Anning’s speech was a horrible throwback

FRASER Anning’s speech felt chillingly familiar to Jewish people who were treated with suspicion and hostility when they arrived in Australia fleeing the Holocaust, writes Alex Ryvchin.

THE level of our public discourse has taken a dark, lamentable turn.

If it was not the sight of a Hitler enthusiast on a respected news network, it is a Senator using his first address in our national parliament to suggest that the problem of migration requires a “final solution”. The effect of this is to denigrate the level of debate and to polarise it. As a result, it becomes impossible to coherently discuss the very real issues to which Senator Anning sought to give prominence — migration, integration and multiculturalism.

But there is a deeper flaw to Senator Anning’s reasoning. His speech betrays a belief that for a society to function, it must be uniform and homogenous. This misses the point about Australia and what has made our country among the safest, most desirable, prosperous and harmonious in the world.

To be sure, the duty of new migrants is to integrate, acculturate and adhere to Australian values of democracy, tolerance and fairness. But this country has never demanded assimilation. It has never forced new migrants to check their languages, cultures and traditions at the door.

The fear that new migrants will be unable to adapt to our ways and will resort to criminality and sow disharmony is not a new one. My community suffered similar suspicion and rejection at the time we needed sympathy the most.

Liberal Senator Lucy Gichuhi gave an impassioned address about racism in response to Fraser Anning’s speech yesterday. (Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP)

As the survivors of the Holocaust languished in Displaced Persons camps in Europe, they were confronted by anti-migrant sentiments in Australia. Pressure groups like the Australian Natives Association (ANA) and the Returned Services League (RSL) passed resolutions opposing Jewish migration, antisemitic graffiti appeared in the streets of Sydney and Melbourne and influential publications like the Bulletin and Smith’s Weekly ran editorials and cartoons depicting the Jews as scheming manipulators who would soon enslave the Australian people with their godless, immoral ways.

But the Jews did integrate and are now held up as a model of successful migration. The Jews were aided in the process of integration by a rich tradition of charitable giving and self-sufficiency through Jewish welfare organisations funded by those who had migrated earlier and become well-established. They were also schooled in good citizenry and civic duty through ancient doctrines passed from generation to generation. In the 6th century BCE, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the exiled Jewish leadership in Babylon that they should not despair in living outside their national home, rather they should integrate, contribute and thrive.

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

The Jews were also compelled by the principle of “Dina d’malchuta dina” — the law of the land is the law.

More than that, Australian Jews have had the good sense to count their blessings to be called Australians and to seek to safeguard the democratic institutions of our great land so that the iniquities of the old country should not be transported here.

Had the sentiments of nativism and fear triumphed then, our country would have been denied some of its greatest Australians.

But the question of migration is rarely subjected to dispassionate debate. The contributions of Jewish-Australians like our greatest ever soldier, Sir John Monash, our first Australian-born Governor-General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, and Rose Shappere, the heroic volunteer nurse during the Boer War, counted for nothing when the prospect of further Jewish migration was up for consideration. Now, Bob Katter laments that more Jewish migrants aren’t arriving.

Alex Ryvchin is the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

@AlexRyvchin