- The Guardian
- Issue #2110
The Australian government has just released the results of a Cultural Diversity review. It hasn’t made a huge splash in the news, what with the Olympics, the ongoing slaughter in the Middle East, and the impending US election, but it’s a serious issue. There’s been some serious work and money involved. Three eminent Australians travelled the country and spoke with more than 750 organisations and 1,430 individuals at more than 200 consultation sessions. There were almost 800 submissions to the review. The Panel worked hard to involve anyone who needed to be involved. They accepted submissions in all community languages, written or by video message.
It’s a lot of work. There’s also a lot of money involved. The government is going to spend $100 million to support a stronger multicultural Australia.
Is it worth it? Are we there yet, with multi-culturalism?
A lot of people would answer ‘yes’ to both questions. Australians of all political stripes love to describe Australia as the most successful multicultural society in the world. The success is defined in a negative sort of way, by the things we do not have, and by the things we don’t say when patting ourselves on the back.
We don’t have a system of race-based apartheid (we provide diplomatic support to one in Israel). We don’t have inter-ethnic violence (but most of the recommendations of the 1991 Black Deaths in Custody report haven’t been implemented). We don’t segregate schools or public transport (but Indigenous Australians are massively over-represented in the prison system).
Usually the bland ‘most successful multicultural society’ title is bipartisan, but the Liberal-National Coalition and their bosses in the Murdoch press aren’t happy with the Cultural Diversity review. Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan has complained that the review falls down by not mentioning an increase in anti-semitism.
We take anti-semitism seriously. It’s a longstanding and deep-seated form of racism that should always be fought. We take it much more seriously than Dan Tehan and The Australian do. For them, anti-Semitism is a weapon to be used. So it is that a politician whose party has had no problem perpetrating falsehoods about Black Australians, can complain about anti-semitism in a publication that has no problem printing racist cartoons.
For Tehan, The Australian, and the rest of the Murdoch press, anti-semitism is a cudgel, often used in the practice of anti-brown racism via Islamophobia. They do this by defining anti-semitism as any opposition to Zionist Israeli expansionism. If you care about the ongoing mass murder happening in Palestine right now, and oppose our government’s role in enabling it, that’s enough to make you anti-semitic for the Murdoch media.
Just as communists strongly oppose anti-semitism, we support real multiculturalism. Our party’s Political Document, says that “real multiculturalism is not tokenism” and makes the point that real multiculturalism begins with respect, acknowledgement and celebration of our Indigenous history. That’s something the Communist Party of Australia has been behind for decades before other political parties on this continent.
Our multiculturalism is much more than just feel-good and self-congratulation. It involves an honest facing up to racism in this country, and a strong opposition to the opportunistic use of racism by the likes of Dan Tehan, his fellow LNP politicians, and the Murdoch press.
