by Donald Horne
Images of Asia
If the impression has been given that no one in Australia ever thinks of Asia, it should be pointed out that this is now far from true. There has been a huge shift in attitudes. Sensations burst into the newspapers, seminars are held, articles are written. But the interest is sometimes that of someone momentarily attracted to an idea: Fascinating stuff, I must find out what it’s all about sometime. There is not very much real feel for Asia. It is a learned lesson and people can get their lines wrong. Someone may say over his claret, ‘We may only have a few years before China wins. It’s not myself I’m worried about but my children.’ Then over his brandy he will confound those who suggest that Australia is geographically an extension of South-East Asia by saying, ‘Distances don’t matter any more and geographical location is less important. Australia is part of The West.’
In the following paragraphs I have attempted some broad categorization of how Australian attitudes towards Asia can go wrong.
‘The faceless hordes.’ The lumping of all Asians together can create a mindless panic: 52 per cent of the world’s population lives in Asia, therefore 52 per cent of the world’s population en bloc threatens Australia. This arithmetical method has a long history, going back well before the arrival of Communism. As a common substitute for thought there is a corny poetic quality about it. The settlers gather in the stockade and while away the night at cards, sure that with the dawn they will all be scalped by the Indians. It is a thoroughly pessimistic view that could cause a people to bolt at a time of crisis.
‘I like Asians.’ A minority of those who hold the view that all Asians are the same seem delighted by the prospect of more than a billion identical neighbours. This belief is often associated with statements about the vitality and youth of Asians – which mock the conservatism that lays destitute so many rural areas in Asia, and the sloth that is so often the despair of Asian economic planning. I once sat through a dinner in which the speaker propounded the thesis that one Asian was as good as two Australians. He then explained that he had recently met some Africans. They spoke good English; some of them even spoke French. So one African became as good as two Asians (or four Australians). When ignorance is confronted with an Asian who does not pick his nose and can discuss affairs of the day in the tongue of a former colonial power it is likely to idealize him in terms that insult the reality of the dreadful problems of the depressed communities of Asia. Sometimes this sort of generalization becomes less of a personal fantasy and makes slightly more sense. An Australian decides that he has a favourite nation in Asia. ‘I like Indians’ is even more meaningless than ‘I like Englishmen’. But it is a start, a beginning of the breakdown of generalities. It makes more sense than ‘I like Asians’.
‘Give them what they want.’ These attitudes of extreme reverence can sometimes lead to the belief that Asians are not interested in power politics, that all they want is love, and perhaps aid. This comes out in its most extreme form in relation to China. The argument runs: the Chinese are rejected by the world; treat them as ordinary people and they will respond to this treatment, lose their emotional insecurity and display affection. This attitude was also found towards Soekarno. Give him whatever it was he wanted and he would quieten down. After all, we have to live with these people. There are many areas where Australia, by dramatizing its identity of interest with certain Asian nations, has much to gain. But this is not to suggest that the elites of Asia do not play the power game. The history of Asia is a spectacle of rampaging power just like the history of any other continent. And the attitudes of modern Asians to power are those of human beings. Some of them love it.
‘We must respect Asian opinion.’ Some Australians move into the confused ideology of non-alignment. One can express plenty of sympathy for Asian countries that profess to be non-aligned. But to some Australians there is a special virtue in non-alignment, an obvious moral superiority making self-evident the truth of propositions such as that non-aligned Asian nations are better than aligned ones; or that military dictatorship in them can be excused for reasons that do not apply to aligned nations; or that what is all right in Burma is wrong in Thailand (this comparison is grossly unfair to Thailand). India was dumped like a faithless wife when it was invaded by China. It had become aligned. This approach (not widely represented in Australia outside intellectual and leftwing groups) would have it that Australia will never be trusted by ‘Asia’ unless it withdraws itself from its alliance with America and declares itself to be non-aligned.
‘The Chinese will win.’ There are Australians of many kinds, on the Right as well as the Left, who – like people all over Asia – are fascinated by Communist China, held in the grip of what they see as destiny and anxious to accommodate themselves to the ‘facts’. Some wish to make a quick quid. Others believe that China will win, that a realistic policy for Australia is to assume this and ‘come to terms’. There are people in Australia who see themselves as those who ‘understand the Chinese’. They hope to make the appropriate arrangements when the day comes. The ‘China Lobby’ in Australia – diffuse, partly contradictory, often confused – should not be underestimated.
‘The anti-Communists’. By this I mean not the mass of the people in Australia, who might also be described in this way, but those who would probably describe themselves as the tough-minded realists on Australian foreign policy who believe that Australia does not go far enough. Their assessment of one considerable part of Australia’s future – the threat of Communist regimes in South-east Asia – is often valuable and realistic. But in attitudes to Asia generally some of them show two weaknesses. Some can take the ideologies and sacred texts of Marxism too seriously; they can become so learned in dogma that they might lose sight of the monstrous but human realities beneath; they can over-intellectualize. For this reason some of them were very slow in acknowledging the Sino–Soviet split. It didn’t fit into the picture. Others – or the same ones – might concentrate so much on Communism in Asia that they see all Communism and no Asia. For instance a friend was considering organizing a conference in Sydney of intellectuals from ‘the tough anti-Communist Asian countries’. No sooner had he prepared his list, with the Pakistanis on it and the Indians off it, than the Chinese invaded India. He had to cross Pakistan off (‘soft on Communism’) and put India on (‘hard line’). Then President Macapagal of the Philippines, SEATO member, hard line and Christian too, bolted with President Soekarno on the Malaysia issue. Who was hard on Communism now? The committed Philippines or the officially non-aligned Malays? People who see themselves as prophets in a hostile environment can lose their sense of human absurdity and complexity. They can become doctrinaire, lose their political touch, fail to see the muddle in which human affairs are usually conducted, forget how, although issues may be important, those who are concerned with them are often clowns. The ideal position for an Australian in facing Asia is to see Asia including Communism. But not only Communism.
‘It’s no business of ours.’ There seem to be a number of Australians who sincerely believe that nothing is anybody else’s business. They feel that if Australia has nothing to do with Asia, Asia will have nothing to do with Australia. Life is a street in the suburbs where each house keeps to itself. If Australia goes poking its nose into Asia, that will only stir things up. This view can also be taken by some of those who are at other times most keen that Australia should be considered an Asian power. Australia must not ‘interfere’ in Asian affairs, although it seems to be all right for Asian nations to ‘interfere’ with each other.
‘We’re all Asians now.’ This is a view taken by many young people, and I would take it myself. I think it is up to Australians to seek for similarities in Asians and mutual interests. To take our ideology of fraternalism seriously and apply it to Asians could lead to a creative awakening among Australians. But the view can become senseless if – as often happens – it does not allow for the considerable differences of Asia. And it carries obligations greater than expressions
of good will. It must necessarily involve taking sides and thereby sometimes offending. Not to have supported India against China meant taking sides against India; to have professed neutrality on the issue of Malaysia meant taking sides against Malaysia. Simply saying, ‘We’re all Asians now’, does not relieve one of decision-making; it simply begins to define the problem.
In making these categories of attitudes I have not said what the general opinion among Australians is. There is a good reason for this. No one knows what it is. All that one might guess is that overall there is confusion and a feeling of futility. Foreign policy, as Hugo Wolfsohn said in Dissent, is nobody’s business. Public men do not make it their main field of interest. There are no long-range surveys. Foreign affairs do not operate as permanent fields of political activity and study. There is ‘a collection of gestures and paper schemes’, of discussions that bear ‘little or no relation to the problems of Australia’s foreign policy’. There is insufficient institutional backing. Ministers of External Affairs do not conceptualize; little information is made available to Members of Parliament; no public or private bodies exist whose work on foreign policy has national importance.
Racism in Australia: White Australia
The ‘White Australia’ policy – by its very name – was racist, however politely it has now been dressed up. It was born of the fear of Chinese migration in the gold rushes. (The Bulletin’s motto originally went: ‘Australia for the White Man and China for the Chows.’)* It also had an economic basis, particularly in the agitation against the use of cheap indentured ‘kanaka’ labour in Queensland, with its possibility that these South Sea Islanders might become semi-slaves. Public expression of the racist strain has become weaker and weaker; now scarcely anyone is prepared to defend the policy publicly in directly racist terms. The old platforms for racism have, one by one, been chopped down.
Behind the scenes there are still Australians obsessed with ‘colour’. (A few Australians might still refer to the Chinese as ‘niggers’.) The truth about Australians, as of most peoples, is that they nurture all kinds of prejudices about race, nationality and religion. But it is not necessarily of public concern that this is so unless the prejudices are put into effect in some public, fanatical way. To attempt to legislate away feelings of difference would only be successful if one legislated democracy away as well. One must recognize that it is true to say that many Australians are prejudiced against Asians. But this is not necessarily of policy-making significance. Perhaps most Australians were prejudiced against the migration of Catholics; some were prejudiced against the migration of Jews. The underside of life often smells nasty; the best one can do is to hope that the smells stay where they are. Despite prejudices against Eastern and Southern Europeans, Catholics and Jews, migration has continued and there has proved to be no public significance in these prejudices although privately they might still be strong. Except for endemic religious sectarianism, Australians may be more capable of effective policies of live-and-let-live – whatever nonsense they talk in bars and their sitting rooms – than some may give them credit for.
There is considerable opposition to the present policy from the churches, universities and some newspapers. Public opinion polls suggest that a majority of Australians now favour some change in migration policies. Over the period of the Menzies administration – this may not have been the intention but it happened – there seems to have been a considerable easing of the more primitive fears of Asian migration. The 12 000 Asian students in Australia, with the other Asians who have been allowed into Australia, are now a feature of life in the big Australian cities. People have got used to the idea without any of the friction that was forecast. If this is so the argument that the present policy avoids racial friction becomes rather weak. It may now be possible to announce an end to the policy and replace it with a controlled encouragement of migration from Asia without arousing a crisis within the community.
This might be possible so far as the people of Australia are concerned. However it is not likely from the present ruling generation of politicians. Even if the Liberals wanted to change the policy (and there is no sign that the old hands do), they would not risk it until the Labor Party positively demanded change. Despite the wishes of some of its members the Party is not yet in that position. So politically, for the moment, that’s that. It may not last like this for long. The generation still in charge in Australia will soon be writing its memoirs. One can safely predict that younger Australians are determined on change. Immigration reform is now an almost universally held belief among the university-educated, and among young Labor and Liberal supporters. In the desire to change this policy, as with many other things, there are much greater forces for change in Australia than the older or many of the middle-aged generations now realize.
Proposals for reform have been prepared by Immigration Reform Groups, consisting mainly of university people, that for several years have operated within what would be described in other countries as opinion-forming quarters. If reform of immigration policies proceeds calmly these Groups are entitled to much of the praise. In the pamphlet Control or Colour Bar? there is a conservative approach. It is suggested that intake should be limited ‘by the need to avoid harmful economic competition that gives rise to social tensions, to prevent a concentration of any racial group in low-status employment, to avoid housing congestion and to ensure reasonable dispersion throughout the Australian community’. It leaves estimates of the future to the future, but suggests that for the present Australia ‘could now accept several times the recent average rate of intake without undue strain’. What has been done is to take objections based on cultural homogeneity seriously and try to meet them. In Quadrant two members of a Group wrote: ‘this is the acid test of the argument … Homogeneity cannot be equated with whiteness’. For example, there are plenty of Filipinos in Manila who seem to meet the tests of homogeneity, even including Christian faith. Why exclude them?
Even the most liberally expressed support for easing immigration restrictions is hedged by fears – mainly of other people’s reactions: that other Australians cannot be trusted to behave decently; that a policy of quotas would arouse more animosity than it allayed among Asians; that there would be hatred of employed Asians if there were a large-scale depression. These fears necessarily breed in ignorance because no one knows who would want to come to Australia. It is generally assumed that Eurasians would be pleased to come, perhaps Filipinos, perhaps rich Chinese, especially from Hong Kong. If these were the main classes it is difficult to see what risks of tension or destruction of ways of life their arrival would entail. Many Asians point out that Indians are usually happy to stay in India, Malays in Malaya, Chinese in Singapore; if they want to migrate they try to migrate to Britain. It is sometimes feared that a more liberal policy might alienate Asian governments by stripping their nations of part of their elites, who would flock to Australia, yet this seems a matter that can be regulated by treaty. It is a matter for Asian governments, not for Australia. This fear applies even more acutely to the Asian students who are educated in Australia, yet again this would be the business of their own governments. Opposition to Asians who have been educated in Australia remaining in Australia seems indefensible on any grounds except those of race prejudice.
An increased intake of Asian elites would certainly enrich Australian life. It would help Australians to become more familiar with the world they live next to, lead to a greater versatility of approach and perhaps partly offset the fact that Australia – herself short of elites – imports a significant proportion of the teaching staff of its universities from England. This last fact may in itself help to account for the continuing serious alienation of Australian intellectuals from their own people. We may need some Japanese, Indians, and Chinese to help break up the English influence.
If Australia is to play a more forceful role in Asia the change in immigration policies must be dramatic enough to impress Asians that it is a change. It would seem a comparativ
ely simple method to enter into migration agreements with Asian countries that might meet any of their own fears and that would set up clear public standards of assimilability – of language, education and working capacity. This would be an initial reform. Over a period of time these tests might be made more general so that they applied to all migration to Australia. My own view is that the future holds dramatic possibilities for Australia which may necessarily include racial change, that this is Australia’s ‘destiny’. It is going to happen one way or the other. It is a task that will be undertaken either by Australians, or by someone else.
Racism in Australia: Aborigines
In the early years of settlement, despite occasional periods of reform, the Aborigines were treated, at worst, as ‘treacherous animals’, or with the indifference that can push aside a primitive culture and trample on it without meaning to; at best, as a people who were to be protected, and therefore segregated. The treatment given to the Aborigines was like that of other migrating races when confronted with an extremely weak and disorganized Aboriginal society. Most of the dominant races in Asia treated their Aborigines similarly; they pushed them out of the way.
To make this comparison is not to excuse present attitudes, but to place Australian settlement in a context of the whole world’s savage history of settlement. There was nothing peculiarly Australian in past treatment of the Aborigines, however much it should remain on the consciences of present Australians (including the 17 per cent who were not born in Australia). What matters is the position now. There is no doubt that given the affluence, skills, and professions of humanitarianism and fraternalism in Australian society, modern Australians have made a mess of restoring the Aborigines to the human race.
