From cuisine to separatist multiculturalism

The policy options which have applied to immigrants coming to Australia have ranged from assimilation, through “soft multiculturalism” (which in this sense is no more than a superfluous post-modern code word for tolerance, or in the Australian argot, a “fair go”), to an extreme form of “separatist multiculturalism”.

To all reasonable Australians, assimilation has always meant no more than the expectation that migrants embrace the language, the core values and the institutions of the nation, particularly the rule of law, representative democracy, equality and freedom of speech.

It has never meant that migrants should abandon their cuisine, languages and culture. Australians have always learned and borrowed from these. And migrants are usually received with tolerance. Of course there have been and are exceptions as there always will be. Courtesy and tolerance can never be prescribed by legislation. But the elites had to put their stamp on what Australians had already achieved. So they searched for something new. And they found it.

Professor Emmanuel Todd is a widely published French historian and anthropologist. In Le Destin des Immigrés, Seuil, Paris, 1994, he observes that, rather than seeing racial and sexual differences as secondary matters, the ideology of multiculturalism was introduced to emphasise difference over homogeneity. Assimilation became a negative term. He writes that from the 1960s American academics - with a naive and perhaps devastating enthusiasm and at times working with both British and Australian colleagues - exported this new ideology to the world.

Yet as Professor Todd points out, the multiculturist wave spread over the European population of the United States at the precise time that there was “terminal homogenisation” of ethnic cultures in the US. Terminal homogenisation is when there is little left of any knowledge of foreigners’ cultural differences apart from perhaps their cuisine - and that is often reduced to one lone typical dish. In this soft and benign form, and if we were being mischievous, we could call this “cuisine multiculturalism”.

Unfortunately, multiculturalism was to take a more radical form, one which the population was not likely to endorse.

It is not uncommon for those with policy agendas judged unpalatable to the electorate to coat these under a word or term which is imprecise and can therefore have innocuous meanings and connotations, as well as meanings which have significant consequences on society.

One such word is “reconciliation”, which could mean little more in obligation than a walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a sunny Sunday morning, and saying “sorry” with impunity, as inner city urban dwellers can.

Another word is “republic”, which in its minimalist form claims to mean no more than an increase in the independence we already enjoy, as well as creating the Australian head of state constitutional monarchists assert we already have. Others saw the 1999 version as a move to increase the powers of politicians.

Yet another word is “multiculturalism”, which is presented as meaning little more than tolerance of newcomers and interest in different cuisines, but which also incorporates an agenda for radical change.

When such a word enjoys the imprimatur of the academy, as it usually does, the great and good are almost guaranteed to join in what is in effect an aristocratic rather than a popular consensus for the underling agenda for change. This process has the additional advantage of providing to at least some of those involved a further assurance of their moral superiority over the masses.

As we have seen, in its soft form multiculturalism suggests no more than the proper toleration of pluralism within our democratic tradition. Such soft multiculturalism is a superfluous description of what Australians had already achieved before the elites decided to brand it, and transform it into a policy, sometimes even for political advantage. There was no need for the elites to take credit for this from the ordinary Australian.

It satisfied the vanity of the elites to be able to say they had “saved” immigrants from the brutality of the rank and file Australians. But as we have seen the term is ambiguous. And once you recognise a group by name, by separate institutions and worse, increased benefits, you separate its members from the rest of the Australian population.

Multiculturalism so defined is of course completely unacceptable to the rank and file and to our traditions and values. The endorsement of multiculturalism by the aristocratic consensus referred to above, rather than through public debate in an election campaign, gave its proponents the opportunity to move to the adoption of some of the features of the extreme form of multiculturalism.

In this extreme form, multiculturalism recognises the special rights of cultural communities, separating them and giving them a special role, financial benefits and other advantages in the nation’s affairs. This even extends to the toleration of exceptions from the law or of a different treatment under the law.

It is inconceivable, for example, that a publicly funded art gallery would exhibit material as upsetting to say Muslims as the infamous Piss Christ is to Christians. (This is a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine)

And while action under religious vilification law has been taken in Victoria against two Protestant pastors who say they did no more than point out certain aspects of Islamic law, no action has been taken against those who publish support for terrorism, including suicide bombing.

There was no public demand for the implementation of multiculturalism in Australia. When the major political parties were called on by the elites to implement this policy, they almost instinctively came to an understanding, however tacit, that multiculturalism, especially with its harsher aspects, should never be raised in party political debate, nor put on the electoral agenda. Why?

First, the survival of the particular political party demanded this. The parties try to limit inter-party conflict to the economic dimension. Moral and social issues are avoided because of the potential for division within the party and among its supporters. This is exemplified in the practice, more often of the Labor Party, to allow a conscience vote on morally divisive issues.

Second, the elites know that any policy tending towards separatist multiculturalism is unacceptable to the electorate, particularly to both traditional Labor and conservative voters.

Third the elites saw, and still see, separatist multiculturalism as an essential stage of their agenda to remove what they see as the stifling influence of monoculturalism from Australia, through for example, the principles of “access and equity”. Although this mantra, “access and equity” is repeated over and over in elite circles such as university academic boards, few Australians outside these rarefied circles have actually heard it. As a concept, access and equity is part of the armoury of the elites to engage in the surreptitious social re-engineering of the Australian population.

The implementation of a policy of multiculturalism has led to the widespread proclamation of Australia as a multicultural nation. It is certainly as a matter of fact a multiracial nation, and a successful one at that. But our history indicates that we know of one way to formally qualify the nation in such sweeping terms, and that is by democratic endorsement. The nation has been as qualified as an indissoluble federal commonwealth under the Crown and under the constitution - the people have not agreed that this federal commonwealth should also be declared to be multicultural.

Indeed, they have not been asked. Perhaps it is time that they were asked to give their consent to this change.