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Freedom based on tolerance

By Geoff Gallop - posted Wednesday, 11 April 2007


It’s interesting to observe how time moves on and fashions change. Multiculturalism was once accepted wisdom but has become subject to significant criticism, particularly since the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC.

According to its critics, multiculturalism is based on relativism and the compartmentalisation of cultures. It is said to have provided a protective wall for fundamentalist and extremist thinking and practice. Rather than uniting the community, it has created division and conflict based on religion and culture.

The solution advocated is either the strong assertion of secularism and the values associated with democracy and human rights, or the renewal of national identity, which in Australia's case is associated with a fair go, mateship and the Judeo-Christian tradition.

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Two features of this attack are worth noting. In the first place there is an eerily theoretical and otherworldly quality to much that has been said about the shortcomings of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism wasn't just a general philosophy designed to guide governments working in pluralistic societies, it was also a much-needed and direct attack on racism, discrimination and other forms of social isolation and exclusion.

Many who migrate to Australia find it hard going. Like Aboriginal people, migrants often face hostility and prejudice in their social interactions and job applications. Multiculturalism was all about equal opportunity in a new country and about educating people to respect their neighbours. In this sense it could, and did, feed off the values associated with democracy (equality and human rights) and the Australian tradition of a fair go.

This leads me to the second observation. How did it happen that a creed that was consistent with and based on values associated with democracy and human rights came to be seen as their enemy?

There are a number of answers to this question, one of which is the politics of populism. About that plenty has been said. The other relates to the inability of conservatives to imagine social unity based on liberty and democracy alone. In other words, human beings need more glue than that provided by the Rawlsian social contract. This they have created over the centuries through their religions, cultures and traditions.

Like it or not, say the conservatives, but some degree of social control through socialisation around specific rather than universal values is necessary. Take away those controls and the worst-case scenario is a war of all against all. At best, then, differences can be tolerated but certainly not embraced.

Multiculturalism has always relied on a commitment to democracy and human rights as the foundation for unity, with culture and religion being matters for personal reflection, healthy dialogue and political advocacy, but not requirements for citizenship. It was all about learning to live with difference in an increasingly globalised world.

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This opened up the nation to new people and new influences and has been without doubt a factor in our success in the final decades of the 20th century.

However, by describing Australia as something more than its past, our modern-day multiculturalists disturbed the foundations and unsettled the locals. Real divisions opened up over national identity just as they did over the national economy and protectionism. Reaction and uneasiness set in among those wedded to an Australia that had long passed.

This feeling of loss was given a healthy measure of intellectual and political legitimacy and the fact that the past involved legislation for White Australia, a stolen generation and healthy doses of sectarianism was conveniently ignored or downplayed by the new culture warriors.

The overturning of these discriminatory policies and attitudes didn't come without a fight and that is why some of the old hands of the multicultural movement are rightly disturbed by the political complacency and lack of historical imagination displayed by their critics.

Indeed, the critics of multiculturalism have never understood the social impact of the all too regular outbreaks of Australian nationalism, particularly for women and children in our migrant communities. It often meant abuse and nastiness to a degree and of an intensity those from the mainstream have little understood.

Australia is a good but not perfect country and racially motivated attacks do occur, as we saw in Western Australia, where my government responded with the nation's toughest racial vilification laws in 2004. We did not, however, proceed with religious vilification legislation on the grounds that it was likely to create more problems than it would solve. After all, one person's religion is often another's poison.

The question needs to be asked: If we are to oppose racism, discrimination and sectarianism, on what basis are we to do it? Aren't we asserting the inherent dignity of the human individual? Aren't we saying people should be judged on what they do rather than who they are? Isn't this just another way of saying we support multiculturalism?

This takes us to the issue of relativism and its connection to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism occupies that heavily contested territory at the intersection of a democratic polity and a pluralistic society. Unlike radical securalism it accepts that religion and cultural difference is a reality and that without a degree of negotiation and compromise democracy couldn't work.

For example, the mainstream Christian churches have successfully incorporated some exceptions into anti-discrimination legislation to accommodate their views. In a real rather than a theoretical democracy, there will always be accommodations of this sort. These claims for special consideration pose questions that need serious analysis but cannot be viewed as the beginning of the end of Western civilisation. Indeed, the way many of our institutions have made adjustments to allow people of different religions to practise their faith is not just good manners but a sign of our moral maturity in a world of difference.

A good society will draw a line in the sand when cultural or religious practices undermine civility and infringe rights. However, knowing where to draw that line is not easy, as we have found with our anti-discrimination laws and their potential impact on some Christian institutions. The values associated with different traditions are always battling for respect on the one hand and seeking privilege on the other. Politics is about managing this process.

However, once leaders ditch multiculturalism in the name of crude nationalism or untutored securalism, they lose the ability to speak to the community as a whole.

They also disarm themselves in the important battle with the extremist currents that exist in all the traditions.

They risk creating the very tensions they claim to reject. This is one of the many ironies of contemporary political practice in an age of terror and uncertainty.

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First published in The Australian on April 4, 2007.



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About the Author

Former West Australian premier Geoff Gallop directs the graduate school of government at the University of Sydney.

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