Government suspends African refugee intake

The Herald Sun has described it as a "race storm". There has been much debate about the Government's decision to limit Africans to 30% of the refugee intake and to suspend any further refugee intake from Africa until July of next year.

Some on the left are claiming that it is merely a cynical election ploy. Although it's possible that the Government has publicised its policy to win votes, the policy has been in place for some time and is in line with the longstanding right-liberal attitude to migration.

In short, Australian right-liberals believe in high levels of immigration plus assimilation (often phrased now as "integration"). They want migrants to assimilate into the mainstream tradition, and so tend to take a positive view of the existing Anglo culture.

Left-liberals also believe in high levels of immigration but are more likely to support multiculturalism. Left-liberals often take a dim view of the existing Anglo culture as racist and oppressive; they tend therefore to value the immigrant cultures against the mainstream.

Given the right-liberal preference for high immigration plus assimilation, the Government policy is no surprise. There is evidence that African refugees aren't integrating well, so the Government has shifted places to Iraqis and Burmese without reducing overall numbers.

A recent column by Alan Wood is typical of right-liberal thinking on this issue. As you would expect, he argues for assimilation and against multiculturalism. He reminds us that the multiculturalists have denigrated the mainstream population:

In the Labor years it was the role of cosmopolitan elites to keep ordinary, red-necked Australians and their inherent racism on the straight and narrow. It was an era of stifling political correctness, where critics were howled down with cries of racist by the cosmopolitan internationalist elites of the progressive Left.

He quotes historian John Hirst, who wrote of mainstream Australian society in these years that:

Its right to primacy was denied; indeed, it became the most suspect of all ethnic groups given its atrocious past.

Wood complains that this multiculturalist disparagement of the mainstream led to a loss of public support for high immigration.

Wood then turns to research on immigration by Professor Putnam which shows:

that over several decades immigration and ethnic diversity lead to mistrust, challenge social solidarity, break down community and are poison to social capital.

Wood takes this as evidence not that immigration should be limited, but as:

a powerful argument against multicultural practices that encourage ethnic separatism and discourage assimilation

So debate on immigration in Australia is restricted to the leftist preference for high immigration plus multiculturalism and the right-wing alternative of high immigration plus assimilation.

I doubt if either side is prepared for the real consequences of high immigration. In Britain the left has been unable to sustain the multicultural ideal after a series of race riots and terror attacks. The Labor Party leadership, and the official race relation organisations, have had to advocate compulsory forms of assimilation.

Similarly, the right is likely to find that once immigrant numbers reach a certain level assimilation won't happen on the terms they expect. A looming example of this is the possibility of Prime Minister Howard losing his own seat in the forthcoming election, despite giving so much to the East Asian immigrants in his electorate.

Fictional identities

For some time the difference between left and right liberals on the issue of nationalism has been quite clear.

Right liberals (such as those in the Australian Liberal Party, or the American Republicans) have supported high rates of foreign immigration, but, out of a concern for social cohesion, have emphasised the idea of assimilation. In other words, they have welcomed the idea of the "melting pot".

Left liberals, on the other hand, have been more consistently supportive of multiculturalism, rather than assimilation. They too have supported high rates of foreign immigration, but with the idea that society would be made up of the many diverse cultures brought by the immigrants.

The left liberal ideal was always a short term fiction. This is particularly true in Australia where migrants arrive from such a diverse number of countries, in relatively even numbers, and are mixed together in the large capital cities.

In these circumstances, it was unlikely that 150 or more different communities would continue to flourish independently of each other, no matter how much government funding they received to do so. The connection of migrants to their home culture was always going to weaken.

A shift

Mark Latham is the new leader of the left liberal Labor Party here in Australia. He recently made a speech on the issue of national identity in which he moved Labor Party policy a little closer to the right liberal emphasis on social cohesion and assimilation.

It's possible he did this because of the war on terror. After all, both Britain and Australia have had to face the fact that a number of terrorists have emerged from within their Islamic populations. It's noteworthy that both the British and Australian Labor Parties have recently changed their policies to more greatly emphasise assimilation and social cohesion.

However, the reason Mr Latham himself gave for the shift was that the older concept of multiculturalism was unrealistic - that it did not really describe what was happening in the general population. That, in other words, it was now more fiction than fact.

The new approach

Mr Latham has outlined what he claims to be a more modern and realistic approach to multiculturalism. One which brings people together, rather than separating them. He says,

If we treat multiculturalism as as static concept, as something frozen in time - each of us pigeon-holed into past habits and identities - then inevitably, it will be a policy based more on difference than diversity. A policy that separates people from each other, rather than bringing them together to share each other's cultures and the goals of a good society.

We shouldn't assume that a person's culture comes from a narrow set of attitudes and beliefs, that they are restricted to their nationality-of-origin or ethnic group. The reality is more complex and dynamic, with people picking and choosing from a range of cultural influences. This is true of many second-generation migrants. They do not necessarily see themselves as "Chinese Australians" or "Greek Australians" but rather, citizens with a range of interests and identities.

Government policies and definitions of multiculturalism need to catch up with this reality. They should not automatically treat nationality-of-origin as a marker of cultural identity. They should recognise that multiculturalism lies, not so much between individuals, but within them - the habit of living one's life through many cultural habits.

This should be a unifying idea in Australia's national identity - a new and realistic way of thinking about multiculturalism. In a diverse nation, social cohesion is as important as respect for difference. It provides the foundations by which people of different cultural backgrounds can interact and learn from each other. This is the key to national progress: our capacity to absorb the best of the world's cultures and create a stronger Australia ...

Liberal Man

Mr Latham's vision of national identity is still firmly within a liberal framework. Liberals want people to be self created by their own will and reason. Therefore, they reject traditional ethnic nationalism because it's something we're born into, rather than choosing for ourselves.

That's why Mr Latham uses the language of "limitation" when talking about ethnic identity. He uses terms like "pigeon-holed", "narrow" and "restricted" when rejecting the ethnic identities of migrants. There is a logic to this choice of language. If you believe that we should be self-created by our own will, then an inherited ethnic identity does represent a limitation. It limits the extent to which you are a self-defining individual.

The same logic explains why Mr Latham proposes that people ought to deliberately choose a complex, diverse and evolving identity from the best of many cultures. This is a vision of the self-defining Liberal Man, creating himself directly from out of his own reason and will, rather than accepting a traditional or inherited identity.

Commercial Culture

Joseph Wakim, the founder of the Australian Arabic Council, was quick to support Mr Latham's new approach to multiculturalism. However, in a newspaper column praising Mr Latham's new policy (Herald Sun 29/4/04) he unintentionally highlighted a flaw in the policy. He wrote,

...much of the evolving cultural identity of our home-grown Lebanese youth is actually made in the USA. Anyone who spends time with the youth in question would immediately recognise the influence of the American rap culture on their wall posters and in their language; phrases such as "Yo bro" are direct imports from the cultural West, not the Middle East ...

Their attire also resembles their hip-hop heroes, with their baggy jeans, Fila jackets, adidas shoes, Nike baseball caps and goatees...

Can we stop the tidal wave of US culture into our living rooms, market place, media and streets ...?

The truth is that the average person is not making a rational choice to form a distinctive identity from the best of many cultures. This is just another liberal fiction.

As Mr Wakim let slip, what really happens is that once a traditional identity is weakened the dominant commercial culture, wherever it is from, is likely to make inroads. At the present time, the dominant commercial culture happens to be American.

Mr Latham is therefore replacing one fictional identity, that hundreds of cultures can flourish equally within a mixed population, with another fictional identity, that we can rationally construct our own identity from the best of many cultures.

We can't for several reasons. First, the truth is that we don't, in Mr Latham's words "pick and choose" our identity. The Australian Lebanese youths did not each individually decide to opt for American popular culture. With a weakening of their ancestral identity, and a weakening of the traditional Australian identity, they were simply influenced by a mass marketed popular culture. It was a multitude of commercially marketed ads, films, songs and so on, which created the Americanised Australian Lebanese youth, not individual rational choice.

Secondly, we don't necessarily get to be influenced by what is best in the many cultures around us. Sometimes we are influenced by what is worst or at least mediocre. For instance, I can still remember a "fight fair" ideal among young Australian men. The idea was that you should fight with your fists and that you should have roughly even size and numbers. This ideal is unsustainable when other ethnic groups have a tradition of carrying weapons or king-hitting (sucker punching). In this case, there is no choice but to give up the better local tradition for something worse.

Finally, a self-selected identity will not be of the same quality as a traditional, inherited ethnic identity. It will necessarily be more superficial. An ethnic identity connects us to generations past and future; it connects us deeply to a particular cultural tradition; to a church and the tradition embodied by the church; and to a particular history of achievement and sacrifice.

In comparison, the liberal identity is something easily made and easily discarded. It is, in theory at least, a temporary creation of our own will and nothing more. It does not connect us deeply to others, nor to a particular place or culture. It is, at best, "identity-lite" for those liberals who still feel the instinctive need that we have as humans for forms of connectedness and self-identity.

For these reasons, Mark Latham's new approach to multiculturalism is neither better nor worse than the old one. Neither are realistic accounts of human identity, and both are hamstrung by the liberal need to reject traditional identities in favour of self-created ones.

It's difficult to see real progress being made in terms of building up the deeper and more satisfying forms of self-identity until we open our minds to alternatives to liberal orthodoxy.

(First published at Conservative Central, 05/05/2004)

Is Pearson right to criticise conservatives?

I have considerable respect for Noel Pearson, a prominent leader of Australia’s Aborigines. So I was interested to read an article he wrote recently for The Age, in which he made a measured criticism of Australian conservatives.

According to Pearson, Australian conservatives are right to insist that Aborigines need to embrace modernity “when it comes to the fundamental economic and social organization of societies. It is natural for peoples to advance from hunting and gathering to agriculture and industrialism.”

He also agreed that “rigour” was necessary in researching Australian history, and that conservatives were correct in criticising welfare dependency and substance abuse in Aboriginal communities.

However, he thought that some conservative figures, such as historian Keith Windschuttle, lacked empathy and that,

The coldness that characterises Johns and Windschuttle is an inexplicable antagonism to Aboriginal Australians’ wish to remain distinct.

The left & separatism

It might surprise some readers that I agree substantially with what Pearson has to say.

However, to explain why I agree, I need to set out briefly the two basic political positions on Aborigines held by the white political class.

The first position is the left-liberal one. Left-liberals have generally taken the separatist position, that Aborigines should live according to their own traditional culture.

There are significant problems with this left-liberal view. First, left-liberals don’t seem to have adequately considered how traditional Aboriginal communities might be made viable. Many remote communities have become highly welfare dependent and dysfunctional.

Second, the left-liberal view reflects an underlying and damaging ideology. Leftists, even when they dominate, like to see themselves as outsiders and dissenters. Their self-concept is that they are the reformers of an unjust society.

Left-liberals also hold the view that they are morally superior because they practise an ideal of non-discrimination toward the (unassimilable) Other better than the “less enlightened” white mainstream.

These political positions have certain consequences. First, it’s difficult for left-liberals to argue that Aborigines should adapt to white norms. Left-liberals want to push the idea that our society is unjust and corrupt, not that it is something positive for others to aspire toward.

Furthermore, if I want to establish myself as someone who is superior for practising non-discrimination then it makes no sense for me to want Aborigines to adapt to white cultural norms.

This, first of all, would lessen the idea of Aborigines being the “other” toward whom we can prove our non-discrimination. Second, it would show the opposite of what the left-liberals are aiming at: they want to prove that they do not preference their own culture – how can they do this if they call on the designated “other” to adapt to the norms of their own society?

This explains, I believe, why the left is so wedded to the idea of Aborigines living according to their traditional culture, even though the left is generally hostile to traditional culture.

It explains also why the left is so keen to promote the idea that it is we who should learn from the Aborigines rather than vice versa. This attitude not only displays leftist dissent from their own society, it also demonstrates clearly their own non-discriminatory lack of preference.

Thus you find leftists like Robert Bosler who can write that,

Many of us knew we had right here ... what any truly clever country would have cherished: the Australian Aborigine.

What richness we have, right here, waiting patiently, with whom we can one day sit, at their feet, and learn philosophical means for our salvation from the destruction we ourselves wrought on our natural world ...

The world’s teachers are right here. Our world’s beautiful precious gift ...

No wonder our Aboriginal brother and sister is hurting, with so much precious knowledge to give, and a government not wanting us to hear. What burden of riches they carry, and we see only their suffering under its weight.

This is a political posture. It is highly unlikely that Robert Bosler would actually want to live a traditional Aboriginal lifestyle. In fact, it would conflict with much of his liberalism to do so.

Finally, the leftist view has been damaging because, as dissenters, leftists have used the Aborigines to make a case against their own society as being oppressive, violent, unjust and illegitimate. The left is therefore associated with a negative, gloomy and guilt-ridden approach to their own tradition, an approach which has been described as the “black armband” view of Australian history.

The right & assimilation

In contrast to left-liberals, right-liberals tend to take a positive attitude toward their own society. For them, “Australia” is identified with liberalism itself (and not much else) – with concepts like individualism and the free market. Therefore, they see an attack on Australia as an attack on their own liberal politics.

This has one particularly useful outcome. Right-liberals don’t feel the need, like leftist dissenters do, to use Aboriginal history to undermine the moral legitimacy of their own society.

Therefore, it is no accident that it was a right-liberal, Keith Windschuttle, who delivered the main blow to the “black armband” history of Australia, with his impressive work The Fabrication of Aboriginal History.

Nor is it an accident that right-liberals like Keith Windschuttle generally prefer the idea of Aboriginal assimilation, rather than separatism. In part, this is simply because the right-liberals are not “dissenters” and so are more comfortable with the idea that others might usefully adapt to their own society.

But there is more to the right-liberal idea of assimilation. Liberals believe, as a first principle, that we are distinctly human because we are free to choose for ourselves who we are. In other words, we are self-determining individuals.

However, our ethnicity is something important to our identity which we don’t get to choose. Therefore, for ideological reasons, liberals believe ethnic identity to be morally illegitimate: it becomes, within their intellectual framework, a limitation on individual choice, a constraint on individual freedom.

Usually left-liberals apply this logic toward their own, mainstream identity. For the reasons I outlined earlier, they are often more sympathetic to the traditional culture of minorities.

Right-liberals, though, are more consistent. They oppose the influence of ethnic identity on both the mainstream and on minorities.

For instance, the right-liberal columnist, Andrew Bolt, once condemned an Aboriginal tribe for wanting to retain possession of some historic tribal artefacts. He described the tribe’s wishes as “racist” and claimed that they were making the mistake of forgetting,

The humanist idea that we are all individuals, free to make our own identities as equal members of the human race. In this New Racism, we’re driven back into tribes.

Right-liberals, therefore, do not want Aborigines to retain a separate ethnic identity or existence, any more than they want whites to do so. For them it would not matter, or might even be thought a good development, a development of the freedom to create our own self, if Aborigines ceased to exist as a distinct entity, leaving only individuals.

Let me give just one example of this kind of thinking. Peter Howson was a Liberal Party minister for Aboriginal Affairs in 1971-72. He wrote a newspaper article in 2004 in which he welcomed “the relatively successful integration of many Aborigines”.

What were the indicators of this “successful” integration? For Howson, the promising facts were that 70% of Aborigines had moved to large towns or cities and that nearly 70% were married to non-indigenous spouses. Howson wanted to speed up this trend by removing government assistance for remote communities and by subsidising housing costs for Aborigines willing to move outside of traditional communities.

There was no hint in this article of regret that the Aborigines might disappear as a race if such trends were to be encouraged. For Howson, “integration” is to be the aim, even if this imperils the future existence of the Aborigines.

Conclusion

Therefore, Noel Pearson is right to worry that figures like Windschuttle are unsupportive of the wish of Aborigines to remain a distinct entity.

Pearson calls Windschuttle a conservative, and it’s true that he would probably be labelled this in the media. However, as I’ve tried to explain, Windschuttle is better described as a right-liberal, rather than as a conservative.

As it happens, Windschuttle himself identifies as a liberal. For example, Windschuttle was invited onto an ABC radio panel to discuss a “major classic of liberalism” by the nineteenth century Australian right-liberal, Bruce Smith, called Liberty and Liberalism.

Windschuttle was asked whether he associated Bruce’s work with the Sydney intellectual tradition he himself belongs to. Windschuttle replied:

Oh yes. If you were to write an intellectual history of Sydney, Smith would be one of your heroes.

It’s not that I expect Noel Pearson to change his terminology. However, he is less likely to find the views of figures like Windschuttle “inexplicable” if he remembers that they belong most truly to a liberal, rather than a genuinely conservative, tradition.

Liberals & the nation: what choice?

All of the major political parties in the West share a common belief in liberalism. This does not mean, though, that their politics are exactly the same. There do exist typical differences between those who follow a left liberal politics and those who follow a right liberal politics.

When it comes to the issue of national identity, right liberals are usually more concerned to maintain social homogeneity: which means, in practice, that they want migrants to assimilate into a mainstream culture.

Left liberals, on the other hand, often support a separate identity for migrants and are therefore happy to fund what has become known as the multicultural industry.

Andrew Bolt is the most prominent right liberal journalist in Australia. He recently wrote a column complaining about the funding of ethnic organisations by the Victorian Labor Government. (Herald Sun 28/11/03)

The column draws out nicely some of the typical differences between left and right liberals on this issue. Andrew Bolt, as a right liberal, takes aim at the Victorian Multicultural Commission. The purpose of the Commission is to fund ethnic groups "to retain and express their social identity and cultural inheritance".

Bolt claims that "it should be no business of government" to undertake such a left liberal activity. He says of migrants that "surely it's better for us all if they merge into one Australian mass, however multi-hued. Isn't that what we most celebrate in our migrants─that a Zambian can captain the wallabies" [the Australian rugby team].

According to Bolt "it would be best if our paid multiculturalists packed up the whole show and got out of the way of healthy assimilation."

It's not possible for conservatives to support either the right liberal policy of assimilation, as outlined by Andrew Bolt, or the left liberal policy of multiculturalism.

Conservatives don't share the underlying assumptions of both left and right liberals. Liberals want individuals to be self-created by their own reason and will. A traditional national identity is not created by our own individual reason or will: instead, it's something collective and historical that we're simply born into.

So, whereas conservatives are free to support a traditional national identity, liberals need to find some way to escape from it.

Left liberals typically engineer this escape by building up the existence of other ethnic groups, whilst ignoring or damning their own mainstream national identity.

That's why it's politically correct for the Victorian Multicultural Commission to support ethnic minorities to "retain and express their social identity and cultural inheritance." It would be thought highly politically incorrect though for the Commission to support the Anglo-Australian majority to do the same thing.

The left liberal escape plan is poorly thought through. Although it does act to break down the traditional national identity, it's highly unlikely that over a hundred separate ethnic cultures can be supported within a single country.

What's more likely is that a superficial commercial culture will replace the older national culture, something that is unlikely to be welcomed by the left.

Right liberals usually don't have the same negative view of their own tradition as left liberals. Like left liberals, though, they will not recognise the legitimacy of a traditional national identity as part of public policy.

Therefore, they are willing to run a progamme of mass foreign immigration, whilst at the same time expecting immigrants to easily cast aside their own identities.

Again, this isn't well thought through. Culture and people are linked together. Bring in a new people in sufficient numbers and the culture is likely to change. Furthermore, bring in a very large bloc of new immigrants and it becomes difficult for vote chasing politicians to demand they assimilate.

For conservatives, therefore, it is necessary to reject both the left liberal and right liberal positions on national identity. We do not support either multiculturalism or the attempt to assimilate a large, continuous stream of immigrants.

Because we support our own traditional national identity it is only logical that we oppose a policy of mass immigration, and that we, and not only ethnic minorities, claim the right to "retain and express our social identity and cultural inheritance."

(First published at Conservative Central 09/01/2004)

Helping Aborigines?

Peter Howson was a Liberal Party Minister for Aborigines back in 1971-72. Like most right wing liberals he supports a policy of assimilation of Aborigines (left wing liberals tend to support separatism rather than assimilation).

In a recent newspaper article, Peter Howson claimed victory for the assimilation approach by noting that 70% of Aborigines now live in major towns and that 70% of Aborigines marry non-Aborigines.

For Peter Howson this kind of assimilation means progress. But from the conservative point of view it has a major drawback: it means the end of the Aborigines as a distinct people.

If Aborigines are to continue their own unique existence, it will be because of the 30% who live in relatively remote areas, and so are less likely to meet and marry outside their own group. But Peter Howson has plans for these Aborigines too. He is willing to use government financial incentives to get such Aborigines to move outside of their own communities.

He justifies this by pointing to the poverty and welfare dependency in such communities - which is a very reasonable concern. But let's formulate a remedy which allows at least some Aborigines to live amongst themselves. Australia is surely a big enough country to allow Aborigines to develop within their own communities