Special Features: Multicultural Australia

Peter McLaren

Special Features

Asia as an Other in the Australian Imagery

© 2003 by Peter McLaren and gangan books australia

 

In academic circles Other has come to be something of a dirty word. To say that Australians see an Other in Asia does not mean we celebrate our differences, that we delight in each other’s our Otherness. It means that we see a negative difference loaded against Asia and Asians. Others are the outgroup — we are the ingroup.

But does the concept of Otherness necessarily have to entail negativity? Without an Other to define one’s self against there can be no sense of self, of identity. It is only by some kind of engagement with the Other that we find how Other the Other is to us. Without this engagement we can not come to understand our own culture and traditions, we can not know our own selves. I would therefore argue that the construct of Other is, in part, a necessary thing. Australia has to define itself in some way when considering those outside its borders and this means that it has to find, or invent, a sense of difference.

In Australia’s case perhaps our search for and identification of Others has been historically unique. In fact a look into our recent past causes one to wonder if we have really yet formed a nation at all. We still run one of the world’s last colonies while our monarch lives in far off Britain. If a nation is definable by notions of a shared history, culture, traditions and language, ethnic identity and the like, with whom are we meant to be sharing these constructs? Our institutions show nothing in the way of originality, having been imported from Britain, and even nowadays we still find it difficult to locate exactly when in time we became a nation.

If the boundaries are to be inclusionary and encompass the Aboriginal inhabitants of our country then Australia’s foundation date would be impossible to pin down. If, on the other hand, the boundaries are drawn to exclude these people we still have problems deciding exactly when Australia became Australia and we became Australians. We have a choice of dates or events from which we can consider ourselves to have become a nation. Should we choose the first fleet’s landing in 1788, Federation in 1901 or our “baptism of fire” at Gallipoli in 1915? Arguments can also be made for the date of the Statute of Westminster in 1928 or even in the 1980s when appeals to the Privy Council were abolished. Therefore, if we deny the existence of the Aboriginal population, there was no history in Australia prior to 1788. If this is so we have to work out where our previous historical background lies. It would seem that it lies somewhere within the history of the British Empire and on this basis our nationalism must be grounded in the year zero - Britain’s year of 1788.

We have never been completely confident our own identity because that identity has been so closely linked to that of a mother country, or, rather, a mother empire. We have largely viewed ourselves as being a scion of a confident Britain but not wholly British. This is manifest even today in our obsession with sport, (the only area in which we think we can compete with Britain on equal terms) and the newsworthiness of our sporting achievements when we beat the mother country.

Our sense of identity (or the lack thereof) can be seen daily in the television media where visiting film stars, sports personalities and the like are so often asked what they think of Australia. The point being that British TV media does not need to ask British visitors what they think of Britain because the British are secure in their identity and a disparaging comment concerning their country would, most likely, be taken more as a matter of personal opinion. The British, put simply, are “big” enough to take criticism and are not in need of reassurance from film stars and sporting personalities.

This sense of inferiority to Britain made Australia all the more eager to define itself against Others who it perceived to be lower down the scale of “Empire” than itself. Almost all of Asia, we knew, had been colonised by white European powers and, for the most part, by the British — our mother empire. Our sense of Otherness to Asia was therefore, I would argue, unavoidably influenced in large part by this fact.

As a country born of British colonisation the USA does not suffer the identity crisis that is so evident in Australia. This is largely because it was founded on a strong revolutionary tradition having fought, and defeated, its mother country to gain its independence. This gave the USA a sense of pride that we in Australia can never have. Our nation was made a nation by an act of the British parliament without the need for revolution or even a real independence movement. If the USA’s nationhood can be said to have come with a bang, Australia’s can barely be rated as a whimper.

This painless birth of our nation goes a long way to explaining why Australia has had the need to define itself in the first place. Its sense of nothingness, its shallow roots engendered a sense of inferiority. This was keenly felt as early as the outbreak of WW I and helps explain our eagerness to go to war against Turkey - a country we knew nothing about. It was a war in which most of our participating soldiers could not have located the country of the enemy on the map. Nevertheless, the enemy were sufficiently Other for us to know we should fight against them and we have built a lasting legend - with scant regard to the truth - around those who took part. We were in need of the birth pains we had missed out on and Gallipoli served the purpose well at the time.

Thus, Australia had had to involve itself in a degree of intellectualising and soul searching that some other countries may not have had to concern themselves with in order to find identities with which they felt comfortable. This search for an Australian identity has been made somewhat more perplexing by the nature of our geographical position. We are a country still dominated by Anglocentric values sitting on the edge of Asia surrounded by an Otherness we would more easily embrace if only the Others would content themselves with recognising their inferiority to us.

The inferiority of the Other is a fundamental part of the construct. No nation is content with feeling inferior to all others and once it recognizes that it is, in its own perceptions, inferior to another it can take one of two paths to rectify or restore its image. It can examine its perceived superior and find a flaw. This often takes forms such as “they may have defeated us militarily but they are, nonetheless, uncultured” . The other path is to look elsewhere for an Other that it considers itself superior to. We should be mindful in this discussion that Australians, who felt themselves inferior to the British, also failed to defeat the Turks in their first real war. Under these circumstances our need for an inferior Other became greater and Asia and Asians helped to fill a significant gap in our image of ourselves.

When examining Asian Otherness in Australia it seems apparent to me that our past “White Australia Policy” has had an excessive amount of influence on the population at large; it sets us apart from that other cultural and racial melting pot, the aforementioned America. The USA does not define itself to the same degree against Asia because it had already been accepting immigrants of diverse nationalities for over two hundred years before Australia disbanded its White Australia Policy. America has therefore benefited from a greater racial mix over a longer period of time and is able to define itself against not only Asians but, say, Eastern and central Europeans and Mexicans, also.

Differing degrees of Otherness are to be found in contemporary Australian imagery. The Otherness of a native-born Frenchman, or German, for example, is not nearly so evident as that of a native born, Lebanese. As we move a little further away from our British roots so people become slowly, but perceivably, less acceptable and more Other. In the Australian psyche Greeks and Italians are more Other to us than are the aforementioned French and Germans. Those indigenous to the Middle East, with what we describe as “swarthy” skins, become even more differentiated but not to the same extent as the inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent.

As we move further eastwards, it should be noted, people’s visible appearance changes from those who “look like us” to those who are visibly different. When we reach Southeast Asia — which for the majority of Australians is the only Asia with which they have any familiarity — we meet peoples of an even more strikingly Other appearance. Here we have an important point in the discussion. The visible differences in people are what first marks them as Other. The Frenchman or the German on the streets of Hobart is indistinguishable from a white “Australian”.

This difference in appearance is the first building block in the construction of the imagery that marks Asians as different and it is a difference around which we Australians have created a racial stereotype that lumps all Asians together. We are generally unaware that a Cambodian visiting the Great Wall of China feels as “different” as does a Welshman who visits Warsaw.

This difference in physiognomy combined with our ignorance of Asian geography and Asians themselves enables a certain section of Australian society to recall a stereotypical Asian face when they hear the type of speech given by a political leader such as Pauline Hanson. In Ms Hanson’s maiden speech to Parliament, it may be recalled, she stated:

“… I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians …. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.” …

The words “being swamped by Asians”, it seems to me, would have brought to mind, in most Australians, the same stereotypical Southeast Asian face. It will be noted here that Ms. Hanson in the above speech homogenized all Asian cultures and religions.

Our lack of knowledge and lack of interest in Asia and Asians generally has served, in the Australian mind, to blend together all of the diversity in their religions, cultures, nationalities and so forth and present them as if they were one amorphous mass. Having one mental image, or handle, as it were, with which to think about and classify Asia is simple. Most people would find it easier to use this mental construct than having to distinguish between some fifteen or so countries of which they know little.

It is interesting to note that in terms of food Australians are much more accepting of Asia. Almost every city dwelling Australian can tell the difference between, say, Thai and Indian take away food. Many Australians are familiar with, and are able to distinguish between, dishes from various Asian countries whether or not they can name the capital cities of the countries from which these dishes come. Furthermore, so accepting are we of foreign food generally that it would be difficult to find a restaurant in an Australian city that advertises itself as being either Australian or British.

Defining what we are with any amount of objectivity is almost impossible without reference to an Other. Attempting to define ourselves as Australians from within Australia is limited by the small frame of reference available; if you do not know that Asians exist, you can not define yourself as a white, non Asian Caucasian. It is far easier to define ourselves against what we are not. In doing so this definition is limited by the amount of knowledge we have about those we define ourselves against. Thus, as we learn more about Asia and Asians, as our media portrays ongoing and current happenings in Asia, our perceptions of Asia may sway back and forth. The Asian Other is thus, ipso facto, not a static construct. It is dynamic, it changes over time and with perceptions gained from the media’s reportage of current affairs.

In defining ourselves against what we are not Asia gives us more scope than defining ourselves against Europeans because the sense of Otherness is greater. One of the reasons for this is to be found in our religious differences. Europeans, we can positively identify ourselves with because we see them as being Christians and we know that to be, say, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim is to be different to us. By the same token, the general public’s knowledge of Buddhists stretches little further than the image of Buddhist monks or Hare Krishna sect members proffering begging bowls. Little effort is therefore required to construct the image of Buddhists as being lazy. As we tend to focus on the negative when we talk about Others, Australians, since the happenings of September 11th, find it increasingly easy to identify Muslims as terrorists. At the same time we, being a part of the western, Christian, American “good guys” camp, can easily come to terms with the idea that we are part of the terrorized group.

What we eat goes some way to defining us against Asians. Despite our ongoing “love affair” with Asian restaurants - Asian restaurants are certainly no passing fad - what we eat is still mainly determined by the Jewish dietary laws of the Bible’s Old Testament. These laws tell us that we should not eat snakes, dogs, horses, insects and so forth. Recent media coverage of the soccer World Cup held in Japan and Korea has made Australians realise that in Korea dog is on restaurant menus. This has re-kindled memories from the early 1970s when press coverage of Vietnamese immigrants to Australia informed the population that the Vietnamese also ate dogs. Hence we can postulate with some degree of certainty that one component of the Australian image of Asians is that they eat dogs. This, for Australians, represents an easily recallable Other as we are, by and large, disgusted at the thought of people eating the kind of animals we regard so lovingly as household pets.

Fear has played a part in Australia’s view of Asia and, consequently, our image of Asia as being Other. Historically Australia has viewed Asia with trepidation since the mid nineteenth century when Chinese males came to the country seeking their fortune on the goldfields of Victoria. The fear that Asians would pollute our white Anglo Saxon bloodlines was very real throughout the nineteenth century and the intellectual community made much of the threat to our long-term existence that this posed. However, such theories as Social Darwinism, phrenology and the Great Chain of Being which showed Asians to be lower than us on the evolutionary scale were never really taken up by the working class. It was the incorrectly perceived threat posed by Asian - predominantly Chinese - labour to the working class during the 1840’s — 1890’s that gave most Australians their dislike of all Asians. Anti Chinese leagues sprang up in all States, Australian made Chinese furniture was boycotted by union members, the shearers union barred Chinese labour in their charter and a long going seaman’s strike against the ASN Shipping company, which threatened to use Asian labour, all contributed to Asia as the Other in popular Australian imagery. The word popular, when used in the “Asia as Other” context is important as university based intellectuals are often thinking on a level far removed from workaday reality in such discourses.

The ambitions and excesses of Japan in WWII presented an image of an aggressive Asian Otherness that Australians had probably suspected existed all along and one which our media had been describing for decades. In Japan’s case, however, the Other imagery has faded of later years as we come to rely more on their investment in Australia, for jobs in the motor industry and so forth. As one of our best trading partners a boycott of Japanese cameras, automobiles, motorcycles and watches would, these days, be unthinkable. Gone are the days when we referred to them as The Yellow Peril. The reasons for this change in perceptiveness of the Japanese is a very extensive subject far too large to attempt to cover in a short essay such as this. However, that fact that the Japanese became “Americanised, modernised and industrialised” has made them more acceptable to us. We tend not to paint all Japanese with the same “Asian brush” when we think of them despite the fact that they have been the only Asians that have posed anything of a threat to us throughout our short history.

In Australia’s recent past Asia’s Communist Otherness has been perceived as an insidious threat. Post WWII we saw the “dog eating” North Koreans and North Vietnamese embrace communism and in both cases Australia sent contingents of troops to engage in wars against them. The Red Tide, as the Chinese were commonly called in the 1960s, seem now to have receded from our minds to the point where Australia is courting China in an effort to win lucrative supply contracts. Our fierce anti communist stance so evident in the cold war has all but disappeared and we now find ourselves in a period of transition with regard to our imagery of the Asian Other. This imagery, as stated elsewhere in this essay, is therefore revealed to be a dynamic construct.

The imagery of Asians as Others softens more easily when we see them excel in things we pride ourselves on but are unable to achieve. Examples of this are that the Chinese have the technology to put telecommunications satellites into orbit and we do not. Japan is clearly industrious and produces so many automobiles that it provides jobs for Australians here in our own country while we do not have a national car. Examples such as these and the fact that Australians are travelling abroad in Asia more than ever before is going some way to attenuating our negative image of Asians.

As an Other in Australian imagery Asia figured significantly in the early years of white occupation. It helped Australians determine who they were and their notions of Asians being inferior to themselves helped them to develop a positive national ego out of a disorganised id. The various perceived threats that Asia presented went some way towards binding Australians together as a nation. Australians had to be different to somebody else and there was little pride in having trounced the Aboriginal inhabitants they first encountered. Asia thereby filled a vacuum.

Australia having participated in no wars of its own and having no foundation myth rooted in a mythical past was in need of an Other. Our geographical proximity to Asia had much to do with the Asian as Other imagery but not purely on the basis of the perceived threat of a military invasion.

Asians were virtually the only Others Australian’s came into contact with prior to federation. Nobody else wanted to come to Australia; a British penal colony held little appeal. Apart from a limited number of Californian Americans who came during the gold rushes (and were not very different to ourselves), few people, even non-English Europeans, came here and after federation our white Australia Policy kept Asians from physical contact with us. Our long period of isolation gave us ample time in which to create the negative and somewhat inaccurate image of Asia that is so difficult for us to shake off even today.

In summation white Australia’s unique foundation and historical background in connection with its incongruous geographical position has made for an equally unique Asian Other in the minds of most Australians. Unique though it is, it nevertheless owes a degree of its Asian imagery to its colonising mother country, Britain. A feeling of inferiority towards the mother country has engendered the so-called “cultural cringe” which has made us look down on Asians because we feel we are looked down upon by Britain. I do not subscribe to the theory that our cultural cringe is a cringe from Asia. In my view this is a different cringe based upon fear that is a recent construct not yet fully acculturated in the Australian mind.

Of the many images and intellectual constructs which go to make up the Asian Other in the minds of Australians two points stand out. The first is that physical appearance is the first marker that triggers the intellectual processes, which lead to the development of the Other in the mind set. The second is ignorance of Asia and Asians, their different cultures and so forth, that causes Australians to think of all Asians negatively and as being cast in the same Asian mould.

 

Bibliography:
Andrews, E. M., The Anzac Illusion: Anglo Australian Relations During World War I , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.
Bessant. J. and Watts. R., Sociology in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1999.
Castles, S. Cope, W. Kalantzis, M. Morrisey, M., Mistaken Identity: Multi Culturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1992.
Crisp, L. F., Australian National Government, Longman, Croydon, 1965.
Crowley, F., A Documentary History of Australia, Nelson, West Melbourne, 1980.
Ebbels, R. N., The Australian Labour Movement 1850-1907, Sydney, 1960.
HMA 100 Asian Studies 1 Reader, University of Tasmania 1998.
Hoyt, E. P., Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict, 1863-1952, Da Capo Press Inc., New York, 1986.
Reynolds, H., Dispossession: Black Australians and White Invaders, Penguin Books Ltd, Ringwood,1989.
Smith, A. D., National Identity, University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1991.

This essay was written at The University of Tasmania 2002/2003 on the subject of
“Asia as an Other in the Australian Imagery.”

 


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