Is it Worth Engaging with Liberal Debates?

Guardian Welcome to Australia

Events in Paris are already provoking new debates about whether trust in multiculturalism is justified.’ A 2015 refugee vigil in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Mal Fairclough/AAP

That’s small-l liberal debates around tolerance, multiculturalism and interculturalism , within the context of Western liberal democracies.

I think it is worthwhile even if they do seem limited in their capacity to change things — after all, the adoption of multiculturalism and the Racial Discrimination Act 40 years ago has underpinned better lives for non-white people in Australia.

And no, I don’t think anyone should be called a pseudo-white person for participating in debates about where multiculturalism is going now.

Here is an op-ed I published on this in the The Guardian.

Showing solidarity with migrants is more than ‘comfort’ for white people

Tolerance isn’t the most ‘radical’ approach to racism. So why do many non-white Australians participate in movements that promote it as a solution?

Tony Abbott’s prime ministership sparked furious debate about Australia’s commitment to multiculturalism, including a push to wind back 18c, slights against Indigenous “lifestyle choices”, and questions about Australian Muslims’ loyalty to the nation.

As this period now fades into ancient history, Australia’s politicians have begun to re-invest in the multicultural narrative, a prescient move given the polarised debate after recent events in Paris. Earlier this month, the three major political parties made sure to send a high-level representative to address a conference organised by the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (Fecca).

The mood at the conference was palpable: after years of defensiveness, it was now time to formulate a new national agenda for multicultural policy, practice and public advocacy.

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Learning to Live Together in Culturally Diverse Societies

Image: Thai Pai playing cards from Wikimedia Commons. By Outlookxp – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.

I made a presentation on some work I’ve been doing on intercultural futures at a recent workshop on Learning to Live Together in Culturally Diverse Societies.

Yet, really? Learning? Learning what, and who from? Also, who’s the student?

Such debates are pitched at too low a level and usually involve only “multiculturalists” from across the Anglosphere, where predominantly white societies have to “learn” to adapt to their own increasing diversity. Migrants, too, are presumed to need to “learn” to fit in.

These debates also tend to assume the responsibility for imparting such learning lies entirely with schools, while adult public discussion deals in fear and racial stereotypes on the one hand, and on the other, the idea that inclusion is based on costumes and cooking, or holding summits with “leaders” who may attract little support. Add competition for government grants and political party fundraising to that mix, along with a faltering economy reliant on Asian trade and immigration, and we end up with a cluster of triggers for toxic political debates that can do real damage to social cohesion.

Australia is a diverse society, located in an exceedingly diverse region, Asia. This region, in turn, is increasingly important in the context of a multipolar world. If Australia and its institutions still need to learn this, then they need to radically improve their capacity for understanding Asia and Asians as a means of understanding themselves, their prospects and their place in the world, not limit their focus to managing discomfort with diversity behind Australia’s own borders.

It’s time for adult institutions to step up their learning as well.

It’s Good to be Noticed

Matt Williams MP, Member for Hindmarsh, speaking in Federal Parliament in Canberra. Picture: Matt Williams MP, via YouTube and Facebook.

Last week, I spoke at a forum organised in Glenelg by the Campaign for Australian Aid, where I talked about the Australian aid program as a form of regional intercultural exchange that helps us maintain a certain level of human security in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, in particular.

As a result, I was mentioned in Parliament by another speaker there, Matt Williams, Member for Hindmarsh. Here’s a video (yes, with some mispronunciation, but that’s OK): Read more

Can There be Intercultural Politics in Malaysia?

 

Seminar Flyer, MPOz

Today, I gave a public talk at an evening lecture series organised by Malaysian Progressives in Australia. Why? Because they invited me!

Here’s the description:

With last Saturday and Hari Merdeka fresh in our memory, MPOZ presents “Can Malaysian NGOs Create A New Multiracial Politics?” where we explore and analyse the true impact of NGO movements like #Bersih4.

With us will be Dr Amrita Malhi, Research Fellow at the University of South Australia. Dr Amrita’s research is in South East Asian multiracial politics and for the purpose of this forum she will be sharing with us the history of Malaysians attempting to drive multiracial politics.

How much have Malaysians managed to integrate ourselves since our independence from the British? Can Malaysians, independent of political parties, create multiracial politics?

See you for some stimulating Saturday sembang-sembang!

Asian Engagement Means Talking to Muslims

 

Stock photo representing multiculturalism, selected by The Advertiser.

Today, I hosted a large-scale public discussion event called InterculturAdelaide, focused on policy innovation to better equip Australians to engage with our own diversity, along with that of our Asian neighbours. This is the text of an opinion piece that I published today to accompany the event, in which I argue that Islamophobia in the Australian community can hamper not only social cohesion at home, but also our capacity for genuine Asian engagement.

Engagement with Muslims is an inescapable part of our search for a prosperous future in Asia

IN 1994, Indonesian journalist Ratih Hardjono published her book on Australians, who she pithily referred to as the White Tribe of Asia. Her book traced the history of debates about immigration since the White Australia policy was abolished in the late 1970s.

As Hardjono pointed out, Australia was a nation experiencing burgeoning diversity, and the insecurity that sometimes accompanied that diversity was consistently belied by its advantages on the ground.

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ICAS9 Winds up in Adelaide

Today, the Ninth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS9) closed after 5 huge days of debate and discussion which brought nearly 1,000 Asia scholars from all over the world to Adelaide. The conference has been a great example of how we can all do so much more by creating clever, win-win partnerships, and always building as much community engagement in to our initiatives as possible. Read more

Welcome to InterculturAdelaide @ ICAS9

 

Front cover of program brochure for InterculturAdelaide. Picture: Nazia Ejaz.

Today, I hosted a major public event called InterculturAdelaide. The event introduction that I wrote for the brochure is below, along with my welcome to participants.

Introduction

InterculturAdelaide is a major public policy summit and action research project. It aims to bring together scholars, policymakers and other stakeholders to consider the idea of “interculturality”—broadly defined as a set of cultural skills supporting openness and adaptivity. The day’s proceedings will encompass issues related to Australia’s own diverse population, and to Australia’s international relationships across the Asian region.

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Media Release for InterculturAdelaide

Here’s the media release that the University of South Australia wrote to publicise InterculturAdelaide. The University of Adelaide also publicised the event online.

Creating citizens of the world in intercultural Adelaide

What makes a society operate in peace, harmony and prosperity – luck, goodwill, strategy and legislation, or a combination of factors?

It’s one of many questions to be explored when UniSA’s International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding joins with the Government of South Australia and the University of Adelaide to consider the significance of diversity in our community at the InterculturAdelaide summit on July 9.

Summit convenor UniSA’s Dr Amrita Malhi says InterculturAdelaide will offer important opportunities to consider how notions of multiculturalism that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s have evolved.

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ASAA Conference, Perth

ASAA 2014 Conference Brochure Cover

The 20th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia just wound up today in Perth. It was a great experience, and featured keynote presentations by South Korean Ambassador for National Security Affairs and Professor of International Relations Prof. Chung Min Lee, and Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane.

My own talk was on how much Malaysia’s 2013 election highlighted the tensions present in Malaysian society over what sort of nation it should be, and whether or not it needs its “National Front” to hold itself together firmly enough to prevent this tension from undoing it completely. This kind of analysis needs a bit of distance from the election, however.

Migrant Workers Also Have Politics

A group of people thought to be migrant workers, holding up Barisan Nasional flags. Stock image selected by New Mandala.

The 2013 Malaysian election was characterised by repeated claims that tens of thousands of migrant workers would be mobilised to vote in support of the government coalition. As truth claims, such statements did not hold up. Yet my view is that they should be evaluated not as truth claims, but as a highly effective ‘get out the vote’ campaign. As these statements circulated, they drove up voter attendance at polling places, because they connected two important issues that many Malaysians hold grave doubts about, and harnessed those doubts to mobilise voters. These issues are the conduct of elections and the use of migrant workers. Anyway, I decided to talk to a migrant worker about the election, and New Mandala published the interview.

How would a foreign worker vote, anyway?

In Taman Desa, in Teresa Kok’s (Democratic Action Party/DAP) electorate of Seputeh, I asked a Bangladeshi worker about Malaysian politics. Why not, after all? These workers have invested their labour, their lives, and their aspirations in Malaysia, just as much as past generations of foreign workers have. Unlike the foreign workers of today, those of the past are familiar. They became Malayans. Their descendants are now Malaysians.

Rumours and leaks are circulating like wildfire that legions of foreign workers are being mobilised and transported by air to vote for BN in tomorrow’s election. Organisations like Anyone/Anything But UMNO (ABU) are preparing to monitor polling stations tomorrow, and one of their aims is to identify these workers and discourage them from voting. Read more

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