Ghassan Hage Against Paranoid Nationalism Searching For Hope in A Shrinking Society
Ghassan Hage Against Paranoid Nationalism Searching For Hope in A Shrinking Society
Ghassan Hage Against Paranoid Nationalism Searching For Hope in A Shrinking Society
Ghassan Hage
Annandale, Vic. : Pluto Press, 2003
ISBN: 1864031964
CHAPTER 4
chapter 4
pages 47-66
A brief history of
White colonial paranoia 1
Introduction
So far in this work I have been concerned with the nature of the
current wave of paranoid nationalism in Australia and the rest of
the Western world: a nationalism obsessed with border politics and
where 'worrying' becomes the dominant mode of expressing one's
attachment to the nation. I have argued that this paranoid
nationalism is primarily the product of 'the decline of hope' in an
era where the dynamics of capital accumulation no longer produces
mere inequalities within society, but endangers the very idea of a
national society. In Australia, however, these structural factors did
not create a culture of paranoia out of thin air. As I will argue in
this chapter, there is a history of White paranoia in Australian
culture which has structured Australian nationalism from the time
of its birth. Since the early post-World War II era, however, there
have been economic and political forces which have increasingly
worked to relegate this paranoia to the margins of Australian
society. What marks the current period is the emergence of a
counter political tendency which has reactivated this colonial
paranoia, successfully repositioning it at the core of today's
national culture.
In the first part of the chapter I will give a very brief historical
account of the emergence of White colonial paranoia and of the
way it has shaped Australia's society and culture from the time of
federation (independence) in 1901 until the rise of multicultural
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policy in the early 1970s. I will then examine the period from the
mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, when the tendency was
marginalised due to the political consensus that formed around the
introduction and consolidation of multicultural policy by
successive Australian governments.
The last part of the chapter examines the igniting of the debates
on multiculturalism and indigenous land rights in the mid-eighties
which signalled the re-emergence of White paranoia in the
public sphere. As I will argue, to understand this process of reemergence we need to examine the economic, social and historical
circumstances which made dominant sections of the capitalist class,
their political agents and the media develop an interest in the
reactivation of White colonial paranoia and in bringing it back to
the fore as a potent politicaUcultural force. 2
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The White Australia Policy did not just keep Australia homogeneously White; it actually worked at making it even more
homogeneous than it was at the time of Federation. According to
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This was an important shift. For the first time, there was no .serious political force in Australia willing to or capable of proppmg
up the racial expressions of White paranoia and give thet?
a privileged position in public space or take them as the basls
for formulating policy. It was a shift that became a feature of
Australia's immigration and settlement politics well into the 1980s.
Like taxation, immigration and settlement policy became thought
of as something that ought to be worked out by politicians,
preferably through bipartisan politics. It was not to be decided
through public debates, as it was clear where such debates would
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not just accepting that cultural difference exists and must be catered
for, but also celebrating it as a positive aspect of society that ought
to be promoted.
Second, and closely related to the above, was the difference
between multiculturalism as a mode of governing ethnic cultures
and multiculturalism as national identity. This was and still is a
subtle difference. The difference is perceived as that between
multiculturalism as a marginal reality in a mainly Anglo-Celtic
SOCIety and multiculturalism displacing Anglo-Celtic culture to
become the identity of the nation. In the first, the culture of the
ethnic minorities is imagined as contained, and having little effect
on a still largely 'European Australian' mainstream culture. In the
second, the migrant cultures are seen to be actually hybridising with
the European Australian culture, creating a new multicultural
mainstream.
Third, there were the differences between multiculturalism as
welfare and multiculturalism as a structural socio-economic
policy. Both these multiculturalisms were less about culture and
more about access to the institutions of Australian society. Both
were concerned with the fact that most non-English speaking
background migrants to Australia were positioned in the most
economically unfavourable positions in society.22 But while the first
was mainly concerned with facilitating access to the state, in the
form of interpreting services or in the provision of state help to
ethnic communities via specific grants, the second had a more
radical conception of the role of the welfare state: it saw it as a
tool for dealing with the structural class inequalities produced
around ethnicity.
Fourth, there were the differences between multiculturalism as
social policy described above and multiculturalism as cultural
policy. This was what Brian Bullivant nicely called the difference
between life chances and lifestyle multiculturalism. 23 While the first
was concerned with socio-economic issues, the second was the
closest to the forms of cultural pluralism that are most identified
with multiculturalism today. It was more concerned with cultural
traditions and practices. Its core element was the shedding of the
ethnocentric claim that Anglo-Celtic culture was the most desirable
culture to aim for and the accepting of a cultural relativism which
recognised that no culture was superior to another, that all had
enriching elements that could be incorporated into Australian
society. This version of multiculturalism was crucial for the ethnic
(non-Anglo-Celtic) middle class, who, to compete against the
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even though that society has clearly disappeared. So the very idea
of debating assimilation, whether on the for or the against side,
works to produce the fantasy of a society that no longer exists. The
debate helps shield the assimilationists from the reality they need
to avoid if they are to maintain their fantasy constructions: that
they are the ones who have not assimilated to a changing society.
This is precisely the closed-circuit logic that the White paranoid
fantasy needs if it is to be able to reproduce itself.
This is why debates around this subject are structured in an
exceptionally predictable way, as I have already pointed out. They
always consist of people expressing forms of White paranoia and
others trying to present either statistical or historical evidence or
logical arguments to prove that there is no basis for the paranoid
views expressed. More often than not, because of the closed circle
logic in which it is grounded, the counter argument leads to a
reinforcement of the paranoid view, which feeds on a sense that
'things are so bad because so many people can't even see what is
happening' and end up creating images of 'dark conspiracies' that
everyone has fallen victim to except for the paranoid ones
themselves.
So perhaps 'debate' is a misnomer as far as multiculturalism is
concerned. What actually happens is more like a parallel presentation of differing points of view. Because forms of social
paranoia refuse inter-subjectivity and have to feed narcissistically
on their own 'truth' to survive, they are not something one argues
with, especially when they are positioned prominently within the
public sphere. One either works at relegating them to the marginal
spheres of society where they belong, or exploits them politically
to reach one's political goal. This was the road chosen by John
Howard's conservative side of politics.
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