 72 – 93.
59 Ibid.60 Ian McAllister, ‘The End of a Labor Era in Australian Politics’,
Government and Opposition, 31, July 1996, pp. 288 – 303.
19
Nicole Conner most effective political tool in that it enables the
material and intellectual fear and greed of dominant
groups.61 It found an effective ‘enabler’ in Pauline
Hanson and the One Nation Party, who resurrected the
ghost of the White Australia Policy and the century-old fear of
being ‘swamped’ by Asians.62 Her popularity and rise to
power in 1996, especially in North Queensland, was
staggering, dramatically changing the political landscape
in Queensland and across the nation, as she connected
with voter discontent and age-old fears of economic
competition. John Howard provided tacit support to her
racist comments with statements like, ‘I defend to the
death your right to say it because a lot of voters agree
with you.’63 Howard leveraged the moral panic created
through Hanson’s rhetoric because he understood that
‘economic liberalism on its own would not win
elections’.64 With yet another election quickly
approaching, Burnside argued that the Prime Minister’s
increasing tough stance on asylum seekers, as evidenced
in the Tampa Affair, was calculated:
A show of toughness against helpless refugees wouldbe electorally popular amongst the large number ofAustralians who had responded positively to aspects ofPauline Hanson’s unattractive (anti-immigration)
61 Markus, Australian Race Relations, p. 2. 62 Denise Phillips, ‘Wounded memory of Hazara refugees from
Afghanistan: Remembering and forgetting persecution’, History Australia,8:2, 2011, pp. 177 – 198.
63 Dalbir Ahlawat, ‘Reinventing Australian Identity’, International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3:11, June 2012, pp. 59 – 67.
64 Phil Griffiths, ‘Racism: Whitewash the class divide’, in Class andstruggle in Australia, Rick Kuhn, ed., Frenchs Forest, 2005, p. 169.
20
Nicole Conner platform.65
The racist rhetoric of Pauline Hanson resonated with a
nation that held a deep-seated racist ideology from its
settler inception. Howard seized the election opportunity
to fuel the fear of economic competition and fear of the
‘other’ by successfully dehumanising those seeking
refuge. This dehumanising exercise was executed to
perfection by creating slanderous lies of Middle Eastern
asylums seekers supposedly throwing their children
overboard in order to be towed to the safety of
Australian waters in October 2001. He said: ‘I don’t
want, in Australia, people who throw their children into
the sea.’66 Despite the warning of the falsehood of these
allegations by navy personnel, both Howard and the
Defense Minister, Peter Reith, stuck to this distorted
version until after the 2002 election.67 Hugh Mackay
observed that, ‘the ‘children overboard’ incident…shows
us how vulnerable Australians have become to political
spin.’68 This paper argues that the vulnerability of the
Australian society to racist spin is a direct result of
65 Julian Burnside, ‘Refugees: The Tampa Case’, Future Leaders, January 2002, http://www.futureleaders.com.au/pdf/Julian_Burnside.pdf, accessed 21 July 2014.
66 John Howard, ‘To Deter and Deny’, Four Corners, Murdochian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 April 2002, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s531993.htm, accessed 21 July 2014.
67 Scott Poynting, Greg Noble, Paul Tabar and Jock Collins, Bin Ladenin the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other, Sydney, 2004, p. 26.
68 Hugh Mackay, ‘Numbed voters take spin doctors’ orders’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16-17 February 2002, p. 31.
21
Nicole Conner racist conditioning and ideology, an ideology that
continues to shape the attitude and policies of both
sides of government in a race towards the bottom when it
comes to asylum seekers.
THE EFFECT OF IDEOLOGIES SURROUNDING NATIONAL SECURITY ON
BOAT PEOPLE
National security ideology and the attitude towards
asylum seekers hold a close connection in a country that
nurtures a fear of invasion and economic competition. In
a global context of economic and social mobility that has
laid waste to financial security, paranoid Australians
look to the government to protect them and provide
assurance. National security rhetoric therefore holds
appeal for any government seeking legitimacy and
approval.69 The terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington, D.C., on 11 September 2001, provided an
opportunity for the Howard government to not only suggest
that some who sought to come to Australia ‘illegally’ had
criminal records, but that terrorists might have been
smuggled on to the boats.70 Burke argues that although
racist ideology may have been a key factor in the Tampa
crisis, it is the intertwined ideas surrounding security 69 Robert Crawford, ‘Torture and the Ideology of National
Security’, Global Dialogue, 12(1), 2010, http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=454, accessed 23 July 2014.
70 Murray Goot, ‘Death penalties: The Ideological structuring of Australian attitudes to Asylum Seekers’, Macquarie University Research Online, 2004, http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/ vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:6428, accessed 23 July 2014.
22
Nicole Conner in these sorts of circumstances that robs people of
agency, choice and freedom. In cases like Tampa or the
World Trade Centre attack, citizens look to their leaders
for guidance and assurance, and if they believe their
security is at risk they will accede to ideologies based
in fear and prejudice.71 By alluding to asylum seekers as
security threats the government was, and is, able to
portray a defence of autonomy and sovereignty, whilst
turning society into pliable and passive subjects.72 For
the already homeless and traumatised asylum seeker, this
ideology now has a doubly dehumanising impact ‘within
traditional ontologies of national security and
identity.’73
In 2008, the incoming ALP government, under the
leadership of Kevin Rudd, showed early positive signs of
a more compassionate stance towards the needs of asylum
seekers, including the announcement that the detention
centres on Nauru and Manus Island would be closed,
temporary protection visas abolished, that children would
not be placed in detention centres and that detention
centres would be used as a last resort for the shortest
possible time.74 There is, however, no doubt that these
reforms by the Rudd government contributed to a sharp 71 Anthony Burke, Fear of Security: Australia’s Invasion Anxiety, Melbourne, 2008, p. 238. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid., p. 242. 74 Carolyn Fleay, ‘Australian Governments and Asylum Seekers:
Lessons to be Learned’, Refugee Conference UNSW 15, Sydney, June 2011, p. 4, http://info.humanrights.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/ Australia%20and%20asylum%20seekers.pdf, accessed 25 July 2014.
23
Nicole Conner increase in boat arrivals during the period of the
Rudd/Gillard governments. By Kevin Rudd’s second term as
prime minister, in June 2013, boat arrivals were reaching
3,300 per month.75 The dramatic increase of asylum seekers
created alarm and just before the September 2013 election
Rudd announced that no asylum seeker coming to Australia
by boat would receive refugee status, or be resettled in
Australia, instead they would be transferred to Papua New
Guinea or Nauru.76 The irony remained that amidst the boat
arrival panic, the security threat espoused by the
government, the ‘stop the boats’ slogans and obsessed
media, asylum seekers who arrived by plane on tourist or
temporary visas remained, and continue to remain,
somewhat unnoticed. Analysis of the statistics provided
by the Department of Immigration on Asylum Trends in Australia
2012-2013, indicated that decisions made on 5,274 of the
8,308 plane arrivals showed that 48.4% were given
protection visas. In comparison, the decisions made on
4,949 of the 18,119 boat arrivals revealed that 88% were
given refugee status.77 In other words, a higher
percentage of those arriving by boat were found to be
legitimate refugees compared to those entering the 75 Frank Brennan, ‘Is there a fair, just and effective policy
approach to Asylum Seekers?’ in Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Finding a better way, Bob Douglas and Jo Wodak, eds, Weston, 2013, p. 76.
76 John Menadue, ‘Election aftermath: Where to now on Asylum Seekers and Refugees?’ in Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Finding a better way, Bob Douglas and Jo Wodak, eds, Weston, 2013, p. 15.
77 Anon ‘What impact do asylum seekers have on Australia’s migration’, The Population Experts, 9 January 2014, http://blog.id.com.au/2014/population/australian-demographic-trends/what-impact-do-asylum-seekers-have-on-australias-migration-finished/, accessed 25 July 2014.
24
Nicole Conner country via plane. If national security proved to be
under genuine threat from those seeking asylum, instead
of a convenient ideology employed to bolster election
campaigns, a responsible government would draw attention
to the potential ‘danger’ of asylum seekers arriving by
plane.
Trudy Hoad argues that boat arrivals, especially from
Australia’s proposed arc of instability that includes a
chain of politically unstable nation states in the Asia-
Pacific region, represent a security threat not from a
conventional military context, rather, that they can
create internal instability in that their arrival can
affect or detract from the quality of life of the state’s
inhabitants.78 She claims that the complexities
surrounding ‘unauthorised immigrants’ is essentially one
of opposing ideologies: the ‘idealistic’ approach to
immigration by liberal-minded, altruistic members of the
community who ‘rely on the existence of a borderless
world’ and the ‘realistic’ approach, of which she no
doubt sees herself, who wish to assess immigration with
reference to national interest and the welfare of a state
as a ‘sovereign political, social and cultural unit.’79 It
is uncertain what research she has accessed to determine
that these two ideologies are both central, and
78 Trudy Hoad, ‘Australia’s unauthorised arrivals: Security Threat or Moral Responsibility?’, in Australia’s Arc of Instability: The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Regional Security, Dennis Rumley, Vivian Louise Forbes and Christopher Griffin, eds, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2006, p.49.
79 Ibid.
25
Nicole Conner accurately defined, when it comes to the debate
surrounding national security, yet the weight of her
claims rest on this idea. In her concluding remarks she
concedes that ‘unauthorised arrivals’ constitute a very
small proportion compared to those arriving to other
Western states. Yet, she argues, there remains no
credible justification for the implementation of policies
that would support further ‘unauthorised arrivals’ as the
cost of processing are prohibitive, especially in
relation to the very few people who would benefit.80 She
then turns some of her final arguments to breathtaking
vilification of those seeking asylum with no references
to her claims:
Conversely, of the vast majority of unauthorised
arrivals that have bypassed effective protection in one
or more states en route to Australia, most provide no
evidence to support their claims for asylum, some have
deliberately destroyed documents en route to Australia,
and (some) others have proceeded to make fraudulent
claims to further their case for asylum.81
Having vilified those seeking refuge, she then suggests
that they are responsible for promoting xenophobia and
racist ideas by arriving on Australian shores
‘illegally’. She also reasons that they create economic
hardship for receiving communities which, in turn, can
80 Ibid., p. 64. 81 Ibid.
26
Nicole Conner lead to political dissatisfaction and civil strive,
constituting revisionist ideas of security threat. Hoad’s
claims, and those holding similar notions, can be
strongly refuted by analysis of statistics available on
boat arrivals and a better understanding of the
conditions that people have fled their countries.82 Yet
her ideas are highlighted and bolstered through the
hyperbole of Australian political leaders who in turn
influence public opinion.
This paper argues that asylum seekers are seen as a
‘threat’ because of ideologies of national security that
have been constructed by Australian governments in a
calculated political act and widely circulated through
media, who due to limited access to detention facilities
and asylum seekers, are forced to rely exclusively on
official government versions.83 This is highlighted by the
Abbott government’s adoption of Rudd’s hard-line
policies, yet with harsher language and tighter
information control, under Operation Sovereign Borders. Secrecy
surrounds the dealings with asylum seekers and media are
82 There are various groups that analyse the information provided by the Department of Immigration on boat arrivals. The Refugee Council of Australia serves as an example: http://www. refugeecouncil.org.au/r/stat-as.php. The Australian Human Rights Commission also provides extensive information on asylum seekers: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/face-facts-2012/2012-face-facts-chapter-3. There is also a concerted effort underway toclarify some of the ideas and myths that are all to easily peddledcreating fear and suspicion.
83 Natascha Klocker and Kevin M. Dunn, ‘Who’s driving the Asylum Seeker debate? Newspaper and Government representations of Asylum seekers’, Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy; quarterly journal of media and resources, 109, 2003, pp.71 – 92.
27
Nicole Conner only briefed on ‘water operations’ if there’s a threat or
‘serious incidents’ occur.84 The term ‘threat’ was the
third most commonly used government description of asylum
seekers, following ‘illegitimate’ and ‘illegal’.85 It
includes the reference to violence in detention centres
and threats to border security. Fonteyne identifies this
description along with the term ‘problem’ as the worst
and most insidious form of stereotyping the vulnerable
and desperate.86 It attributes all the blame of negative
events to those seeking asylum and shields the government
from scrutiny of policies and treatment of asylum
seekers, as illustrated through Trudy Hoad’s deductions
above. It enables the government to convince the public
that these people are not entitled to protection and
justifies their ongoing detention. Constructing them as a
potential ‘threat’ to national security and a ‘problem’
heightens the negative attitude of Australians towards
these people who have now become ‘an anomaly requiring
specialised correctives and therapeutic interventions.’87
Perhaps national ideals are more fervent, and fears over
84 Tony Kevin, ‘Asylum seeker drownings on Australia’s border protection watch: An issue of national decency’, in Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Finding a better way, Bob Douglas and Jo Wodak, eds, Weston,2013, p. 37.
85 Klocker and Dunn, ‘Who’s driving the Asylum Seeker debate?’, p. 78. 86 Jean-Pierre Fonteyne, William Maley, Alan Dupont, Greg Fry,
James Jupp, Thuy Do, Refugees and the Myth of the Borderless World, Canberra, 2002, p. 19.
87 Don McMaster, Asylum Seekers: Australia’s Response to Refugees, Melbourne, 2001, p. 37.
28
Nicole Conner economic competition and invasion more acute, in a nation
‘girt by sea’.
THE EFFECT OF INSULARITY ON BOAT PEOPLE
In 1937, Arthur Henderson, a British Labour member of the
House of Commons, visited Australia and New Zealand. He
criticised how geographical insularity had created a
feeling amongst Australians that they were so far from
the rest of the world affairs that they need not bother
over them.88 A feeling that was somewhat shattered with
the outbreak of war and a recognition that whether they
like it or not, Australians need to shoulder their
responsibilities in maintaining world peace.89 Suvendrini
Perera probes the effect of geographical insularity on
Australian thought and identity, linking it directly to
historical violence in order to impose white insularity
and exclusivism: ‘The plotting of Australia as an insular
formation both expels the ‘foreign’ bodies around its
edges and encloses Indigenous peoples more closely within
88 ‘Australia’s Future: Insularity Criticised’, Western Australian, 11 November 1937, http://trove.nla. gov.au/ndp/del/article/41587879?searchTerm=insularity%20australia&searchLimits=l-availability=y|||l-australian=y, accessed 29 July 2014.
89 ‘Australia’s Insularity Gone Forever’, Argus (Melbourne), 25 July1944, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ ndp/del/article/11353575?searchTerm=insularity%20australia&searchLimits=l-availability=y|||l-australian=y, accessed 29 July 2014.
29
Nicole Conner clearly demarcated borders.’90 She forms a strong case to
demonstrate that it is ideas of insularity, sustained by
colonial myths of terra nullius and ‘Robinsonian fantasies’,
that undergird the violence, racism and exclusion that
are at work in events such as the Tampa crisis or the
brutality of detention centers.91 These embedded
Australian insularity ideals have heightened populist
discourse on the deterrence of asylum seekers and allowed
wedge politics to flourish.92 Howard’s tactical move in
tapping into the populist sentiment over the angst
surrounding immigration and asylum seekers, evidenced
through the rise of the One Nation party, forced the
‘wedged’ party (Rudd/Gillard government) to distance
itself from its more compassionate stance on asylum
seekers.93 The result is that over the last two decades
Australia has regressed to a culture of control with
‘control rhetoric, control solutions and control
90 Suvendrini Perera, Australia and the Insular Imagination, Melbourne, 2009,p. 27. 91 Joseph Pugliese, ‘Australia and the Insular Imagination:
Beaches, Borders, Boats and Bodies’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 25(01), 2011, pp. 134 –
137. 92 Jafa McKenzie and Reza Hasmath, ‘Deterring the ‘Boat People’:
Explaining the Australian government’s People swap response to asylum seekers’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 2013, p. 417, http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/. U41u3Bb1F4M, accessed 29 July 2014.
93 Ibid. Also see Shaun Wilson and Nick Turnbull, ‘Wedge Politics andWelfare Reform in Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 47(3),2001, pp. 384 – 402. They describe wedge politics as ‘a calculatedpolitical tactic aimed at using divisive social issues to gain political support, weaken opponents and strengthen control over the political agenda’ (p. 386), in doing so the ‘wedged’ party hasto ‘distance itself from unpopular causes or face political marginalisation’.
30
Nicole Conner failings’ featuring in the last several elections.
Australia’s isolated geographical location, unlike most
other nations in the Western world, makes it possible to
control who comes in and out of its territory.94 The
obsession with this control, enabled through insularity,
has made Australians uncomfortable with ‘any boat people
arriving on their shores.’95 This culture of control has
been embellished as ‘good immigration and refugee policy’
if borders are to be properly managed.96 With these ideas
in place, Arthur Henderson was quite correct in his
critique that Australians are so far removed from the
affairs of the world, specifically the global refugee
crisis of current times, that they feel they need not
bother with them.
There has been a significant increase in global conflict
since the start of the 1990s, and this, along with
natural disasters, has resulted in a refugee population
unparalleled since World War II.97 Yet, while faced with
this human sea of need and anguish, leading world nations
have been growing increasingly reluctant to honour their
94 Kathryn Cronin, ‘A Culture of Control: An overview of immigration policy-making’ in The Politics of Australian Immigration, James Jupp and Marie Kabala, eds, Canberra, 1993, p. 87.
95 David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, Dark Victory, Crows Nest, 2003, p. 30.96 David Palmer, ‘The values shaping Australian asylum policy: The
views of policy insiders’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 67, 2008, pp. 307 – 320.
97 Derrick Silove, ‘The Global Challenge of Asylum’, in Broken Spirits: The Treatment of traumatised
Asylum Seekers, Refugees, and War and Torture Victims, John P. Wilson and Boris Drozdek, eds,
New York, 2004, p. 13.
31
Nicole Conner commitment to human rights, amidst ‘war on terror’
rationalisations and policies of deterrence.98 Silove
contends that this reluctance is due to the ‘sheer scale
of the world problem of war and displacement’ and the
growing public fears of those deemed ‘other’, especially
from differing cultures and religions.99 Amongst the many
countries resorting to draconian policies in order to
deter asylum seekers, Australia would emerge as one
resorting to the harshest measures, whilst faring poorly
in its refugee intake compared to other Western
nations.100 Mark Raper, whose work amongst asylum seekers
has spanned over thirty years, blames fear as the key
factor in the dismal response to the global crisis, yet
warns that even a country as isolated and insular as
Australia will not remain exempt amidst globalisation of
travel and communication. He provides three strategies in
moving forward. Firstly, leadership that is able to act
courageously in times of perceived crisis. The leadership
that saw many Indo-Chinese resettled through the 1970s
and 1980s put policies in place that assisted asylum
seekers whilst changing social attitudes. Secondly, he is
emphatic that Australians come to know the people that
are so desperately seeking help, not through mass media
but in a personal and meaningful way. Thirdly, that the
98 Ibid.99 Ibid., p. 17.100 Ibid. Also see ‘Does Australia take the most refugees?’, Facts Fight
Back, 23 July, 2013, http://www.factsfightback.org.au/does-australia-take-the-most-refugees-check-the-facts/, accessed 30 July 2014.
32
Nicole Conner policies that are forged are both realistic and
compassionate.101 It is his second point that will
conclude this discussion on insularity by arguing that it
is not just the geographical insularity that enables
Australia to remain aloof to a global refugee crisis, but
the social insularity that most Australians experience
when it comes to actually knowing an asylum seeker
personally.
Detention centers have provided the various governments
the means to ensure that asylum seekers remain removed
from public scrutiny. In doing so, the government
continues to control social attitudes of prejudice and
fear, assisted by the media who have very limited direct
access to asylum seekers in detention. Australian society
is therefore not just shaped through geographical
insularity, but social insularity, in regards to actually
knowing asylum seekers. This social insularity creates
indifference towards those seen as ‘other’ and prevents
empathy developing. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and
Nobel Laureate, addressed the temptation that
indifference offers:
Of course, indifference can be tempting — more thanthat, seductive. It is so much easier to look awayfrom victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude
interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. Itis, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved inanother person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person
101 Mark Raper, ‘Facing the Stranger’, (Address), Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund, September 2004, http://www.erea.edu.au/docs/default-source/identity/other-identity-resources/12-facing-the-stranger---mark-raper-sj.pdf?sfvrsn=2, accessed 31 July 2014.
33
Nicole Conner who is indifferent, his or her neighbor is of noconsequence. And, therefore, their lives aremeaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is ofno interest. Indifference reduces the other to anabstraction.102
Have ideologies shaped through insularity, created an
Australian culture that is so narrow and intolerant to
those deemed ‘others’, that it has resulted in national
indifference towards some of the most vulnerable people
on the globe? This paper would argue that it is one of
the plausible arguments in understanding why over sixty
per cent of Australians want the Abbott government to
increase the severity of the treatment of asylum
seekers.103 It may also provide insight into the
relatively minimal protest at the government’s practice
to place minors in detention, despite evidence of
significant mental health issues amongst child
detainees.104 Insularity has bred indifference, which in
turn has become ‘injustices’ incubator’.105 The current
102 Elie Wiesel, ‘The Perils of Indifference’, (Speech: Millennium Lecture Series, 12 April 1999), The History Place, http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/wiesel.htm, accessed 31 July 2014.
103 Philip Dorling, ‘Australians want boat arrivals treated more harshly: poll’, Sydney Morning Herald Sun, 8 January 2014, http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australians-want-boat-arrivals-treated-more-harshly-poll-20140108-30g97.html, accessed 31 July 2014.
104 Rebecca Barrett and Karen Barlow, ‘Immigration detention inquiry:Government tried to cover up asylum seekers’ mental health problems, inquiry told’, ABC News, 31 July 2014, http://www.abc. net.au/news/2014-07-31/detention-centre-inquiry-hears-claims-of-immigration-cover-up/5637654, accessed 31 July, 2014.
105 Anon., ‘Indifference is injustice’s incubator’, Toronto Star, 28 November 2003, http://search.
34
Nicole Conner national inquiry into children in detention has heard of
government cover-up over the scale of mental health
issues amongst minors. It has heard that there has been
128 cases of children committing acts of self-harm in the
last fifteen months, not including Nauru, and, that
clinical decisions by medical doctors about the health of
these children were routinely altered and downgraded.106
There remains a hope that if Australians were to be
exposed to the lives of these desperate people and
confront the effect of this insidious ideology shaped
through insularity; it would result in a change of social
conscience. The television programme, ‘Go Back To Where
You Came From’, demonstrated how empathy could be
established following knowledge of what is really
occurring.107 Currently 659 young lives in detention, long
for that moment.
CONCLUSION
Ideologies shape a nation’s policies and worldview.
Modern day Australia has a constructed set of ideologies
still inherent of its convict past. These shared
ideologies have been shaped through hardship and survival
fears, and propagated through political rhetoric and mass
media. This project has endeavoured to answer the
proquest.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/docview/438643681?pq-origsite=summon, accessed 31 July 2014.
106 Barrett and Barlow, ‘Immigration detention inquiry’.107 ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’, SBS Documentary, Television
Programme, SBS Television, Sydney, broadcast 2011.
35
Nicole Conner research question of how the ideologies surrounding
nationalism, racism, national security and insularity
have influenced the current attitude and policies towards
‘boat people’. The ideologies of nationalism and racism
are imagined national ideals, forged from British roots.
They suggest who represents the ‘ideal’ Australian, and
they are white and male. They have directly affected
Australian attitudes towards race and a litany of
disastrous historical racial policies stand as a glaring
example to racist attitudes still lingering in modern
Australia. Asylum seekers do not fit into these
nationalist and racist ideologies, and the introduction
of mandatory detention in 1992, ensured that asylum
seekers and their children can be kept out of sight and
mind by placing them in detention indefinitely.108
Ideologies surrounding national security and insularity
heighten the century old angst of economic competition.
To ensure that asylum seekers remain on the outer and
continue to be perceived as the threatening ‘other’,
political rhetoric and campaigns like ‘Operation
Sovereign Borders’, have helped political powers to
isolate and detain those arriving by boat, whilst at the
same time a looming ‘National Interest Test’ will deny
asylum seekers ever receiving a permanent visa.109 Removed
108 Janet Phillips and Harriet Spinks, ‘Immigration detention in Australia’, Parliament of Australia, March 2013, http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/Detention#_Toc351535450, accessed 25 August 2014.
109 John Keane, Conversation, 5 July 2014, http://theconversation.com/operation-sovereign-borders-28831,
36
Nicole Conner from sight and social conscience, asylum seekers have
been reduced to an ‘issue’ or ‘threat’, and a majority of
the ‘lucky’ country’s population remain indifferent to
the suffering of the destitute, fed a set of ideologies
that have shaped and seared their conscience. This
research project has taken on the task of examining
attitudes and policies towards asylum seekers in light of
ideologies shaped through and from European colonisation.
Amidst the many excellent scholarly contributions on the
subject of asylum seekers like Don McMaster’s most cited
book on Asylum Seekers, to the studies conducted by
Pedersen et al. on attitudes towards asylum seekers, or Ajak
Butrus’s in-depth study on the affect on mental health of
those in detention, this project examines four ideologies
that are systemic to the current Australian attitude and
policies towards asylum seekers.110 It is therefore a
unique contribution in this area as it argues that
Australia is not ‘young or free’, in fact, it remains in
national delusion and escapism while bound to ideological
fallacies that cause it to abscond from its international
responsibilities.
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110 McMaster, Asylum Seekers; Pedersen et al, ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’; and, Ajak Butrus, Onshore Asylum Seekers Mental Health, Saarbrücken, 2013.
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Nicole Conner
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