DONT AGREE WITH ALL OF THIS OR HER INTERPRETATIONS OF SPECIFIC THINGS LIKE THE "STOLEN GENERATION" BUT IT WOULD DO THE BELEEDING HEART PC PROG LEFTISTS WHO SUFFER FROM CULTURAL CRINGE TO READ IT.

Behind the racism of White Australia lay a grand vision
Lindy Edwards,  June 22, 2009

AS MATTERS of race hit the headlines again, there is a palpable collective wince at references to the old White Australia policy. We shamefully push it to one side, dismissing it as a brief aberration in our history. But if we are to build a solid sense of ourselves, we need to come to terms with its centrality in our past. It embodies the contradiction at the heart of the Australian experience.

White Australia was the rallying call of Federation. It was the first legislation passed by our national Parliament. It was the founding principle of our national identity. It is not a minor issue we can gloss over.

However, the issue is more complex than it first appears. To the modern ear the catchcry conjures up nothing but racism. But at the time it referred to a broader vision. Most early Australians were escaping the oppression and misery of the class system in England. The early nationalists embraced a utopian vision of building a new society. They wanted to create the most genuinely democratic, egalitarian country on Earth.

This vision clashed with 19th-century ideas on race. The dominant view was that there was a natural hierarchy of races. It followed that a multiracial society would inevitably be hierarchically organised. As a result, it was believed that an egalitarian community had to be of one race.

The issue played out on both the economic and political fronts. On the economic front, White Australia can be interpreted as a stand against slavery and indentured labour. The debate at the time was whether Australia's north should be opened up using cheap indentured labour from Asia and the Pacific, or whether Australia was to be a nation built on free labour being paid union wages.

In his speech introducing the White Australia legislation in the Parliament, attorney-general Alfred Deakin acknowledged it would slow the economic development of the north, but argued it was worth it to build a great society.

Deakin's speech also referred to the political dimensions. At the time democracy was still young in most of the world. Most countries concentrated power in the hands of a social elite and were wary of too much people power. They saw democracy as mob rule by the uneducated masses.

Australia was a rare exception and had moved faster and gone further to extended political equality to more of its citizens. But there was a fear that a multiracial society would create a hierarchy between citizens and undermine the progress towards a genuinely egalitarian democracy.

Like all acts of grandiose idealism, the vision of Australian egalitarianism was successful because it aligned with powerful interests.

But we should give the self-flagellation a rest for a moment and take pride in what was good in this uniquely Australian vision. We need to remember that when the Anzacs went to World War I, the cockiness in their step was because they believed they came from the freest, most democratic and most equal country on earth.

We need that pride now to fortify ourselves for the task of acknowledging what we did to protect that vision: we went to appalling lengths to maintain our racial unity.

White Australia led to government policies of "smoothing the pillow of the dying race" for Aboriginal people. It made it acceptable to steal children so as to break up their communities and breed out their colour. In some cases, government policies aimed to eradicate all evidence of the Aboriginal race.

There were also tragic consequences for those who fell under the Immigration Restriction Act. People who were born and bred here were persecuted, denied full rights, or deported to countries they had never seen, all because they weren't of Anglo descent. Good people were humiliated, degraded and excluded from our society.

We have been torn about how to make sense of this mixed heritage. In the first 60 years after Federation we focused on the good and played down the bad. In the past 40 years we have been so focused on the bad that we have lost all sight of the good. The pendulum swing is understandable, but we need to get past it.

Australia held up a great vision of a democratic, egalitarian society, and we committed atrocities to protect that vision. That is the contradiction that lies at the heart of the Australian experience. If we are to mature as a nation, we need to make our peace with it.

We should take pride in the ideals and make amends for the wrongdoing. As a nation that no longer believes there is a hierarchy between races, we are free to move forward.

We can hold our heads up that the legacy of egalitarian, democratic values is a strong protective factor for newcomers and that we still aspire to the equality of all people.

At the same time we must acknowledge there are cultural legacies that mean our actions do not always match up to our ideals; that sometimes we fall short and we still have work to do.

Dr Lindy Edwards is a political scientist at the Australian National University.

Imagine if we still had the White Australia policy now ?

SA survived...

Grendel wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 1:28pm:

Not a trauma I'd wish on Australia.

Grendel wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 1:40pm:


No, you are just a race hating black hater. SA is much more prosperous, free and successful under the black government than it ever was under the white government, the same with Zimbabwe. Anyone who says to the contrary, is just a KKK Grand Wizard. that needs to be sent to a Multiculti Re-Education Camp.

Calanen wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 1:48pm:

Afternoon, shortarse.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 1:51pm:


Afternoon lard-o. How many donuts did you have for lunch today?

Grendel wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 2:03pm:

To which post do you refer?