The Australian-Asian connection: from Alfred Deakin to John Howard

Abstract

Conclusion: In summing up, an overriding theme of this Paper has been that the dynamics of the Australian-Asian connection are deeply grounded in the Australian dilemma, the celebrated tension between history and geography. It is a tension that runs right through how we conceive the Australian political community. As we have endeavoured to show — be they questions of national security, trade relations, or foreign policy — they are all constrained by the Australian dilemma reflecting the questions of what it means to be an Australian. A focus on identity has been largely fuelled by ‘a shift in the way we perceive Australia’s position in the Asian region’ (Dixon 199, 75). As argued, identity in the sense of what it means to ‘being an Australian’, pertains above all, to questions of equal citizenship and membership of the political community or what Smith (1992) has aptly termed the ‘politics of people building’. Hence, the future directions of the Australian-Asian relationship rests on how we set about the task of creating a sense of Australian nationhood and citizenship in a diverse and plural society. This, as argued, underscores the centrality of immigration policy – particularly settlement – in unravelling the tensions between history and geography, or stated differently, of how to cope with Australia’s proximity to Asia in dealing with this perplexing question. This is not a question of the ‘Asianization’ of the country; rather, it one that rests in coming to grips with social and cultural diversity with the framework of a normative multiculturalism – as a constitutive principle of the nation. The institutional response we make to being a ‘multicultural nation’ holds the key to this problematic. For example, the commanding heights of the society – be they in politics, business, the professions, or even academia – show little signs of being responsive to the new pluralism in Australian society. As I have argued elsewhere, this requires that we reframe the multicultural discourse within the parameters of the political, and not the cultural nation (Jayasuriya 2004). The new Western Australian Charter of Multiculturalism (OMI 2004), based on a notion of ‘differentiated citizenship’ and a culture of social and political rights and duties, may indeed herald a new course for the languishing multicultural discourse. Finally, it begins to become more apparent and compelling to recognise that ‘Australia’s future lay not just in Asia but with Asia’ (MacMahon Ball quoted in Rix 1985) it is imperative that we make a more constructive and creative response than in the past in fashioning our ‘Asian centredness’. This is not just confined to the realm of politics and economics but more centrally focussed in getting out of being in a cultural cocoon, and able to meaningfully engage with the many cultural traditions in Asia. In this we need to be reminded of the prophetic words of Alfred Deakin over a hundred years ago. In his reflections following his visit to India, Deakin observed wisely in 1893 that: Today’s Australia is full of hope, as Asia of despair. racially, socially, politically and individually far asunder as the poles. Their geographical situation, brining them face to face may yet being them hand to hand, and mind to mind. They have much to teach each other While commending these wise words to the current Australian political leadership, we might add a footnote to Deakin from Bruce Grant (1983), a former Australian Ambassador to India in his prophetic remark that ‘Asia remains the most likely catalyst of Australian civilization