Once upon a time, it was called the "Lucky Country." Touted as an international model of social tolerance and environmental concern, Australia and Australians were looked upon by the rest of the world with more than a tinge of envy. Australia was a seemingly blessed country that had escaped the kinds of problems that plagued other nations, and the 2000 Sydney Olympics showed the world a vibrant, progressive, cosmopolitan land that, for many, appeared to be some sort of Shangri-La.

No longer. Today, Australia finds itself increasingly alone and isolated in a world that no longer views it with admiration but suspicion. Where once Australia was touted as the country where everybody gets a "fair go," today it finds itself condemned for cruel and inhuman treatment of asylum-seekers and aboriginal people. Where once Australia could be counted on to exercise fair and independent judgment in the United Nations, today it finds itself blasted for being nothing more than a pawn for the United States on UN votes ranging from human rights to global warming. Meanwhile, a series of race riots in late 2005 and the worst drought in a century over the past few years have left more Australians wondering just what, exactly, still makes them the lucky country. Today, there is a crisis of confidence, one the Howard government and its lackeys in the Rupert Murdoch-dominated Australian media are only too eager to exploit as they continue to push Australia away from the light of the civilized world.

Australia's current problems began to take shape just over a decade ago, when Pauline Hanson and her anti-immigration, nativist (read: anti-Aboriginal and xenophobic) One Nation party won a seat in the federal election. Her sudden rise startled both Australians and international observers, who thought that people like Paul Keating were what Australian politicians were all about. Keating, who served as Prime Minister between 1991 and 1996, was known for his internationalist views, his progressive stance towards Asia, and his reconciliation efforts with Australian aborigines.

 

Hanson represented everything that Keating was not. In her inaugural address in September of that year, she warned of the Yellow Peril, of Australian whites being drowned by a tidal wave of Asians and Asian values which, Hanson warned, were quite different from "traditional Australian values." Over the next few years, Hanson and the One Nation party drew international condemnation for a series of remarks judged racist and intolerant, even as voters in Queensland gave her party eleven of the 89 seats in the Queensland legislative assembly in June 1998.

Australian political experts and the media offered a variety of explanations for Hanson's rise, but one in particular seemed popular. Since the end of the discriminatory ‘Whites Only' immigration policy in the early 1970s, Australia had pursued a policy of ethnic diversity through immigration. Under Keating, ‘multiculturalism' was both a buzzword and official policy. But while Keating enjoyed the support of young, upwardly mobile Australians with international experience, his pro-Asia, free-market and pro-affirmative action policies roused suspicion among rural conservative voters. And as the 1998 election showed, there were a lot of Australians who didn't like the ‘new' Australia of Keating. Like the success of the Front National in France, One Nation's surge in popularity was a backlash against the traditional political parties that failed to address the frustration many voters felt in the 1990s.

As a political party, One Nation would not be around long. In February 2005, it lost its federal party status; in the 2006 South Australian state election, all six One Nation candidates lost. In 2006, in the Queensland state election, they did manage to keep their one remaining seat in the state (and country). But Hanson was long gone as leader and by the autumn of 2006, had been reduced to serving as a TV spokesperson for Donut King.

Despite its implosion, One Nation managed to drag mainstream Australian politics to the right. In 2001, John Howard campaigned on the issue of border protection. Sounding like a throwback to Australia's "Whites Only" immigration policies, his tough stance on Afghan refugees aboard the Norwegian containership Tampa, who were seeking asylum, was condemned around the world. But Howard's refusal to grant them asylum helped accomplish his real purpose, which was to pander to One Nation supporters in the hope they would back the Liberal Party.

After 9/11, Howard and the Liberal Party suddenly discovered they could also play upon the traditional fears of right-wing Australians by aligning themselves with US President George W. Bush and his "War on Terror," which, in reality, meant "War on Islamic States That Don't Do What George W. Bush and His Neocon Allies Want." Nobody had to tell Howard's supporters about the threat from the Muslim world, because they, and to a lesser extent, much of white Australia, had long feared that Australia's greatest danger lay in the world's largest Muslim nation, one that happened to be its closest neighbor.

The first-time visitor to Australia who turns on the television or picks up a Murdoch-owned newspaper is often struck by what passes for "international news" Down Under. Ties to "Mother Country" England are quite visible, as newscasters talk about the latest British government initiative to broker a stalemate in Iraq, provide relief to Africa, or work with the European Union on some fiscal matter. Even small stories like a murder in London's Soho district can make the news in Brisbane. However the average Australian may feel about the Queen, culturally, if one is to judge merely through observing the media for the first time, Australia remains a British colony.

Photo by Jamie Brelsford

The other nation to make the news, in a far more ominous way, is Indonesia. Time and time again, news story selections focus on possible terrorists in Indonesia or actions by the Indonesian government against its citizens – actions that reinforce old-fashioned racist and xenophobic fears that Indonesia could one day swallow up "fair go" Australia (i.e. the egalitarian Australia of Western Civilization) and replace it with "Asian Values" Australia (i.e. an Australia of Oriental despotism and class hierarchy, where whites are subservient to peoples of other races). Paranoid fantasies to be sure. But skillfully manipulated by Howard and his ilk, they took root in the minds of many Australians, especially after a Bali nightclub was bombed in October 2002, killing 202 people, including 88 Australian nationals.

After that, John Howard worked hard to turn Australia into a loyal and dependable ally to the United States, and especially to George W. Bush. There was strong domestic opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq, but Howard agreed to send troops. Australians were also angry at Bush because two Australian citizens, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, had been held at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2001 without charge and without legal representation. Both men were accused, without proof, of being Al Qaeda members. (As of this writing, Habib has been released but Hicks has just finished his fifth year behind bars).

But Dubya and "Honest John" Howard, as he liked to call himself, were now the best of friends, the former accepting an invitation to address the Australian parliament in October 2003. Bush was so at ease among the polite, pacified Australian MPs that he could have felt that he was back in the Washington White House: unfortunately for him, Green Party Senator Bob Brown was in the audience to remind him otherwise.

"Mr. President," Brown said, interrupting Bush's speech on freedom and democracy, "this is Australia. Respect our nation. Return our Australians from Guantanamo Bay. Respect the laws of the world and the world will respect you." As Bush moved on, Brown continued to heckle him despite the anger of Howard's supporters. "We are not your sheriff!" Brown cried. At this point, Bush stopped and quipped, "I just love free speech!" "So do we," Brown shot back.

"It was clear the Howard government wanted Australia to be a vassal state of America. But I wanted to remind Bush that not all Australians were content to sit back and watch as Australia became more estranged from the world," Brown told this reporter at the Asia Pacific Greens Conference in Kyoto in early 2005.

 

If Australia under Howard saw itself as something of a "deputy sheriff" for the US, the rest of the world saw it, increasingly, as an outlaw, especially where the United Nations was concerned. In September 2000, Howard publicly declared that Australia would no longer report to those UN bodies charged with monitoring compliance with UN human rights treaties. Howard justified the decision by saying Australia was perfectly capable of monitoring its own human rights record. Howard's decision appears to have marked the first time any nation has ever pulled out of the human rights treaty monitoring system, which sends special rapporteurs to each country to investigate specific human rights issues. The decision was made after the Howard government became angry over Australian ngos that had been working with the special rapporteurs, who then criticized Australia for its treatment of aborigines and asylum seekers.

Australia's record within the UN became ever more shameful as the new century opened. In 2003, the 53-nation United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution expressing "grave concern" over Israel's refusal to halt the settlement of Palestinian territory. The resolution criticized Israel's restrictions of the movements of Palestinians and the concrete wall Israel was constructing to separate it from the Palestinian territories. This resolution passed by 50 to one, with only the US, Israel's closest ally, voting against it. Yet, in an obvious ploy to suck up to the Americans, Australia abstained, joining tiny Costa Rica as only one of two countries to do so. In 2004, Australia was one of only five countries, including the United States, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, to reject a UN resolution to tear down the wall between Israel and Palestine.

Australia has also turned a deaf ear to international consensus on climate change, and, along with the United States, is the only industrialized nation that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent of 1990 levels by 2012. "It is not in Australia's interests to ratify the protocol," Howard said. To do so would cost us jobs and damage our industry." The irony is that Australia, in fact, is already well below the target levels set by the Kyoto Protocol and actually won the right at the Kyoto conference in 1997 to increase its emissions by eight percent above 1990 levels. Yet the Australian mining companies who support Howard lobbied heavily against the Kyoto Protocol and won the day.

Most Australians are quick to tell visitors they are environmentally concerned. But the reality is that Australia, as a major producer of coal, helps other countries pollute the atmosphere, especially in the Asian region. Eighty percent of the nearly 170 million tons of Australian coal mined annually goes to Asia. Australia continues to push coal consumption in Asia. The Australian government spent nearly $21 million on coal projects in Southeast Asia in the mid-1990s, as opposed to just $2 dollars on renewable energy.

Australia has also bought into the myth that one answer to global warming is nuclear power. The Howard government is hoping to have 25 reactors in place by 2050, although nuclear power will only cut Australia's emissions by between eight and 18 percent. Greenpeace estimates that if Australia were to support renewable energies like solar, wind, and geothermal, emissions could be cut by 30 percent by 2020. Australia does have large uranium deposits in the north of the country, but it's on aboriginal land that is also a World Heritage Site. That, however, is not likely to stop the Howard government from attempting to go nuclear.

Meanwhile, Australia's own environment continues to suffer. 2005 was the hottest year on record for the country, and the early months of the year were quite dry. 2006 wasn't much better, and by October, even Howard was forced to admit Australia was in the grip of its worst drought in a century. Concerns are growing that the farm sector, which has been especially hard hit, might be slipping into recession, as wheat production falls sharply.

As the natural environment of Australia continues to worsen, so, too, does the social environment. Once known for a lack of ethnic strife that has plagued other nations, over the ten years since the rise of Hanson and Howard, a series of clashes now have many Australians wondering if they are living in an angrier, less tolerant nation, especially after the shocking riots in December 2005 at Cronulla Beach near Sydney.

The riots allegedly began with shouts and insults traded between two white Australian volunteer lifeguards, and a group of Lebanese-Australians who were playing soccer on the beach. Tensions on both sides flared, and on December 11, nearly 5,000 white Australian youths invaded the beach and began physically attacking men who were described as "Middle Eastern in appearance." Many of the attackers draped themselves in the Australian flag and appeared drunk. One TV station reported a Muslim woman had been chased into the sand dunes and had her head scarf ripped off. The white youths then moved into nearby shopping malls and train stations, screaming racist epithets at anybody who looked vaguely Arab.

A few days later, groups of Lebanese-Australians launched a retaliatory attack on the Australian whites. Fistfights, car burnings, and violence spread to other beaches and there was an arson attack on a church.

Australians of all political stripes were shocked and outraged. "A disgrace," "Shameful," "A blot on our nation," and, above all, "Un-Australian" were the common phrases used in letters to the editor of most of the daily newspapers. But there were great differences of opinion as to why the riots took place. Some writers blamed the Lebanese for not working harder to fit into Australian culture and noted they often behaved like they were still in Lebanon, refusing to learn English and harassing white Australian women on the beach for the way they dressed. Others noted that white Australians had strong negative images of Muslims that were often mistaken, leading to racist treatment.

An independent poll commissioned by the Sunday Age about one week after the riots showed that 73 percent of Australians agreed with New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma's comment that the riots were the ugly face of racism in Australia. But that was not John Howard's view.

Painting by Will Brown

"I do not accept there is underlying racism in this country. I believe yesterday's [Dec. 11] behavior was completely unacceptable. But I'm not going to put a general tag of racism on the Australian community," Howard said. However, according to the Sunday Age poll, only 21 percent agreed with their prime minister's comments. A Nielsen poll commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald showed 75 percent of respondents agreed there was underlying racism in Australia.

Instead, Howard hinted that the real cause of the problem was Australia's multi-culture policies, which encouraged tribalism. "Any emergence of so-called ethnic gangs is a manifestation of tribalism and something we should try to discourage," Howard said. Again, though, Howard appeared to be out of touch with popular opinion, as the Nielsen poll showed 80 percent of respondents supported the government's policy of multiculturalism.

Pip Hinman, an activist with the Sydney Stop the War Coalition stated in the February 22, 2006 edition of Green Left Weekly that anti-Middle Eastern racism was used by the government to justify its support for the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Muslims and Arabs today are what the so-called Yellow Peril was in the days of ‘White Australia' policy. These communities are being systematically demonized and terrorized. What the federal and state governments are doing today to promote racism overshadows anything Pauline Hanson was able to do," he said.

"There has been no analysis of the problems that have contributed to the alienation of the Muslim community – unemployment, racism, discrimination, and poor access to public transport, education and health care. All this contributes to an environment where people feel they have no stake in society and it's then they start behaving in a mob-like manner," said Khaldoun Hajaj, a member of the Sydney Arab community, also in Green Left Weekly.

"What's failing Australia is the multiculturalism that has been devised by opportunistic governments and power-hungry bureaucrats whose modus operandi strengthens their power base. If multiculturalism is about mutual respect, tolerance, truth, and civil society, then it must be given a chance to flourish," he added.

And so today, the lucky country is no longer so lucky, but, rather in the midst of a diverse environmental crisis, a drought of both water and progressive political leadership. It is certainly true that many ordinary Australians are outraged by the wrong turn their country has taken over the past decade. Yet underneath the Australian crisis lies a more fundamental question, one that has plagued the country since its founding: what is an Australian? Is it merely a geographically displaced European, a white, Anglo-Saxon tied by blood, history, and tradition to England or Europe? Is it a recent immigrant to a land that really belongs to the aboriginal peoples who settled it tens of thousands of years ago? Is it a recent arrival from neighboring Southeast Asia, where the culture and customs are quite different from the West?

For the past ten years, a segment of white Australia that is racist and xenophobic has attempted to answer that question by successfully using traditional fears of Asia, and traditional anxieties about Australia's proximity to Asia – "that exotic Other" in the late Edward Said's words – to chart a course away from the rest of the world and towards an equally paranoid and fearful America. Australians who support this policy may think they are heading towards a safe shore, one that will strengthen the influence of their lucky country. In fact, they are heading toward disaster, and those outside of the country who once thought of Australia as lucky now wonder if the country isn't cursed.

Eric Johnston is Deputy Editor of The Japan Times Osaka bureau.

COMMENTS:

oh, makes a lump come to my throat. nah, i love this country, maybe howards landslide loss at the end of the year is a bit of light at the end of australia's conservative and apathetic political tunnel?
Paul Y

This is pretty much the state of play in Australia these days, under a manipulative government that finds fear very useful. I emmigrated in 1985 from the U.S. when the atmosphere was very different. There are still many good things about Australia, and Melbourne is very multicultural, but good people are being drowned out by the fearmongers. Meanwhile the general populace has become apathetic as they don't see that they can influence their own government, having realized that the media tycoons and big business are the flavor of the month for the past decade. Come to think of it, it's not that much different from the U.S.
Ellis O'Connor

fuck you and the japan times
adolf

why moderated ??? what the fuck afraid off...free speech..maybe maybye commie scum
adolf

I agree with everything in this article. However, there are many signs to give us cause for hope. Rather than focusing on all the negatives, let's focus on what we can do to make things better. Become politically involved. Contact politicians about issues that are important to you. Vote Green. Talk to people you know about things that are important to you. Vote with your feet. Put your money where your mouth is, donate to a cause you believe in. Focus on what you want for yourself, your country, your planet. Be a source of inspiration to those around you. There is hope for the world.
Tom

The Labour Party must take some responsibility for the current state of Australian politics. Firstly, they have failed to provide a strong leader to give voters an alternative to Howard. Secondly they failed to provide a strong stance against Howard's abhorrent immigration and foreign policies to give voters an alternative. Their silence on the Tampa issue was an appalling response to polls that clearly showed the racist undercurrent discussed in this article.
Mediya

Without the money to influence change in government your political parties pushing change will be drowned out by the media and corp's owned by Bush. Good luck. This is a global trend led by the world's #1 power. Japan played ball after being blown up and then beat us at our own game. If you want to make your own rules learn from Japan and China. Be bigger – whether in arms or money. Otherwise...stay a UK colony or US deputy. It could be worse. You could be living in the middle east.
Learn from the US

I agree with everything in this article, even though it makes me feel sick. I am one of very few people I know who follow politics or can be bothered do anything to change the things that I disagree with. Most people in Australia are more concerned about taxes, interest rates and child care than racism, the war on terror, or pretty much anything else that Howard shoves down our throats. Even if we have a change in government at the next election the difference in stands is only small, with Labour only disagreeing with minor things, too scared that they will lose votes if they make a stand. We need more people who care about the state our country and a Governement that will act like a moral body instead of the US deputy.
Lisa

$2 dollars on renewable energy? who subbed this?
nitpicker

Aside from all the political crap, Australia seems to be drying out. With an expanding population and a water problem that makes Lake Powell and Lake Mead look like oceans, all the bickering won't matter if people can't grow food or drink good water.
Permaculture future

Adolf — oh such eloquent contributions from the master of nonsense. Get a coherent opinion, learn how to write properly or be silent and save us the effort of ridiculing you, you poor pathetic illiterate. Adbusters — you do not need to publish garbage from know-nothings like this just to show that you support free speech, but thanks for the great article which certainly describes the current state of the Deepest South. Australians of all colours and flavours unite against pinprick xenophobes like this commenter (probably Howard in drag). There is hope still even if it is just that all such morons will be drowned by the rising sea.
Moronophobe

Sorry to reduce the debate to a slinging match – I can never resist teasing twits like that.
Moronophobe

fuck ur nazi propaganda bullshit
Naziscum

To Lisa, Please don't lump a concern with childcare which is, after all, a crucial precondition of gender-equity in the labour market in with a self-interested concern over taxation and interest rates. While there are some incorrect facts in this article (1996 election, nit 1998; only one significant race riot in late 2005, tabloids are as US-oriented, as they are UK-oriented), on the whole it's spot-on. I feel so sad and angry about what's become of us. It boggles my mind that this government keeps getting in. Wal Labor notwithstanding (and this can't be wished away, however I might want to!), the ways they continue to be voted in despite everyone knowing how dishonest and inhumane they are angers me beyond belief.
Louise

I don't agree with you ADOLF...I loved the picture of bush kissing the other guy...I read the whole article cause of that...great job!
so not agree with adolf

Looking through your article I find very little to support the underlying message; that the white populations of Australia and US work hard to somehow subjugate the middle eastern and generically ethnic populations that they work so hard to bring into their midst, feed, clothe, educate and support. Perhaps the responsibility should fall on these same populations who claim hardship, to work from within; to integrate on a cultural, social and economic level. Culturally, learning their country's official language in a flawless capacity. Economically by pursuing gainful employment or business in their country within the existing framework of opportunity alongside their new countrymen. Socially, by intergrating into the community and existing native social institutions and avoiding the creation of separate and segregated intitutions. For anyone to assume that a country who offers the opportunity of residence to a foreigner must then adapt to that individual is ludicrous. The law of land is this; we are all equal and need no special treatment, housing, access programs or social assistance. The more help we offer, the more we marginalize these immigrant communities and hinder each individual's self-sustainability and determination. Growth of the community as a whole will come from creating an economic and social framework where freedoms, ideals, property and opportunity are protected but not subsidized.
Canadian

This is a terrible kneejerk piece that's littered with factual errors and misrepresentation. It might just pass muster in a first-year student newspaper, but not for a magazine that aims to be taken seriously. The trouble starts with the first line – the 'lucky country' quote comes from a book by Donald Horne, but was always meant ironically. The full quote is 'Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck.' It was a critique of the country's elites, not a pat on the back. It would take several thousand words to point out the article's many errors, but it shows the danger of someone writing about a place from another country with no way to judge nuance. Every country has a dark side. Why, I hear that impeccably right-on country called Canada has elected a neocon as PM twice in a row! Grrrr. Nasty Canadians. This is lazy journalism at its cliche-ridden worst.
whitey in Sydney

free speech eh Kalle?
whitey

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