John Howard is wrong, multiculturalism is Australian

Former PM John Howard sparked a debate when he made a surprising Aussie confession but, respectfully, he’s wrong, says Joe Hildebrand.

OPINION

John Howard is, by the numbers alone, one of the most successful prime ministers Australia has ever had. And, as he famously observed with his trademark simplicity, politics is all about the numbers.

His true strength, however, flowed not from factional calculations or fancy electoral math but from an instinctive understanding of where Middle Australia was at; what it felt and — perhaps more importantly — how it felt. He was a master of reading the national mood.

And this is what makes his confession this week that he “always had trouble” with the concept of multiculturalism so troubling in itself. It is a severe misreading by the master.

Former Prime Minister John Howard commented this week that “multiculturalism is a concept that I’ve always had trouble with”. Picture: James Whatling / Parsons Media

This is not to suggest that Howard or others who have expressed similar concerns about multiculturalism come from a position of prejudice or hate. They are not racist, they are merely wrong.

And this is borne out by every piece of available evidence in the great thriving democracy we call Australia.

Howard’s call is one for unity, that immigrants ought to “adopt the values and practices” of their new home, and it is a call no doubt made in good faith. However it is also both absurd and impossible.

At no point in any nation’s history has there ever been a fully united set of values and practices shared by the whole population, let alone in Australia’s.

From the very beginning the values and practices of the settlers who arrived in 1788 were utterly alien to the values and practices of the First Australians who had already lived here for tens of thousands of years.

And even among the first immigrants themselves were chasmic differences in values and practices. Did an Irish Catholic convict doing seven years hard labour share the same values of a high-ranking naval officer of a nation in which practising Catholicism was illegal?

Clearly migrant assimilation was off to a rocky start.

Who gets to set the values on what is and isn’t Australian? Picture: Julian Andrews

In the decades and centuries since the story has been just as rollicking and random. The most famous historical touchstones all testify to that.

In the 19th century a rambunctious chap called Ned Kelly, the most iconic Australian folk hero of all, had diametrically opposite values to the government that was pursuing him — he killed a number of policemen to make that point.

And the White Australia policy, which lasted well into the second half of the 20th century, was originally engineered so that would-be immigrants had to pass a test that could be in any of a number of prescribed European languages.

Why? So officials had an excuse to reject even those who desperately tried to adopt the ways of their hoped-for home by learning the Queen’s English. So much for assimilation.

The great post-war European migration then gave way to a great migration from South Vietnam, thousands of people who were fleeing communism.

These people surely shared official Australian values of democracy and free enterprise. Yet a decade later Howard — in comments which to his credit he later regretted — said Asian immigration should be curtailed.

As it turned out the growing number of Asian immigrants in Howard’s own electorate, such as the large Chinese community of Eastwood, became some of his most vital supporters.

John Howard campaigns with Liberal candidate, John Alexander in Eastwood in the seat of Bennelong in 2017. John Feder/The Australian.

Meanwhile there are Chinatowns all over Australia where signs and menus are in Mandarin or Canton and a word of English will rarely darken a kitchen door. Are we really to believe that this is an indicator of social decay?

There are countless other examples throughout Australian history and society but the weird thing is the biggest and clearest proof of all just blasted itself onto the national stage.

For months Howard and other conservatives made the case against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament on the basis that it would divide Australia along racial lines. Obviously I disagreed but let us take them at their word.

Because you know who really took them at their word? The most multicultural communities in the nation. The electorates with the highest populations of migrants and second generation Australians were the ones who overwhelmingly voted No.

These were places like the western and southwest suburbs of Sydney which positively explode with different cultures, different languages, different religions and different practices and yet presented with the faintest unsubstantiated whiff that something could potentially be racially divisive they voted against it at a rate of about two to one.

The No vote for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament was overwhelming in many culturally diverse areas. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

In other words the most ethnically and culturally diverse places in the country all heaved towards what they thought was unity, while happily continuing their own myriad values and practices without a care in the world.

But the greatest irony of all is that there are already regimes that demand and receive national unity and shared values. China and Russia are two that spring to mind.

Because the ultimate expression of unified national values and practices is communism or any other form of one-party state.

Liberal democracy, by contrast, is a celebration of difference – or at the very least an acceptance of it.

Democracy, it is worth remembering, is the fundamental belief that people with differing views can peacefully coexist if we all accept that we all have a say even if we might not always get what we want.

And the “liberal” part allows that even those who might dissent or disagree with the majority verdict still have rights as individuals that cannot be trampled over by the mob.

Thus democracy itself is in its very essence multicultural. It absorbs rather than dictates. Its fragility and flexibility is in fact its greatest strength.

So look to the most ancient cornerstone of Judaeo-Christian tradition in Israel. Look to the modern world’s oldest and most powerful democracy in the USA. And look to Australia, the most multicultural nation on the planet.

Then tell me where you’d rather be.