The right-wing brigade is on a rampage. The level of hate being directed at any commentator not of Anglo-Celtic ancestry or appearance, who dares utilise his or her democratic right and questions matters of public interest, is alarming.
Let’s begin with senator Eric Abetz — the Liberal hawk at war with Australia’s cultural mosaic — who last month called on Yassmin Abdul Majid to move to a “dictatorship”. Her crime? Criticising Australia’s parliamentary system, and suggesting reforms were needed to make the Australian democracy more reflective of society.
It’s a benign subject that’s debated daily not only among Australians, but many in the democratic West who are questioning failing political and economic structures — Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, say hello. Perhaps if Abdul Majid were a white male, Abetz would show the level of respect and courtesy expected of a man who holds public office.
Then came Mark Latham, who blasted former colleague Tony Burke in a poorly-worded column for the Daily Telegraph for embracing Australia’s rich cultural diversity, as well as the “ethnics” that live in Sydney’s suburbs.
This was followed by yet another outburst, this time from the far-right commentator Rowan Dean, who used his platform on Sky News, to racially insult the race discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, based on his Asian heritage.
What all three cases demonstrate is the obvious hypocrisy on display by the right-wing brigade.
For some, Australia’s democracy and freedoms are reserved for Anglo-Celtics only. The vulgar retort “go back to where you come from” has been an ugly trademark of Australian racism dating back decades, as my Guardian column last year discussed. It is the standard rebuke for racists in Australia when non-Anglo Australians dare attempt to participate in democracy on an equal footing, and question core assumptions of the country’s socio-economic and political foundations.
Incitements to hate from media pundits have flow-on results. In the past few days, racist posters calling for violence against politicians and media personalities of diverse backgrounds were plastered across Sydney’s inner west.
The surge in overt racism is not an isolated case of a “couple of bad apples”, as Abdul Majid put it, but neither is solely an Australian development. It is the consequence of the Trump effect and the distasteful re-emergence of far-right white nationalism. The election of Donald Trump as US president has energised once-fringe far-right movements — see Pauline Hanson’s toast to Trump moments after his election — and is dangerously shifting them into the mainstream.
Aiding this development is certain sections of the right-wing media. It is no coincidence that many have congregated on outlets such as Sky News, the Daily Telegraph and co. Their attempts to divide society along racial lines through controversial programming and personalities who peddle racial division are also not unique — it is a formula replicated across rightwing media to pernicious effect in the United States and Britain.
The damage is not only the harmful content emanating from such outlets, but the bar it is setting — or lowering — for other Australian media. Instead of defending Australia’s multicultural makeup and the right of all Australians to engage in democratic debate equally, Channel Seven, for example, decided to join in the racist bashing of Abdul Majid with a disgraceful poll asking whether she should leave Australia.
The poll was subsequently taken down after the television network Seven discovered most Australians were not as racist as they thought, but that doesn’t absolve the network of what appears to be its soft promotion of racism over a number of years. Even while Hanson was adrift in political wilderness, Seven continued to call upon her for political “commentary”, and had no qualms in allowing her to use the network to amplify her racist viewpoints.
The ethical responsibility of the likes of Seven and Murdoch media needs to be called into question. The role of the media is to hold the powers in society accountable for their actions, and keep the public informed of key issues. The media operates — in an ideal world — for the public interest. The apparent promotion of racism by Murdoch media and Seven stirs up division in Australian society. Their actions are harmful to Australians, and run against our public interest.
But for all the wealth and influence of the right-wing brigade, they cannot alter a reality that is progressing on course: Australia is already a multicultural nation, and it will continue to be so for many years to come.
Nearly half of Australians are either first or second-generation, with 28.5 per cent born overseas — the highest percentage in more than 120 years. In the last 10 years, Australia has increasingly become home to a colourful mix of immigrants, with migration rates up for Nepal, Brazil, India, China, and Bangladesh, among others. And what you won’t hear from the right-wing brigade is that immigrant unemployment rates in Australia are among the lowest in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, and most children of migrants are proficient in English by the age of 10.
But statistics only reveal part of the picture. Do Dean and Latham enjoy a nice Australian espresso or latte — among the best in the world — from time to time? They can thank Australia’s non-English speaking Italian and Greek migrants for that. Or have they ever dined in one of Melbourne or Sydney’s highly-rated fusion restaurants? Perhaps they’d feel more comfortable if Australian chefs withdrew the Asian and Middle Eastern influences on modern Australian cuisine. The cultural blend within Australian society is already far beyond the fear-mongering ignorance on display in sections of the media. Sorry right-wing brigade, you’re about three decades too late.
The resurgence in racial division is a momentary backlash against this reality, steeped in denial at the changed face of the Australian nation. Australia is no longer a British outpost reserved for northern European subjects. It is a multicultural nation with an Indigenous heritage and a British legacy.
To attack Australia’s multiculturalism, and divide its society into racial tiers, is to attack the nation’s foundation and identity, which is fundamentally anti-Australian.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Antoun Issa is a political commentator and journalist, and currently works as senior editor for the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.
