The gradual and inexorable mutation of Australia from a penal colony to a confident, outward looking entity is a tribute to human ingenuity. The impetus behind the forging of a habitable milieu out of an inhospitable terrain and environment and then crafting a polity and society that can be said to be the envy of the world is not predicated only on the human propensity towards survival. It is more than that. It stems from the impulse and attributes that define the west. The most salient of this is the desire to attain mastery over nature. This, in turn, is predicated upon the intellectual ferment called the Enlightenment and the Renaissance. This assertion may be surprising and rather counter intuitive to some given that the peoples who were ‘transported’ to Australia were convicts or in other words, the dregs of society. How could the energy accruing from renaissance ideas have been radiated by a bunch of haggard and diseased convicts into a land that was rightly termed as godforsaken?
The colonial project may constitute an answer to this question. The impulse behind colonialism, it could be said, was an admixture of renaissance and enlightenment ideas and the energies that these released. The renaissance and enlightenment ideas were revolutionary in nature. These ideas may or may not have percolated to what came to be known as transportables. However, the managers of the enterprise may have been clued into the colonial enterprise and imbued with the energy and the gumption necessary for forging a new polity in Australia. Whether by default, serendipity or design, these doughty entrepreneurs did succeed in forging a polity that corresponded to Australia being characterized as the western outpost in the Southern Hemisphere. The nature of Australia then is western and its provenance is anglo saxon.
No other community or civilization save the Islamic and the western one has succeeded in implanting itself in distant and alien shores. This then testifies to the resilience of the anglo saxon west. Australia could then rightly be deemed as the neo-west. Primarily a ‘white’ western nation imbued with the ideals and ideas of the west, Australia has been and is undergoing profound changes of a structural nature. These changes accrue from the disavowal of the ‘white Australian policy’ and the embrace of globalization by Australia. This has, among other things, led to massive immigration into the country. Occurring in waves, this immigrant influx, it held, is changing the nature of Australia from a ‘white’ western outpost into a different entity. Given that the recent influx into Australia emanates from Asia, some posit that Australia is becoming more Asian and that this accords with its geography and is good. This alignment of geography and culture will, it is asserted make Australia normal and redound positively to it. The question is: is this alleged re-alignment necessarily good for Australia?
The answer is both a yes and no. Yes, because it gives short shrift to the notion of race and potentially leads to the creation of a polity that is cosmopolitan and open. If this means hybridity and mongrelization being the norm than the exception then it is salubrious and salutary. However, if it means alteration of the cultural and ethnic mosaic of Australia into something wherein different groups vie and compete over the nature and definition of Australia, then this is an insalubrious development. Take, for instance, the assertion of Australia becoming Asian and its implications on Australia. What Asian nation or culture has pioneered liberal conceptions of politics and society and has been open to the outsider? Be it China or Japan or even India, in various permutations and combinations, these nations are colored by traditions and conventions which militate against modernity. Which Asian country is as tolerant and receptive of difference and the outsider like Australia?
These attributes of tolerance and receptiveness towards difference stem from western notions of liberalism, democracy, individualism and human rights. The attendant paradigm of multiculturalism is a mere corollary. Australia then is a western nation. Period. And this is good precisely for the reasons delineated here. The debate in Australia should not be over the nature of Australian identity but rather over how to create and forge a polity that continues to reflect these western principles and philosophies. What does this mean in practice?
It means crystallizing and forging policies that lead to the widespread acceptance of liberal ideas and ideals amongst the different peoples comprising the Australian firmament. This does not mean imposing an assimilative straitjacket on these peoples or the disavowal and giving up of multiculturalism but rather pruning it. That is, peoples comprising the Australian firmament should be allowed to maintain fidelity to their respective cultures but this should not mean according them group rights or taking recourse to identity politics.
The ethos that should inform Australia should be premised on the principles of liberty, freedom and human rights.. Within this broad rubric, there is plenty of space for accommodating difference and the integration of the outsider. There really is no need to alter the ideational and philosophical premise of Australia. It is these premises that make Australia what it is. These values are the grist and mill of Australia’s soft power and let’s face it, these are western. Let Australia then not experiment with alternate paradigms. Its contemporary identity informed by its history and philosophy has served it well. Let the country continue on the path it is on. This is good for Australia, the world and its region
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