Social Cohesion in Australia

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Social Cohesion in Australia Australia has succeeded in harmoniously absorbing millions of immigrants from a great diversity of cultures. Divisiveness has been minimal. Indeed, Australia is one of the world’s most cohesive societies: since 1788 it has never experienced revolution, invasion or assassination of a major public figure. Helping secure this outcome have been steady economic growth, high living standards, stable democratic institutions, and isolation from conflict. However, there is no denying that problems have been encountered. With contributions from some of Australia’s leading experts, this book addresses the threats to Australia’s social cohesion and asks how they can be countered. Issues covered include the social exclusion of Indigenous communities; feelings of marginalisation of young people; tension between mainstream and new religious groupings; inter-ethnic relations in the wake of security legislation; the relative status of overseas-born workers; and the tendency of the media to devalue nonconformist minorities, values and ideas. This important new book deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in Australia’s social fabric – its past and its future. James Jupp AM is Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies at the Australian National University (ANU). He has published widely on immigration and multicultural affairs and has acted as a consultant for the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Department of Immigration and other public agencies. John Nieuwenhuysen AM is Director of the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements. He is also a member of council, RMIT University; Chair of the Board, VITS Language Link, and a Member of the Board, Australian Multicultural Foundation. He was a foundation director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research. Emma Dawson is Research Fellow at the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements, and a PhD Candidate at Monash’s National Centre for Australian Studies. A Fellow at public policy think-tank The Centre for Policy Development, she is a columnist for online political magazine New Matilda and has published widely in other magazines.

Social Cohesion in Australia James Jupp & John Nieuwenhuysen with Emma Dawson

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521709439 © James Jupp, John Nieuwenhuysen, Emma Dawson 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2007 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-511-35444-1 ISBN-10 0-511-35444-4 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 ISBN-10

paperback 978-0-521-70943-9 paperback 0-521-70943-1

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Foreword vii List of contributors viii List of tables x Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 JOHN NIEUWENHUYSEN

PART I DEFINING, MEASURING AND SEEKING SOCIAL COHESION 1 The quest for harmony 9 JAM ES J U P P

2 Conceptualising social cohesion 21 A N D R E W M A R K U S A N D L I U D M I L A K I R P I TC H E N K O

3 Measuring social cohesion in a diverse society 33 N ICK ECONOMOU

4 Australian government initiatives for social cohesion 45 TH E H O N . K E V I N A N D R E W S M P , M I N I S TE R F O R I M M I G R ATI O N A N D C I TI Z E N S H I P

PART II THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL COHESION 5 The landmark of Cronulla 61 JOCK COLLI N S

6 Policing the other: Lebanese young people in a climate of conflict 70 R O B W H I TE

7 Religious resurgence and diversity and social cohesion in Australia 80 GARY D. BOUMA AND ROD LING 8 Family and nation: the Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationship 90 TI M R O W S E

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CONTENTS

9 Social cohesion and cultural fragility: a paradox of Indigenous rapports with Eurasian Australia 103 ROB ERT N ELSON

10 Educational attainments, inter-ethnic marriage and social cohesion 114 SIEW-EAN KHOO PART III INFLUENCES AND RESPONSES IN SEARCHING FOR SOCIAL COHESION 11 Unions, the workplace and social cohesion 131 S A N TI N A B E R TO N E

12 Education and social cohesion 142 H U R R IYET BABAC AN

13 The media and social cohesion 158 AN DR EW JAKU BOWICZ

14 The problem of sport and social cohesion 170 B R E T T H U TC H I N S

15 Counter-terrorism and the politics of social cohesion 182 JENNY HOCKING

16 Social cohesion and human rights: would a bill of rights enhance social cohesion in Australia? 191 GABRIELLE MCKINNON

References 204 Index 221

Foreword Australia is one of the world’s most diverse societies. It is a country of immigration, nearly half of whose population was born, or is the child of a parent born, overseas. Down the decades, successive Australian governments have pursued planned immigration intake programs, accompanied by settlement services. In addition, ever increasing temporary migration and tourism have been facilitated and encouraged, enlarging further the diverse composition of Australian society. It is a substantial achievement that this persisting population expansion from a multitude of varying cultures has been achieved with very little divisiveness, though the lack of Indigenous equality remains a thorn. With the unparalleled persistence of steady, strong economic growth in the past 11 years, skill shortages and bottlenecks have emerged despite the immigration program and temporary entry of workers. And it is highly likely that substantial increases in immigration intake targets will ensue, even though current levels are at their highest for 20 years. It is clear that, in order to achieve and accommodate this larger inflow, social cohesion will be especially important at a time when there are potential tensions arising indirectly from the international ‘war on terror’ and the freer movement of people in a globalised world. Social Cohesion in Australia is, therefore, a well-timed publication. Its 16 chapters by distinguished scholars from a variety of universities and from the Commonwealth Government, cover an excellent range of topics, from the quest for harmony, to social cohesion and sport, the arts, education, the workforce, Indigenous communities, the media, inter-ethnic marriage, the landmark of Cronulla, the Commonwealth’s view, human rights, and definition and measurement. Social Cohesion in Australia is part of the Scanlon Foundation’s major Social Cohesion Research Project and has been undertaken through Scanlon funding provided to a partnership between the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements and the Australian Multicultural Foundation. We congratulate the editors and authors of this important volume. Their work makes a major contribution to understanding and knowledge about the constituent parts of social cohesion in a country whose experience is of interest not only to its inhabitants but also internationally. Professor Richard Larkins AO Vice Chancellor and President Monash University

Sir James Gobbo AC CVO Chair Australian Multicultural Foundation

Mr Peter Scanlon Chair Scanlon Foundation vii

Contributors

Hurriyet Babacan is Professor of Social and Cultural Development in the Institute for Community Engagement and Policy Alternatives at Victoria University. Santina Bertone is Associate Professor and Head of the Work and Economic Policy Research Unit, and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Business and Law at Victoria University. Gary D. Bouma is Professor of Sociology and UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Interreligious Relations – Asia Pacific at Monash University. Jock Collins is Professor in the School of Finance and Economics at the University of Technology in Sydney. Emma Dawson is Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Movements, and a PhD scholar at the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University. Nick Economou is Senior Lecturer and Head of Politics in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University. Jenny Hocking is Professor and Deputy Head of the National Centre for Australian Studies and Director of Research for the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences at Monash University. Brett Hutchins is Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash University. Andrew Jakubowicz is Professor of Sociology at the University of Technology in Sydney. James Jupp AM is the Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Siew-ean Khoo is Senior Fellow in the Demography and Sociology Program at the Australian National University. Liudmila Kirtpitchenko is a researcher at the Scanlon Foundation for Social Cohesion Research Program and a PhD candidate in Sociology in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University.

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CONTRIBUTORS

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Rod Ling is Post Doctoral Fellow in the School of Sociology at Monash University. Andrew Markus is Professor of Jewish Civilisation and the Director of the Australian Centre for the Study of Jewish Civilisation at Monash University. Gabrielle McKinnon is Research Associate in the Centre for International Governance and Justice at the Australian National University. Robert Nelson is Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, and Acting Head of Department in the School of Visual Arts at Monash University. John Nieuwenhuysen AM is Professor and Foundation Director or the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements; Chair of the Board, VITS Language Link; a member of RMIT University Council, and a member of the board of the Australian Multicultural Foundation. Tim Rowse is Senior Research Fellow in the History Program of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Rob White is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania.

Tables

2.1 2.2 3.1 7.1 7.2 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 12.1 13.1

x

Bernard’s typology of social cohesion page 23 The domains of social cohesion 23 Modelling social cohesion 41 The size and proportion of selected Australian religious groups in the 1947, 1971, 1996 and 2001 Censuses 81 Changes in Australia’s religious profile, 1996–2001 82 Percentage with post-school qualifications: men and women aged 25–44 in Australia 2001 by birthplace 117 Participation in education, youth aged 15–24 by birthplace, Australia 2001 118 Percentage of first and second generation youth aged 15–24 enrolled in education, by ancestry, Australia 2001 120 New migrants’ social/community participation by level of education 122 Percentage of partnered men and women with spouse of a different ancestry by ancestry and generation, Australia 2001 124 Religious affiliation of independent schools 153 Modes and examples of media practices 161

Acknowledgments

In 2006, the Scanlon Foundation sponsored a major research initiative on Social Cohesion in Australia, which was launched by the Governor of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser AC, in June of that year. The Australian Multicultural Foundation and the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements were funded by the Scanlon Foundation to undertake the project in six component parts: Mapping settler patterns in Australia; Identifying the components of social cohesion; Designing an attitudinal survey; Undertaking a benchmark survey; Reviewing how social cohesion in Australia might be best attained; and Canvassing the comparative international experience by case studies of minorities in Australian and international situations. This volume is concerned with the fifth component of the project and asks: how can social cohesion in Australia be constructively attained? The editors wish to thank the Scanlon Foundation and its chair, Mr Peter Scanlon, for their generous funding of this work. We are also grateful to the Chair of the Board of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, Sir James Gobbo AC, CVO, and its Executive Director, Mr Hass Dellal OAM, for material assistance in conceiving the idea and consistent help in its execution. The editors wish in particular to thank the eminent authors who have produced an excellent, diverse collection of chapters for the book. They did so with cheerfulness, great professionalism and impressive punctuality. We owe also a special debt of gratitude to the Administrator of the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements, Sahar Sana. Sahar has provided outstandingly efficient and extremely helpful assistance. James Jupp John Nieuwenhuysen Emma Dawson

xi

Introduction John Nieuwenhuysen

There are many features of a society that can undermine its cohesiveness. These include the distribution of income, wealth, employment and opportunity, as well as access to services, voting rights or citizenship among various segments of the population. This book is, however, concerned with one principal question: how can Australia, with its considerable cultural diversity and continuing high (permanent and temporary) immigrant intake, remain socially cohesive? The volume is by no means encyclopaedic. But it covers, with contributions by 16 authors, an important series of aspects of several of the perceived indicators of social cohesiveness in Australia. Part I surveys the historical quest for harmony in Australia, and the conditions and possible means of measuring social cohesion, as well as current federal government initiatives to attain it. The chapters in Part II consider the landmark of Cronulla; ethnically based youth groups; religious resurgence and diversity; Indigenous Australia, and aspects of cultural fragility; and educational attainment and inter-ethnic marriage. Part III covers unions and the workplace; education; the media; sport; terrorism and politics; and human rights. The book concentrates on immigration, which has been a central part of Australia’s history since first European settlement in 1788. It has been at the heart of the creation of a dynamic society and has helped economic growth. Much of immigration’s success has depended on the absence of marked social conflict and division through the arrival from overseas, in peaks and troughs, of so many millions of people from extremely diverse backgrounds. Current (2007) immigration intakes under the planned program are at their highest levels in 20 years. They are expected to rise substantially in the near future, and are exceeded by even greater numbers of temporary arrivals. As in previous years, immigration policy remains controversial. But public opinion polling has seldom indicated that it is a major issue, ranking it as of very secondary importance in the public mind relative to the economy, employment, health and education. But there are two special features in the current debate which mark a turning point from the past. The first is an ever more rapidly globalising world which includes a much freer movement of people. The second is the violent attacks on civilians in different countries, in response to which a ‘war on terror’ has been joined by the Australian government. Security and other legislation have ensued, casting suspicion on the Muslim community (which numbers 300 000, of which one-third are locally born). Riots in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla in December 2005 unleashed scenes which shocked Australia. This led to much 1

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INTRODUCTION

activity by governments and Muslim and other community leaders, engendering public discussion and plans to alter federal government multicultural policies. It is in this context that the book is set. There are variations in the conception of social cohesion among the different authors from the perspective of several disciplines. Consequently, the editors have left it to them, within a broad frame, to apply these conceptions of social cohesion, and how it can be maintained or undermined, to their analyses. Nonetheless, there are many shared aspects of the definitions used. These derive mainly from the idea that social cohesion reflects the strength of shared values, a sense of common identity and of belonging to the same community. Khoo (chapter 10) points out that recent work in Western societies suggests five dimensions of social cohesion: belonging (shared values, identity, commitment); inclusion (equal opportunities for access); participation (engagement in structures and systems); recognition (respect and tolerance); and legitimacy (pluralism). Each of these, as well as those mentioned by Jupp, appears in the various chapters of the book. Overall, the editors have adopted Jenson’s (1998a,b) conclusion that ‘there is no single way of even defining [social cohesion]. Meanings depend on the problem being addressed and who is speaking’. In chapter 1, James Jupp notes that Australia is among the most cohesive and harmonious societies on earth, one based on ‘stable institutions, high living standards, economic expansion and isolation from zones of conflict’. Why then, he asks, is there so much anxiety about social cohesion? While much of the debate about serious divisions resulting from multiculturalism is ‘quite hysterical’, there remain problems in the area of social justice and equality. He gives a substantial list of the means by which social cohesion is maintained, including a sound economy with equitable distribution of goods and services; a basic stock of values and traditions; and a high level of trust between citizens and authorities. In chapter 2, Andrew Markus and Liudmila Kirpitchenko provide Canadian, British and other definitions of social cohesion. The Canadian quotations emphasise that social and community cohesion is a ‘set of processes’, which entail instilling in individuals a sense of belonging and recognition. The British examples view a cohesive community as possessing a common vision, with the diversity of the backgrounds of its members being positively valued and the provision of equal opportunities for all in society. In chapter 3, Nick Economou notes that observers have some facility in providing varying definitions of social cohesion and saying how it might be assessed. But they are ‘much better at identifying those moments where social cohesion breaks down’. After reviewing different approaches to social cohesion and its definitions in Europe, North America and elsewhere, he draws attention to ‘the potential for the notion of “social cohesion” to be contentious and value-laden, particularly where analysts seek to quantify the extent to which there are shared values within a community’. He illustrates this by citing ambivalent attitudes to linguistic diversity: viewed positively by multiculturalists but negatively by assimilationists. He provides a brief review of the different ways of measuring social cohesion. The difficulty of defining social cohesion is reflected in the complexities of the means of measurement that he outlines. The concept of social cohesion is value-laden and so is the task of finding adequate measuring rods.

INTRODUCTION

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Nonetheless, it is an important task and is part of the Scanlon Social Cohesion Research initiative, of which this book is one project. Concluding Part I, chapter 4 is an outline of the Commonwealth’s policies and approaches to creating a socially cohesive and economically thriving country under a planned long-term immigration program. Presented by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, this paper gives a very positive view of migration to Australia and its consequence for society and the economy. It celebrates Australia’s success in integrating people from many nations and cultures around the world – ‘respecting people’s differences and providing opportunities for everyone to belong and participate as full members’ – and lists several factors that contribute to this social cohesion. Part II commences in chapter 5 with Jock Collins’ analysis of inter- and intra-ethnic conlict, a commonly used indicator of the degree of divisiveness in communities. He uses overseas experience as a lens through which the riots at Sydney’s Cronulla beach in December 2005 can be viewed, and set in proper perspective. While not denying the ugliness of the riots, he highlights their more extreme, sustained and violent counterparts in other eras and countries. He also details desirable policy responses to the riots, including jobs, education, urban renewal, public housing and space, more sensitive and less sensational media coverage, and community relations. He concludes that the Cronulla riots were ‘an expression of ethnic tensions in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities’. In chapter 6, Rob White deals with one of the most important aspects of social cohesion and its maintenance in Australia: the transformation of social difference into social deviance, where people who have grown up here are vilified as outsiders. The response of many of these people is to affirm their social presence by joining a gang. Three intervention issues are identified: perceptions that youth gangs are a danger to the community generate action from police, irrespective of what is happening at the grassroots level; political and economic conditions for potential growth in gang-related activity do exist, and need to be forestalled; most discussions of gangs have been racialised, with ethnic minority youth the main subject of attention. In chapter 7, Gary Bouma and Rod Ling note that the global movement of ideas, people and capital has accompanied religious renewal, and altered the flow of influences in religion from north to south to the opposite direction. Numbers of religious groups have been increasing as well as their diversity, and include a growing variety of uncontrolled and less organised forms of religious life. The previous policies for managing this diversity are under challenge, demanding new sensitivities to gauge whether religion helps create or diminish social cohesion. For this challenge, it is critical to distinguish between revitalising and radicalising influences in religious activity. In chapter 8, Tim Rowse suggests that the way in which people in Australia view cohesion between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations will be affected by how they think about cohesion within Indigenous Australia. Indigenous Australians have the double challenge of how to live within a country where they are disadvantaged, and how to live with each other. Of special importance are the views of Noel Pearson that Indigenous people have been ‘poisoned’ by their access to welfare benefits.

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INTRODUCTION

Closely related to Rowse’s work is Robert Nelson’s chapter 9, where he discusses the relationship between arts and social cohesion by alluding to the uniformist impact of globalisation, where people of diverse background are brought together. He notes Australia’s success as a cohesive peaceful multicultural society, but adds that this ‘miraculous peaceful multicultural existence’ has been bought at the expense of Indigenous Australians. He makes an impassioned attack on globalisation, which ‘entails a new persistence of persuasive commercial language, in which ownership of the ideal way to be, look, think, and aspire, inheres in foreign places; and meanwhile the old local and natural modes of deportment are expropriated, deemed unfashionable, redundant, backward and embarrassing’. In chapter 10, two other important and well-established indicators of Australian social cohesion – educational attainment and inter-ethnic marriage – are reviewed by Siew-Ean Khoo. Education is seen as contributing to social inclusiveness through provision of greater human capital, enabling increased economic participation and integration. Inter-ethnic marriage is also regarded as one of the most definitive indicators of immigrant integration into the local community, since ‘it is seen as the outcome of close social interaction between people of different communities’. Khoo reaches encouraging conclusions for the future of social cohesion in Australia on both counts: statistical evidence shows that levels of educational attainment are higher in young than adult migrant generations, and implies greater engagement with the general community; and there is also clear evidence that migrants in the second generation are more likely than their parents were to marry outside their own ethnic group. And the third generation, as Australian-born children of Australian-born parents, is even less likely to maintain the ethnic culture of their grandparents. Part III deals with the influences and responses in searching for social cohesion in Australia. In chapter 11, on employment and the unions, Santina Bertone emphasises that employment is even more important for new arrivals to a country than to longer established residents, otherwise they become marginalised. Her analysis reveals some growing pressure points in the Australian labour market which threaten social cohesion: the disproportionate representation of workers of non-English-speaking background in the lower jobs, and the baneful impact on these people of federal industrial relations legislation. These, together with anti-refugee and anti-Muslim rhetoric, point towards future social unrest and friction. In chapter 12, Hurriyet Babacan cites Durkheim’s observation that society depends for its existence on ‘a sufficient degree of homogeneity. Education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that collective life demands’. However, she notes that both the definition and measurement of social cohesion in the context of education’s contribution to it are problematic. This is partly because education’s impact on social cohesion ‘may well be greatly outweighed by more powerful institutional and cultural factors at the national level’. She notes the major challenges confronting education in its relationship with social cohesion. These are both micro issues such as cultures, languages and experiences of students and their families, and macro issues such as racial stratification and inequality. Andrew Jakubowicz’s chapter 13 notes the position of the media in providing avenues for debate and negotiation in complex societies; in fact ‘the media are the

INTRODUCTION

5

primary machinery in the promotion of both social cohesion and social conflict’. In reviewing the evidence, and using Cronulla as a part case study, he concludes that there is a need to view the media’s overall effect on social cohesion with considerable discernment. In chapter 14, Brett Hutchins notes a lack of critical perspective infusing much popular writing about sport, which is ‘a social activity that divides as much as it unites’. In recollecting and celebrating past sporting feats, it is often forgotten that many sports have blemished records of appealing to those of non-Englishspeaking backgrounds, Indigenous competitors, and women. There is a need ‘to reframe the problem of sport and social cohesion’. It is unrealistic to suppose that sport can somehow ‘fix social problems or transcend cultural divides’. Jenny Hocking in chapter 15 trenchantly outlines new security legislation and its impact on inter-ethnic relations. Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has passed more than 30 pieces of legislation to combat acts of terrorism, and the agencies of state concerned with security have received dramatic increases in powers and resources, creating an ‘effective second tier of quasijudicial process outside the established criminal justice system and free of key legal protections’. She points to several aspects of the new security regime, among them Executive proscription powers, which have, in their selective application, disturbing implications for inter-ethnic relations. In concluding, she notes the irony of Australia’s imitation of overseas anti-terrorist legislation, quoting Malcolm Fraser: ‘The country that has most successfully handled multicultural issues over the last 50 years is to go down a track, practised by countries that have handled these same issues less well and with less harmony.’ Finally, in chapter 16, Gabrielle McKinnon asks, would a bill of rights enhance social cohesion in Australia? Australia is the only Western democratic nation which remains reluctant to make human rights enforceable through a domestic bill of rights. Opponents argue that any legislative protection of human rights of individuals over the community as a whole would erode the cohesiveness of Australian society. She reviews the possibility that an Australian bill of rights could assist social cohesion by providing a set of common values relevant to a multicultural society and a mechanism for mediating conflict between competing interests within the community. The essays in this book describe a mixture of the overall success of the immigration program over recent decades, under multicultural policies, and some problematic questions for the future. Australia’s cosmopolitanism has grown apace but without some of the problems (for example ghettoisation) experienced in other immigrant-receiving societies. The inflow of people to Australia has been supported by settlement services, in particular English language training facilities, which have assisted employment opportunities and economic mobility for new arrivals. And on some key indicators of social cohesion, for example greater community engagement of young second-generation migrant groups, the omens are good. Nonetheless, several question marks are raised by the various authors: issues of marginalisation of the overseas-born in the workforce; the consequences of security legislation for inter-ethnic relations; the media’s proclivity to devalue minorities who appear not to conform to core cultures; the social estrangement

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INTRODUCTION

and exclusion of Indigenous people from the prosperity and degree of economic participation of the broader population; the difficulties which some mainstream religious organisations and the population generally have in coming to terms with new, less familiar groupings, and the reduced capacity of older religious structure to deliver social cohesion; and the feelings of marginalisation and alienation among young people, in the face of hostility and vilification, which leads them to affirm their social presence and validate their lives by joining a gang. As in other countries, such as Britain, one of the major new challenges to social cohesion policies in Australia is a greater and deeper diversity among new residents. Sometimes that greater diversity, as part of a globalised world, means that imported tensions are being reflected in Australian public places. Among these are the consequences for inter-ethnic relations of security legislation designed to prevent in Australia the violent terrorist attacks which have occurred in overseas countries, such as the United States, Britain, Spain and Indonesia. For some communities in Australia, life has started to feel different since the attacks in New York in 2001 and their successors in London, Madrid and Bali. At the same time, some resident Australians question alleged ‘special treatment’ for immigrants, and develop resentment and grievance. In this, there is a remarkable similarity between the Australian scene and that elsewhere, for example Britain. The British Parliamentary Secretary for Communities, Ruth Kelly, could have been speaking of Australia when she said: The issue became a catalyst for a debate about who we are and what we are as a country. About what it means to live in a town where the faces you see on the way to the supermarket have changed and may be constantly changing. I believe this is why we have moved from a period of uniform consensus on the value of multiculturalism, to one where we can encourage that debate by questioning whether it is encouraging separateness. (Speech at launch of Commission on Integration and Cohesion, London, 28 August 2006.)

Echoing this in political theory are several voices, including Francis Fukuyama, who considers that the ‘old multicultural model’ of countries such as the Netherlands and Britain needs to be replaced since, out of a ‘misplaced sense of respect for cultural difference’, it ‘ceded too much authority to cultural communities to define rules’. But, he adds, liberal societies have their own values and ‘cultures that do not accept these premises do not deserve equal protection’. In international and Australian debate basic questions are being asked. The Australian government for its part has formally distanced itself from the longestablished era of multiculturalism. After showing distaste for the word ‘multiculturalism’ over its first ten years of office, the Howard government has changed the name of the former Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). State governments in Australia are unlikely at present to follow this example. But the Australian government’s move makes the messages of this book especially topical and important. They stress the success of Australia’s past. But caution and care are necessary lest the bases of that success are neglected by all the various governments, agencies and communities concerned in coming to terms with the fresh challenges of today and tomorrow.

PART I DEFINING, MEASURING AND SEEKING SOCIAL COHESION

1 The quest for harmony James Jupp

Australia is among the most cohesive and harmonious societies on earth, based on stable institutions, high living standards, economic expansion and isolation from zones of conflict. Since 1788 it has never had a revolution, never been invaded, and no public figure has been assassinated. Since 1860 it has regularly changed its governments through the ballot box. It extended the franchise to women well before Britain or the United States. Its industrial relations have been regulated by law for a century. Its police and politicians, though not perfect, are less corrupt than in many other developed societies. Its darkest shadow is cast by the failure to secure equality for its Indigenous minority, but that has also proved intractable elsewhere. Australia has no external colonies and relinquished its last possession, in Papua New Guinea, in 1975. It has developed a stronger sense of national identity than in the past, when many saw it as a British society. Why then has there been so much anxiety expressed about social cohesion – now and in the past? Will this relatively benign condition continue? And what exceptions and problems remain? Since Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516, authors have been depicting ideal societies. But all are imaginary and none corresponds to the realities of a society like Australia. At the most elementary level a cohesive society is one that does not fall apart into what Geoffrey Blainey called ‘a nation of warring tribes’. He saw this as the end product of multiculturalism, which stressed cultural variety. However, very few modern industrial societies have fallen apart without being involved in major wars or invasions. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia certainly fell apart, but they had been kept together by authoritarian governments with low levels of economic well-being. Australia is certainly not Yugoslavia, although some critics of multiculturalism claimed it as proving that ‘multiculturalism does not work’. While poor multicultural societies are often divided and even chaotic, rich ones like Switzerland and Singapore do very well. Cultural uniformity seems less important in sustaining a cohesive society than does economic success (Kymlicka & Norman 2000). 9

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DEFINING, MEASURING AND SEEKING SOCIAL COHESION

The mainstream of American political science, associated with Robert Dahl (1984), held that modern societies involved a plurality of groups held together by constant interaction and compromise within a stable set of institutions and laws. This applies to ethnic and religious groups as well as to the more obvious economic interests. Later modifications point out that some elements in this mix are much more powerful than others. Pluralism also belittles the central role of the state, which is confined to regulating conflicting interests. In the Australian system, with its rigid party discipline and organised economic interests, many may be left out of access to power. Societies may be cohesive, but not always fair or inclusive. Nor are all citizens actively engaged in political life. Inequalities do not necessarily make society less cohesive unless the poor and weak rebel, which is affluent societies they rarely do. Compulsory voting in Australia makes it likely that they will be taken into account to a greater extent than in other democracies. With the decline in recruitment to parties and trade unions, however, an important social element becomes weaker. This may be replaced by organised religion, or, as in the United States, by organised ethnicity or ‘identity politics’ (Stokes 1997). This only threatens social cohesion if ethnic minorities are concentrated in a geographical area, seriously disadvantaged or in substantial numbers, which does not hold true for Australia (Joppke 1999). Notions of justice, charity and care are as old as notions of social harmony and cohesion. They have not yet died under the heat of economic rationalism. Concern for Aborigines is morally based on the notion that all Australians are entitled to equal life chances and pragmatically based on the costs arising from social dislocation. The same is true for the disabled, the elderly, marginal farmers, the unemployed, refugees and many others. But a society which ignores such elements might still be cohesive and economically viable. Social protection varies between societies but does not disappear altogether. Recently, Robert Putnam (2000) has seen social cohesion as dependent on a multiplicity of ‘bridging’ groups which interact with others. These contrast with ‘bonding’ groups which may create minority solidarity without helping to consolidate society. Critics argue that some religious and ethnic groups do create barriers between themselves and others. But often the imperatives of working and living together and gradual assimilation make these barriers less rigid. It is this declining rigidity that many see as necessary for social integration in multicultural societies. Two problems in applying this scheme to reality are that many citizens are members of a variety of groups, some of which may compete with others, while many citizens are not actively engaged with any organised groups at all. Moreover, some religious groups may bond their members together while still bridging gaps by working with others and through established institutions. Social cohesion is maintained by a sound economy which distributes goods and services equitably (but not equally); which negotiates different interests and pressures through a generally accepted network of laws and institutions; which is protected against hostile forces from without and within; which has a basic, but not exclusive, stock of values and traditions; which resolves political issues without violence; which develops and extends the individual and collective rights of its citizens; where citizens have equal civil and human rights; where governments manage society within a concept of the common good; and where there is a high level of trust between citizens and the authorities. Such

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11

societies are not all the same and not all possess these characteristics in equal measure. There are very few utopias in the world. Many societies maintain cohesion through coercion, with the authorities becoming corrupt and vicious as a result. Australia has become more coercive in response to the fear of terrorism, but this is still in its early stages.

Australia and the good society Stability and the good society have been the central concerns of political theory in all the major philosophical schools for at least 2500 years – both in Europe and in Asia – namely Western (originating with the Greeks), Islamic, Catholic, Chinese and Indian. While these schools were doubtless unknown to the convicts and soldiers who first settled in 1788, many of the early colonial administrators had a classical education and were familiar at least with the Western European inheritance. Australia was first settled during the American and French revolutions, when such issues were widely debated and disputed. Moreover, some of the colonial and political leaders were also aware of discussions within the British Empire about the principles of ‘peace, order and good government’ and the need for more liberal institutions. While overlapping and without strict boundaries, the major schools of debate about stable and just societies in Australia follow roughly in the sequence: Social Order; Social Cohesion; Social Harmony; and Social Justice. The end result, so far, has been an orderly, cohesive, harmonious and just society by world standards. While human progress is often looked on as a myth, in Australia each epoch has been better than the one before in terms of material wealth, human relationships and living standards (Galligan & Roberts 2004).

Social order Concern with social order was usually conservative, hierarchical and afraid of anarchy and democracy. Those familiar with Plato’s Republic would certainly have come across these aspects at English public schools or universities. Machiavelli has passed into popular recognition as an advocate of the ‘whatever it takes’ school for preserving order, with the ‘prince’ manipulating society (Crick 1969). Hobbes was not as popular as he later became with academics, but he was also deeply concerned with the chaos he saw created by the English civil wars of the mid-17th century, another period well known to the educated Englishman (Hobbes 1651/1976). Those who established a new society based on transported convicts were obviously going to be concerned with social order. Many leaders of Australian opinion prior to 1850 were opposed to democracy. They sought to re-create the hierarchical society of aristocratic England and Scotland. But the ending of the convict system and the arrival of liberal-minded immigrants and administrators undermined these attitudes and laid the foundations for representative institutions. Wentworth’s ‘bunyip aristocracy’ was laughed out of court and manhood suffrage was adopted a generation before the United Kingdom. Social

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order was sustained by coercion, by hierarchy and, increasingly, by asserting the rule of law, whereby all (including convicts and Aborigines) should be treated equally by law and precedent. While favouritism, nepotism, corruption, class and racial prejudice modified this in practice, the idea that all are equal before the law was significant as one of the early foundations of an egalitarian democracy. As the late Alan Davies (1958) claimed, Australians have had a remarkable capacity for bureaucracy, which Max Weber among others saw as essentially rational and legalistic (Gerth & Mills 1991).

Social cohesion Having established a workable society freed of overt coercion, the next worry was about making such a society cohesive and stable. As the Aborigines had become a minority by 1831 and were driven to the margins of society for the next 150 years, social cohesion was seen as involving the various ethnicities and religions derived from Britain and, potentially, from the Asian region. The transportation system was replaced by assisted immigration, which was only available to British subjects. The laissez-faire policy of Liberal England did not impose immigration restrictions and the controls exercised during the convict period were abandoned. Free trade meant free movement of labour, a principle strongly endorsed also by the United States. The threat to social cohesion was essentially seen as coming from ethnic differences, from uncontrolled immigration and from the demands of labour. These found expression especially on the goldfields of the 1850s in the anti-Chinese riots, in the rapid increase in population and in the discontent leading to the Eureka stockade of 1854. Social cohesion was to be achieved by limiting entry to Australia to those similar to the early settlers – namely white, Christian and British settlers. The Irish Catholic element was contained by assistance policies which limited their quite considerable numbers. Power remained largely in the hands of English and Scottish Protestants, though less exclusively than in Great Britain. Leaders like Dunmore Lang and Sir Henry Parkes agitated against Catholic influence and migration. But the most effective control was directed against the Chinese and Kanakas, who were eventually excluded altogether (along with other nonEuropeans) by the Immigration Restriction Act of the 1901 Commonwealth parliament. The demands of labour were met with strong resistance during the depression of the 1890s. Eventually labour relations were brought under control through the state and federal arbitration systems introduced between the 1890s and 1910. Organised labour turned its attention to politics, where it was remarkably successful. There was a consensus on maintaining a monoracial society.

Social harmony The elimination of alien immigrants and the domestication of Catholicism and labour ushered in policies of social harmony. This was defined in Australia as the absence of violence, ghettoes, racial conflict, militant industrial relations, vigilantes, open class struggle and many other features perceived as existing in the

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United States. But it also included the avoidance of overt social gradations, severe poverty, disfranchisement, gross inequality, slums and snobbery, perceived as characterising Britain. The main advocates of social harmony were the Deakinite Liberals of Victoria, the Australian Labor Party and some of the major Christian denominations. Racial conflict was avoided as one of the main objectives of White Australia, an argument shared by liberals and labour. Class warfare was similarly avoided by democratic politics and industrial arbitration. Poverty was alleviated by the basic wage decisions from 1907, tariff protection, and imperial preference within the British Empire. In practice social harmony was often fractured. Depressions in the 1890s and 1930s created severe poverty. Industrial strife in the early 20th century was sometimes as acute as in Britain or the United States. Religious sectarianism lingered in some respects into the 1950s with its last outburst surrounding the split in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1955. Harmony was also fractured by World War I, over conscription for overseas service. But industrial militancy was muted most of the time. Communism never had much following, though it was more significant than in Britain or the United States. As long as there was persistent unemployment in Australia between the wars, employers could retain more power over the workforce than was consistent with genuine harmony. But an attempt in 1928 by the conservative Bruce-Page government to end industrial arbitration was soundly defeated at the polls of the following year. Australians accepted a controlled and legally enforced labour market rather than the open and often brutal competition of the United States.

Social justice Much of what happened between 1940 and 1990 was designed to secure social harmony and to overcome the economic uncertainty caused by periodic depressions. These aspirations Australia shared with influential forces in Britain (such as Keynesian economists) and the United States (such as New Deal Democrats). But there was also a strong local tradition with a commitment to social cohesion and social harmony, which had been building up since the 1890s and even earlier. This was the tradition of social justice. The concept of ‘a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’ was espoused by trade unions by the mid-19th century. It was asserted in the mass migrations of the 1880s. The basic wage was determined on the needs of a nuclear family. Other non-economic forms of fairness – equality between men and women, opposition to racial and religious discrimination, notions of the brotherhood of man, even concern for the ‘submerged tenth’ of the very poor – were less attractive and slow to gain any acceptance. Australia established a ‘wage earners’ welfare state’ which was more progressive than that in Britain by 1914, though less so by 1950. It rested on the industrial arbitration system and a high level of union coverage. While a coherent theory of social justice was much later developed by Rawls (1999), the basic ideas were already being derived from much older traditions. Most advocates of social justice in Australia favoured equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. Compared with the European and British

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socialist traditions, they attached only limited importance to state ownership. Many public services such as railways, banks, tramways, electricity and water supply were publicly owned for utilitarian reasons rather than as instruments for achieving social equality. In practice, Labor governments did not greatly extend the existing boundaries of public ownership after 1921. When the Chifley Labor government threatened bank nationalisation in 1949 it was thrown out of office and Labor was not returned for 23 years. By then it was no longer committed to state ownership in general. Indeed the Hawke-Keating government of 1983–96 actively sold off corporations such as Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank, which had been Labor ‘icons’ in the recent past. Despite early commitments to social welfare and an arbitrated wage system, the high points of social justice lie between the postwar reconstruction era of 1945 and the defeat of the Keating government in 1996. This reflected a fairly consensual agreement between politicians, public servants and the electorate that the main object of the state should be the creation and maintenance of a just society. This agreement moved away from purely wage-based justice towards broader objectives as the society became more diverse and better educated. The disastrous situation of the Aborigines, the lack of equal opportunities for women, the racist basis of White Australia, and many other issues were brought into the political arena, from which they had mostly been excluded. Gay liberation was certainly an issue that few pioneers of social justice would have considered a century before! Social justice was pushed off the agenda at the Commonwealth level in 1996, with the newly elected conservative government instructing its public servants not to use the expression. Multiculturalism, an aspect of social justice emphasised after the ending of British preference in immigration and of White Australia, was dropped down a memory hole for a few years. By 2006 the Commonwealth was preparing to abandon the term altogether. State ownership was reversed by privatisation, following American and British precedents. But the quest for social cohesion and social harmony continued and was given new emphases by the Liberal-National government, by the Catholic and most Protestant churches, by monarchists – and by the ALP. Some settled institutions and practices, including industrial arbitration, federalism, public education, Aboriginal reconciliation and multiculturalism, were either put on hold or consigned to the Labor-controlled states. Federalism, which had been a basic belief of Australian conservatism for a century, was being undermined by the use of financial power to erode or take over state functions. The shift from public to private ownership in the 1990s was very marked in areas such as education, transport, medicine, prisons, security and financial services.

An anxious society The long road through social control, social cohesion, social harmony and social justice had been cumulative, with each era building on, and incorporating, the one before. Australia is almost alone in the world in having been deliberately created by state action rather than simply emerging over many centuries or resulting

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from haphazard movements of population, warfare and revolutions (Nile 2000). Apart from the transitory threat of Japanese invasion between 1941 and 1945, Australia was not disturbed by external violence. Yet it remained very conscious of its vulnerability as a small European isolate in an Asian-Pacific world. Fear of German, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian and eventually Communist invasion remained in the public mind and regularly influenced the public policy debate. The latest manifestation has been in the willingness to adopt Huntington’s notion of the clash of civilisations (1997). With almost one billion Muslims lying between Australia and its European origins, the 21st century was entered with even more anxiety than the 20th, when Britannia ruled the waves. These fears may seem unjustified or manufactured by politicians who promise to save the country from disasters which never happen. Yet fears which are unsoundly based are genuine nevertheless. As important as the fear of external attack has been a belief that such a small and scattered society is inherently unstable. It must remain united and homogeneous if it is not to disintegrate. The first priority, maintained as recently as the 1960s, was to keep Australia British. The Queen remains head of state. Like her predecessors she nominates state governors and the governor-general – a polite fiction. Until the 1960s many of these nominees were from the United Kingdom. The Union Jack remains in the corner of the flag and until 1983 all naturalising citizens swore allegiance to the Queen and sang ‘God Save the Queen’ as they became Australians (Hudson & Kane 2000; Rubenstein 2000). A major influence on retaining British allegiances was the assisted passage system, which extended from 1831 to 1982. Eventually British numbers dropped off, but the largest overseas-born element, at one million, remains those from Great Britain. It has started to increase again, often through temporary rather than permanent migration. This ethnic homogeneity was not just for ‘whites’ or ‘Europeans’ as much current literature holds, but for the British. Those who were not British were regarded as exceptional and as possible threats to social cohesion. The link in public thinking between ethnicity and cohesion was central to national identity, even when it went alongside a growing Australian nationalism. Early threats to this British society were seen as coming from the Irish Catholics, from radical politics and labour organisations, and from an unruly class of labouring men, some of convict origin. These were locally valid concerns but they also reflected the social and political situation in the United Kingdom between 1788 and the 1840s. Immigrants came from a society in turmoil to an unformed society based on convict labour. It is hardly surprising, then, if Australia was founded amid anxiety. But these conflicts were resolved much more peacefully than in the United Kingdom. After the abortive Castle Hill rising of 1804 the Irish did not revolt, but moved into democratic politics so easily that they were soon well represented in some colonial parliaments and governments. These traditions of peaceful transition continued to the present and were never seriously challenged once electoral democracy was consolidated. The federation of stable parliamentary systems was maintained in an ethnically homogeneous society until the 1950s and in a society dominated by a single ethnicity since then. The notion that ‘Australia is the most multicultural country in the world’ sounds good at ethnic occasions but is completely untrue. The

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historic schism between Protestants and Catholics has vanished along with the loyalty of many Catholics to the ALP. The 15 Australian houses of parliament do not effectively reflect the ethnic variety of the population. It has been relatively easy for the conservatives to bury multiculturalism in practice because there are very few elected politicians with any interest in the affairs of the scattered ethnic groups formed by post-1950 immigration. Immigrant impact on politics has been remarkably slight outside a few industrial suburbs of the major cities (Anthony 2006).

The multicultural threat to social cohesion Despite this relative tranquility, the idea that social cohesion is threatened by ethnic variety lives on and has recently been reinforced by the threat of terrorism. While the fashionable notion of the ‘Other’ is fairly vacuous, it does have relevance to Australian historical experience. Since 1788 there has always been an ‘Other’: the Aborigines were Other for the first 50 years until they became a minority south of the Tropic; the Irish Catholics resented the British Protestant domination of their homeland; the emigrating Chinese came from a society at least 100 times as numerous as colonial Australia; the French, Germans and Russians moved towards the uncolonised islands or remote shores of the Pacific; the Japanese, following along the same colonising path, eventually touched on Australian shores and possessions. Then for 50 years the Communists threatened, with their bases in Russia and China and their admirers in the Australian labour movement. This latter threat spawned ASIO, which now has the extended task of fighting the war against terrorism on our behalf. Terrorism is undoubtedly a threat to public order in a sense that was not true for communism or ethnic diversity. But like war, it may strengthen social cohesion. It also threatens the tenuous ‘bonding’ of the Muslim communities. External threats were kept at bay by the military protection of strong allies – primarily the British until the fall of Singapore in 1942, and then the United States. Enemies had no significant presence within Australia, except for the Communists. That half a century of politics could be based on fear of such a ragged bunch of misfits as the Communist Party of Australia must now seem incomprehensible to the young. But so it was. This fear split the ALP and kept it out of office for 23 years nationally and 27 years in Victoria. It hastened the process by which the fully integrated and largely assimilated Catholic middle classes could transfer their loyalties to the once sectarian conservatives. It sustained a system of political surveillance which, while it was largely a waste of time, is now more intrusive than in many other Western democracies. It created the lasting myth of a dedicated Left marching through the institutions, as The Australian monotonously repeats. Public debate was debased and perverted by this notion of an internal enemy. This 50-year fear of local communism laid the foundations for the present demoralisation of the Australian labour and reformist movements and the consequent domination of conservative values which had seemed outdated a generation ago.

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In spite of all this, Australia survived the threat – probably because it was not a threat at all. Social cohesion was never seriously in doubt once the industrial strife of 1949 and the attempt to ban communism in 1951 were abandoned. In the meantime Australia was able to absorb, for the first time in a century, a large intake of non-British immigrants, many of them from countries unknown to Australia and previously unrepresented. These were followed by many more thousands from Southern European societies which Australians had despised in the past, coming, as a Labor politician in Melbourne put it, from ‘the filthiest parts of Europe’. Important – though less so than economic expansion – were the conscious attempts of governments to justify immigration and to develop settlement and education programs for non-British immigrants (Jordens 1995). Alongside propaganda telling migrants to assimilate went appeals to the majority describing migrants as ‘just like us’. The main difference was not of appearance but of language, religion and customs. It was assumed that English would be adopted easily, that customs would be maintained within the home, and that migrants were Christians. The tradition of managing society to avoid or modify conflict continued after 1978 under the general description of ‘multiculturalism’. This approach has been in operation for nearly 30 years and is officially accepted by all Australian governments, national and state, Labor and Liberal. Despite this it is a contested concept and has been under consistent attack for over 20 years. Quite recently there has been a return to assimilationist attitudes. Citizenship tests are to be introduced requiring a knowledge of (and presumably adherence to) Australian values. The teaching of history is to stress national achievements rather than diversity. The waiting period for naturalisation is to be doubled in the first movement away from easier citizenship in 20 years. Knowledge of English has been emphasised in the points system for skilled entrants. All of this suggests that multiculturalism as public policy is under serious threat, as it is in Britain, the Netherlands and even Canada. Consistent repetition in the media of arguments drawn from the United States has described multiculturalism as divisive, as creating a nation of tribes, and as threatening national cohesion. Yet most state governments have not followed this path, which has been urged most emphatically by the conservative side of politics.

What is the problem? As suggested already, most of the perceived threats to social cohesion have been based on worst-case scenarios which never materialised in reality. One factor in this has been the conscious engineering of society to prevent and contain conflict without recourse to crude coercion. Multiculturalism has been an important example of this (Baub¨ ock 1996). It was not an ideology or a complex philosophy as many of its opponents and some of its supporters have argued. It was a pragmatic and modest policy approach developed within the context of a planned program of mass immigration from a variety of sources. Underlying it was a broad philosophy that carefully chosen human beings could be settled

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within a stable and prosperous society. Thus it denied the inequality of races and the incompatibility of cultures (Parekh 2006). The notion that Australia is threatened with a severe breakdown in cohesion because it is more ethnically varied than ever before needs analysis against this background. If this is true, then multiculturalism has been a mistake. If not, it has been a worthwhile addition to the long tradition of seeking harmony and cohesion through state action based on liberal principles. The debate has been affected by gross distortions emanating from opponents drawing on American arguments. The United States is one of the most multicultural societies in the world but does not officially subscribe to a multicultural policy. Its original motto – e pluribus unum – recognised variety from the beginning. But to conservative America multiculturalism is an ideology of social engineering and political correctness which is based on a postmodernist belief in the equality of all cultures. It is this argument which has been most assiduously used in the Murdoch press for over ten years and which has gained acceptance within the Australian Liberal Party. Underlying this is a much less intellectual objection which simply holds that all Australians should be similar and that a national culture and value system is firmly in place and must be accepted by all newcomers. This widespread view has not changed in 50 years.

Other threats and divisions Public debate in Australia for at least 150 years has been concerned with the impact of varied ethnicity on social cohesion. This is still largely the case, for example in the current furore about integrating Muslims into a Christian society. A clash of values certainly exists, as witness the controversy surrounding Sheikh El Hillaly in 2006. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship manages multicultural affairs, the Living in Harmony program and the National Action Plan to Build on Social Cohesion, Harmony and Security (DIMA 2006). Over the next three years, $48 million has been allocated by the Department for these projects, all of which assume that the threat to harmony and cohesion comes from ethnic diversity. Vastly more is spent on the six security agencies hunting for terrorists. However, there are many cultural clashes, for example between generations, between religious and secular Australians, and between those with differing levels of education. Marxist, Christian and secular critics have often drawn attention to other threats. Marxists saw all history as the history of class struggle. Societies were inherently unstable because the rich and powerful exploited the much larger numbers of the poor and weak. In a less theoretical form this argument has had some influence in Australia. Advocates of effective social welfare sometimes argue that lack of equality threatens social stability. This may well be true in societies much poorer than Australia. But there is little local evidence that this is so. The poor and weak may resent the rich and powerful, but in Australia they have only challenged them through established institutions such as parties, non-government organisations and unions. Societies like Australia do not disintegrate. Much of the debate about multiculturalism and ethnicity is quite hysterical in suggesting serious divisions. But

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that does not mean the ‘end of history’ and a perfect utopia. There are several major problems which need to be addressed in the interests of social justice, equality, a better life and even more social cohesion than we already enjoy. Most of these areas cannot be left to market forces, which are irrelevant or insensitive. The contradiction in neo-liberalism is that it regards defence, crime and personal morality as legitimate areas for state intervention, but excludes many others which have long been the concern of the state. Neo-liberalism is in practice tainted with more traditional conservative attitudes. Historical experience suggests that health, education, welfare and working conditions should not be left to private institutions within a low taxation environment. One important consideration, which governments are now addressing in many developed societies, is the problem of social exclusion. Whatever the general level of economic well-being and welfare provision, some sections of society do not share the same range of benefits as the average citizen. This induces feelings of alienation and even despair, which are manifested in antisocial behaviour, crime and poor mental and physical health. Certain social groups, neighbourhoods and situational groups may become excluded over more than one generation, while others allow a degree of social mobility out into the mainstream. In Australia such excluded groups include Aborigines, refugees, non-English speakers, the disabled, the unskilled and poorly educated, single parents, the long-term unemployed and some residents of public housing or remote and declining districts. These often do not have the organisational capacity of the traditional working classes, who formed unions and parties to press their interests within the political system. They are represented, if at all, by professional welfare workers who are often denounced as ‘rent seekers’ by the more extreme neo-liberal ideologues. Their needs create demands on the public purse. But even so, greater expenditures may not resolve the problem. The problem of social exclusion is normally addressed by piecemeal reforms for particular groups or situations. This fragmented approach has been recognised as a weakness by some states in recent years. The Blair government in Britain, influenced by the work of Anthony Giddens (1998), has created a social exclusion unit at the national level, working with other state agencies and levels of government on a whole-of-government basis. The South Australian and Victorian governments have followed this example. The conservative alternative to increased welfare provision or deliberate targeting of the socially excluded has been to bring people into the labour market as a way of integrating them into society. This is time-honoured and goes back at least to the English Poor Law. It often includes ‘punishing the poor’ for not genuinely seeking work or conforming to regulations. While coercion and paternalism might work, the history of Aboriginal affairs suggests otherwise. But social exclusion does not always imply severe economic disadvantage. Racial prejudices are often important in marking some ethnic groups as outside ‘normal’ society, the present widespread attitudes to Muslims being an obvious example. This makes it difficult for individuals with those characteristics to secure equitable treatment based on their own ability. There are many policy areas other than multiculturalism and social exclusion which need ongoing and serious attention. Organised crime centred on the drug trade is a menace to civilised life. When rival gangs shoot each other dead in the streets of Melbourne and Sydney while dealing for drugs with a section of the

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police, it is time to ask what is going on. When large gangs of youth riot in various cities and have engaged in the only major race riot in recent history at Cronulla, it is time to wonder whether the hoon culture, often described as larrikinism, is not getting out of hand. When major business figures, politicians and local councillors feature in the courts for corruption there is obviously a need for stricter regulation and a higher morality. Racial prejudice makes life unpleasant for the victims and is inadequately controlled despite legislation to do so. None of these seriously threaten basic social cohesion and neither does ethnic and religious variety. The solution to all these problems involves a degree of liberal education and the rejection of crude populism by media and public figures. This is not a plea for political correctness but simply for tolerance and good sense in a cohesive, diverse and still imperfect society.

2 Conceptualising social cohesion Andrew Markus and Liudmila Kirpitchenko

Interest in the notion of social cohesion as a policy tool re-emerged in the mid1990s when the governments of Canada, France and Britain and a number of international organisations – OECD (1997), the Council of Europe (2000, 2001, 2004), the Club of Rome (Berger, 1998), UNESCO (2002) and others – began to use this concept in their policy documents. Initial concerns were prompted by fear of the impact of globalisation and other aspects of economic change; subsequently the war on terror and concern over the loyalty of Muslim populations have fuelled discussion of the dynamics of social cohesion. This chapter reviews and assesses the work that has been done internationally in defining this new conceptual framework and discusses areas of concurrence and disagreement.

Definitions of social cohesion Social cohesion as a concept has a long tradition in academic enquiry and occupies a central place in traditional sociological debate on the role of consensus ´ versus conflict in society. Emile Durkheim (1964/1893) studied the societal ability to remain connected throughout various stages of development, proceeding from mechanical solidarity, applicable to the commonality of experience of members of pre-industrial societies, to organic solidarity of the modern world, characterised by complexity and differentiation, with unity maintained through centralised government and a uniform legal system. Durkheim’s novel conceptions of solidarism (1964/1893), anomie (2002/1897) and alienation served to envision a stable society based on shared consciousness and sustainable cooperation instead of violence and conflict. Max Weber (1930/1905) showed the importance of ideas and collective values for social development. Talcott Parsons’ structural-functionalist sociology was centred on the concept of the cohesive 21

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society, based on overall ‘conformity with a shared system of value-orientation standards’ (1951: 24). While acknowledging that academic insights are essential for this chapter, its main objective is to examine policy-related discourse on the ways in which social cohesion can be defined and conceptualised. From the mid-1990s, interest proliferated in new conceptual frameworks of social order, social cohesiveness and solidarity. To our knowledge the first definition of social cohesion as a policy tool (as opposed to academic concept) was suggested by Judith Maxwell, who is the founding and past president of the Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN): Social cohesion involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same community. (Maxwell 1996: 13)

Maxwell’s all-encompassing definition is still often cited today. It identified the crucial areas for social policy intervention, such as the need for creating shared values and common goals and combating inequality. Almost simultaneously with Maxwell, the Commissariat G´en´eral du Plan (1997) of the French government proposed its definition, which emphasised social processes involved in building and maintaining shared values: ‘Social cohesion is a set of social processes that help instill in individuals the sense of belonging to the same community and the feeling that they are recognised as members of that community.’ The government of Canada set up an Interdepartmental Policy Research Subcommittee on Social Cohesion which included more than 20 departments and agencies. In March 1997 it produced the Social Cohesion Research Workplan with its own working definition of social cohesion stressing multiple shared values and beliefs needed to achieve cohesion in a society: ‘Social cohesion is an ongoing process of developing a community of shared values, shared challenges and equal opportunity within Canada, based on a sense of trust, hope and reciprocity among all Canadians.’ In its interim report, 18 months later, the Policy Research Sub-committee identified societal fault lines – or cleavages – that were perceived to be opening in Canadian society. They related to: 1) the ageing population; 2) the changing ethnic and cultural composition of Canada; and 3) evolving family structures. This list of fault lines is indicative of the scope of issues perceived to be of concern to the social cohesion agenda in Canada. Explicitly, social cohesion issues were conceived in the broadest possible terms, which included not only exclusively addressing differences based on ethnic or cultural background, but also those based on economic status, gender inequality, age group, rural dwelling and family structure. A leading Canadian scholar, Jane Jenson, who is a past director of CPRN Family Network, published a comprehensive review of Canadian research (1998b) and offered a definition paralleling the Workplan in its stress on process rather than end result: ‘The term “social cohesion” is used to describe a process more than a condition or a state, while it is seen as involving a sense of commitment, and desire or capacity to live together in some harmony.’

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Jenson (1998b: 15) developed an approach to social cohesion through five constituent dimensions; in 1999, Paul Bernard (1999) added the sixth: Belonging Inclusion Participation Recognition Legitimacy Equality

– – – – – –

Isolation Exclusion Non-involvement Rejection Illegitimacy Inequality

Bernard’s typology (Table 2.1) distinguished the formal and substantial aspects of social cohesion in three spheres of human activity: economic, political and socio-cultural. Table 2.1 Bernard’s typology of social cohesion Spheres of activity

Economic Political Socio-cultural

Character of the relation Formal

Substantial

Insertion/exclusion Legitimacy/illegitimacy Recognition/rejection

Equality/inequality Participation/passivity Belonging/isolation

Forrest and Kearns (2001: 2129) contributed a further, comprehensive representation of the domains of social cohesion (Table 2.2). Table 2.2 The domains of social cohesion Common values and a civic culture Social order and social control Social solidarity and reductions in wealth disparities

Social networks and social capital Place attachment and identity

Common aims and objectives; common moral principles and codes of behaviour; support for political institutions and participation in politics Absence of general conflict and threats to the existing order; absence of incivility; effective informal social control; tolerance; respect for difference; intergroup co-operation Harmonious economic and social development and common standards; redistribution of public finances and of opportunities; equal access to services and welfare benefits; ready acknowledgement of social obligations and willingness to assist others High degree of social interaction within communities and families; civic engagement and associational activity; easy resolution of collective action problems Strong attachment to place; intertwining of personal and place identity

Source: Forrest & Kearns 2001: 2129.

Other researchers have tried to develop definitions which explore the complexity of the value systems that underlie social cohesion. Thus the Council of Europe (1999) suggests the following: Social cohesion comprises a sense of belonging: to a family, a social group, a neighbourhood, a workplace, a country or, why not, to Europe (though care must be taken to avoid erecting a Schengen wall to replace the Berlin Wall). Yet this sense of belonging must not be exclusive; instead, multiple identity and belonging must be encouraged. (cited in Beauvais & Jenson 2002: 4, emphasis added)

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It has been argued recently in Canada that social cohesion has come to be used as an all-encompassing framework for discussing social harmony and is therefore too broad. New frameworks which currently frame policy discussions in Canadian government documents include such concepts as shared citizenship, cultural diversity, sustainable social development, and citizenship values. Yet these new frameworks offer even broader approaches to social problems and tend to underestimate issues relating to inter-ethnic relations and effective integration of immigrants into the receiving societies. Recent UK policy debates have attempted to narrow the definition of social cohesion in the context of issues of ethnic and cultural diversity. For this purpose, in the UK social cohesion has been increasingly discussed using the term ‘community cohesion’, which is seen as a more specific term to describe cohesion based on identifiable communities defined by faith or ethnicity, rather than social class or economic status. The term ‘community cohesion’ was adopted specifically in the British context following the ethnic riots in the northern cities of England in 2001. As Ted Cantle (2001) explained: ‘It is easy to focus on systems, processes and institutions and to forget that community cohesion fundamentally depends on people and their values.’ The Community Cohesion Review Team was set up in the UK to investigate the underlying causes of public disturbances of 2001. It used ‘community cohesion’ in the title intentionally to emphasise the role of community values and attitudes in the quest to repair ethnic relations. It developed the following definition: A cohesive community is one where: There is a common vision and sense of belonging for all communities; The diversity of people’s different backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and positively valued; Those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities; and Strong and positive relationships are being developed between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and within neighborhoods. (Cantle 2004: 57)

Cantle developed the conceptual division between ‘social cohesion’ and ‘community cohesion’ along the following lines: Social cohesion reflects divisions based on social class and economic factors and is complemented by social capital theories relating to the ‘bonding’ between people and the presence of mutual trust. It is seen to be undermined by the social exclusion experienced by individuals or groups, generally by their social class and economic position. Community cohesion reflects divisions based upon identifiable communities, generally on the basis of faith or ethnic distinctions. It is also complemented by the social capital theory of ‘bridging’ between communities. It is undermined by the disadvantage, discrimination and disaffection experienced by the identifiable community as a whole. (Cantle 2005: 52)

The UK experience led to the narrowing of public discussion of social cohesion to the major weaknesses or ruptures in the social fabric at the level of community, ethnicity and cultural identity.

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Reflecting the seemingly endless difficulties of definition, some researchers have sought definition in terms of absence, in terms of what is not social cohesion. For example, Santina Bertone in this book understands ‘social cohesion (or social harmony) . . . to be an absence of violence, ghettoisation and class conflict’. Similarly, Jock Collins in this book treats social cohesion as the opposite of social conflict. Definition is not some narrow academic or semantic exercise: it reflects a basic ideological positioning as well as the difficulties inherent in the attempt to understand the complexities of post-industrial societies. Definitions direct research questions and lead to research outcomes which can impact on government policy. Much can be at stake, so the degree of contestation over the meaning of social cohesion in the field of social research and analysis should not surprise. Discussion of the different approaches serves to draw attention to the ‘consequences of the definitional choices made at all points of any analysis’ (Beauvais & Jenson 2002: 4).

Commonalities in definitions Most current definitions of social cohesion dwell on the intangible, such as common values, sense of belonging, attachment to the group, and willingness to participate and share outcomes. In particular, the commonalities in definitions can be briefly summarised as follows: A shared vision: Most researchers maintain that social cohesion requires universal values, common aspirations or identity shared by their members, although what this set will include varies according to different standpoints. The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) in this volume presents this point of view in the following way: The Australian Government has in place policies and programs that . . . strengthen social cohesion. They seek the effective integration of migrants into Australian life, so that they can participate and contribute as full members of our society, with a shared national identity, while maintaining, within the law, their cultural and religious traditions and beliefs.

A property of a group or a community: Social cohesion tends to describe a well-functioning core group or community in which there are shared goals and responsibilities and a readiness to cooperate with the other members. A process: Social cohesion is generally viewed not simply as an outcome, but as a continuous and seemingly never-ending process of achieving social harmony. Gary Bouma in this volume writes: ‘social cohesion refers to the ability of a society to so coordinate its resources as to produce what it needs to sustain and reproduce itself.’

Differences in definitions This analysis of the conceptualisation of social cohesion, while highlighting some commonalities, reveals many differences, indicative of the different conceptual standpoints which inform the analysis. The differences concern the factors that

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operate to enhance (and erode) the process of communal harmony, and the more complex issue of the relative weight to be attached to the operation of those factors. Differences in approaches are also found in the way social cohesion is treated as a cause or effect; that is, as an independent or dependent variable of the societal analysis. The key issues in contention are identified in the following discussion: they concern the overlapping economic, political and socio-cultural spheres. An overview of the differences is provided according to the typology developed by Bernard (1999), which is discussed above.

The economic sphere Many scholars attribute to the economy a significant role in sustaining social cohesion. In this book, James Jupp sees the performance of the economy and distribution of wealth as one of several key elements: ‘Cultural uniformity seems less important in sustaining a cohesive society than does economic success . . . Social cohesion is maintained by a sound economy which distributes goods and services equitably (but not equally).’ Debates around formal and substantial economic outcomes echo old debates relating to equality of opportunity and equality of conditions: they include consideration of levels of unemployment and poverty, income distribution, population mobility, health, life satisfaction and sense of security, and government responsiveness to issues of poverty and disadvantage. In the 1950s and 1960s, the polemic on the foundations of social stratification that pitted Davis and Moore against Tumin (1966) established the essential terms of the controversy in its postwar sociological formulation. The hard-line functionalists argued that social inequalities served to recognise the talents and reward the efforts of individuals who perform the social functions recognised as important in a given society. Their critics held that since social privileges accumulated, consolidated and reproduced over the life of individuals and through the generations, there were distortions in the distribution of rewards that weakened the link to talent and effort. In other words, equality of opportunity was a myth in the absence of constant effort to reduce inequality of conditions (see Bernard 1999: 21). Immigrants encounter difficulties at the crucial initial level of entry into the receiving country, which lays down the primary parameters for the long-term process of immigrant integration. Low entry-level position ‘tends to reinforce itself and to be reproduced over time’, thus persisting as ‘a more enduring feature of the group’ described as an ‘underclass’ (Reitz 1998: 17–18). State institutions may have the effect of magnifying or diminishing the inequalities inherent in the process of immigration and integration into the socioeconomic system of the receiving country. An OECD publication (1997) summarised the debate on the role of government institutions in promoting and maintaining social cohesion, with reference to economic role. The first approach is individualistic and market-based. There is no support for social institutions to foster social order; this responsibility is exercised, if at all, by the operation of the

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market economy and other private institutions, such as the churches or families. The second approach is ‘solidaristic’ and concerns an interventionist role through public institutions, to serve collective interests and promote shared values and participatory democracy. In a comparative study of three immigrant-receiving countries, the United States, Canada and Australia, Reitz (1998) set out to measure the impact of mainstream social institutions on shaping immigrant economic success. He concluded that the immigrant success is shaped to a large degree by the structure of the host country’s own institutions and that ‘where institutions have been structured in more individualistic patterns, immigrants encounter greater obstacles to a realization of their economic potential’ (ibid.: 223). In the United States, these ‘specific institutional structures, which have been associated with the strongly individualistic character of American society, produced markedly lower entry-level earnings for immigrants in that country and particularly in its high-immigration cities’ (ibid.). In the three countries examined, the direction of change as identified by Reitz is towards increased emphasis on institutional individualism and market-driven solutions. A number of researchers point out that markets alone cannot be relied on to resolve many social problems. Some scholars (e.g. Jenson 1998b; Jeannotte et al. 2002; Stanley 2003) argue that the concept of social cohesion has been revived and invoked precisely for its capability to encompass other domains of human interaction, such as political, social, cultural and ecological realms.

The political sphere One marker of a cohesive society relates to levels of political participation and social involvement, including the extent of voluntarism, although its significance has been considered irrelevant for social cohesion by some researchers. Sociopolitical participation may be evidenced by traditional forms of involvement in the political process, organisations and communities, as well as new forms of participation that are becoming more relevant for many, especially young people, such as virtual (online) communities and e-government. The tradition of studying the country’s propensity to build civil society as the key to making democracy work originated in Alexis de Tocqueville’s writings on the United States. This tradition has been recently revived and popularised in Robert Putnam’s work. After conducting a 20-year study of regional governments in Italy, Putnam concluded that the quality of governance was determined by social capital, the ‘norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement’ (1993: 167). Additionally, social capital tends to be self-reinforcing and cumulative (Putnam 1995). Some authors (e.g. Lockwood 1999, quoted in Chan et al. 2006) use social cohesion and social capital as interchangeable concepts, implicitly maintaining that social cohesion is equivalent to social capital. By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital, defined as tools and training that enhance individual productivity, social capital refers to features of social organisation or civil society such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination

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and cooperation for mutual benefit. For other scholars (Berger-Schmitt 2000, quoted in Chan et al. 2006), social capital is an important precondition for social cohesion, but it is only one of the parts of a larger concept of social cohesion.

The socio-cultural sphere The socio-cultural sphere gains significance in the current interpretations of social cohesion. This sphere provides a fertile ground for the debates on values, beliefs, sense of belonging, attachment, and inclusion. In an attempt to answer the main questions ‘Does a society need to be homogeneous to be cohesive?’, and ‘How can a heterogeneous society function successfully in order to promote ´ cohesion?’, Emile Durkheim (1964/1893) maintained that modern society is held together by its diversity, not homogeneity, and its central, unifying institutions. Indicative of this approach, the Council of Europe (2000: 7) argues that ‘diversity is not in itself divisive. European societies have been learning, albeit rather hesitantly, to see ethnic, religious, cultural and ideological pluralism not as an obstacle to social cohesion but as a source of wealth, dynamism, adaptability and strength’. Jenson and Papillon (2001) point to the recognition of the value of heterogeneity in the Canadian diversity policy repertoire. In Canada it has been long accepted that a cohesive society could not be built by seeking to eliminate differences. The ‘Canadian Diversity Model’ rests on three pillars: linguistic duality, recognition of Aboriginal peoples’ rights, and multiculturalism. Does a policy such as that pursued in Canada facilitate the building of bridges between ethno-cultural groups, or does it entrench difference and marginalise immigrant groups? What is the point at which difference presents a threat to the capacity to maintain cohesiveness? A range of arguments have been advanced in response to this question. There is a modest body of empirical research that argues that too much diversity can lead to fragmentation and erosion of social capital. Robert Putnam, to take one leading researcher, argued in Bowling Alone that there is least social capital in societies in which highly visible minorities differentiate the population. The applicability of his conclusion for the Canadian context has been tested by Aizlewood and Pendakur (2003). Using data from the 2000 Equality Security Community survey, they found little evidence that ethno-cultural characteristics of individuals affect civic participation and speculated that ‘in Canada, where community size, diversity, wealth, and education are so closely and positively correlated, an urban lifestyle, or “city effect” may be a more accurate predictor of civic attitudes and behaviors’. Stanley (2003: 9) argues that the shared values argument ‘has proven to be a major red herring, inevitably leading some to exclaim that we can have too much social cohesion and citing Nazi Germany as an example’. He further notes that insistence on homogeneity of values and opinions tends to characterise authoritarian regimes or beleaguered communities which establish high levels of conformity through coercion and exclusion of differences. Therefore, according to Stanley, social cohesion does not depend to a large degree on common values and

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homogeneity, achieved at the price of excluding diverse groups. Instead, truly cohesive societies work successfully to embrace diversity of beliefs and lifestyles. Most scholars hold a middle ground and see a need for developing overarching shared values which lead to formulation of common goals and common vision. Thus, Bernard (1999: 16–17) argues that three central values of the democratic dialectics – liberty, equality and solidarity – can form the basis for legitimacy and effectiveness of the state institutions. Yet others argue that these three values have a fundamental asymmetry; liberty tends to divide, especially in the context of a free-market economy. In contrast, equality and its main instrument, the state, have the ability to unite the subjects under the common and equivalent citizenship regime. Equality has the ability to unite under the ideals of equity and social justice. What is the mechanism for promoting social cohesion in the ethnically and culturally diversified society? The inculcation and reinforcement of values by the school system and mass media is often seen as paramount for social cohesion. For example, Kearns and Forrest (2000: 1003ff.) observe that under the Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s the British state became interested in citizenship education. The need for school programs on national citizenship was explained in terms of the growing ‘concerns about a lack of consensual codes of conduct, lack of tolerance and respect for others, and a general absence of any apparent appetite among most citizens for making an active contribution to their local community’. A new scholarly field is emerging in the area of public education which is concerned with the challenges of heterogeneity and the building of cross-cultural knowledge and competencies. This field is especially burgeoning in the countries of the European Union in response to the new intercultural communication needs consequent from the entry of immigrants from the cultures of Africa, the Middle East and Asia (e.g. Abdallah-Pretceille 2003).

Does social cohesion demand eradication of discrimination? The strategy of social cohesion in Europe goes hand in hand with the fight against social exclusion. Indeed, the Council of Europe worked to overcome social exclusion long before bringing forward a social cohesion framework. The main focus of social cohesion seeks to combat all forms of exclusion and to ensure that the most vulnerable and marginalised groups are included in civic society. This linking of social cohesion to the agenda of combating social exclusion is displayed in the definition of social cohesion developed by the Directorate General of Social Cohesion of the Council of Europe: [It] is a concept that includes values and principles which aim to ensure that all citizens, without discrimination and on an equal footing, have access to fundamental social and economic rights. Social cohesion is a flagship concept which constantly reminds us of the need to be collectively attentive to, and aware of, any kind of discrimination, inequality, marginality or exclusion. (2001: 5, emphasis added)

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Eradication of all forms of discrimination is seen by many scholars as a precondition for successful inclusion and mutual cooperation within a society. This argument expands further the debate on formal versus substantial equality and is built on recognising that equality of opportunities is meaningless without equality of starting positions. A commitment to non-discrimination entails recognition of differences based on culture, race, gender, mother tongue, religion, age and many other human attributes and the need to accommodate these differences. For example, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms established mechanisms for translating formal equality rights, envisioned in other human rights legislation, into reality. Section 15 of the Charter stated that procedural equality in treating everyone without distinction based on race, language, religion or other characteristics is not sufficient to guarantee equality in practice. The Charter legislated the legitimacy of affirmative action to overcome past discriminatory treatment of many groups and made affirmative action measures a part of a liberal tradition of recognising individual rights (Jenson & Papillon 2001). The Council of Europe (2000: 7) echoes this position, affirming that the management of diversity ‘involves fighting racial, ethnic, religious, gender and other forms of discrimination; and it requires active policies to integrate migrants and all kinds of minorities and groups with particular needs into mainstream society on the basis of respect for their difference and full recognition of their rights’.

The undermining of social cohesion Social cohesion can be undermined by mutually reinforcing economic and sociopolitical changes resulting in accentuation of poverty, measured in absolute and relative terms. According to Wacquant, ‘symbolic violence’ from above has three main components: (1) mass, persistent, and chronic unemployment, amounting, for entire segments of the working class, to deproletarianization bringing in its wake pervasive material deprivation; (2) relegation in decaying neighborhoods in which public and private resources diminish just as competition for them increases due to immigration; (3) heightened stigmatisation in daily life and in public discourse, all of which are the more deadly for occurring against the backdrop of a general upswing in inequality. (Wacquant 1993: 6)

Social cohesion is also damaged by violence from below, which is manifested in ethnic and race riots in the cities of the first world. Over the past two decades, the United States, England, France and other countries have been shattered by outbursts of public unrest and rising ethnic and racial tensions. Australia witnessed its own, relatively minor, ethnic riots in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla in December 2005. Wacquant (1993: 3) notes that we are far from witnessing eradication of poverty and an erosion of ethnic antagonisms; advanced societies, instead, have been plagued by the concurrent spread of ‘new’ ethnicity-based poverty and the resurgence of racial ideologies often accompanied by violent conflict in the city. In this book, Jock Collins highlights the difficulty of gauging the impact of conflict on the social fabric: ‘But all societies exhibit conflict between different groups over time, oscillating between moments of cohesion

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and conflict. How much or what kind of conflict shifts a society from cohesive to divisive?’ Jane Jenson develops the argument of Breton and colleagues (1980) that what is important for social cohesion is less the sharing of common values than the presence of public institutions capable of adequately managing social conflicts. The Club of Rome (Berger 1998) made a similar finding: after first assuming that the vigour of civil society would be the main guarantor of social cohesion, it further observed that such an orientation could accentuate divisions and it shifted its focus to macro social institutions such as the state.

Conclusion This discussion leads to the following conclusions. Differences in defining social cohesion are attributable to ideological positioning as well as the difficulties inherent in the attempt to understand the complexities of first world societies; these differences lead to the adoption of different indicators in studies of social cohesion. Diverse conceptualisations of social cohesion shape different policy recommendations and create different policy approaches. So how useful is a concept of social cohesion? The term ‘social cohesion’ has been treated with caution by many researchers due to its embodied ambiguity and elusiveness. For this reason, Bernard (1999: 2) proposed to term it a quasi-concept: One of those hybrid mental constructions that politics proposes to us more and more often in order to simultaneously detect possible consensuses on a reading of reality, and to forge them. I say ‘hybrid’ because these constructions have two faces: they are, on the one hand, based, in part and selectively, on an analysis of the data of the situation, which allows them to be relatively realistic and to benefit from the aura of legitimacy conferred by the scientific method; and they maintain, on the other hand, a vagueness that makes them adaptable to various situations, flexible enough to follow the meanderings and necessities of political action from day to day. This vagueness explains why it is so difficult to determine exactly what is meant by social cohesion.

Some researchers note that the wave of neo-liberalism has created a new vocabulary for policy debates. Thus, Pierre Bourdieu and Lo¨ıc Wacquant (2001: 1) discuss what they term the ‘Neoliberal Newspeak’: Its vocabulary, which seems to have sprung out of nowhere, is now on everyone’s lips: ‘globalization’ and ‘flexibility’, ‘governance’ and ‘employability’, ‘underclass’ and ‘exclusion’, ‘new economy’ and ‘zero tolerance’, ‘communitarianism’ and ‘multiculturalism’, not to mention their so-called postmodern cousins, ‘minority’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘identity’, ‘fragmentation’, etc.

These new terms are often believed to have aims of obscuring rather than clarifying what for some researchers is the reality of exploitative social processes, traditionally understood through the concepts of ‘capitalism’, ‘class’, ‘exploitation’, ‘domination’, and ‘inequality’. For Bourdieu and Wacquant the reality of domination is masked by a cultural imperialism which assigns new labels to obscure

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old phenomena: ‘cultural imperialism is a form of symbolic violence that relies on a relationship of constrained communication to extort submission’ (ibid.). Despite its ambiguity, the quasi-concept of social cohesion plays an important role in contemporary social policy and research. According to Bernard, ‘it crystallizes the thoughts of those who refuse to see the market as the answer to all problems’ and, at the same time, it unwillingly draws our attention to equality as the essential component of the democratic order. Therefore, he argues, it would be very risky to turn our backs on this concept, which is not merely a cover for growing inequalities but can open vistas of important debates. Instead, we must grasp it . . . critique it and push it to its fullest logical extent, show that it necessarily maintains strong links to the principles of equality and social justice. (1999: 24)

For Beauvais and Jenson, the notion of social cohesion ‘serves usefully as a framing concept for thinking through the complexity of policy issues’ (2002: 20, emphasis original). Social cohesion helps to shift the discussion of human wellbeing from the traditional frameworks of economic indicators, such as economic wealth, to other frameworks which are increasingly regarded as equally shaping the quality of life and which can be found in social, cultural and ecological domains (e.g. Berger-Schmitt 2002: 403). Social cohesion has been established as one of the new frameworks which furthers understanding of contemporary social and political structures.

3 Measuring social cohesion in a diverse society Nick Economou

Population growth through immigration is a major challenge for policy-makers and institutions, particularly in late-industrial nations experiencing declining birthrates and populations. Some nations have steadfastly refused to embrace immigration as a way of resolving the problem of declining birthrate and a consequential fall in population. Others have sought, by instituting a ‘guest worker’ system, to address the economic problem associated with a declining number of people capable of working at jobs the local population is unwilling to tackle. Still others have used immigration as a means of facing the economic and demographic challenges associated with declining birthrates (see Geddes 1996). This has especially been so for Australia, where there is a strong historical link between the official encouragement of an immigration program as a part of a general economic and growth policy (Galvin & West 1988: 58–69). Economic objectives have tended to be the main drivers of immigration policy, although many nations also include social policy-oriented components such as family reunion programs or, more likely, refugee and humanitarian programs. Whether economic or humanitarian objectives provide the impetus, debates about population policy in the host nation also seek to address the social and cultural consequences of immigration (Jenson 1998, 2002). These debates are often highly contentious and controversial. They invariably transcend an economic cost–benefit analysis of any proposed population increase to deal with skill shortages, dealing instead with more intangible but highly volatile debates about culture, the formation of shared social values, national identity and the social consequences of new arrivals of people (Geddes 1996; Bischoff 2002). The capacity for communities to feel alienated and aggrieved where they are suffering economic hardship is well understood (see Cantle 2001; Bagguley & Hussain 2003). And policy-makers become concerned about the needs of the new communities within the host society. These needs may well transcend the 33

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prosaic questions of the extent to which welfare support is required to assist new arrivals to make the transition to their new society (Berger-Schmitt 2000). In host nations immigration policy should also cover the cultural and social needs of immigrant communities and the extent to which the host nation is able to accommodate differences between communities (Council of Europe 2005). The need to secure social cohesion is the imperative behind policies on the needs of immigrant or ‘new’ communities and the social consequences of their arrival (see Davis 2005; Zetter 2006). The term ‘social cohesion’ is itself controversial and subject to various interpretations. Policy-makers usually seek to define an official understanding of what constitutes social cohesion as a means of taking the next step to creating a post-immigration policy. This in turn results in a variety of definitions of the term and just as many ways of seeking to measure its incidence in the host society. The breakdown of social cohesion, however, can be universally identified. Race riots are not uncommon in immigrant societies, and in recent times there have been quite violent uprisings in Paris and various British cities (see Farrell 2001; Cantle 2001). Even Australia, for so long considered to be a host nation with relatively little interracial tension, was the location for a violent race-based riot in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla. This raised questions about the utility of the ‘multiculturalism’ policy that has underpinned national governmental approaches to integrating immigrant and host communities. It would appear that, while nation-states have some different ideas about what constitutes ‘social cohesion’ and how it might be assessed, governments and communities are much better at identifying those moments where social cohesion breaks down. This has given added impetus to the need for common ground in defining social cohesion and, even more importantly, ways of monitoring it in order to avoid its breakdown or to be forewarned of a problem.

Social cohesion: approaches and definitions Critical reflections on social cohesion and the way it might be measured emanate from a variety of nations, but the considerations of three broad camps in the debate provide the most useful insights. The first of these is the European Union, where special attention is paid to the way in which immigrant communities are integrated into their new host communities (see Berger-Schmitt 2000; Larsen 2004; Council of Europe 2005; Peace et al. 2005). The application of the idea of a borderless European trade zone has had human consequences as the notion that commodities should be able to move without hindrance between member states has been increasingly extended to include human resources. The European Union has also had to deal with the consequences of having so many members who have only become liberal democracies in comparatively recent times, including some who became liberal democracies at the end of World War II, and another group whose liberal democratic status was secured after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1991. Europe has also experienced the very worst political and social consequences of ultra-nationalism and racism during the interwar period, and this has heightened sensitivity towards the potential for debates about national identity and national culture to result in racist-based nationalist ideology (Hainsworth 1992;

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Geddes 1996). Of course, this phenomenon has not entirely gone away in European politics, with a number of politicians carving out a political career for themselves by attacking the EU’s free-trade policies and linking this with antiimmigration positions. European political scientists theoretically differentiate between those political organisations with links to the violent ultra-fascist past such as Britain’s National Front and a more popular and populist nationalism that eschews violence but seeks to define a nationalist view that excludes immigrants nonetheless and has been described as a ‘populist right’ (see Husbands 1992; Betz 1993; Taggart 1995). It is this latter group that has made substantial headway in elections in a number of European states and that serves to remind us of the real undercurrent of tensions present in Europe as population mobility increases. Recent developments in international politics in which the so-called ‘war on terror’ can be popularly linked with notions of religious difference have also resonated in European states where sizeable immigrant communities may have a religious affiliation different from the national norm (Farrell 2001: 150–90). Incidents of urban terror, be these race riots or acts of terrorism perpetrated against the civilian community, reinforce the sense of crisis. As a consequence of the European experience of the impact of race-based ideologies on the politics of a number of its member states both past and present, and the heightened interest in pluralistic democracy in the new liberal democracies, EU debates about social cohesion focus not only on the economic consequences of immigration but also on how the needs, sensitivities and, indeed, the civil rights of immigrant communities are met by host communities (Council of Europe 2005). Concerns about the social consequences for host communities not only of economic alienation but also social dislocation experienced by immigrant communities runs through the EU literature on social cohesion. Some proposed methods of measurement include tracking rates of political participation. A Danish study proposed linking the monitoring of socio-economic data with periodic state-run surveys of citizen satisfaction as a means of assessing community wellbeing (Larsen 2004). Another discussion paper makes the point that incidents of racially inspired crimes and acts of violence and/or the data pertaining to complaints of racial discrimination should also be included in the assessment of social cohesion (Peace et al. 2005). In sum, EU approaches to social cohesion attach great importance to other normative values including human rights and dignity and even very social democratic notions of equality of opportunity and wealth distribution. To the EU, social cohesion involves not just economic wellbeing but also a sense of socio-political well-being (Jespen 2005; Berger-Schmitt 2000). Although they are also part of the EU and experience similar social tensions arising from hosting communities of racial, ethnic and religious diversity, Britain and France are considered as being somewhat apart from the general EU approach. This is because both countries have sought to grapple with the realities of a major immigration program against a backdrop of policies seeking to encourage notions of a single national cultural approach. Under this approach language is important: both Britain and France see proficiency in the national language as essential to social cohesion and immigrant inclusiveness (see Farrell 2001; Hussain 2001; Vertovec 2006). Britain and especially France have also had to grapple with challenges of religious difference in their communities.

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The United States, meanwhile, has a rich historical tradition of accepting immigrants from around the world. Here again, notions of how immigrant communities integrate with the greater society rest on perceptions of clearly identifiable cultural norms and key ‘values’ to which all are expected to adhere (see Brettell 2006; Duignan & Gann 1998). In Britain, the United States and France, ‘multiculturalism’ is perceived as a problematic concept (Bischoff 2002; Zetter 2006). This means that the assimilation-oriented approach to social cohesion may differ somewhat from the third group in the debate led by Canada and based on the development of the idea of ‘multiculturalism’. In a sense, the British-AmericanFrench approach, based as it is on the idea of a clearly identifiable national cultural identity to which all members of the community – including new arrivals – should conform acts as something of a counterpoint to Canadian multiculturalism. Critics of the British-American model draw on the Canadian approach as a panacea to what they perceive as the shortcomings of the ‘one culture’ approach, whereas critics of multiculturalism draw heavily on British and American critiques of the concept. The British and American approaches to social cohesion rest primarily on the view that shared community values will mean the assimilation of new arrivals into the dominant cultural norm, and that immigrant communities will quickly assimilate (see Farrell 2001: 213; Hussain 2001). This approach sees cultural diversity as the basis for division, and, as a result, any persistence of cultural diversity logically contributes to the undermining of social cohesion. Policies designed to achieve social cohesion are thus based on an assumption about the need to integrate new arrivals and their families into what is viewed as the dominant culture. This approach rests on more than just some simple, if not paternalistic, notion of superior cultures. Rather, policy-makers commonly seek to achieve social cohesion by finding ways to break down the marginalisation or alienation of any particular group. Bringing communities together through a policy of assimilation is seen in this context as an important precursor to securing social cohesion. Instances where social cohesion breaks down may well be interpreted as a failure of the integration program, in which the maintenance of the cultural practices of the alienated group – especially language and religion – are viewed as contributing to the problem. Accordingly, social cohesion is understood as finding ways in which the new communities can be brought into a much more homogeneous community environment. Diversity on some matters of cultural practice may be tolerated, especially as a form of pluralism, but official policy should encourage integration and assimilation based on the notion that there is a prevailing paradigm to which all communities should conform. If assimilation is at one end of the policy spectrum, multiculturalism is, theoretically, at the other, although there is a possibility of overstating the sense of difference between the two policies, particularly on the question of the commitment new arrivals are expected to have to the practices and institutional arrangements of their host communities. As developed in Canada in the 1970s, multiculturalism is understood as a model that accommodates aspects of cultural diversity of the various immigrant and post-immigrant communities while simultaneously seeing this acceptance of diversity as a crucial precursor to broad cohesion. This is because the occurrence of diversity and difference is venerated and becomes a means by which immigrant communities are included in the host community

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(rather than being viewed as external to the dominant culture under the assimilation model) (see Rajulton et al. 2003). The question of immigrant communities being in a position to change the core legal, political and institutional arrangements of the host nation does not arise, for this form of multiculturalism expects community adherence to these things. Rather, multiculturalism seeks to accommodate cultural diversity, particularly in matters of language but also in some aspects of popular culture such as social rituals and religious practice. The point in highlighting the difference between the assimilationist and multicultural approaches is to draw attention to the potential for the notion of ‘social cohesion’ to be contentious and value-laden, particularly where analysts seek to quantify the extent to which there are ‘shared values’ within a community. Data that indicates a diversity of languages being spoken in a community could be interpreted as a positive outcome by multiculturalists, or a negative one by assimilationists, who view monolingualism as an essential precondition to cohesion. Notions of national identity also become difficult to quantify, particularly in those jurisdictions where uncertainty about identity and/or a ‘national culture’ already exists. Of no less importance is the extent to which groups within society feel disenfranchised from decision-making or from the economy, and/or alienated from the broader community. This takes on particular salience for those communities where quite serious incidents have occurred that suggest a major breakdown in cohesion. The occurrence of such events brings concern about cohesion into sharp relief, including revisions of previous policy approaches.

Measuring cohesion: some common ground For all the fundamental differences between the perspectives of assimilationists and multiculturalists, reflections on the task of finding ways to measure the extent to which a society is cohesive do agree on the sort of data that might be usefully collected and analysed as a means of monitoring social stability. These data can be usefully grouped under three broad headings, with a possible fourth type included if the EU approach to monitoring citizen responses to micro-level surveys about their perceived well-being or otherwise is taken into account. The three main categories are economic data, data on civic participation (see also Rajulton et al. 2003), and data on instances of social dislocation (crime, welfare dependence, and so on) (Inter-American Development Bank 2006). Most discussion papers on the measurement of social cohesion agree that the data under these three headings needs to be scanned for evidence of serious deviations from national or subnational averages in the rates at which immigrant or post-immigrant communities figure in patterns of wealth distribution, political participation and welfare dependency. Evidence of such deviation would provide an indication of the potential for the breakdown of social cohesion. A range of indicators might be considered useful under the general heading of ‘economic data’, which would include measures of the dispersal of wealth and the rate of economic participation within communities (Berger-Schmitt 2000, 2002; Grootaert et al. 2004; and see Davis 2005). It is generally accepted that social cohesion depends heavily on the integration of new communities into the economy, or, to put it another way, that evidence of economic deprivation and lack of

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economic opportunity will undermine cohesion. Consequently, social cohesion indices need to track comparative data on median income levels, levels of wealth across a community, and the participation of communities within the labour market. Monitoring the community’s potential for social cohesion thus requires monitoring of key economic performance indicators: economic growth, both across the community and within subcommunities; wealth distribution as measured by levels of income and levels of property ownership; the nature and form of labour force participation and the relationship this has to economic performance; rates of employment, areas of employment and rates of unemployment; and rates of welfare dependency (Salama 2004). Such data are relatively easy to access, and can be assessed at a variety of geographic levels. This is important, for the demographic reality in immigrant societies is that there are close spatial relationships between the socio-economic and cultural composition of citizens and where they cluster to live and work. This topic in itself can be the cause of considerable controversy; criticism of ‘immigrants’ for clustering in ‘ghettos’ in cities has often accompanied critiques of the socio-cultural consequences of immigration. Concern is especially apparent in the aftermath of social upheavals usually centred in poorer immigrant districts in the cities. Notwithstanding these critiques, the geographic reality is that urban settlement will always reflect a host of socio-economic considerations such as the relationship communities will have to the economy. As the geographers Taylor and Johnston (1979: 335) once noted, human geography is greatly influenced by economic and socio-economic relationships, and ‘the result in all cases is spatial segregation by socio-economic criteria, and perhaps others as well’. This geographic reality provides a framework by which key economic performance indicators should be accumulated and analysed. Clearly, the important economic data that need to be assessed include the distribution of income and property, the rate of participation in the labour market (types of work done, types of skills, levels of qualification, relationship to national economic activity, and, probably most crucially of all, the extent and structure of unemployment), and the extent to which subcommunities depend on the welfare system. Analysis requires the accumulation of data at the subcommunity level to allow for comparison between subcommunities and, in turn, to compare subcommunities with subnational and/or national aggregates. Applying the geographer’s understanding of the spatial relationship between communities and where they live also contributes to the task of compiling cohesion indices, for the combined effect of closely monitoring key economic indicators and a recognition that a city and its surrounds are composed of diverse communities (including immigrant ones) provides the basis for comparative analysis. Disaggregated data are necessary to monitor performance of spatially diverse communities. The macro-economic picture should not be ignored, of course, for there needs to be a set of overarching data by which the performance of the various constituent communities may be monitored for signs of conformity or deviation. Here, social cohesion indices monitor the economic performance of the community’s various subcommunities with a heightened awareness of the degree to which their performances vary from aggregated indicators. In any community there are bound to be variations in the distribution of income, rates of employment and sectors in which people are employed, skills and qualifications, and the distribution of

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wealth. The crucial question for social cohesion is to consider the point at which the degree of variation in the distribution of economic wealth and opportunity becomes so great as to precipitate social unrest. The challenge for those seeking to develop economic indicators of social cohesion is to identify those critical turning points.

Political participation Like the consensus in social cohesion literature about the utility of key economic performance indicators – wealth distribution, income levels, employment, labour force participation, welfare dependency – so too there is agreement among the various perspectives about the importance of political participation to notions of a cohesive and ultimately stable society (Peace et al. 2005). Political participation is seen as an important indicator of the integration of subcommunities into the host community (Grootaert et al. 2004; Larsen 2004). This, in turn, is viewed as an important indicator of the degree to which new communities feel alienated from or accepted by their host societies. Like economic indicators, certain indicators of political participation may give warnings of potential problem areas. Unlike economic data, however, some of the bases for considering what constitutes political participation and what this says about community cohesion are not so clear-cut. The social cohesion measurement literature displays a broad consensus about the undesirability for social cohesion of high rates of unemployment, particularly among subcommunities. This is because of the strength of the very basic assumption that being a part of a community means having a direct material stake in that community’s economic activity. Alienation from the economy can quickly lead to alienation from the community. The assumption about the link between political alienation and social alienation is not so clear-cut, however. The notion that there is associated with late-industrial liberal democracies a ‘crisis of democracy’ – that is, a general alienation of all citizens from their liberal democratic structures and culture – has been around for some time and the failure of citizens to participate in the political process cuts across the community. Notwithstanding this, the attitude that subcommunities take to being a part of their host communities can be gleaned by observing data relating to attendance rates at elections, voting behaviour within electoral contests, or signs of deviant electoral behaviour that might give hints of problems in particular subcommunities. Analysis of data on candidature rates would also have some utility in establishing the extent to which political leaders from the new communities are prepared to engage with the political processes of the host community. Evidence of participation rates and practices that conform or at least closely correspond to the behaviour of the community generally would indicate a certain degree of cohesion based on the integration of subcommunities into the general political culture (Zetter 2006). In considering such data, analysts need to be mindful of the various levels at which governance manifests itself in liberal democracies. The notion of community influence over community affairs can be present as an important normative base in local government, for example, and the degree to which new communities seek to impact on local governance in the locales in

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which they live needs to be assessed for evidence it might provide of integration of new and old communities.

Crime as an indicator? Some discussion papers on social cohesion measurement raise the issue of crime statistics as potential indicators of how a society is faring. The utility of such data rests on connections made between notions of social dysfunctionalism being reflected by inordinately high levels of criminal activity, or by statistics indicating a comparative disparity in crime rates between immigrant and host communities (Bagguley & Hussain 2003). These are potentially valuable data, but their utility is also subject to quite serious political doubts. Racially based political attacks on new communities or on immigration policy often make reference to crime, with allegations that new communities are either responsible for increasing crime rates or have the potential to pose a threat to law and order. Right-wing politicians have, for instance, sought to portray instances of urban unrest as manifestations of immigrant lawlessness (Geddes 1996). The occurrence of urban terrorism in places like Britain has often been linked by the media with immigrant communities. In such situations discussion of crime statistics can quickly become embroiled in a much more fraught debate about the extent to which immigrant communities are responsible for that crime.

Notions of well-being Economic indicators and political participation data provide some scope for assessing the extent to which a society may or may not be enjoying social cohesion. These data provide fairly general overviews, however, and may sometimes fail to identify less tangible manifestations of how subcommunities feel about their host communities, and vice versa. As critical reflections on political participation remind us, the issue of ‘opting out’ of the functioning of the community does arise and may be viewed as problematic. The phenomenon of citizens deciding to stay out of the processes and mechanisms underpinning citizen control of community affairs underpins all liberal democracies, and is not confined to any particular group. The problem here, however, is that cynicism about governance and decisions to eschew the opportunity to participate may well precipitate an intensification of feelings of alienation and detachment. Literature dealing with this problem in liberal democracies generally does not focus exclusively on what happens to immigrant communities in such situations, but there is nevertheless a recognition that new communities can be particularly susceptible to feeling alienated (see Larsen 2004; Davis 2005; Peace et al. 2005).

One indicator or several? Can social cohesion be measured or tracked by using a single indicator? Salama (2004: 3) suggests that this is possible, but difficult. Complexities range from the variability of the necessary data to the compatibility of regional variation and

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Table 3.1 Modelling social cohesion (based on comparing spatially located communities) Direct economic indicators Economic data Income Property ownership Poverty

Labour market Employment rate Employment type Qualifications Education participation

Social capital indicators Institutional Political participation Access to law Complaints about violence

‘Well-being’ Surveys Crime rates

national benchmarks. Reflections on the methodologies that could be used in constructing social cohesion indicators agree that the data need to be grouped under at least two broad categories – although Salama (ibid.: 4) identifies four. These would involve aggregating data to show, first, degrees of equality or inequality in society based primarily on key economic indicators such as the level of poverty, the distribution of income, the rates of educational opportunity, and labour market participation, and, second, the extent to which there is adequate ‘social capital’. Under this heading are grouped data relating to degrees of civic and political engagement; the incidence of violence in society and its distribution across the communities; the extent of equal access to the law; and the institutional responses to community needs (Berger-Schmitt 2002; Salama 2004). Berger-Schmitt (2002: 413) points out that the EU is in the process of developing the European System of Social Indicators with a view to combining readily available national economic indicators with surveys designed to assess community perceptions of well-being and inclusion (or exclusion). In reviewing a nation’s capacity to measure and track social cohesion, various data are necessary, including economic indicators, social stability or stress, and notions of well-being. Easterly and colleagues (2005: 5) note that a social cohesion indicator dealing with what they term ‘direct’ measures would have to weigh these data (they recommend use of a Gini coefficient methodology). Like others, they also note the spatial relationship between communities within the greater national whole. In short, measures of social cohesion require a comparative component not only between nation-states, but within spatially arranged communities within the nation-state. Here demography is a crucial first step; in order to track communities and their cohesion within a broader society it is necessary to identify what those communities are and where they reside. This makes spatial comparisons possible. The use of a local government area map or some other community-clustering tool (electoral district maps) is a vital first step in tracking economic and social capital performance between communities (see Table 3.1).

Values and identity Aggregated economic and political participation data give incomplete pictures of the relationship between communities within societies. Further, such data might not help in identifying the much less prosaic notions of how members of a new community see themselves against the backdrop of host community ideas of identity and culture. Policy-makers often talk about the need for a collection of

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commonly held norms and social values as the cohesion within society, but identifying those norms and how they are perceived by the various subcommunities (immigrant and hosts) is much more difficult. The sense that subcommunities have about the way they relate to these dominant norms can have a major bearing on notions of cohesion, and may result in subcommunities feeling alienated and disjointed from the national norm even though, in economic terms, a subcommunity may seem to be on the road to economic integration. Attitudinal surveys can perform a crucial role in monitoring social cohesion by illuminating notions of identity, and the extent to which subcommunities feel different from the general society, or alienated from it. This adds a slightly different dimension to the debate about ways in which social cohesion might be measured. Accumulating data about the economy and/or political participation has the advantage of being relatively easy because of its accessibility. But certain value assumptions about social cohesion need to be made in order to interpret this data. Normative construction of social cohesion is no less important to the process of developing attitudinal surveys, but researchers have the ability here to be much more specific and focused in targeting social cohesion research objectives. In addition to the usual set of problems associated with trying to measure anything, debates about immigration, the establishment and integration of immigrant communities and social cohesion face other methodological problems. One of the most significant is to define exactly who and what constitutes a ‘new’ community or a ‘subcommunity’. The idea of who or what constitutes an immigrant is fairly straightforward and can be dealt with by simple definitions involving birthplace of citizens. It is, however, more difficult to define the notion of an immigrant community. Of particular importance is the durability of the sense of subcommunity identity beyond those who can be identified because of their overseas-born status – in particular, the locally born children of the immigrant community and, in some instances, their children as well. This is a significant issue to which a host of other relevant matters relate. The persistence of identification with the new-community identity among the locally born generation raises questions about the politics of identity within the host nation. It may also raise the crucial matter of economic and social mobility, particularly where researchers find that the persistence of the new community identity is based on notions of alienation from the host community. Measurement of social cohesion needs to take into account the perspective of locally born generations. This is reinforced by social conflict, which results from a sense of alienation among immigrants from the economic and cultural-political life of the host community.

Social cohesion: the Australian perspective Australia is an immigrant nation whose economic and social history is inextricably linked with the arrival of successive waves of settlers (Birrell & Birrell 1987). The broad history of Australian immigration is well known, including the significance of the post-World War II immigration program that buttressed Australia’s postwar reconstruction and growth and established the basis of Australia’s ethnically diverse population. The strategic and political-humanitarian sides of this program were no less significant and these, too, established the basis for Australia’s

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modern immigration program in which a certain component is set aside for humanitarian and refugee intakes. Also associated with the postwar program has been a series of settler policies, all of which have been underpinned by local debates about national identity and whether or not new settlers to Australia should integrate with the host nation or if the expectation is one of full assimilation (Jupp & Kabala 1993; Economou 1998). From the outset of the postwar immigration program, successive Australian governments demanded the full assimilation of migrants into a dominant Australian culture – although what this was beyond the primacy of English no one was quite sure. In the 1970s policy changed when the newly elected Labor government under E.G. (Gough) Whitlam instituted the much-debated policy of ‘multiculturalism’ – based on the Canadian model and in which notions of popular ‘ethnic’ culture (including language) would be revered as contributing to a culturally diverse Australian identity. (The question of modifying Australia’s core legal and political institutions did not arise, for multiculturalism was viewed as the means by which new communities would be integrated into the modern Australian nation-state.) Despite debates, something of a political consensus over the desirability of multiculturalism persisted until the 1980s, when the major parties began to diverge on the policy. The parting of the ways began ostensibly as a critique of the deleterious impact ‘ethnic groups’ had on the allocation of state resources, but quickly developed into a much sharper debate about national culture, national identity and immigration policy (see Blainey 1984; cf. Jupp 1989). In the early 1990s the national consensus on multiculturalism was affected by a breakdown in the consensus on immigration as the Australian economy slipped into a severe recession. By the mid-1990s this developed into a debate about race and identity, complete with the emergence of a right-populist anti-immigration party of the type described by European political scientists. Between 1996 and 1998 Pauline Hanson dominated the national debate about immigration, race and identity, and a political party – One Nation – was formed on an anti-immigration platform (Rutherford 2001). One Nation had a fitful history in Australian politics, with only limited electoral success. By 2001, however, the debate about immigration and national identity was severely affected by the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11. Also dominating the Australian debate at this time was a dispute between the Australian and Indonesian governments over who was responsible for a group of would-be unauthorised immigrants who had been rescued by a Norwegian cargo ship, the MV Tampa. These two matters combined the debates about immigration and post-immigration settlement into one about national security. With the increased sense of citizen insecurity amid the commencement of the ‘war on terror’ as a response to September 11, nationalism and patriotism were also on the rise in Australia – an outcome that inevitably put multiculturalism as a manifestation of public policy under enormous pressure. In the controversies stirred up by, first, the emergence of a racially based populist party (complete with a charismatic leader) and then, later, the national security debate, all aspects of Australia’s immigration and post-immigration policies – including multiculturalism and the assumption that multiculturalism contributed to social cohesion – have been subject to critical re-evaluation. Australia

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has the reputation for being one of the most socially cohesive nations, especially with respect to the integration of new settlers. Yet the emergence of One Nation and the race debate in the party-political process seemed to indicate a level of social conflict over these matters that is worthy of concern. The persistence of reports of racially and ethnically based tensions in Sydney, culminating in the Cronulla riot, also appeared to qualify the claim about the pervasiveness of social cohesion. One consequence was to undermine popular support for a bipartisan immigration policy at the very moment when some economists have warned that, without immigration, Australia’s labour force will start to shrink, as it has already done in a host of other late-industrial nations. The reality of the politics of immigration in Australia is that the previously held orthodoxy that multiculturalism had secured high levels of social cohesion and thus contributed to a successful immigration program has been fundamentally challenged. The challenge comes from a number of sources: some are sceptical about immigration, including its economic consequences; some worry about what they see as social disintegration caused by multiculturalism; and some worry about the impact of multiculturalism on notions of national culture and national identity. The debate about social cohesion emanates from this revision of what had previously been a bipartisan policy. The onset of right-populism and, even more worryingly, of spasmodic ethnically and racially based urban violence has added impetus to the need to address the question of how social cohesion in Australia is constituted and whether or not it can be secured in the long term. The task of finding ways of measuring social cohesion must be understood against this backdrop of political urgency.

Conclusion Population policy is one of the most important matters on the agenda for lateindustrial societies. Policy-makers perceive the need for population growth, particularly for the pursuit of economic objectives, but they are also sensitive to community reactions to the social, economic and cultural consequences of immigration policy. The question of whether or not social cohesion is enhanced or undermined by immigration and its consequences is thus an integral part of the policy debate. Policy-makers seek evidence to back up claims from various participants in the debate about the impact population policy has on social cohesion. Just as the concept of social cohesion is value-laden, so too the task of finding methods by which it might be measured is subject to many perspectives. A consensus does exist in the literature about the importance of key economic indicators for notions of cohesion, particularly the importance of new communities actually being included in the host community’s economic structure. Here the question of employment – and especially the potentially dangerous matter of unemployment – is central. Beyond this, the debate becomes wrapped up in other complex issues, including notions of national identity, national culture and whether such things should be subject to a monocultural or multicultural perspective.

4 Australian government initiatives for social cohesion The Hon. Kevin Andrews MP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

The contributions of migrants and their descendants have helped make Australia what it is today – a thriving, enterprising and diverse society. Migration will continue to play a crucial role in Australia’s future. There are now about five working-age Australians for every person over 65 years old. Within two generations, that figure could fall to about 2.5 working-age people. Across the OECD countries, 70 million people will be retiring over the next 25 years, with only five million to replace them. Australia’s immigration program is an essential part of the government’s response, attracting the people and skills we need from around the world. It also enables families to be reunited and helps Australia to play a part in assisting the world’s refugees. According to the 2001 Census, 43 per cent of Australians were either born overseas or have at least one parent who was. Australians currently speak over 200 languages, identify with more than 160 ancestries and practise a range of religions. The immigration program is bringing an increasingly diverse inflow of new arrivals with varying levels of skill and education. At the same time, overseas events are impacting on Australia’s stability, marginalising some groups and eroding social cohesion. Australian society is not subject to the divisions and tensions experienced by many other countries around the world. In general, Australia has been very successful in integrating people from many nations and cultures around the world into our society – respecting people’s differences and providing opportunities for everyone to belong and participate as full members. There are several factors that contribute to this social cohesion. The first is that diversity and migration have always been central to Australian society. From the long history of Indigenous Australians, who contribute in a special way to the diversity of the nation, to the first group who arrived as part of a penal colony, to the most recent waves of migrants, Australia has drawn in newcomers from around the globe. Most Australians or their forebears were immigrants who left 45

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behind the life and the people they knew to bring their aspirations and desire to succeed to an unknown land. Their stories, and their many different cultures, traditions and ancestries, are reflected in Australia’s collective family tree and the fabric of our national culture. Diversity is an everyday part of Australia, not a challenge to it. Second, migration is recognised as the foundation of modern Australia’s economic and social success. Since the establishment of a formal migration program after World War II, some six and a half million migrants have made Australia their home. Migrants, and the children of migrants, have made high-profile contributions to Australian culture in fields such as the arts, philosophy, literature, sport, medicine and science. They have been instrumental in helping to establish important industries such as mining and wine production and have contributed to major infrastructure projects such as the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme. Migrants’ skills, innovation, personal networks and knowledge of overseas markets have helped the nation to meet its economic goals and contributed to the dynamism of Australian society. Nation-building was a driving force behind the immigration program. The need for immigration in Australia’s future is also increasingly acknowledged. It is an important strategy for meeting the demographic and economic challenge of an ageing population and a diminishing workforce. A continuing stream of migrants, with the resulting increased cultural and linguistic diversity, is accepted as essential to the nation’s continuing growth. Third, Australia’s migration program is demonstrably well regulated. The government works closely with a wide range of organisations representing employers, migrants, industry, and state and territory governments, to ensure that immigration continues to respond effectively to Australia’s skill and employment needs. It consults with international refugee and migration organisations, such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, to fulfil its international obligations as well as to maximise the success and impact of Australia’s refugee resettlement program. At the same time, migrants must pass character and security checks. Measures are in place to prevent illegal immigration from undermining the integrity of the immigration program. Australia continues to lead the world in border security systems, and partnerships with other countries help to reduce people-smuggling. Australia’s careful approach to managing immigration has played a key role in maintaining public support for an immigration system that serves the national interests. Finally, the Australian Government has in place policies and programs that complement the immigration program and strengthen social cohesion. They seek the effective integration of migrants into Australian life, so that they can participate and contribute as full members of our society, with a shared national identity, while maintaining, within the law, their cultural and religious traditions and beliefs. While Australia can rightfully be proud of its successful immigration and settlement programs, we cannot rest on our laurels. Changing circumstances dictate a dynamic approach to social policies. We need to ensure that new migrants settle quickly and fully into life in Australia, reinforce our social cohesion, and identify ongoing and emerging issues that can threaten what we aim to achieve.

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The government believes that the successful integration of migrants is essential for a stable and cohesive society. The keys to successful integration are opportunity and respect. Creating opportunities and helping people to make the most of them is empowering, provides pathways for individuals’ progress, and brings people together as equals. Building respect between people, whatever their background, helps to break down the barriers that can divide us by promoting understanding and acceptance. Citizens must form connections based on recognition of how much we share as members of the same community and as Australians. This chapter outlines government approaches to strengthening Australia’s social cohesion. The initiatives are practical ones, reflecting the themes of opportunity and respect. They are also characterised by strategic emphases on communication, participation, and the shared responsibilities of government agencies for Australia’s social stability. It is all part of building a shared national identity, building one community that embraces and celebrates its diversity. The government programs described below include the settlement services that are provided by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which target the needs of new arrivals as they seek self-reliance and participation in Australian life, as well as the responses by other agencies to issues of settlement, social cohesion and cultural diversity in general. Government programs which seek to reinforce social cohesion more directly are also described, including responses to current issues relating to isolation and the threat of extremism. Supporting these initiatives are ongoing efforts to maintain a productive two-way flow of information between government and communities. The goal of these initiatives is a cohesive yet diverse nation, united by a common commitment to Australia and each other, as symbolised by Australian citizenship.

Citizenship The government believes Australian citizenship is a positive and unifying force. It lies at the heart of our national identity. Citizenship represents full and equal membership of Australian society and allows people who settle in Australia to participate fully in Australian life and to take advantage of the myriad opportunities that Australia provides. Australian citizenship is a privilege and not a right. Only citizens have the right to live in Australia, participate in our democratic processes, apply for an Australian passport, seek full consular assistance from Australian diplomatic representatives while overseas, stand for election to parliament, access the full range of opportunities to work in the public service, serve in the armed forces, and register children born overseas as Australian citizens by descent. Their responsibilities include being enrolled to vote, and voting in federal and state or territory elections, being prepared to defend Australia if the need arises, and serving on a jury if called to do so. The Australian Citizenship Pledge From this time forward, [under God∗ ] I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,

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Whose democratic beliefs I share, Whose rights and liberties I respect, And whose laws I will uphold and obey. ∗ optional

Generally adults are required to make the Australian citizenship pledge of commitment as the final step in becoming an Australian citizen. The pledge is a succinct expression of the values that all Australians are expected to share – the values that unite us in our diversity. During September, October and November 2006, the government released a discussion paper and consulted widely with stakeholders on the merits of introducing a formal citizenship test. The discussion paper gathered community views on introducing a formal test and testing arrangements that might be appropriate in the Australian context. These included knowledge of the English language, knowledge of Australia and a commitment to common Australian values such as respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, equality of men and women, freedom of religion, commitment to the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, and mutual respect, tolerance and compassion for those in need. The government has considered the responses to the discussion paper and has announced its intention to introduce an Australian citizenship test. The objective of the test is to help migrants to integrate and maximise the opportunities available to them in Australia. Under the proposed test, future migrants will need to demonstrate a basic level of English language skills, as well as knowledge of the Australian way of life and our shared values, before obtaining Australian citizenship. Prospective applicants for citizenship will also be asked to sign a statement of commitment to Australia. The citizenship test is a complement to the whole-of-government measures designed to improve social cohesion through more effective settlement outcomes for humanitarian entrants, and through the National Action Plan. Additionally, the government has proposed a changed residence requirement: that of time spent living in Australia in order to qualify for Australian citizenship. The requirement, currently before the parliament, would change to four years’ lawful residence in Australia (including at least one year as a permanent resident), rather than the current requirement of two years’ permanent residence. This would allow intending citizens greater time to become comfortable with what is expected of them as citizens, so as to foster social cohesion. The government raises community awareness of the value of Australian citizenship and encourages eligible people to take it up through promotion campaigns, including extensive television advertising. This reinforces the cohesive message of Australian citizenship.

Settlement services The government regards the successful settlement of immigrants as a key factor in the development of their capacity to become full participants in Australian society.

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Australia was one of the first countries in the world to develop a comprehensive suite of settlement services. These services help new migrants to settle quickly and integrate into the community, by learning the language, accessing government services, gaining employment and understanding the community they are now living in. Settlement services contribute to overall social cohesion and help new arrivals quickly become confident participants in Australian society. The strength of Australia’s approach to settlement lies in its broad range of programs, with services tailored to the different circumstances and needs of migrants. Many new arrivals settle very quickly, particularly if they speak English well, are familiar with our society and are able to find employment shortly after arrival. For others, it may take longer. Refugees, for example, may arrive in Australia with a range of needs that require special assistance. They may have spent years in a refugee camp, have had no formal schooling, be illiterate in their own language, or have suffered torture and other trauma. All new migrants receive information about Australian society and culture. For those entering Australia under the Humanitarian Program, the Australian Cultural Orientation Program is delivered offshore and aims to enhance entrants’ settlement prospects by creating realistic expectations of life in Australia. The curriculum includes information on healthcare, education, employment, laws, government and cultural norms. The Integrated Humanitarian Settlement Strategy provides intensive settlement assistance for humanitarian entrants in the first six months after arrival. Entrants’ needs are assessed and addressed through an integrated case management approach that provides orientation to life in Australia, accommodation and household assistance, and short-term torture and trauma counselling if needed.

Case study 1: Integrated Humanitarian Settlement Strategy support Annie Massaquoi remembers the welcome she and her eight children received when they landed in Sydney from Africa in May 2000 under the Australian Government’s Humanitarian Program. ‘It was freezing weather in Sydney but the welcome from the Australian people and the Australian Government was warm. I will never forget it. We were met at the airport and taken to our accommodation. The next day we were taken to Medicare, Centrelink and the bank, and a few days later I was able to go to a healing mass at the local Catholic church. We were helped with beds, clothing, cooking utensils and food vouchers.’ Once in Australia, Annie, who could read and write English, enrolled the children in school and herself in TAFE so that she could learn to run her own business. After studying several subjects including her original profession of hairdressing, Annie established a hairdressing business with a Nigerian woman before setting up her own salon in Bankstown. ‘The clients followed me to the new salon, and slowly I built up my business. It’s now doing very well. I was even awarded a small business community award

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in 2004. Australia is my home. There is peace here and if you do the right thing and live according to the law you can have a good life.’ The Settlement Grants Program provides settlement support to both humanitarian entrants and eligible adult migrants with low English proficiency, for up to five years after arrival. It links new arrivals with mainstream services, develops the capacity of new communities to organise and advocate for their own needs, and assists arrivals to make links with the broader Australian community.

Case study 2: Youth Kit (Settlement Grants Program project) After noticing the many complex issues facing young people in running youth groups, staff at the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI) came up with the idea of a ‘youth kit’, which obtained funding support under the Settlement Grants Program. ‘We wanted to provide a resource that would support youths to become more involved in their communities and support young people to become leaders,’ said Kate O’Sullivan, Senior Policy Officer for Refugee Youth Resettlement at CMYI. ‘Youth groups form an important part of ethnic community building, and youth leaders often also become involved in wider community groups.’ The youth kit offers practical advice on how to form a youth group, be an effective leader, run meetings and manage group finances. It also provides a list of useful organisations and resources. CMYI has received phone calls from youth leaders delighted with how the kit has helped them to ensure the ongoing sustainability of their groups. The government believes that the ability to speak English, Australia’s national language, is crucial to successful settlement – for new migrants to find work, to function in everyday situations and to understand and participate in Australian life. Due to requirements under our immigration program, the majority of our new migrants already speak English well when they arrive. For those who can’t speak English, we provide a comprehensive range of English language programs. The Adult Migrant English Program, managed by DIAC, provides English language tuition for eligible migrants. It is designed to build basic language skills to assist clients to settle successfully in Australia. This includes helping them deal with everyday situations such as paying bills, seeking medical treatment, understanding simple instructions and writing an informal letter. Refugee and humanitarian entrants under the age of 25 with low levels of schooling are eligible for up to 910 hours of English language tuition, or until they achieve functional English, whichever is reached first, while those over 25 are eligible for up to 610 hours. Other eligible migrants have access to 510 hours or until they achieve functional English, whichever is reached first. English language tuition is also available through targeted programs managed by federal, state and territory governments. The Department of Education, Science and Training supports two employment-related English language programs

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for adults. The first is the Language Literacy and Numeracy Program which provides up to 800 hours of training to those having difficulties finding employment due to barriers of low literacy or English language competency. The second is the Workplace English Language and Literacy Program which provides funding to organisations to train workers in English language, literacy and numeracy skills. School-aged children are given English language tuition through the English as a Second Language for New Arrivals Program. The Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) helps non-English speakers to gain access to government and community services. It provides telephone interpreting services 24 hours a day, seven days a week from anywhere in Australia. Onsite interpreting and document translation services are also available. TIS services are available on a user-pays or fee-free basis, depending on the circumstances of the caller.

The role of government agencies While DIAC runs many of the settlement programs, the government recognises that developing equitable life opportunities for individuals requires dedicated assistance in a number of areas. They include services to progress individual outcomes (such as employment and education), as well as those of families (childcare, relationships) and the community as a whole (the national economy, security, opportunities for social participation). Consequently, the Australian Government takes a holistic approach to the responsibilities of settling new migrants, which encompasses all three levels of government across the full gamut of portfolios. As well as encouraging and supporting participation of new migrants, fair government programs contribute to social cohesion in another way. They send a signal to their clients and the community at large about acceptance of and respect for people’s differences and the essential equality of all in Australia’s diverse society. This is a practical leadership role, which complements Australian anti-discrimination laws. Government programs should be responsive to the needs of all their clients. However, equal treatment does not always mean treating everyone the same. Some people need particular support to access government services in order to become more self-reliant and contributing members of our society over the longer term. Since 1998, Australian Government agencies have contributed to an annual report tabled in both houses of parliament regarding their efforts to respond to the diversity of their clients. The report also highlights practical suggestions and good practice examples in relation to these agencies. It reflects government agencies’ many achievements in improving the accessibility of government programs for all Australians. However, more can be done to encourage full participation in Australian society and respond to the varying needs of Australia’s diverse community. Government agencies are working together in new ways to improve responsiveness in their services through initiatives that pursue new avenues for

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client feedback on programs, more effective reporting and better ways to measure progress.

Whole-of-government responsibility While agencies are well placed to understand and respond to their own portfolio responsibilities, a consistent and collective approach to social policy is essential. The integration of refugees provides an example. Australia has a long tradition of resettling refugees and others in humanitarian need. Over 675 000 people have been resettled since the end of World War II from over 100 countries. However, recent entrants under the Humanitarian Program, particularly those from Africa, have arrived with a level of disadvantage not previously experienced. It is expected that African refugees will continue to make up a significant proportion of the Humanitarian Program for some years. In addition, recently arrived entrants from our region, such as those from Burma, are expected to present with similarly urgent needs. An Interdepartmental Committee (IDC) of 16 Australian Government agency heads was convened in April 2006, to develop a whole-of-government strategy to improve settlement outcomes for humanitarian entrants. The IDC was chaired by the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Peter Shergold AM. The focus of the IDC’s recommendations has been on the promotion of successful settlement through learning English, getting a job, understanding Australia’s democratic way of life and values, and participating in mainstream activities. These focuses build on the principle that while early settlement services are largely DIAC’s responsibility, all relevant departments across jurisdictions need to work together from the outset to meet the needs of newly arrived humanitarian entrants. The Australian Government has given in-principle approval for the further development of the IDC’s recommendations, including discussions with state and territory governments and consultations with the community on key recommendations. This consultative process will inform the further development of the initiatives for government’s consideration.

Community grants and partnerships Government responses to the settlement needs of new migrants and mainstream programs which meet the diverse needs of their clients both protect and underpin social stability. The government also funds Living in Harmony grants and partnerships to address issues of social cohesion more directly by enhancing respect between Australians and encouraging participation in education, employment and Australian life in general. The objective is to promote: ● the importance of all Australians respecting one another

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understanding of and commitment to other Australian values such as commitment to democracy and the rule of law, equality, freedom of speech and religion, a sense of fairness and a fair go, and English as the national language integration and social cohesion participation and a sense of belonging for everyone our successes as Australians, particularly in integrating migrants into our community.

Local communities are often in the best position to recognise local problems and identify locally relevant solutions. Funded community projects are designed to engage the whole community in addressing local issues. They provide the additional resources that are often needed by not-for-profit organisations to develop their own projects and find their own ways of getting Australians together to build positive community relations. Since 1999, nearly 350 community projects across Australia have each received funding support of up to $50 000 from this program.

Case study 3: Goodness and kindness campaign This project had facilitators from various backgrounds, including Jewish, Christian and Muslim, visiting schools together in Sydney, the NSW Central Coast and Armidale, to educate children about diversity and role model acceptance and respect. More than 80 schools and other groups were visited, and over 10 000 children participated.

Case study 4: It’s not all black and white – an African story This Brisbane City Council project encouraged the building of relationships (formal and informal) between members of local African communities and the broader Brisbane community. It was achieved through the production of an education kit which encouraged Brisbane residents to get to know and support new residents from the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan. The partnerships fostered by the kit seek to establish collaborative relationships with key organisations that have the capacity to work on a regional or national scale to address widespread, systemic and strategic issues. They may be community organisations, businesses or government bodies and address a range of long-term issues, usually by developing pilot programs that can be applied across the whole community. They often aim to influence community outcomes as well as the way the partner itself responds to the diverse community of which it is part. Over the last eight years, more than 30 substantial partnerships with a variety of organisations have addressed a broad range of issues. They have sought to increase the diversity of participants in volunteer organisations and sporting

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bodies, encourage media responsibility towards cultural and religious diversity, break down barriers between religions in the school context, and involve police with local communities to build relationships.

Case study 5: Families and the law in Australia The aim of this partnership with the Family Court of Australia was to develop and strengthen relations between the community and the Family Court, and to facilitate cross-community engagement between different new and emerging communities around matters pertaining to families and the law. The project engaged Afghan, Horn of Africa and Iraqi communities located in urban and rural settings across Australia. It examined how the Family Court could contribute to community harmony by strengthening community leadership, family units and intercommunity relationships in new and emerging communities. Forty-five different government and non-government agencies and over 1500 community members participated, as well as numerous judges, magistrates and other judicial officials. The project found opportunities to engage in critical but constructive and participatory forms of discussion about families, about communities, about change and about equity and justice. The project offered a way to promote trust of the law and the court system and build long-term working relationships with new and emerging communities. It also provided a way to enhance the court’s capacity to give culturally sensitive and appropriate services.

Case study 6: Research project on shared space A Macquarie University partnership researched and piloted projects for local government to address issues regarding the use of shared space. It identified a range of small-scale projects developed by local government bodies in Australia and overseas and piloted a small number of projects in a local council that had experienced significant population change (Ashfield, Sydney), as successive waves of migrants settled in the area. The pilot projects sought to develop social cohesion between older AngloCeltic residents and local shopkeepers of Chinese background. They involved visits to nursing homes, meals at local restaurants, a Welcome Open Day in the local shopping precinct, a clean-up of graffiti, and the addition of English language signage. The pilot resulted in a significant increase in interaction between groups and improved social cohesion. Overall, the partnership identified 80 small-scale projects that would address shared space issues identified by local government. The findings of this partnership are now being collated into a free toolkit available to all local councils.

Case study 7: On the same wave This partnership with Surf Life Saving Australia and Sutherland Shire Council aims to provide support to young Australians of all backgrounds, particularly

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those of Middle Eastern background, to engage in surf lifesaving around Australia. It aims to achieve greater harmony between all beach users and promote a culture of sharing the beach.

National Action Plan The threat of international and home-grown terrorism is prompting many countries to examine more closely the factors linking social cohesion and national security. The Australian Government is also working to respond to social cohesion issues in this specific and developing context. In partnership with state and territory governments, in response to a request by the Council of Australian Governments, it has developed a National Action Plan to build on social cohesion, harmony and security. The plan was endorsed by the Ministerial Council on Immigration and Multicultural Affairs in July 2006. It builds on federal, state and territory governments’ cultural diversity policies and programs to provide a national framework through which governments can work together to address the underlying causes of extremism, including the social and economic factors that encourage radicalisation and motivate extremist behaviour. The key elements of the National Action Plan include improving understanding of extremism, building leadership capacity in Australian Muslim communities, promoting non-violent interpretations of Islam in Australia, encouraging mutual respect, and actively engaging with Australian Muslim communities. These elements are addressed under the four focus areas of education, employment, integrating communities and enhancing national security. The National Action Plan entails a coordinated government and community approach. It involves initiatives of federal, state and territory governments, including collaborations between the different levels of government. It also involves collaborations between federal government agencies, including those concerned with law and security, education, employment, and families and communities. DIAC is responsible for the overall coordination of the plan.

Case study 8: Better Connections workshops (National Action Plan inter-agency collaboration) As an example of inter-agency collaboration, DIAC provided funding to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations for a series of employment workshops titled Better Connections. These workshops were held in cities with high Muslim populations and high Muslim unemployment levels and involved employment providers, community organisations, government agencies and other stakeholders. They aimed to create strategies to support jobseekers facing problems in new, changing or existing employment environments. At the workshops, stakeholders received information on labour market issues and employment opportunities in areas of high Muslim density. Working groups were also formed to address employment issues and create connections between service providers, employer stakeholders and Muslim community representatives.

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Case study 9: Migrant Youth and Sport project (National Action Plan inter-governmental collaboration) This partnership between DIAC and the Tasmanian government aims to encourage understanding and links between migrant youth, their communities and the broader Australian community via participation in sport. Currently there are around 400 refugees settling in Tasmania and a large number are young people keen to engage with their new community through recreational activities. The project centres on the ‘Sportivale’ event, a soccer match between Hobart United and the Launceston Eagles to raise awareness of the project, accompanied by a carnival at which sporting associations and clubs can talk to young migrants about their sports and opportunities for involvement. ‘Sportivale’ will be followed by a series of skill-training sessions to introduce youth to sport.

Case study 10: Youth Fusion project (National Action Plan community project) The Youth Fusion project, funded by DIAC and run by the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations (FAIR), will provide an alternative youth activity centre for Muslim Australian youth. Youth Fusion aims to mitigate the key social risk factors of rejection and identity crisis experienced by many Muslim Australian young people at a key transition period in their lives. Youth Fusion will provide those seeking post-secondary school guidance with access to programs which reinforce consistent Islamic and Australian values, develop strong leadership capabilities, establish a clearer identity of themselves as Muslim Australians, and promote an interpretation of Islam consistent with the amiable and mutually beneficial coexistence of Muslim and non-Muslim Australians. The development of the National Action Plan has been informed by commissioned research. Using a range of information sources, the first stage of the research strategy in 2005–06 developed an understanding of the processes of radicalisation linked to contemporary forms of extremist activity and an understanding of the characteristics of individuals that are most susceptible to radicalisation. The next stage of the strategy, being implemented in 2006–07 and subsequent years, will develop an understanding of the ways in which Muslim Australians and mainstream communities may be strengthened to combat radicalisation, with a particular emphasis on the issue of integration and belonging. Mechanisms have been established to ensure an appropriate level of community input into the action plan. A Muslim Community Reference Group was established following a meeting between the Prime Minister and Muslim community leaders on 23 August 2005. It provided input into the development of the National Action Plan by consulting with Muslim Australians through community networks and by holding community forums. It made recommendations in areas such as education, employment, and family and community issues. Consultative arrangements with a focus on the implementation of National Action Plan projects are continuing.

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The government considers that it is vitally important to engage effectively with young people, especially on issues relating to cultural diversity, identity and integration. Youth consultations also build the leadership capacity of young people, who will be able to play a constructive role in their communities in the future. A national Muslim youth summit was held in December 2005, and stateand territory-specific youth summits were held throughout 2006 and early 2007. These youth events brought together a range of young Muslim Australians to discuss issues of concern and possible solutions. Australian Muslim communities are numerous and disparate, reflecting the diversity of Islam across the world. To encourage productive dialogue between Australian religious and community leaders, the Australian Government supported a national two-day conference of Australian imams, with contributions from Muslim leaders, women and youth, in Sydney in September 2006. It brought together more than 100 imams and other religious leaders, as well as other stakeholders, to raise awareness about the role of imams in promoting social cohesion. A central theme of the conference was professional development for imams and other Muslim religious leaders in Australia.

Connecting communities and government Australian Government programs which respond to issues of social cohesion, such as those described above, are built on a foundation of engagement with community, business and government organisations across Australia. This engagement promotes partnerships and helps the government to identify issues of concern to Australian communities. Community liaison activities are carried out through a network of officers in all states and territories who maintain contact with over 8000 local and national community and other organisations. Historically, the community liaison officer network has played a crucial role in informing government about migrant communities and community relations issues. Community liaison officers work to maintain close rapport with community leaders and gain their confidence and respect. They identify key issues within communities and facilitate productive communication between the government and those communities. In essence, community liaison activities promote both national unity and social cohesion. While community liaison officers have traditionally focused their activities on ethnic communities, this is changing. The network is starting to play a wider role supporting other cultural diversity programs, and is seeking to understand and respond to issues within, and beyond, Australia’s migrant communities. There is increasing focus on the promotion of national unity and shared values, while respecting and appreciating the different cultural, faith and linguistic backgrounds of all Australians. These officers continue to report on ethnic community relations issues, but are increasingly undertaking a range of additional activities that expand their reach into the Australian community, including mainstream sporting and volunteering bodies, service delivery agencies, businesses and local government councils.

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Indirect contact with communities is also facilitated through the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA). FECCA is the national peak body representing Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. It is funded by the government to promote the benefits of cultural diversity, our shared values as Australians and the messages of opportunity and respect. FECCA also represents and provides advice to government on Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Apart from its national office staff, FECCA is supported by the work of a voluntary Executive Council. It is linked to the community through a network of affiliated Multicultural/Ethnic Communities’ Councils, one in each state and territory, as well as 18 Regional Councils. FECCA works in partnership with various mainstream bodies, such as community organisations, research institutions and universities.

Conclusion Australia has an arguable advantage over other countries in achieving social cohesion, arising from its successful history as a migration country. Since the establishment of an immigration program 60 years ago, Australian governments have built on this social advantage by continually working to meet the challenges arising from immigration and the resulting cultural diversity. The Australian Government’s approach emphasises the practical. To achieve the best outcomes for migrants, and for Australia as a whole, government programs must respond to the needs of clients, enhancing the ability of all to achieve self-reliance. By providing opportunities for all to participate in and contribute to national life, fair and responsive government programs not only contribute to individual outcomes but also benefit the country as a whole. Fairness and responsiveness are also essential for effective government, to build institutional trust, and to provide leadership to the whole community about respect between Australians. The Australian Government’s response to cultural diversity builds on past experience and looks to the future. Through specific initiatives, through its overall response to cultural diversity as characterising Australia and Australians, through concerted whole-of-government approaches and by listening to Australia’s many voices, the government is confident it is paving the way for a prosperous and cohesive future for all Australians.

PART II THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL COHESION

5 The landmark of Cronulla Jock Collins

In Sydney on Sunday, 11 December 2005, riots on Sydney’s Cronulla beach sent a tremor through Australian community relations. Images of thousands of mainly drunk white males chasing and bashing isolated men and women of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ were compelling viewing for media audiences in Australia, and overseas (Poynting 2006). Days later, a retaliatory gang of males of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ sought revenge in a smash, bash and flee raid in their cars on the suburbs surrounding Cronulla. For months afterwards, an unprecedentedly large police presence dominated the sandscape of Sydney’s famous beaches, successfully preventing further reverberations and escalation of racial conflict. The ramifications and significance of these events should not be underestimated. Sydney is one of the greatest immigrant cities in the world today. At the 2001 Census 58 per cent of Sydneysiders were first- or second-generation immigrants, with some 180 birthplaces recorded for the city’s resident population. Australia overall has, in relative terms, more immigrants from a greater diversity of backgrounds than most countries in the world today, making it one of the most cosmopolitan of contemporary Western nations. To some international commentators (Huntington 1997, 2004), the clash of ethnicities and religions, mostly a product of immigration policies, threatens Western societies in fundamental ways, particularly after 9/11. Recent events overseas and in Australia associate immigration and ethnic diversity with conflict and violence. To the critics of Australian immigration and multiculturalism, these riots, combined with instances of ethnic conflict in Europe and North America, were confirmation that immigrant minorities inevitably bring conflict to their host country, threatening social cohesion and dividing the nation, particularly when these immigrants include minorities from Asia, the Middle East and Africa. 61

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But can these conclusions be derived from the Cronulla incident? In order to help gauge the severity of the social conflict at Cronulla beach, and get a sense of proportion, it is important to review other incidences of ethnic conflict and violence involving immigrant minorities internationally and in Australia. This chapter explores inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic violence in Australia and other countries to provide a lens for viewing the Cronulla riots. It also investigates the context of the riots and explores how they help to understand the relationship between immigration, ethnic diversity and social cohesion and conflict in Australia. The chapter also considers the policy implications of the riots, including the lessons for Australian multicultural policy and other responses in Sydney. The events at Cronulla beach can only be understood within the broader lens of the changing, and uneven, processes of the racialisation (Miles 1989, 1993) of immigrant minorities in Australia and what determines it. The chapter concludes that cohesion and conflict coexist in cosmopolitan Australian society, with most evidence suggesting that cohesion is the norm and conflicts such as Cronulla the exception. Nevertheless, Cronulla provided a wake-up call against complacency; it reminded us of the challenges and benefits in cosmopolitan societies and the political responsibilities of leaders to manage ethnic diversity, as well as the dangers of political opportunism in exploiting racist undercurrents for shortterm electoral ambition.

Theoretical aspects Social cohesion is hard to define and study. Its opposite is social conflict. But all societies exhibit conflict between different groups over time, oscillating between moments of cohesion and conflict. How much or what kind of conflict shifts a society from cohesive to divisive? In making this judgement, it is also important to acknowledge that social conflict in not necessarily a bad thing. The feminist movement in Western countries like Australia in the latter part of the 20th century, for example, had to confront existing power structures and ideology to gain a footing for gender equality. And the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela, had to resort to extreme forms of conflict to overturn apartheid in South Africa. Perhaps the medical metaphor of good and bad cholesterol is useful here: what sorts of conflict – when, where and between whom – are good and what bad? The answer lies partly in the theory of society that researchers employ, and partly on different interpretations of particular instances of social conflict. According to the Marxist view of capitalist society, class conflict is the driving force of history; a society without it would be one without a past, present and future. On the other hand, Talcott Parsons (1949: 182–99) saw cohesion as a central category, with society held together by shared values in which every individual or subsystem had a function conducive to the well-being of the whole. Conflict in this sense was ‘dysfunctional’. For the Chicago school of sociology, conflict by ethnic groups was a necessary stage in the path to successful immigrant assimilation. In Robert Park’s (1922) early theory of a ‘race relations cycle’, ethnic conflict was an inevitable but

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intermediate stage that all new ethnic groups traversed on the way to assimilation in a Western metropolis: The most obvious source and origin of most, if not all of the cultural and racial conflicts which constitutes our race problems, are, therefore, conflicts of the ‘we groups’ and the ‘other groups’ . . . They are, in fact, individual instances of an irrepressible conflict between the folk culture of the provinces and the civilization of the metropolis. (Park 2000: 111)

Other approaches to ethnic conflict see conflict or prejudice as emerging from human nature, relegating racism to human pathology (Ardrey 1967). Social psychological approaches, on the other hand, relate individual attitudes which lead to conflicts – such as racism and prejudice – to social problems and social structures. Hence Max Weber (1970) saw ethnic conflict as a rational behaviour of ethnic groups designed to maximise the IR power in the marketplace. But as Cope and colleagues (1991: 26) argue, this ignores class relations and the links between economic and political power.

International views Inter-ethnic conflict in Western societies has appeared regularly on television screens in the past few decades. In the most extreme recent examples – the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia and the mass slaughter in Rwanda – the conflict was not related to diverse immigration programs, and Yugoslavia was a country of emigration rather than immigration. Most other European and North American countries with varying histories of international migration have seen social conflict involving settler minorities (Castles & Miller 2003). Britain experienced ‘race riots’ in Brixton in the early 1980s (Solomos 1989). Decades later in 2001, ethnic conflict ignited in Burnley and Oldham (Ascherson 2002). While the causes of these conflicts are complex, the Stephen Lawrence affair identified racist policing as one key underlying element. The 1999 Macpherson report (Cathcart 2000) into the death of Stephen Lawrence exposed the extent of police racism in Britain and proposed a series of police reforms. Young men of Afro-Caribbean and Asian background were the focus of this conflict. Following the bombing of the London Underground on 7 June 2005, youth of Middle Eastern and/or Muslim background have been perceived as a new threat to British society. In the Netherlands, Pym Fortuyn’s rapid rise into the Dutch political limelight in 2002 ended with his assassination on 6 May, just nine days before he could test national support for his List Fortuyn party in national elections. Fortuyn was opposed to Muslim immigrants and had argued that 90 per cent of street crime in Rotterdam was committed by Moroccan and other immigrants (Osborn 2002), once again linking recent ethnic conflict to alleged ethnic criminality. More recently, the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gough was murdered after he made an anti-Islamic film. In this instance it was the Muslim immigrant minority that was seen as threatening Dutch social cohesion.

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In France in November 2005, following the electrocution of two Muslim youth fleeing from police, their kinsfolk who lived in the public housing estates in the north-western suburbs of Paris initiated a series of riots that spread to many other suburbs for nearly a month. Thousands of cars were burnt and confrontation with police and authorities a nightly occurrence. The unemployment rate for Muslim youth in these north-western suburbs, characterised by poor public housing, was over 50 per cent (Symons 2005). None of these instances of social conflict involving immigrant minorities in Europe could match the extent of the conflict generated in the Los Angeles ‘race riots’ of May 1992. When the flames were doused and law and order restored to the streets of LA, the enormous magnitude of the social conflict emerged: 54 dead; 2383 injured; 17 000 people arrested; 5200 buildings damaged or destroyed by fire; losses estimated to be $US1 billion (Newsweek 18 May 1992, p. 45). This was not a simple black versus white conflict. Black Americans joined recent Latino immigrants on the streets in looting and rioting. Their anger, born out of persistent economic disadvantage and political disenfranchisement, was not just directed at white LA police but also at wealthy Korean immigrant entrepreneurs who owned businesses in black areas of the city but lived elsewhere. This was not a race but a cosmopolitan riot. In the same month in 1992 in Toronto, Canada’s largest immigrant city, ‘a mob of about 1000 people, mostly youth of various races, ran through downtown Toronto streets on Monday Night vandalising property and breaking into stores’ (Globe and Mail 6 May 1992). The ‘Toronto riot’ shocked Canadians more than the events in LA: Canada in general and Toronto in particular prided itself in being a tolerant, multicultural society where all cultures mingle freely and equally. Like the LA riots, racism among police was found to be a major factor in the Toronto killing (Collins & Henry 1994). These instances of ethnic or racial conflict in Europe and North America had a number of things in common. The young male immigrant minorities at the centre of the conflict, who generally came from socially disadvantaged families and neighbourhoods, had problems identifying with the mainstream of the new society. In each case, relations between immigrant minorities and police before and during the events of ethnic conflict were a catalyst, with subsequent inquiries often recommending substantial changes to the methods, attitudes and practices of police. In each case right-wing politicians strengthened their anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism rhetoric.

Australian perspectives In the history of Australian immigration before 1947, conflict and violence appeared at regular intervals. In the middle of the 19th century anti-Chinese riots occurred on many goldfields, including at Hanging Rock in 1852, Bendigo in 1854, Buckland River in 1857 and Lambing Flat in 1861 (McQueen 1970: 44–5). Massive mobilisation against Chinese immigrants in New South Wales and Victoria and Kanaka labour in the Queensland canefields laid the ground for the White Australia policy to be introduced at Federation in 1901, with unusually

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widespread support (Price 1974; Saunders 1975: 180; Markus 1979). In the first decades of the 20th century, the opposition to Southern European immigrants from Greece and Italy, who replaced Chinese immigrants as unskilled labour, led to violence and conflict that derived from, in the words of the Ferry Commission that reported in 1925, ‘Australia’s fear and suspicion of Southern Europeans’ (de Lepervanche 1975: 98–9). In 1934 anti-Italian riots occurred in Melbourne when Italian immigrants were used as strike-breakers by employers on Melbourne’s wharves. An even more serious conflict occurred the same year in Kalgoorlie when more than a dozen shops owned by Southern European immigrants were looted and at least five Italian, Greek and Slav clubs and hotels were burnt to the ground (Price 1963: 210). At least two people died and countless others were wounded, with Church (2005: 188) describing these events as ‘Australia’s worst race riot’. After World War II, following the start of the ambitious postwar immigration program, instances of inter-ethnic conflict are hard to find. It is true that there are records of a number of antisemitic activities; of conflict between Vietnamese and Turkish youth in Broadmeadows, Melbourne (Chauvel & Petanszki 1986); and of Greek community marches in the late 1980s opposing the naming of Macedonia. There were also clashes between supporters of ethnically based soccer teams, such as that of 2004–05 in Sydney at matches between teams with Serbian and Croatian followers. This led Soccer Australia to end ethnically based teams and develop a national competition of city-based ones (the National Soccer League). In February 2007, fights between supporters of two Sicilian teams led to the deaths of two policemen and the suspension of the Italian Series A and all other football competition. But when judged against earlier Australian experience, or recent international experience of ethnic conflict, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the post-1945 Australian immigration experience has been remarkably free of serious ethnic conflict. Among the worst instances of inter-ethnic conflict in Australia in the postwar period are those suffered by Muslim, Sikh and other visible minorities following the Desert Storm war in 1990 and the invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s. One consequence of these events, for example in the early 1990s, was that Australians of a Muslim and/or Arab background were subject to extensive racial vilification, abuse and physical attacks (HREOC 1991). A report by the Committee on Discrimination Against Arab Australians (1992) documented racist incidents against Arabs and Muslims for the period November 1990 to July 1991. Many families reported harassment at their homes and in the streets, shopping centres, schools and communities. Many women wearing the hijab reported harassment from passing cars and in parking lots. Physical violence was also widespread, with reports of Arabs being spat at or incurring physical injury, including women who had their hijab pulled or torn. In one incident, a car was deliberately run into and damaged, while in another an Arab man died of a heart attack after being racially harassed by a group of teenagers. Widespread property damage was also reported. A Muslim school and restaurant in Perth, Western Australia, were subject to arson attacks after threatening phone calls, and in other homes and restaurants broken windows and graffiti were common. Many mosques and offices of Arab and Muslim organisations were attacked repeatedly, while staff

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received threatening phone calls and mail threats. One Islamic Centre in one outer Sydney suburb was fire-bombed in January 1991. Immediately after the events of 9/11, a Hot Line established in New South Wales on 13 September 2001 recorded a significant number of incidents of physical, verbal and sexual assault; threat; racial discrimination or harassment; and damage to property. While this was mostly directed at Australians visibly of a Muslim or Arab background – half of all victims were female with over half of all calls received from Arabic speakers – it was not confined to these groups, with Australian Sikhs also reporting abuse and violence (UTS Shopfront 2005). A national consultation by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), with 1423 Arab and Muslim Australians, conducted an audit of 100 local and state government groups and community organisations after 9/11 and the first Bali bombing. It found that most Muslims consulted had experienced escalating prejudice that ranged from ‘offensive remarks about race or religion to physical violence’ (HREOC 2004: 2). The report noted that ‘people readily identifiable as Muslim because of their dress or appearance were particular targets of racist violence and abuse’ and that ‘Muslim women who wear the hijab, niqab or chador have been especially at risk’ (ibid.: 45). Physical attacks, threats of violence and attempted assaults were widely reported, as were a number of incidents of vandalism on what was identifiably the property of Muslim organisations or individuals, with one mosque in Queensland fire-bombed and burnt to the ground (ibid.: 49). These incidents were reported as having occurred on the street, at home, in private and public transport, in shops and shopping malls, at school, college and university and at work.

The Cronulla riots On 11 December 2005 Australian and international television screens carried shocking visual footage of a violent, drunken mob of some 5000 mainly ‘white’ male Australians, most with beer can in hand and many draped in the Australian flag, verbally abusing, attacking and beating the few individuals of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ they could find nearby. The gathering was a widely publicised and promoted response to ‘save our beaches’ in the aftermath of a fight between three surf lifesavers and a group of four Lebanese-background young men that had occurred at Cronulla beach the weekend before. This fight was widely reported and condemned as ‘un-Australian’ in the Sydney print and electronic media, which also reported that a rally – called ‘the battle of the beach’ by the Sydney tabloid the Telegraph – was to be held the following weekend to ‘reclaim’ the beach. Mobile phone text messages called on wide support at the rally. The Telegraph ensured that those who were not party to the texting network were aware of it, by reprinting the following message: This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to help support Leb and wog bashing day . . . Bring your mates and let’s show them that this is our beach and they are never welcome . . . let’s kill these boys.

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The shock-jocks used their airwaves to promote the rally. After reading out this message during his radio program on radio station 2GB, Alan Jones, one of the most prominent and widely syndicated of the Sydney shock-jocks, encouraged widespread support for the rally with the words ‘Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge’ (Poynting 2006). Callers to his program recounted many instances when young ‘Aussie’ women had been insulted by Muslim, Lebanese or Middle Eastern men who were alleged to have no respect for women (Manning 2006: 257–64). The call was clear: in the tradition of the ANZAC soldiers who died at Gallipoli, it was the duty of young red-blooded men to defend their women and their nation from the enemy within – immigrants from countries in the Middle East – on the sands of Cronulla beach. Journalist Paul Sheehan (2006: 351–71) had a different perspective, telling the story of the young whites who sided with the mobilisation against the Lebanese/Muslim/Middle Eastern community. In this account the behaviour of Lebanese/Muslim/Middle Eastern males justified the response as a protest against racism (the racism of those of Middle Eastern appearance towards whites) and dismissed the arguments that those whites participating in the riots were in any way racist themselves (ibid.: 362). What are the implications of the Cronulla riots for assessing social cohesion and racism? Some (ibid.) see the events as proof that Australia’s immigration and multiculturalism policies are not working. This is ironic, since the program of Australian multiculturalism (Castles et al. 1988; Collins 1991) was dismantled after the election of the Howard government in 1996. Indeed, by the end of 2006 both the Howard government and the Labor opposition had replaced multiculturalism with ‘integration’ as the key word expressing the essence of Australia’s settlement philosophy and policy for new immigrant settlers. In my view, more multiculturalism, not less, is required. The roots of much disquiet among Middle Eastern minority youth in Australia and their conflict with white Anglo-Celtic youth lie more in the realm of socio-economic disadvantage, masculinity and youth subcultures than it does in ethnic difference. Issues of masculinity and territoriality have led to violence between groups of young men in Australia well before the postwar immigration program changed the face of Sydney and Australian society. Strategies related to education, employment, local neighbourhood facilities and infrastructures, policing and the media for immigrant minority youth are more likely to yield positive results than continual questioning of the functionality of the Australian immigrant communities. For decades Australian multiculturalism has emphasised policies and programs to help new immigrants at school, in the community and at work, as well as the right for the cultural and linguistic difference of immigrant minorities to be respected and expressed in public. The backbone of Australian multiculturalism policy, at least in its first decades, was social justice for all, irrespective of language or cultural or religious background. Today there is a need for an urgent revitalisation of Australian multiculturalism, not its abandonment. The issue of Australian racism has also come into the spotlight since 9/11 (AntiDiscrimination Board of New South Wales 2003) and, more recently, Cronulla. To his credit, NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma criticised the racism from the white crowds, and labelled their behaviour un-Australian. But racism is not

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exclusive to whites in Australian society. It has emerged from elements of Lebanese and Middle Eastern communities – including those involved in the retaliation violence after the Cronulla beach riot – as well as from many other immigrant and indigenous minorities. It suggests that anti-racism must be a central plank of Australian multiculturalism, and that innovative programs to refresh and renew it are required today. Other commentators have seen in the events of Cronulla a fulfilment of Geoffrey Blainey’s fears (1984) that non-British immigrants were a threat to cohesion. However, the fact that the events of Cronulla are so rare is evidence for a counterview, which is that, despite all odds to the contrary, Australia’s ethnic diversity has occurred mainly without social conflict. People from all corners of the globe live in Sydney. At any moment some of Sydney’s immigrant communities are in conflict somewhere in the world. And yet rarely does this international conflict overflow into the streets and neighbourhoods of Australian life. It was popular to conclude from the LA riots in 1992 that ethnic diversity will inevitably bring conflict. But the lesson of the LA riots is different. It is that unless everything is done to ensure that new immigrants have as much opportunity to work, live and participate in society at all levels as non-immigrants – and this was not the case in the United States, where there is political disenfranchisement, social alienation, and no adequate safety-nets – ethnic diversity will probably lead to conflict. The United States does not have the Australian tradition of multicultural programs and services to assist new immigrants to settle and to climb up the ladder of American society. In this important sense Australian multiculturalism is the safety-net that has helped steer our culturally diverse society towards social cohesion and away from social conflict between ethnic groups.

Cronulla and multiculturalism The Cronulla riots were an expression of ethnic tensions in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities. But set against the history of ethnic relations and ethnic conflict in Australia, Europe and North America, they hardly constitute sufficient evidence to support the arguments of the critics of immigrant minorities and non-discriminatory immigration policy. The Cronulla beach riot did not appear in the frontline suburbs of diverse, immigrant minority settlement, such as those south-western Sydney suburbs of Lakemba or Fairfield or Liverpool (Collins et al. 2000), but in a white enclave. No one died, though there was personal injury and property damage, as well as much undermining of Sydney’s international reputation. The riots were not the darkest of Australia’s recent experiences with ethnic conflict, a badge worn by Australia’s Islamic or ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ community in the post-9/11 years. The background to Cronulla included the international events of post-9/11, the 2001 Australian national election and its contentious ‘children overboard’ incident (Marr & Wilkinson 2003), as well as the Sydney context of a politicalopportunist law-and-order debate built on the moral panic about ethnic crime (Collins et al. 2000; Poynting et al. 2004). Cronulla can thus also be read as the latest chapter in anti-Arabic and anti-Muslim inter-ethnic conflict in Australia.

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In the words of journalist Peter Manning (2006: 266), ‘we are in grave danger of seeing all Arabic and Muslim Australians as “the enemy”’. But the cloud of a crisis in social relations between Arab and Muslim Australians on the one hand and white Australia on the other has a silver lining: the realisation that these conflicts in Australia have not reached the levels of other countries today or earlier periods of Australian history. Prejudice and tolerance coexist in Australian history. That tolerance seems to win out on most occasions, however, does not redress the ugliness or seriousness of the moments of inter-ethnic conflict anywhere in Australian cities. The seriousness of Cronulla and the sentiments that propelled it should not be denied. In many ways, Cronulla is a wake-up call to Australian society, particularly its cosmopolitan metropolises. It exposed the ever-present tension between tolerance and prejudice, racism and multiculturalism, cohesion and conflict, and is a call to highly multicultural nations of the need to tread carefully: to nurture inter-ethnic relations and not undermine them for opportunistic political purposes. The Cronulla riots are a rather crude reminder of the responsibilities that go with non-discriminatory immigration policy at a time when increasing globalisation is increasing the size and diversity of immigration flows around the world. The Los Angeles and Paris riots and others are sometimes cited as evidence that ethnic diversity means social conflict. Australian cultural diversity is now a permanent feature of contemporary and future Australian society, requiring a settlement policy designed to deal with diversity and to achieve social cohesion. An abandonment of multiculturalism is exactly the opposite of what is needed. The lesson from the LA riots is not that ethnic conflict is the inevitable consequence of a society becoming increasingly culturally diverse through immigration. Rather it is that culturally diverse societies require policies and programs, with substantial public sector investment, to give all people the opportunity of economic advancement, social inclusion and participation in public life and public spaces. The safety-net of social security payments and access to health, education and other services are important here. If ethnic diversity is not supported by welfare and other programs and services, particularly during the initial settlement period, the ensuing economic, social and political exclusion of ethnic minorities will threaten social cohesion. Consequently, multiculturalism needs properly resourced programs of English language tuition, recognition of qualifications, translation services, education, health, housing and welfare programs, and services to help new immigrant minorities who are today keenly sought by Australia in a fierce global competition to fill labour market shortages and skill gaps. It also needs to resolve past weaknesses in multicultural policy, especially the place of Indigenous peoples. Multicultural policy can be developed to overcome these weaknesses, but it is not clear that a new integration policy would be able to do so. Unless integration policy aims to give all Australians every chance to participate equally and cohesively in all aspects of social and economic life, it is unlikely to succeed.

6 Policing the other: Lebanese young people in a climate of conflict Rob White

The intention of this chapter is to discuss the issue of policing and social cohesion by examining the relationship between Lebanese-Australian youth in western Sydney and the New South Wales police. Nationally, there is no doubt that relations between the police and ethnic minority youth continue to be fraught with difficulties, tensions and problems, as well as important positive policing developments (see White 2006). But the major flashpoint for conflict today is Sydney. Why this is so and what can be done to remedy the situation is the focus of this chapter. Discussion of policing, ethnicity and youth has to acknowledge the historical background to specific conflict situations, the triggers to these, and the legacy of inappropriate policing strategies in fomenting ongoing conflicts into the future. From a policing point of view, the challenge is to weigh up and evaluate both tactical issues relating to appropriate forms of intervention and the use of force in particular situations, and longer-term strategic issues relating to the maintenance and enhancement of general community relationships. From a community viewpoint, the questions are: are the police with us, or against us? At the heart of this is a concern to find ways to improve police–community relationships in a practical and workable manner. Such relationships have been damaged by the criminal actions of a few people within certain communities and the resultant negative media publicity. They have also suffered at the hands of consistently bad policing policy and practice over a fairly long time. While the main interest of this chapter is the relationship between LebaneseAustralian youth and the police, it is worth noting that other communities in this country have also had to contend with poor relationships with the police. Indigenous people have long had a fractious relationship with police nationwide, in no small part due to the role of the police in enforcing colonial power (see Cunneen 2001). Recent events, such as the Redfern riots and the riots at Palm Island, stemmed directly from police intervention of some kind that was associated with 70

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the death of an Indigenous person. As these and the events at Macquarie Fields in 2005 illustrate, longstanding resentments within marginalised communities can suddenly come to the fore when circumstances change quickly. The combination of communal disadvantage and ineffective policing is volatile. Conflicts arising from this are also rooted in longstanding social, economic and cultural disparities that periodically give rise to and are made manifest in riots and group antisocial behaviour. The shaping of communities over time is crucial to understanding why at any one moment a particular crisis may emerge. As well, analysis of the historical development of specific geographical areas and ethnic communities provides insight into the formation of street gangs and the like. Again, this is highly relevant to police work and police perceptions of what needs to be done to maintain public order. How youth in particular areas are policed both reflects and reinforces the gang imagery, and gang-like behaviour, of ethnic minority youth in western Sydney (White 2007). How the youth in such areas are policed, in turn, affects how broad community–police relations will be experienced generally.

Gangs and policing Gang research in Australia over the last decade and a half has confirmed the centrality of ethnicity in how gangs are socially constructed in places such as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (Collins et al. 2000; White et al. 1999; Foote 1993). This is so both at the level of popular image – as reflected in media fixations with ‘ethnic youth gangs’ – and in regard to the social activities of large groups of (mainly) young men at the local neighbourhood level. For Sydney’s LebaneseAustralian youth in particular, a social process has occurred over a number of years in which social difference has been transformed into social deviance. That is, even though most of the young men were born in Australia or have been here since they were little children, they are treated as outsiders. Already subject to economic disadvantage and social marginalisation, a generation of young people has grown up in a social atmosphere that is very hostile to their culture, to their community, to their religion and to their very presence. The outcome of this ‘Othering’ process has been captured in sustained academic studies of these young people and their neighbourhoods. For example, Collins and colleagues (2000) observe that for many young people the way to overcome marginalisation and alienation is to find other ways to affirm their social presence: to form or join a gang. From this vantage point, gang membership is significant, not because of presumed criminality, but because it is a way of valorising their lives and empowering the young men in the face of outside hostility, disrespect and vilification. Not all young people who experience marginalisation or who engage in violence end up in street gangs, but these do have a major bearing on gang formation and membership. What recent studies and recent events have shown is the potential for extreme aggression and mass violence stemming from profoundly oppressive social circumstances. Racism permeates the lives of many of the young Muslim men as it does other ethnic minority groups in Sydney and elsewhere (HREOC 2004).

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Coupled with economic, social and political marginalisation, it is no wonder that violence of varying kinds features prominently in the lives of these young people. The central paradox, however, is that the more they try to defend themselves, the more likely they are to be targets. The more they resort to membership of street groups and engage in fighting to assert themselves, the more they will be treated as outsiders and as deviant (see White & Perrone 2001). As such, they become ready targets for police intervention. It is useful to put into context the contemporary relations between police and Lebanese-Australian young people by briefly reflecting on similar things that have occurred in the past. For example, there is interesting overlap in how the ‘larrikins’ and the ‘Lebanese’ of Sydney have experienced policing at various times in the city’s history (White 2007). As with Lebanese-Australian youth today, children and youth of the working classes in the 19th century were implicated in a succession of moral panics relating to their activities and presence on the street. It was in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1880s that the Australian youth group formations known as the larrikins were most prominent and visible, although these groups were also of concern in places such as Brisbane (Murray 1973; Maunders 1984; Finch 1993; Finnane 1994). By the 1880s many of the larrikins (and their female partners, the larrikinesses or donahs) were organising into ‘pushes’, that is, gangs. The crucial thing about the push larrikins was their street presence. They basically socialised and lived in the streets of the working-class neighbourhoods of Melbourne and Sydney. Most larrikin activity was essentially harmless and trivial, notwithstanding injuries and even occasionally deaths arising from street fights and that sort of thing. The push larrikins revelled in their sartorial appearance, as it expressed who they were and created a sense of shared identity. They would hang around on street corners and make suggestive remarks to passers-by. Sometimes these remarks were abusive, sometimes they were accompanied by physical intimidation and assaults. More often than not they were highly objectionable; they were intended precisely to offend the more ‘respectable’ members of society. The comportment and attitudes were, from the beginning, designed to upset as well as to empower. Extensive negative media treatment of larrikins and larrikinism from the 1880s to the turn of the century saw concerted attempts to curtail their activities. According to Murray (1973: 78), the term ‘larrikin’ was to gain an official status in the records of crime in 1883. In relation to an assault and robbery, the description of the wanted youths stated that they are of ‘larrikin appearance’. The identification of larrikins as an offender category was further transposed into the notion of ‘larrikin-type offences’ (see Finnane 1994: 9). The association between larrikins, larrikinism and specific types of offences allowed for an even greater sense of targeting and labelling. It actively facilitated and justified official interventions that were highly distinctive, discrete and discriminatory. A hundred years or so later, ethnicity (rather than class as such) is seen to be central to group formation and more generally to the gang phenomenon. Young people in the western suburbs of Sydney have featured prominently in media reports and academic study in recent years. From the media and politicians’ point of view, young Muslim men – of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’ – have

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become the bˆete noire of sensationalised reportage and political intolerance (see Poynting et al. 2004). Lebanese young Australians are the larrikins of modern Sydney ‘outrages’. Their groups are equivalent to the pushes that were deemed so threatening to Sydneysiders of yesteryear. However, the folk devils of today are more than simply larrikins – they are also ‘foreign’. A particular problem for these young people is the racialised reporting of crime when the media deal specifically with Lebanese youth. Ethnic identifiers are used in relation to some groups, but not others (such as Anglo-Celtic Australians). Moreover, the explanations for such ‘ethnic crime’ tend to pathologise the group, as though there is something intrinsically bad about being Lebanese or more generally Middle Eastern. Such explanations also suggest that the origins of the criminality stem from outside Australia and are related to immigration and foreign ideas and cultures, rather than being linked to social and economic inequalities within this country. Such racialisation has a major impact on public perceptions of the people and the issues, and on how state agencies such as the police respond to these perceptions (Collins et al. 2000). Moral panics surrounding these young people have, from the very beginning, been framed in ethnic rather than class terms. Just as the ‘street Arab’ of 19thcentury London connoted ‘un-British’, so too the Arab on the street today signifies ‘un-Australian’. In a fashion similar to the description of larrikinism as an offence, there is an implicit offence category in the New South Wales police description, people of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’. In part this offence stems from the actions of a few young men, which are then transposed on to the community as a whole. The fact that there is now a specific Middle Eastern gangs squad within the New South Wales police further reinforces the idea that somehow these particular ethnic minority young men, and these particular communities, are different and more troublesome than other young men and other communities within the state. All of this serves to reproduce the fiction that somehow the Middle Eastern gang is a product of immigration, an import to our shores, rather than a social phenomenon created and sustained by rampant media vilification and social and economic disenfranchisement. These processes continue to have big implications for the policing of ethnically based youth groups.

Police practices and racial profiling Perceptions of criminality on the part of the police are an important ingredient in how community–police relations are constructed at the grassroots level (Collins et al. 2000). Racial profiling can certainly entrench negativity in these relations, particularly if it is linked to a crime control agenda rather than one where the emphasis is on social inclusion and access and equity (Gillies 2004). Negative forms of racial profiling involve police assumptions that some ethnic groups are more likely to commit crime than others, and to target such groups accordingly. Moreover, such profiling tends to be based on officer interpretations of typical offender appearance and typical racial characterisations. In other words, there is great scope for police intervention to be based on stereotyped and subjective assessment, with the individual officer making the determination

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about the individual’s appearance. Ethnicity, and criminality, is in the eye of the beholder – who in this instance is the police officer. A key issue in discussions about ethnicity and crime is how authorities construct and interpret relevant crime statistics (Cunneen & White 2007). There are compelling arguments for a more systematic compilation of crime and criminal justice statistics pertaining to juvenile offending that incorporate ethnic background. There is also a need to quantify the differential treatment of different groups within the juvenile justice system, and statistics can be useful in uncovering discrimination and providing the impetus for reform. A key issue to consider is how changes in police recording practices might influence the construction of official crime rates in relation to particular groups, or how these might influence police attitudes towards intervention with such groups (see National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau 1997). The way in which ethnic identity is related to an offender is a matter that is linked directly to the definitions used in police records. For example, the police may refer to specific categories of ethnic classification, such as Caucasian, Asian, Indigenous or Middle Eastern. The extent of ethnic-related crime will reflect both police perceptions of ethnic background (since it is the police who usually identify a person’s ethnicity for record-keeping purposes) and the arbitrary nature of categorisation itself (referring here to the criteria used to define each category, and the overall number of categories). From a criminal justice perspective, ethnicity is often used primarily as a marker of social distinction that provides a shorthand way of identifying potential offenders or troublemakers. This type of record-keeping can exacerbate, rather than alleviate, tensions between police and ethnic minority youth, and serve to entrench stereotypes about the relationship between ethnicity and offending. In recent years, the Lebanese community in Sydney provides a prime example of differential policing based on group affiliation and the type of racial profiling discussed above. This has been explored at great length by Collins and colleagues (2000) and Poynting and colleagues (2004). These authors give detailed accounts of how the ‘Arab Other’ has been socially constructed through a complex process involving recurrent negative media portrayals, prejudiced political pronouncements and racist populist rhetoric. One consequence of the Othering of people of ‘Middle Eastern’ appearance and background (itself an ideologically constructed category) is that police actively refer to them, and treat them, very differently from other groups of young people. This is regardless of levels of criminality in particular neighbourhoods, or among particular groups. The image of criminality and deviance has not only symbolic effects (in reinforcing differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’), but it translates into specific policing practices that work to reinforce social exclusion and outsider status among young Lebanese-Australian people in particular. How governments respond to youth behaviour, let alone youth criminal behaviour, is heavily influenced by the media and the political climate of moral panic and anti-youth reporting. One consequence of this has been to evoke controlling and punitive measures on the part of some jurisdictions and policymakers, with major implications for policing and police strategies. This is especially apparent in New South Wales. Indeed, the model that best describes the policing of Lebanese-Australian youth is that of zero tolerance policing.

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Philosophically, the concept of zero tolerance refers to the idea of taking crime seriously by getting tough on it at its source. This is interpreted as taking preemptive police action in certain places (city hotspots) and against certain people (youth gangs). The approach is essentially coercive in nature, and involves stepped-up general surveillance, monitoring of specific areas and groups of people, and active use of force and arrest, even in the case of minor offences such as street littering or offensive language. Any behaviour, activity, or group deemed to be antisocial is not to be tolerated by authorities (see Dixon 1998; Grabosky 1999; Marshall 1999). The response to the Cronulla riots in Sydney in the holiday period 2005–06 – which saw the use of police roadblocks across major arteries, the passing of legislation that greatly extended police powers, the deployment of huge numbers of police in the southern beaches area, and a paramilitary style of intervention – provides a prime example of zero tolerance ‘no nonsense’ policing (see NSW Ombudsman 2006). Such an approach relies heavily on police intervention, and, increasingly, intervention by private police and security guards. It puts police at the centre of responding to disorderliness (see Palmer 1997: 234), and in so far as this is the case, represents a form of coercive crime control that has little direct or meaningful community involvement. It is a top-down approach to crime and social regulation. The aggressive targeting of young Lebanese Australians for zero tolerance policing constitutes a major undermining of community policing and of community relations more generally (Poynting 1999). Furthermore, it is often linked to specific types of verbal and physical violence and incidents of police maltreatment of young people. The targeting of particular ethnic minority youth in this way also reinforces a climate of conflict in which social difference and disreputable status are generated, and combined, in the act of police intervention itself. To put it differently, the more you harass and target specific groups, and the more resentful and uncooperative they become, the more likely they will be perceived as of outsider status generally and the more likely it is that they will act in ways that justify further police intervention. One implication of this is that the negative interventions of the police may well feed into the wider race debate by virtue of the tendency for minority groups to be vilified for their alleged lawlessness and antisocial behaviour.

Towards community policing Perhaps the most significant source of difficulty and consternation with regards to social cohesion today relates to the ‘war on terror’ and the symbolic division of the world into so-called Western and Muslim civilisations. Tragic events and propaganda wars reflect and reinforce serious divisions within Australian, and indeed global, society, and these divisions are likewise evident at the level of neighbourhood politics and social relationships. For particular groups of young people, especially those identified as Middle Eastern, questions of social identity and social belonging are paramount and more important than ever before. How these widespread and more generalised social processes – of integration, incorporation, exclusion and vilification – get translated into specifically

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criminal justice concerns is vital to understanding the difference between positive and counter-productive policing. Not all interaction between young people and the police is negative, nor does it occur exclusively on the street. Community policing, broadly defined, is now an important part of most police departments. Sometimes this term refers to a particular style of policing; more often, it refers to particular types of police practices or to specific policing projects. Many of these are linked to programs designed specifically for young people. Sometimes it is directly related to building links with ethnic minority young people. There are many issues underpinning a critical analysis of the notion of community policing. In particular, the relationship between young people and the police can be framed in terms of three key questions: whether policing is in the interests of young people; whether it is being done in a manner that acknowledges their particular social problems; and whether young people themselves can and should have a say in the nature of the policing that occurs in their midst. It needs to be acknowledged that many police around the country are conscious of these issues. The adoption of youth policy statements in places such as Victoria and New South Wales, for example, indicates at least a formal commitment to develop more positive and constructive ways for the police to interact with young people. In the specific area of police–ethnic youth relations, it is notable that one of the outcomes of the 1995 First National Summit on Police and Ethnic Youth Relations was the establishment of State/Territory Implementation Teams by the National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau. These teams comprise a police representative in charge of youth affairs in every jurisdiction and a representative from the youth sector. It was intended that they would be the main vehicles for advocating the implementation of the Summit Recommendations (National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau 1997). In June 2006, members of the (renamed) Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau (APMAB) held a consultative forum in Hobart (APMAB 2006). The forum comprised representation from all police jurisdictions within Australia (with the exception of New South Wales) and New Zealand. The delegates were acutely aware of the issues surrounding multiculturalism, resettlement of refugees, hate crime and the impact of counter-terrorism interventions on community relationships. There was strong support for stepped-up pre-service and in-service anti-racist and cross-cultural training for police. There were innovative ideas and projects related to welcoming recent African migrants into new communities, dealing with international students who were victims of crime, and how to best connect anonymously with culturally and linguistically diverse communities on issues pertaining to family violence. The forum was, in essence, a collective affirmation of the need to devote more time, money, resources and people to building positive relationships with diverse types of communities. There are, however, countervailing forces to these enlightened types of initiative. For instance, the appeal of community policing principles was particularly popular in the 1980s. The idea was to generate a grassroots, participatory model of police–citizen interaction. To a large extent this earlier emphasis on community participation (also involving young people) has been submerged by the advent

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of new public sector managerialism. Progressively over the last two decades, the concern has shifted from community-initiated problem-solving approaches and the accountability of police to local communities, towards centralised corporate strategies. In such centralised strategies the focus has tended to be on preparing strategic plans, mission statements, performance indicators, and measures of effectiveness. Some consequences of this change in management style and structure have been the continued marginalisation of specific police–youth units within particular police services, and little more than lip service being paid by police and politicians to community policing ideals pertaining to young people. The new corporate managerialism is driven by notions of evidence-based performance. The measurement of police effectiveness, however, is constructed around traditional, quantifiable concerns such as number of arrests. The effect of this is to reinforce coercive styles of policing. Furthermore, it is to transform the idea of community policing so that the emphasis is on the policing of communities, rather than policing by and for communities. The possibility that community policing models may actually increase the degree of surveillance and control over young people is especially pertinent to the situation of young ethnic minority people (Chan 1994; Blagg & Wilkie 1995). It is nevertheless clear that there is a modicum of goodwill on the part of selected agencies and particular individuals within the various police services, and genuine commitment to improve police–community relations. But it is equally clear that, given the evidence of unfair treatment and negative street relationships between police and ethnic minority young people presented in this chapter, there is a need for concerted and continuing action and reform across a range of policing domains. These include the mainstreaming of anti-racist and cross-cultural education in policing training (pre-service and in-service); the allocation of even more dedicated resources to community policing units and the integration of community policing principles into operational practices; and the development of mechanisms whereby community accountability (which should involve young people directly) in regard to specific police actions can be assured. Recruitment and retention strategies around culturally and linguistically diverse population groups are also high on APMAB’s agenda, as are communication initiatives involving the provision of multilingual information. One issue that demands greater attention from New South Wales police is that of racial vilification and dealing with racist violence. If anything, the events at Cronulla beach demonstrate the need for concerted efforts in this area. In a period of heightened political agitation around race themes it is not surprising that certain groups (especially people from South-East Asia and the Middle East) have had to cope with a lot more aggression levelled at them. As mentioned earlier, a recent HREOC report (2004) highlights the problems experienced by Arab and Muslim Australians in particular, especially since the horrendous events of September 11, 2001. Things appear to be getting worse, as world events such as war and protests over cartoon images congeal into hatred, violence and conflict at the grassroots level. Racial discrimination and vilification is not reducible to the actions of a few individuals who engage in hate crime as such. Rather, the issues tend to be ingrained in wider community relationships, and police among others are implicated in this process. The police and other agencies, such as schools, have

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to consider carefully how they intervene in such matters. At a minimum it requires a commitment to upholding anti-discrimination principles, to protecting youth from racial taunts and violence, and to being sensitive to the issues surrounding the experience of racism when street fights do occur. Low neighbourhood attachment, economic deprivation and adversity, and community disorganisation are implicated in the constitution of crime-prone areas, so any improvement in police–community relations will have to have a hand in addressing these kinds of issues as well. Changing local social environments is ultimately what counts, and this means engaging and involving young people and their communities in finding solutions to their own problems, with the support of expert advice and contributions by each tier of government. Initiatives that have built on many of the principles and practices outlined above have occasionally been instituted in Sydney (Mitchell & Wong 2002). For example, in addition to coercive tactical measures targeting particular gang members, police and community members intervened in Bankstown and Campsie through an Innovative Models of Police and Community Training (IMPACT) Project in 1999. The project identified a number of local issues, particularly those centering on an escalation of tension between police and Arabic-speaking youth. After a series of consultations, the following four stages of the project were developed and implemented: 1. community induction for probationary and new constables through visits to community and government agencies, mosques, youth centres, etc. 2. a two-day intensive training for all police on local and cultural issues, and how to provide culturally competent service delivery to ethnic minority communities 3. mediated small-group discussions between police and young people to increase greater understanding of each other’s perspective, and to foster support 4. community information forums on policing issues, community expectations, crime prevention and public safety.

As a result of the adoption of these measures, it was claimed that the climate in the community improved significantly (Mitchell & Wong 2002), with, among other things, a noticeable reduction in violent confrontations between police and Arabic youth, and an increase in police morale and job satisfaction. Policing that will be supported by members of the Lebanese community needs to be built on principles and practices that are sensitive to the needs of the community. This means protecting the community from vilification and violence, as well as dealing with criminality within the community itself in respectful and cooperative ways. Consider, for example, the difference between collecting data on ethnicity as part of racial profiling premised on intrusive and coercive forms of intervention and ethnic stereotyping, and that based on community policing best practice. If the theoretical perspective adopted is one of access and equity and social inclusion, then the overall rationale should be to improve service delivery through informed policy development and the development and management of targeted community policing programs for indigenous or ethnic groups. The adoption of this approach would contribute towards the intelligence led policing model in the Australian context. For example, Neighbourhood Watch programs have traditionally been determined by local

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geographical boundaries, but Neighbourhood Watch programs could be established by bringing together ethno-specific groups. Such groups are likely to come from several different traditional Neighbourhood Watch areas, but they would bring unique knowledge and experience that would be missed using the traditional model. (Gillies 2004: 2)

The point here is that working with communities within the context of a social inclusion agenda is much more likely to reap rewards for all concerned than reliance on tactics and strategies that alienate community members, particularly young people.

Conclusion This chapter has argued that the fostering of social cohesion in the case of police and particular ethnic minority communities must be founded on mutual respect and development of close working collaborations. Policing practices that are based mainly on use of force as a key tactical mechanism, and zero tolerance as the guiding strategic concept, will damage community–police relations and make life that much more difficult for everyone. Alternatively, it is crucial that community policing as a philosophy be embraced and that the concrete measures identified and being trialled by police services associated with agencies such as APMAB be supported and given their due regard. It is time to go beyond policing the Other by acknowledging that social cohesion is forged by collectively working together rather than taking action against particular minority groups in Australian society. In the end, we all want and need to feel safe and secure in our own homeland, in our own homes, and in our own streets. Suspicion and mistrust need to be replaced by dialogue and becoming informed. This is the challenge to police and community leaders alike over the coming years. It is not an easy task, nor is it a simple task. But the alternatives are far, far worse.

7 Religious resurgence and diversity and social cohesion in Australia Gary D. Bouma and Rod Ling

In the wake of terrorist attacks and increased social and cultural diversity, many societies, particularly post-industrial societies, are concerned about social cohesion. The rise of religious diversity, the resurgence of religious life and the return of religious issues to the political sphere are seen as part of the problem, but in so far as this is correct they must also be part of the solution. The call for ‘Australian values’ is both a response to the perceived challenges diversity poses to social cohesion and evidence of the difficulties in achieving any sense of unanimity on such issues in a religiously diverse society. While much of the current concern about social cohesion is code for Islamophobia, there is also a deeper issue at stake – the nature of social cohesion in post-industrial societies. Many definitions of social cohesion conflate strategies to achieve cohesion, with cohesion itself (CDCS 2004). Some see social cohesion as the absence of conflict. For the purposes of this chapter, social cohesion refers to the ability of a society to so coordinate its resources as to produce what it needs to sustain and reproduce itself. Social theory argues that the basis of social cohesion in pre-industrial societies was cultural uniformity, while industrial societies were held together by the interdependence created by the differentiation of elements of production (Durkheim 1933). Whether it ever was socially held together by a uniform set of widely held values, many think that such a state would be an improvement on the diversity that is now so evident. This chapter documents the rise of religious diversity and religious resurgence in Australia. It then explores the emerging context for interreligious relations, including competition and conflict. Finally, since all social policy presupposes a social theory, it addresses the conceptualising of current roles of religious groups in producing and challenging social cohesion, particularly in a post-industrial context.

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Table 7.1 The size and proportion of selected Australian religious groups in the 1947, 1971, 1996 and 2001 Censuses Religious Identification∗

1947 000s

%

CHRISTIAN Anglican Baptist Catholic Lutheran MPCRU∗∗ Orthodox Pentecostal OCG∗∗∗

2957 114 1570 67 1678 17 – 270

39.0 1.5 20.7 0.9 22.1 0.2 – 3.8

3953 176 3443 197 2199 339 – 683

31.0 1.4 27.0 1.5 17.2 2.7 – 5.4

Total Christian

6,673

88.0

10,990

86.2

0.4 0.1 0.5

– – 62 22 14

BUDDHISTS HINDUS JEWS MUSLIMS OTHER

– – 32 – 4

Total

36

Inadequate desc No Religion Not Stated Total Population

26 7,579

0.3

1971 000s

%

1996 000s

2001 000s

%

22.0 1.7 27.0 1.4 11.3 2.8 1.0 4.4

3881 309 5002 250 1887 529 195 711

20.7 1.7 26.7 1.3 10.1 2.8 1.0 3.7

12,583

70.6

12,764

68.0

– – 0.5 0.2 0.1

200 67 80 201 69

1.1 0.4 0.5 1.1 0.4

358 95 84 282 92

1.9 0.5 0.4 1.5 0.5

99

0.8

816

3.5

911

4.8

856

6.7

2949 1551 17,753

16.5 8.7

352 2905 1836 18,769

1.9 15.5 9.8

12,756

3903 29.5 4799 250 2011 497 175 653

%

∗ Only those Christian groups larger than 1% and other groups 0.4% and larger in 2001 have been included. ∗∗ MPCRU combines the data for the Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Reformed and Uniting Churches. The Uniting Church was formed in 1977 in a merger of Congregational, Methodist and about half of the Presbyterians. ∗∗∗ OCG – Other Christian Groups includes those Christian groups less than 1%. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

The diversification of religion Four forms of differentiation have radically transformed Australia’s religious life. Not only are there now more religious groups in Australia than ever before, but each one is much less homogeneous than it was before because migration and conversion have placed religions that previously dealt with each other only in stereotypes into direct relationship, and global communication technologies have brought the widest diversity of religious teaching and practice to every corner of the world. First, demographic changes in Australia’s religious diversity 1947–2001 are mapped in Tables 7.1 and 7.2. These changes are the basic drivers of religious change in Australia and have been discussed in detail elsewhere (Bouma 2002, 2006; Cahill et al. 2004). The proportion of Australians identifying with a Christian denomination has fallen from 88 per cent to 68 per cent; Catholics have grown significantly, while Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Uniting have halved, and Muslims and Buddhists have grown vigorously. Second, there has been an increase in small Christian groups and spiritualities. The 27.9 per cent growth rate in ‘Other Christian’ groups includes the mega-churches and other non-denominational, often Pentecostal and usually

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Table 7.2 Changes in Australia’s religious profile, 1996–2001 1996 000s

1996 %

2001 000s

2001 %

1996–2001 growth rate

3903 295 22 4799 75 83 45 250 31 497 175 676 74 53 1335 253

21.99 1.66 0.12 27.03 0.42 0.47 0.25 1.41 0.18 2.80 0.98 3.81 0.42 0.30 7.52 1.43

3881 309 19 5002 61 81 50 250 36 529 195 638 71 54 1249 324

20.68 1.65 0.10 26.65 0.33 0.43 0.27 1.33 0.19 2.82 1.04 3.40 0.38 0.29 6.65 1.72

–0.57 4.75 –12.28 4.22 –18.25 –2.81 10.65 0.15 15.90 6.52 11.37 –5.57 –3.67 2.26 –6.46 27.95

12583

70.55

12,764

68.00

1.44

200 67 80 201 69

1.13 0.38 0.45 1.13 0.39

358 95 84 282 92 5 11 4 2 1 39 11 9 1 2 2 17 9 3 2

1.91 0.51 0.45 1.50 0.50 0.03 0.06 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.21 0.06 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.09 0.05 0.02 0.02

79.07 41.91 5.25 40.17 33.33

NO RELIGION Agnostics Atheists Humanists Rationalists

2949

16.48

2905 18 24 5 2

15.48 0.09 0.13 0.03 0.01

–1.5

NOT STATED INADEQUATE DESCR

1551 54

8.67 0.31

1836 352

9.78 1.88

18.4 551.9

National population

17,753

Religious identification∗ CHRISTIAN Anglican Baptist Brethren Catholic Churches of Christ Jehovah’s Witnesses Latter Day Saints Lutheran Oriental Christian Orthodox Pentecostal Presbyterian/Reformed Salvation Army Seventh Day Adventist Uniting Other Christian Total BUDDHISTS HINDUS JEWS MUSLIMS OTHER Aboriginal Traditional Religion Baha’i Chinese religions Druse Japanese religions Nature religions Paganism Wicca/witchcraft Rastafarianism Satanism Scientology Sikhism Spiritualism Theism Zoroastrians

18,769

5.7

∗ Christian and major world religious groups 1% and over with selected other groups. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

evangelical congregations. The decline of those indicating that they have no religion, the rise of pagan and earth groups and the growth of those writing in something that is classified as ‘inadequately described’ indicate the growth of identification with spiritualities (Bouma 2006: 61–3). With these changes, religious and spiritual life has slipped from the control of once hegemonic religious organisations. As a result religion and spirituality are now freely available in myriad forms requiring much less commitment and taking often much less organised, or very differently organised, forms.

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Third, there has been a decline of national or regional organisational religious structures to pattern religious belief and practice. Separate congregational organisations with limited networks and no collective organ of responsibility are replacing once strong and vertically integrated Christian denominations. Of course, religious groups like Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others have long lived without the kinds of organisational structures that have characterised Christendom. This increased diversity has resulted in changes to the relationship between religious organisations and the state. Many religious groups have moved further from direct association with government, while at the same time religious welfare organisations have become largely dependent on state funding as the state has chosen to channel funds through ‘faith-based’ organisations. Fourth, there has been significant internal diversification of religious groups such that religious diversity is often found to be at least as great within religious groups as between them. For example, the internal diversity of Anglicans is stretched to breaking point by current debates. The Charismatic movement has cut across denominational lines, as has liberalism, social concerns, and evangelicalism. It is no longer possible to speak of the Anglican, or Uniting, or Catholic, or Muslim point of view. Diversity within and between religious groups has greatly reduced the capacity of these older structures to deliver social cohesion. While increased diversity does not by itself threaten social cohesion, the differences between religious groups are real and can become sources of conflict. The consequence of the diversification of religious groups has been to render them much more difficult to manage to promote social cohesion through healthy interreligious relations. Moreover, it has again become clear that not all expressions of religion are moderate, innocuous or, for that matter, even safe. Some forms of religious expression found as minority perspectives within some religious groups can be considered socially toxic since they threaten social cohesion by impairing the ability of different groups to live together in peace and mutual respect. It is naive to ignore the possible harm some expressions of the religious life can have.

Religious resurgence Religious life in the 21st century has taken on a renewed life that was unexpected and that many fear threatens social cohesion in some societies. Greater religious diversity in many societies has increased the salience of religious identity. There have also been increases in participation and the involvement of religion in politics. Far from disappearing as predicted (Davis 1949: 509–45), religion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has re-emerged as a substantial force in human social life. The resurgence of both religious practice and involvement in political life has been well documented (Berger 1999; Bouma 2002, 2006; Martin 2005; Thomas 2005). While particularly evident elsewhere, evidence of resurgence is found in Australia where the secular press has been doubling the coverage of religious issues annually since 2001 and politicians openly declare the religious bases of their policies. The fact that Europe appears to be an exceptional case, persisting in its own particular form of secularity, has been discussed (Davie 2002; Martin 2005). Resurgence can be detected not only among Christian and Muslim

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groups but also among Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs; it is indicated by a burgeoning array of spiritualities (Almond et al. 2003; Bouma 2006) and, within Christianity, the mega-church phenomenon (Chavez 2005; Connell 2005). Religious resurgence takes similar forms: increased intensity of commitment, increased salience of religious identity, the rise of puritanical extremes (Antoun 2001; Almond et al. 2003; Porter 2006) and a return to using political engagement to apply faith, whether by establishing Shariah Law in newly Muslim majority countries like Malaysia, by promoting the teaching of Creation Science in the United States, or by condemning particular patterns of sexuality (Bates 2004). The re-entry of religious values into political debates often brings into conflict the liberal and conservative sections of religious groups, as seen among Anglicans but also within Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism (Almond et al. 2003). Religious resurgence is most evident among more emotive and charismatic forms of spirituality and worship, particularly in the West where it forms part of the reaction against rational, cerebral and propositional forms of Christianity (Bouma 2006). Religious resurgence causes societies to rethink the roles of religion in their social, cultural and political life. As they do this the idea of what constitutes secularity is reconsidered (Fenn 2001; Martin 2005) and the philosophical foundations of secular society re-examined (Stark 2003; Milbank 2006). For Fenn, secular societies are not irreligious so much as societies where the religious and spiritual are no longer under the control of religious organisations such as churches. Since the notion that religion is withering away is no longer tenable, the management of religious diversity becomes more critical.

Increased religious competition and conflict A direct result of increased religious diversity and religious resurgence will be an increase in religious competition (Finke & Stark 1998; Finke et al. 1996; Thomas 2005). Although Finke and Stark focus on the impact of competition on religious life, the nexus between religious plurality, competition and religious vitality is complex. Certainly, in Australia, plurality has led to an increase in vitality and competition. Although often confused with each other, competition is different from conflict and clarifying the difference is crucial (Bouma 2006). Religious conflict is a subset of religious competition. Competitors recognise the legitimate existence of each other and the right of the market to choose. In competing, religious groups often learn more about their own positions and their own approach to their faith, thus increasing the commitment of members and the salience of their faith. Religious conflict, in contrast, does not proceed on this assumption, but one group seeks to overcome, eliminate, or convert the other to extinction. With increased diversity, increases in competition can be expected, though whether this competition will shift to conflict depends on how religious difference is managed. Since the Cold War, the most violent conflict in the world has had a religious dimension. Some religious conflict has been the result of the passing of heavy-handed regimes that had repressed religious groups and in so doing also

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prevented conflict between them, for example the former Yugoslavia and some of the former Soviet republics. After the Cold War no simple bilateral global polarities could be sustained, even though Huntington (1993) tries to construct one between the West and Islam. There are several sources of post-Cold War religious conflict. That between Israel and the Palestininian Territories is over land, access to resources and fundamentally the right to exist. Each side includes both those who seek accommodating peace and those who seek the removal or annihilation of the other. Conflicts between Christian and Muslim groups in Nigeria are over the implementation of their religious ethics in social policy and the religious tone of the nation. The violent conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Indonesian province of Muluku has been over land and social position, prompted in the 1990s by the migration of Muslims into territory that had been controlled for several centuries by the Christians who had been put in leadership positions and favoured by the Dutch (Stern 2003: 70–4). Religious conflict within religious groups threatens social cohesion when it spills over into the larger society. Religious resurgence produces internal conflict within religions, involving competition for leadership positions, the support of adherents, and the capacity to define both the direction of the organisation and its public perception. The organisational weakness of many religious groups prior to the resurgence reduced their capacity to manage internal diversity in creative ways, to socialise newcomers and to train clergy effectively, and has resulted in unproductive conflict rather than creative competition. The fact that many religious groups, like their societies, have lost the threat of an external Other has decreased tolerance for internal difference as the Other is found within and more conflict ensues. Key examples of conflicts occurring within religious groups include the ‘clash within civilisations’ literature, describing in particular the clashes among Muslims over degree of strictness, political involvement, and appropriate forms of political order and theology (Hefner 2001; Bilgrami 2003). Conflicts between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims are largely over theological and ritual differences, but take on political dimensions when territory is shared and questions of access to power emerge as in Iraq. These conflicts are also deeply rooted in history as well as in recent violent clashes such as the Iran–Iraq war of the 1980s (Nasr 2006). These differences are also found within diasporic Muslim communities where they are not usually associated with violent clashes. Further examples are provided by internal wrangling in Christian denominations over the election of openly gay Anglican bishops, gay and lesbian marriage, abortion and church planting outside the source diocese (Bates 2004; Wallis 2005; Porter 2006), and the emergence of the conservative evangelical Christian denial of belief in one and the same god for Jews, Christians and Muslims (Cimino 2005). In Australia, religious competition is largely within religious groups as they seek to attract adherents and commitment. Conflict includes religious vilification where one group incites hatred of or violence towards another. Recent cases in Canada (Regina v. Harding, Ontario Court [Provincial Division] 19 June 1998) and Australia (Islamic Council of Victoria v. Catch the Fire Ministries, Victorian Civil And Administrative Tribunal, Human Rights Division, Anti Discrimination

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List, VCAT reference No. a392/2002) highlight the difficulties societies face in managing these interreligious group relations. There have also been Australian cases of the use of law to limit rights to practise or build places of worship (Cahill et al. 2004: 75–82), harassment (HREOC 2004), but not the denial of the right of religious groups to exist as happens elsewhere, for example the Falun Gong in China and Scientology in Germany, France and Switzerland (Boyle & Sheen 1997; Richardson 2004a,b).

Religious diversity, conflict and social cohesion Some fear that increases in religious diversity, combined with religious resurgence, will undermine social cohesion. Social cohesion refers to the ability of a society to so coordinate its resources as to produce what it needs to sustain and reproduce itself. History reveals that many social forms have achieved this – hierarchical, diverse, monocultural, monarchical, democratic, totalitarian, egalitarian, small and large; that no particular instance of social order persists forever, and that the role played by religion in holding societies together has varied from social glue to a source of conflict and division. While some forms of social order may be more desirable than others to some members of a society, it is not clear that one form is more prone to be socially cohesive than another. Thus to include certain desirables such as social justice, equality or democracy as criteria for social cohesion clouds the central meaning of the term: sufficient levels of collaboration and cooperation to produce enough to survive and reproduce. The role of religion and religious diversity in social cohesion is problematic. There is a residue of the European wars of religion that assumes that a society with one official religion will be more cohesive than one that has a diversity of religions. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia declared that each state was to have an official state-sanctioned and state-supported religion. Religion was to be supportive of the state, providing an overarching integrative meaning system that linked all citizens into a single unified religiously legitimated culture and social structure, praying for the success of its ventures and legitimating its actions. In exchange, the state supported the church financially and by warding off competitors through the provision of a monopoly. One of a citizen’s responsibilities was to identify with and use the state church for their religious needs and rites of passage. Religious diversity was seen as a source of division and evidence of weakness. With the French and American revolutions came two challenges. First, the French Revolution was anti-clerical and anti-religious, establishing in place of the state Roman Catholic Church a secularist pseudo-ecclesiastical institution converting cathedrals to temples of reason. In the French case, a state religion was replaced by a state ideology – secularism, a pattern to be revisited in the 20th century in Russia, Nazi Germany and China. The American Revolution ended the role of state churches and welcomed a diversity of religious groups so long as each pledged allegiance to the state. During this time Australia was colonised by the British and a society emerged that initially had a de facto, but not de jure, state church – the Church of England. By the 1840s the Church of England had to share with Presbyterians and Methodists in filling the religious needs of Australians and in supporting the state. While the exclusion of members of other

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denominations from higher education and public office ceased in England at this time, a state church was retained. European state religions were not only supportive of the state; they were controlled by the state. Governments could liaise directly and immediately with their counterpart in the religious domain. Not only are there many more religious organisations in most societies, they are also internally more diverse, making single pronouncements on issues nearly impossible, and interaction with the state difficult. Moreover, those coordinative councils formed in the 20th century to represent diverse Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist groups no longer can claim to represent all, or even the majority. Thus it becomes clear that it is necessary to examine the roles of religion in producing or reducing social cohesion in each society. The roles in each society will be shaped by its history, demographic and religious composition, and social policy. Social cohesion is threatened when one group convinces itself that it does not need another producing conflict that shreds the social fabric. Examples of this include Hitler’s Nazi Germany, the Middle East today where one group seeks the annihilation of another, and religious fanatics who dehumanise those who take different views. For example, Australia is a society comprising many groups, organisations, persons and religions. This has long been the case. Pre-colonial indigenous Australia was culturally, linguistically and socially diverse. No single culture or religion unified the many nations into a single social entity. Each group may well have been internally socially cohesive; their very survival suggests they were adequately cohesive. Religious diversity was a characteristic of the First Fleet and the society that has emerged in Australia. Australia has also been cohesive enough to be a successful society quite capable of producing, reproducing and responding creatively to change. Australia is not, and never has been, held together by similarity, or a single set of values. It is not a mechanically solidary society. Rather, interdependence has required each group and individual to make place for the other, to tolerate and even assist the other, because without the other, neither self nor society would survive. This was very true in the convict days, and given the very low unemployment rates until recent years has been true for most of post-1788 Australia. This foundational social fact qualifies and inspires the rhetoric about social cohesion. Australia is a congeries of groups, organisations and persons held together by interdependence. We simply need each other and so we put up with each other’s diversities, including religious diversities. We have also developed the social habit of tolerance and have supported social organisations that foster healthy religious intergroup relations: the ecumenical movement, interfaith dialogue, and cooperation.

Social cohesion in post-industrial societies The discussion so far has been couched in the assumptions of modernity and industrial societies: differentiation produces a situation requiring that differentiated elements need each other in order to maintain productivity. The demands

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of production – coordination of effort through organisation, assembly lines and timetables – ensured social cohesion. But Australia is shifting from being an industrial society to a post-industrial society where consumption and service rather than production are central to the economy and to social and cultural life. The implications for religious life and social cohesion are only just becoming apparent. The role of religion is no longer to produce workers who would show up sober on Monday mornings, be honest in their dealings, and generally cooperate with the system, but now to produce consumers. In addition, religion becomes something a person consumes through participation, identification and the purchase of identity supporting and declaring goods (Miller 2005). In this changed economic context, religions and spiritualities become consumer items available in a wide range of packaging and requiring different levels of investment to consume. They may neither unite nor divide, but simply represent a passing expression rather than a deep commitment to a group with a history, culture and set of relations with other groups. Religious difference in a consumer society may make no difference, unless it shapes consumption. Some religious observance norms may shift patterns of consumption, favouring halal/kosher options, faith-based education, certain clothing, articles of devotion, and times of fasting or feasting. Bauman (2000, 2005) describes such a society as a liquid, with no solid institutions but made up of individual consumers, changing their identities to become themselves consumable. From this perspective religions are seen not as durable institutions integrating individuals into substantial cultural belief systems and social norms. Rather, they are seen as sellers of identity, from which individuals purchase identity, just as they may buy a specific type of suit when they dress for a certain professional or social role. Further, consumers may buy a religious identity as one part of a complex self-designed identity. A politician might become a member of a church to demonstrate to themselves and others that their political life has a substantial moral and religious content. But these identity traits are purchased as consumer goods, not durable goods. Consumers can and will discard them with the same sentiment they hold for their erstwhile favourite shoes, as the dynamic forces of liquid society make other identity aspects more consumable and enable those who have them to sustain their consumption opportunities. Viewed this way, religions may support social cohesion by providing useful identities for consumers. If religions become flexible in their product ranges, like major computer firms, they will contribute to the maintenance of a ‘liquid society’. Individuals are empowered by a sense of religious consumer choice and societies take the view that such choosing by individuals is socially appropriate. Thus, in a post-industrial society people are identified by their patterns of consumption rather than their roles in production. With the rise of religious diversity in the populations of many societies and cities, religious identity has taken on renewed significance and the consumption or display of religious markers have again become part of identities that differentiate people. Religious identity is replacing class and joining ethnicity and lifestyle as salient demarcating identities. On the other hand, religious groups can foster ill will and misunderstanding between each other. Religions that cling to the imagined solidity of their founding

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belief systems may threaten social cohesion by conflict with identity consumers and by attempts to make society solid once more. They may attempt to maintain the view that there is no religious choice and be at odds with those surfing the waves of liquid society. Religions may produce internal social cohesion but at the potential cost of the cohesion of the larger society. In Habermasian terms (Habermas 1981; Eriksen & Weigard 2003), established religions with highly formalised liturgical practices, administrative systems and relationships with governments may promote social cohesion within their organisations and so doing colonise the lifeworlds of their members in a form of purposive rationality, which may place them in harmony or conflict with similar religious intuitions. Given that no religion encompasses all of a society, internal cohesion may result in intergroup conflict. For example, several Christian groups have been very active in painting negative images of Islam while intra-religious clashes at the same time threaten to tear apart existing Christian denominations. Clashes over the availability of medical procedures related to fertility and abortion, permissibility of contraception, and medical research have revealed serious differences between religions. Habermas would also note that the cultural beliefs and social norms of the larger society may provide a common context for religions to interact in the lifeworld, which would bring about a positive state of social cohesion. For example, he would argue that Australian-born Christians and Muslims are likely to be socialised to beliefs and norms that reject terrorist acts as solutions to interreligious conflict. On this common perspective, groups can communicate and establish dialogue on terms that limit the threat of terrorism in Australia. This would help to explain why in Australia religious differences have rarely resulted in violence but are much more likely to be resolved in court.

Conclusion In a post-industrial society people and groups no longer need each other in the same ways they did in industrial society. People are no longer organised by production schedules, required to produce in order to hold their end up in a chain of production. Networks of communication and association are crucial in postindustrial social cohesion. Religious groups can foster webs of communication through interreligious activities, such as gathering religiously diverse people for an Iftar dinner during Ramadan, as many Muslim groups in Australia do. After September 11, 2001, many Christian groups invited Muslims to speak with them. Religion thus plays a complex role in both challenging and promoting social cohesion. The nature of this role is also changing as Australia moves increasingly from an industrial to a post-industrial economy.

8 Family and nation: the Indigenous/ non-Indigenous relationship Tim Rowse

Historian John Hirst has recently suggested that ‘the marrying and partnering of people of all sorts across all boundaries is the greatest unifying force in Australia’ (Hirst 2006: 313). There has been a steady rise in the proportion of couples that identify themselves as ‘Indigenous’ in Australia’s Census and that include a nonIndigenous partner, from 46 per cent in 1986 to 69 per cent in 2001 (Peterson & Taylor 2003: 111). Are these couples promoting Indigenous–non-Indigenous unification? Mathematics encourages doubt. Because the Indigenous proportion of Australia’s population is small (just over 2 per cent) it does not take many non-Indigenous people marrying Indigenous Australians to give rise to this high proportion of ‘mixed’ couples. Less than 2 per cent of the marrying non-Aborigines at any time are needed to choose Indigenous partners to continue the high proportion of mixed couples recorded in 2001. Most Australians could be racially prejudiced against intermarriage without affecting the rising intermarriage rates that the Census has recorded. Numbers aside, what a poor analogy for the nation is the home! People who want to coexist within the one nation need not be attracted to the idea of sharing domestic space. A national polity is a far more impersonal social space than a kinship network or a household; it is therefore a more robust vehicle for social cohesion. A tough-minded approach to social cohesion between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians must consider the possibility that social distance and cultural difference continue to be valued by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Those with a strong sense of difference may favour impersonal, institutional accords between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians; they may not care for the intimate mingling envisaged by Hirst. In the first part of this essay I will recall some moments in Australian history when Indigenous Australians made explicit their reservations about close association with non-Indigenous Australians. I will then consider the alternative, impersonal terms in which some Australians, inspired by ‘native title’, evoke social cohesion. 90

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While I sympathise with this impersonal, civic vision of social cohesion, I will suggest that as long as it depends on the idea of an Indigenous ‘jurisdiction’ the idea of an institutional accord between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians will continue to encounter problems.

Saying no to assimilation In the Natives (Citizenship Rights) Act of 1944, the Western Australian government empowered magistrates to grant citizenship to selected ‘natives’ – that is, to exempt from legal restrictions on their citizenship Aborigines who could demonstrate that for the two years immediately prior the applicant has adopted the manner and habits of civilised life; the full rights of citizenship are desirable for and likely to be conducive to the welfare of the applicant; the applicant is able to speak and understand the English language; the applicant is not suffering from active leprosy, syphilis, granuloma, or yaws; the applicant is of industrious habits and is of good behaviour and reputation; the applicant is reasonably capable of managing his own affairs.

Anthropologist Ruth Fink, in 1957–59, asked 52 rural Aborigines in the Geraldton region (Jamadji people) whether they wished to apply for citizenship. They told Fink that they found these tests of fitness intrusive. For example, was the applicant in a de jure or a de facto marriage? Did the applicant gamble? Fink saw good reasons for Aborigines to be gamblers. Gambling now brings prestige and generosity. The fact that people are prepared to lose large sums with their relatives makes them popular within the native group . . . Money is to be circulated and spent. By sharing what one has, one will be given a share at some future time. All these factors outweigh the individualistic drive to acquire goods, though the immediate motives of the players are to win. So long as native workers are insecure in their employment, they know that they may have to depend upon their relatives and friends at some other time when they are out of work. By gambling when they have money, they ensure that they will obtain help on some other occasion. In this sense gambling is a sort of ‘investment’ which the earning members of the group make in order to ensure help from others when they themselves are short. (Fink 1960: 169–70)

Being sober was another required attribute of citizenship. However, according to Fink, to flout that norm conspicuously could be a matter of honour for some ‘natives’. Outrageous drinking (and speaking) behaviour was, in her interpretation, a defiant public performance of equality with whites (ibid.: 164–6). Jamadji people were thus ambivalent about applying for exemption: to submit oneself to the inspection of whites was perhaps a worse humiliation than to remain a ‘native’ in one’s legal status. Fink judged as particularly offensive to Aboriginal feelings the demand that applicants sign a Statutory Declaration that ‘I have dissolved tribal and native association except with respect to lineal descendants or native relations of the first degree’ (ibid.: 47). Jamadjis, in 1958, had a low opinion of the society that they were assumed to be striving to enter (ibid.: 189–90, Table 11). To adopt white values and manner of

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living would be to accept many irksome restraints that did not apply to ‘native’ Jamadjis. Making this negative assessment of white society and its inspectoral processes did not commit Fink’s interviewees to a rosy picture of relationships among Jamadjis. They admitted their many fights and petty jealousies; 38 out of 52 Jamadji interviewees agreed with the negative stereotype that ‘Jamadjis waste their money’, and only 15 denied that ‘Jamadjis beat their wives’. In 1969–70, Lorna Lippmann interviewed Aborigines from rural Victoria and New South Wales who had benefited from assimilation programs. She found people ambivalent about recent improvements in their housing. Through their move from the reserve or riverbank into the town, families now enjoyed a materially better standard of living; however, ‘reserve living had fulfilled the need to belong (in a limited community) in a way that life in town did not’ (Lippmann 1973: 186). Where government programs had allowed people to acquire homes, education and jobs, stratification had emerged, based on acceptance or rejection of ‘the values of the wider society . . . In particular, those who accepted the concept of steady employment as a desirable goal were inclined to look down on those who did not, and to cut them off socially’ (ibid.: 188). This downward view was reciprocated by their counterparts’ ‘envy and scorn’ towards those ‘getting a better-than-average job’ (ibid.: 191). An emerging pan-Aboriginal identity was helping to ameliorate these divisions among Aborigines, however. According to Lippmann, ‘the most strikingly consistent feature of the four Aboriginal communities was their positive evaluation of Aboriginal identity’ (ibid.: 193). Relatively meagre items of Aboriginal lore, such as ‘phrases of the vernacular or of traditional medical remedies only half believed’ took on great significance as markers of a distinct group identity (ibid.: 187). As Australians generally were becoming more interested in Aboriginal art and craft, Aboriginal bearers of these folk-art traditions were emboldened to display them more confidently. As well as identifying these positively unifying ideals, Lippmann noted that a history of racial abjection had also promoted unity. There was a commonly held analysis of the Aborigines’ position as ‘always on the outside’ of a society confidently controlled by whites (ibid.: 192). The behaviour and speech of whites were closely watched for slights and condescension, and ‘any act of discrimination towards one member [of the Aboriginal community] was immediately noted and bitterly resented by the whole community’ (ibid.: 190). Lippmann warned her readers not to assume ‘that upward social mobility is the motivating force in Aboriginal lives’ (ibid.: 194). ‘The feeling of interdependence of fate which Aborigines share with each other prevails over the desire for success in the major society’ (ibid.: 199). There was strength, not merely defeat, in such solidarities, she insisted. She distinguished the benefits of ‘voluntary separatism’ from the damage caused by ‘imposed segregation’ (ibid.: 196). Voluntary separatism, as I understand it, rests on the assumption that Indigenous Australians possess their own codes of respectability that are distinguishable from what they perceive to be the non-Indigenous system of values. Describing and understanding these alternative codes is the most challenging task in the contemporary analysis of Indigenous affairs, for voluntary separatism is open to contradictory readings: social pathology or cultural autonomy?

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Gill Cowlishaw’s ethnographies of ‘unrespectable’ Aborigines in contemporary western New South Wales vividly express this interpretive dilemma. Confronted with riotous Aborigines in Bourke, she asks: how are we to understand them? The processing of publicly violent Aborigines through the courts and welfare agencies reproduces an understanding of them as ‘victims of a social pathology they are helpless to combat’ (Cowlishaw 2004: 241). The theme of Cowlishaw’s interpretive response to the Bourke affrays is her disdain for what she calls ‘the suffocating complacent facade of national solicitude’ (ibid.: 246). She distances herself from this solicitous hegemony by finding what she calls ‘positive meanings’ (ibid.: 241) in the riotous behaviour: political agency, ‘a tangible, radical, political analysis and response – a refusal of the promises of liberal progress’ (ibid.: 243). In their public violence Aboriginal people ‘challenge the hegemony, not only of police, but also of the town’s establishment, as well as of Aboriginal legal aid lawyers and liberal academics’ (ibid.: 242). As Cowlishaw acknowledges, public violence (such as riotous behaviour targeting police and shopkeepers in the streets of Bourke) is not the only problem that engages the nation’s solicitude; there is also the ‘self-destructive violence’, ‘the crisis levels of distress – domestic violence, homicides and suicides, child neglect and abuse’ (ibid.: 245–6). Although Cowlishaw has less to say about such violence, it appears to her that Aborigines involved in domestic violence are ‘unwilling to accept the nation’s diagnosis’ of their predicament. Her next sentence, however, could not be more cautious. ‘Rejecting the proffered treatment of their ills could be seen as a way in which Indigenous people assert their autonomy from the state’s suffocating solicitude’ (ibid.: 246, emphasis added). It could be, but is that the best way to see it? Later in this essay I will cite some different, more confident responses by Aboriginal leaders to Aborigines’ domestic violence. Cowlishaw wants us to reconsider what we mean when we refer to ‘Aboriginal culture’ so that it includes the unrespectable behaviours for which some Aboriginal people in Bourke are arrested, charged and (often) pitied. She is critical of a liberal sentimentality that warms to certain expressions of Aboriginal culture but is embarrassed by Aborigines’ ‘radical alterity’ when it is ‘characterized by poverty and marginality without any exotic cultural distinctiveness’ (ibid.: 244). ‘Public commentators have registered a growing disillusionment with the disappointing results of recognizing native title, Indigenous heritage, and self-determination’ (ibid.: 245) because the Aboriginal ‘culture’ that persists in the context of these public policies includes not only Aboriginal customs that are easy (nowadays) for Australians to value (law, spirituality, art) but also behaviours that are abhorrent to Australians of goodwill. Here Cowlishaw makes explicit her relationship with the widespread public sympathy for Aboriginal culture. Cowlishaw would like to ‘endorse the Riot as cultural’ (ibid.: 247). She writes that ‘riotous fury is the public edge of a deeply embedded sense of ongoing injustice that is built into Aborigines’ customary understanding of the social world’ (ibid.: 246). However, she concedes that rioting is not the kind of ‘custom’ that could ever ‘have a part in affirming native title or be cited as an element of heritage’ (ibid.: 247). Cowlishaw thus highlights a regulatory effect of the ways that Indigenous cultural difference is understood in public discussions about Indigenous rights. Indigenous Australians are under an obligation to comport themselves in certain ways, to enact their difference in certain terms. As a critic of suffocating, solicitous

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liberal goodwill, Cowlishaw gives in to this demand only with the greatest reluctance; she is at pains to emphasise that the terms of Aboriginal honour – which she, as anthropologist, can accept in their awkward entirety – are here being truncated, filtered, and censored. When Aborigines’ violence cannot be understood sympathetically as heritage and is instead labelled as pathology, Cowlishaw protests that she as anthropologist is a victim of the moralising logic of national solicitude. Cowlishaw is perceptive about the political complexities of describing ‘Aboriginal culture’. In one respect, however, she is unperceptive about the solicitous and selective hegemony to which she reluctantly yields. It is made up not only of ‘police . . . the town’s establishment . . . Aboriginal legal aid lawyers and liberal academics’ who enact the nation’s suffocating solicitude; it includes also Indigenous leaders (some of them academics) who have made a commitment to a notion of Aboriginal ‘jurisdiction’. As I will show in the next section, Indigenous advocates of institutional reform persistently evoke Indigenous Australians as managers of a surviving polity within the nation, and the violence of Aborigines’ everyday life has become an embarrassment to them.

Representing the Indigenous interest An example of Indigenous people declaring an Indigenous jurisdiction can be found in recent discussions about how to manage ‘Indigenous knowledge’. Addressing librarians and archivists, Martin Nakata and his colleagues ask the Library and Information Services (LIS) Sector to recognise that ‘Indigenous knowledge systems have their own systems for management and access’ (Nakata et al. 2005: 15). They acknowledge that ‘the profession began to respond to Indigenous concerns’ (ibid.: 18) in the early 1990s. While they recommend that LIS professionals develop ‘protocols to guide practice and to assist professionals to deal with unfamiliar issues’ (ibid.: 21), they acknowledge that in attempting to identify Indigenous knowledge and determine appropriate access conditions, it is not always clear from which Indigenous individual, group or community representatives or organizations that consent should be sought. With some Indigenous groups, and for various reasons, consensus on appropriate access and management of materials can sometimes be difficult to achieve. Indigenous groups are also often a long way from the collecting institution extending the difficulties associated with the working through of issues. (ibid.: 16–17).

In this example, I see four general points that are relevant to our consideration of the institutional relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians: 1. the necessary assumption that non-Indigenous people have some discretion about recognising an Indigenous object (‘Indigenous knowledge’) over which Indigenous people assert control 2. the naming of a non-Indigenous institution (the LIS Sector) that has this discretion

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the assumption that recognition leads logically to negotiation with those asserting jurisdiction the acknowledgment that while there is in principle an Indigenous willingness to negotiate, an Indigenous interlocutor might not be easy to identify and transact with.

This fourth issue – Indigenous representation – has come up before. When the Australian parliament first took seriously the idea of negotiating a treaty (or some such instrument) between Australia and its Indigenous peoples, the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs enquired into its feasibility. One conclusion was that Indigenous Australians did not yet have a representative institution that could negotiate on their behalf (Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs 1983: 134–47). The question of Indigenous representation is raised by any serious discussion of recognition and negotiation. Indigenous political development is a precondition of equality – seeing ‘equality’ as primarily a political relationship between peoples – and thus of Australia’s social cohesion. The arrival of ‘native title’ in the early 1990s was a step towards equality, both in principle and in practice. ‘The question prompted by Mabo’, write Brennan and colleagues (2005: 109), is ‘whether the broader implications of overthrowing terra nullius and recognising Indigenous governance might be explored through a process of comprehensive negotiations’. They point out that the possibility of negotiation has arisen both in principle and in practice. As a matter of principle, the Mabo case was about more than property. The High Court’s Mabo judgment, by recognising Indigenous customary law as the basis of a distinct form of title (native title), confirmed that ‘Indigenous groups exercise an internal form of jurisdiction or governance over their members, in terms of defining their rights and entitlements’. Legislation giving effect to native title further ‘recognizes that the group has an external form of jurisdiction, namely the ability to enter into binding legal agreements over territory and resources’ (ibid.: 108–9). Accordingly, ‘Indigenous groups have had to sharpen and develop their capacities for negotiation and internal governance’ (ibid.: 109). They give examples of the development of effective regional Indigenous representative organisations. Indigenous political development has become a legal obligation, in the context of native title, because ‘the Indigenous Land Use Agreements process and the native title determination process require rigorous demonstration that court applications and agreements between parties in relation to Indigenous land have been duly authorized by the members of the native title holding group’ (ibid.: 128). Langton and colleagues (2004: 1–2) have generalised that negotiated agreements are ‘the principal form of engagement between Indigenous nations and the modern nation-state’. ‘Negotiation and agreement making encourages the recognition of Aboriginal polities by government and other parties’ (ibid.: 16). Native title ‘for the first time . . . engaged large groups of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a process of recognition of their jurisdiction through negotiation and agreement making’ (ibid.: 17). They refer to a ‘faltering, uneven but undoubted movement towards agreement making within the native title process which has now flowed beyond that increasingly complex and difficult jurisdiction’

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(ibid.: 19). Native title has stimulated ‘a culture of agreement making, and it is this culture within and outside the native title process that begins to engage Aboriginal politics and Aboriginal jurisdiction’ (ibid.: 20).

The two problems of social cohesion What is ‘Aboriginal jurisdiction’, and how can it be taken into account? Had Australian history worked out differently, there might have been no possibility of plausibly invoking Indigenous jurisdiction. It is possible to imagine a history that resulted in the disappearance of the Aboriginal ‘people’ and of the Torres Strait Islander ‘people’. Through a combination of poor health, violence, cultural change and intermarriage, these peoples might have failed to reproduce themselves as peoples. On the eve of Federation, this scenario was plausible. When Timothy Coghlan celebrated the first complete enumeration of Aboriginal people in New South Wales in 1891, he remarked that the aboriginal race is fast disappearing before the march of settlement. Each year sees a diminution of their numbers. Of the 8280 recorded as such at the last Census, 5097 only were of pure blood, and these comprised 2896 males and 2201 females. The half-castes numbered 3183, of which number 1663 were males and 1520 females. (Coghlan 1894: 196)

For several reasons, Coghlan’s scenario did not eventuate. In both Aboriginal and official opinion, the notion of ‘Aboriginal’ broadened to include any degree of descent, as long as that degree is significant to the person concerned. The number of ‘full bloods’ may well have continued to diminish but that has ceased to be a measure of Indigenous survival (or to be measured at all). In the 2001 Census, 410 003 Australians represented themselves as Aboriginal or as Torres Strait Islander (or as both), without reference to the degree of their descent. Another reason Indigenous Australians did not disappear is that – before and after Coghlan’s prediction – the ‘march of settlement’ included effective (if authoritarian) government and mission interventions into those physical circumstances of Aboriginal life that were causing high death and low birth rates. The downward demographic spiral was halted and reversed, with the date of turning points varying from region to region (see Rowse 2004 for a brief synthesis of this demographic history). In the last quarter of the 20th century, changes in the ways that Australians understood themselves and their citizenship made it easier to acknowledge Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. However, to register that descent when filling in the Census form is relatively easy. The Census does not demand proof and does not ask what, if any, other ‘Indigenous’ behaviours you engage in. The effect of such an inclusive notion of ‘Indigenous’ is that those recorded officially as the Indigenous people of Australia are not uniformly committed to the customary Indigenous institutions. When the Australian Bureau of Statistics surveyed a large sample of Indigenous Australians in 2002, it found marked regional variations in ways of being ‘Indigenous’. Fewer than half (45.7 per cent) of the Indigenous people in cities, towns, agricultural and mining regions of Australia

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(where three out of four Indigenous Australians live) saw themselves as belonging to a clan, tribal or language group. In ‘remote’ regions, where the other 25 per cent of Indigenous Australians live, three out of four people (76 per cent) identified themselves as part of a clan, tribal or language group in 2002 (ABS 2004c). We could take these data as showing that ‘Aborigines’ and ‘Torres Strait Islanders’ are simply statistical categories, not ‘peoples’ with a jurisdiction. If that were so, then the question of social cohesion among Indigenous Australians would be trivial – of no more interest than the question of social cohesion among all the people born in 1951, or among all those who finished their schooling at the end of Year 12, or all those living in rented premises. However, the public sense of cohesion among Indigenous Australians is not trivial; they credibly represent themselves as ‘peoples’ with a distinct cultural heritage, and from time to time they dispute with one another about who is genuinely entitled to the few specifically Indigenous entitlements in Australian public policy. Larissa Behrendt, an Indigenous academic who argues that there should be more to ‘Indigenous rights’ than governments have hitherto allowed, has recently spelled out what her advocacy of a treaty implies. The ‘distinction between Indigenous people included in the pool of treaty beneficiaries and those who are not will create divisions within our communities and create notions of “real” and “not real” Indigenous people. This may also create different classes of Indigenous people with different rights’ (Behrendt 2003: 25). Some who identify as Indigenous will be ‘disappointed’ by a stricter demarcation of ‘Indigenous’, Behrendt predicts, if treaty negotiations bear fruit (ibid.: 27). As I understand her, Behrendt accepts that a regime of Indigenous entitlement would require the boundary-defining ‘Indigenous Australians’ to become more rigorous. Her observation implies some regulatory authority marking the boundaries of the Indigenous jurisdiction.

The underside of Indigenous jurisdiction Could such a regulatory authority also apply itself to relationships among Indigenous Australians? Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1988–91), the idea of a surviving Indigenous jurisdiction has had to contend with the argument that many Indigenous communities are so racked by substance abuse and violence that they cannot be taken seriously as components of an Indigenous jurisdiction (for a statement of this view, see Neill 2002). As the evidence of Indigenous social dysfunction has grown, two parallel lines of argument have developed. One expresses scepticism about the project of selfdetermination and seeks the return of what one member of the Howard Cabinet, Tony Abbott, has called the ‘new paternalism’ – ‘someone has to be in charge’ (Abbott 2006). The other line of argument evokes ‘the transgenerational effects of trauma in Indigenous affairs’ (Atkinson 2002), highlighting the depth of colonisation’s psychological damage. Those who acknowledge the epidemic of psychosocial disorder among Indigenous people do not necessarily draw the conclusion that there is no effective collective ‘self’ that could practise ‘self-determination’. The problem that faces many contemporary Indigenous intellectuals is to refute the ‘new paternalism’ while acknowledging the depth of the crisis of family and

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intra-communal violence within Indigenous families and communities. In the remainder of this chapter I will describe three Indigenous policy responses to the social crisis of Indigenous community. Noel Pearson has argued since 1997 that his people, particularly his people in Cape York, have been ‘poisoned’ since about 1970 by their access to cash welfare benefits and to welfare programs in kind (Pearson 2000, 2005a). As a result, his people lack ‘a strong foundation of social values and norms’ (Pearson 2005a: 8). To repair the social fabric, Pearson seeks ‘the real economy’. ‘Maximum participation in economic life is key to overcoming disadvantage’ (2005a: 1). Income is important, but its social benefit is determined by the way that one gets it. Pearson postulates ‘the real economy’ as the appropriate source for people’s income. The recurring term ‘real economy’ is not well defined, but its primary reference is to the moral conditions of exchange: people should be active, not passive, in their receipt of income; they should reciprocate income with socially constructive behaviour. Pearson has made it clear that he is not seeking simply to get Cape York people ‘off welfare’ and into the labour market. Because Cape York does not attract sufficient job-creating investment, alternatives to welfare – ‘to engage successfully with the real market economy’ (2000: 89) – are few. The decline of rural industries, the absence or scarcity of resources, ‘the sheer difficulties involved in getting enterprises established and running profitably’ (2000: 90), and deficits in skills, health, education and infrastructure combine to make it impossible to conceive an end, in the short term, to some kinds of social welfare expenditure to Cape York Aborigines. However, insisting that ‘we have . . . a right to an economy’ (2000: 94, emphasis original), Pearson argues that communities should be given the option of a ‘a new deal on welfare, where welfare represents support for people to participate socially and economically in Australia, in their own country’ (2005a: 11). Communities should be able to negotiate different rules regulating their receipt of welfare, ‘given the state of our current dysfunction and the current misalignment of incentives’ (2005a: 13). What, in Pearson’s view, should people be given incentives to do? He promotes the mobility of young people: they should be encouraged to leave their home region – for part of their lifetime – for education and for employment. When skills and attitudes thus acquired are returned to their region, economic development is more likely. He would also like communities to be able to make households accountable for their treatment of their children. ‘Communities want the capacity to redirect welfare payments from recipients who are not using them for the benefit of their family or their children’ (2005a: 19). He would prefer to ‘be a bit paternalistic in the early stages of an emerging problem within families rather than not do anything because we don’t want to be paternalistic’. Such early intervention may avert the greater paternalism of removing children from their families (2005b: 19). Pearson would also like to find a way to hold residents accountable for their (mis)use of publicly provided houses (2005a: 22). Pearson’s case for welfare reform is hostile to the generalisation of Australian notions of welfare entitlement to all Indigenous citizens. His political task has been not only to ‘muster up a growing consensus of community leaders around

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our welfare ideas in my home region’ but also – and with greater difficulty, he says – to persuade ‘bureaucrats and a whole lot of people in the white community’ that these Aboriginal leaders should be empowered to include welfare payments among the carrots and sticks that they can apply to his people’s moral reformation; the laws that establish Australians’ welfare entitlement may have to be amended (2005a: 19–20). Pearson’s practical contribution to the contemporary discussion of Indigenous jurisdiction has been to promote the regional autonomy of Cape York’s welfare state. Pearson has illustrated the weakness of ‘social values and norms’ by pointing to males’ drinking culture. Outside of this drinking circle are the women and the children and old people and the non-drinkers. The resources of these non-drinkers are used to feed the families – including those who have spent most or all of their money on grog, when they are hungry. But more than that, these non-drinkers are placed under tremendous social and cultural pressure to contribute resources to the drinking circle for buying grog. So the drinking circle becomes the suction hole for the family’s resources. Wives and girlfriends, parents and grandparents, are placed under tremendous pressure – social and cultural and ultimately through physical violence: ‘Why you wanna stop me from having fun with my brothers?’ – to contribute to these pathological behaviours. (2000: 17)

In this example Pearson has touched on a matter of recurring sensitivity in contemporary Indigenous reflections on social cohesion: the crisis in the relationships of male to female, young to old. In 1999, 15-year-old Susan Ann Taylor died in a Lockridge (WA) Aboriginal camp in circumstances that attracted the coroner’s attention. The coroner questioned the adequacy of state services to Aboriginal communities suffering family violence and child abuse. The state government commissioned a review chaired by Aboriginal magistrate Sue Gordon. Gordon confirmed that in Aboriginal communities there was an ‘epidemic’ of family violence and child abuse. ‘Persistent assaults on Aboriginal culture, kinship systems and law’ had left Aboriginal communities ‘extremely vulnerable to family violence and child abuse’ (Gordon 2002: xxiii). Arguing that government under-servicing exacerbated this vulnerable condition, the Gordon inquiry made many detailed proposals for state agencies to improve their defence of Aboriginal families from this ‘epidemic’. For example, she urged the government to provide more housing, including more crisis accommodation. Because the government of violence requires one to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate violence, the Gordon inquiry’s findings about Aboriginal– police relations were particularly interesting. Gordon found that Aboriginal people were inhibited from seeking police help by their distrust of the Western Australian Police Service (ibid.: 207) and that the police relationship with juveniles was particularly sensitive (ibid.: 213). Yet she also observed that in remote communities people felt safer if there was a police presence (ibid.: 213) and that some Aboriginal people wanted more police. This tension within the Gordon inquiry’s presentation of the police conveys a significant uncertainty in the contemporary Indigenous sense of jurisdiction: what is the appropriate source of coercive

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power in critical situations? The recognition of family violence (including the abuse and neglect of children) as a national policy issue since the early 1990s has highlighted the difficulty – for Indigenous (and other) policy intellectuals – of affirming the existence of the ‘Aboriginal jurisdiction’. History – an influential discipline in Australian discussions about responsibility and desert in Indigenous affairs – contributes little to our wisdom about what to do next in the articulation of the national with the Indigenous jurisdiction. Aetiologies of the current crisis within the Indigenous jurisdiction are easily produced by anyone with a basic understanding of Australia’s colonial past. The Gordon inquiry came up with the following list of the factors giving rise to family violence and child abuse: Marginalisation and dispossession; loss of land and traditional culture; breakdown of kinship systems and Aboriginal law; entrenched poverty; racism; drug, alcohol and substance abuse; the effects of institutionalization and removal policies; the ‘redundancy’ of the traditional Aboriginal male role and status, compensated for by an aggressive assertion of male rights over women [and] children; trauma and violence over the last two centuries; issues of governance and leadership in communities; passive welfare; the portrayal of violence and sexuality; gambling. (Gordon 2002: 478–9)

One is tempted to deride this list for its politically conciliatory inclusiveness and to lament its lack of any prescriptive implication. All these things are bad and irreversible: to contemplate the list is to feel, almost unbearably, history’s determining weight. However, I question the list’s insistence on the bad factors. Let us change the question slightly, from what causes Indigenous people to be violent to people they are close to, to what has caused family violence to be the problem that we now consider it to be. We would still list all the above factors, but we would add one: the improved reporting of family violence. Family violence, as a problem, is constituted not only by the fact that it happens but also by the fact that we notice it happening and find it problematic. The best feature of family violence – if I can risk writing so perversely – is the proliferation of talk about it. What has triggered such talk? One intriguing possible answer is: challenges to Indigenous identity. From 2001 to 2006, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioners William Jonas and Tom Calma researched and consulted on Indigenous communities’ family violence – ‘a scourge . . . causing untold damage and trauma among Indigenous communities’ (HREOC 2006: 4). They have concluded that, to take seriously the human rights of Indigenous Australians, Indigenous women must be encouraged to violate ‘the code of silence that exists in many Indigenous communities about these issues’ (ibid.: 4). In explaining why women might find it hard to do that, Calma distinguishes between Aboriginal customary law which, in his view, ‘does not condone family violence and abuse’ (ibid.: 10) and contemporary Aboriginal identity: The identity of many Indigenous women is bound to their experience as Indigenous people. Rather than sharing a common experience of sexism binding them with nonIndigenous women, this may bind them more to their community, including the men

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of the community . . . [A] consequence of this is that an Indigenous woman may be unable or unwilling to fragment their identity by leaving the community, kin, family or partners. (ibid.: 6)

Calma insists that if ‘customary law’ is to be recognised by governments it must conform to human rights norms that uphold gender equality (ibid.: 10). Customary law must be renewed in these terms despite the historically formed Indigenous identities that bind men and women to unequal relationships. Quoting the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Calma espouses this human rights mandate to use ‘all appropriate measures’ to ‘modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women’ to change cultures of sexual inequality (ibid.: 11).

Conclusion From the point of view of Indigenous Australians (as I interpret it) the problem of social cohesion has two dimensions: how to live in a nation-state in which the immigrant non-Indigenous peoples have long enjoyed the advantages of majority, wealth, and power, and how to live with each other. As the figures on intermarriage from my opening paragraph indicate, the ways that Indigenous Australians now resolve their difficulties in living with one another include choosing nonIndigenous spouses. As a result, one of the sources of growth in the Indigenous population is births to non-Indigenous women who are married to Indigenous men (Gray 2002; Kinfu & Taylor 2002). However, while intermarriage may be an important strategy of Indigenous reproduction, from the point of view of the nation as a whole it is a trivial achievement. For Australians as a nation to come to terms with the Indigenous minority requires contracts of an impersonal and institutional kind. In the discussion of Indigenous affairs since the bipartisan acceptance of land rights in the 1970s, it has been tempting to dwell on the consistency between four processes of ‘recognition’ (Rowse 2006) that characterised Australian public policy in the last quarter of the 20th century: ● the recognition of the Indigenous population by self-identification (by changes in Australia’s Census practices) ● the recognition of a surviving tradition of customary law (in land rights and native title legislation and in the discretion of sentencing judges in criminal trials) ● the recognition of an Indigenous land estate (in the policies enabling land claim and land acquisition that have transferred about one-fifth of Australia’s land mass into Indigenous title) ● the recognition of corporate capacities of self-government (in the public funding of the Indigenous sector). (Rowse 2005) One word that evokes the consistency between these four processes of recognition is ‘jurisdiction’. In the contemporary political discourse of some Indigenous intellectuals, ‘jurisdiction’ evokes the nation’s Indigenous interlocutor.

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However, we should resist the supposition that territories make good analogies for jurisdictions. It has been relatively easy, since the advent of land rights policies, to demarcate a distinct Indigenous territorial order. One needs only to revise the laws of land tenure. While these revisions have been controversial, they have not been technically difficult for lawyers and surveyors, once the political process had forged an understanding of the rights of parties. However, the demarcation of jurisdictions within a nation-state is not straightforward. The Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations are not discrete (though one can enumerate them as if they were). The Indigenous sector, as Noel Pearson has found, is subject to the universalising logic of citizenship entitlement. And, according to Tom Calma, the adaptation of Indigenous customary law to contemporary needs is open to contestation between a sexist Indigenous particularism and the demands of human rights universalism. One could say of recent Australian debates that they have approached the problem of social cohesion as if it were a choice between the promotion and the dissolution of Indigenous jurisdiction. In this essay I have highlighted some work by contemporary Indigenous intellectuals that seeks to transform both the Australian and the Indigenous jurisdictions in order to forge a better relationship between them.

9 Social cohesion and cultural fragility: a paradox of Indigenous rapports with Eurasian Australia Robert Nelson

Globalisation and social cohesion have been related, and for obvious reasons. The patriotic jealousy that stimulates chauvinism and cultural division is apparently overcome by globalisation. With globalisation comes the sharing of social aspirations; they are driven by international energies, in which people’s fortunes are no longer determined by parochial privileges – vigilantly guarded by protectionism – but transnational corporate structures and ambitions which bring together people of diverse background. This positive view of globalisation is held in good faith. The breakdown in equality and social cohesion which might occur in wealthy nations through the erosion of welfare is regarded as having a negative effect on globalisation, stimulating alienated and possibly reactionary elements to resist the benefits of a potentially unified world. This has been argued with many layers of sympathy by scholars in other countries, such as Italy. Like all products of the Enlightenment, from the universality of science to the encyclopaedia, globalisation might be considered an unfinished project. The ideal of a uniform set of values spread across the planet would be convenient for stability and peace. The commonwealth of aspiration would be tangibly reinforced by shared legislation, labour, corporate structures and markets. Alas, even with these aspirations, communities are never so cohesive that cultural differences, with their fierce histories of antagonism and attempted effacement, can be entirely obliterated. And understandably, the persistence of localised values, memories and local interest shades off into bitterness when local interests are under threat or face demolition. Unfortunately, sometimes the enthusiasm for globalisation aligns with beliefs of racial supremacy and the inevitable extinction of the uncompetitive. Compared to many countries where the theme of social cohesion is vigorously discussed because of high levels of violence, Australia has achieved a remarkable degree of social cohesion. A murder in Sydney or Melbourne is likely to make 103

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the headlines of serious broadsheets; whereas in S˜ ao Paulo, there are over 6000 murders every year, and many would escape reporting.1 Australia enjoys great peace and any racial conflict in our history (like the Cronulla riots in Sydney) is regarded as an anomaly in the somewhat seamless conversion of an Anglo-white Australia into a multicultural land, keen to celebrate the colour and life of its several constituent communities. Alas, this miraculous peaceful multicultural coexistence and inclusive spirit – with its special delight in culinary services and touristic glamour – has been bought at the expense of the one community that was never able to join in, for want of capital and market participation: the Australian Aborigines. Multiculturalism has been so successful in Australia because it aligns with globalisation and the marketing of prestige. The migrant population of Melbourne, for example, is largely outward-looking in its aspirations, competitive, ambitious, and ultimately well networked with education and the professions. With the possible exception of a pious Muslim minority (to which we will return), there is no inherent incompatibility between their home culture and marketing and global corporate culture. Plus we enjoy relative prosperity, so the promise of industry supplying an enhanced level of desire through escalating consumption seems materially plausible. Little of this has any credibility or appeal with the world’s indigenous communities, least of all the Australian.2 Some of the values respected by indigenous communities may be congruent with globalised imaginative frameworks, but many indigenous people are likely to be proudly resistant to them. On ideological grounds, cultural activities conceived in indigenous communities are unlikely to have the inbuilt competitive striving for publicity or pre-eminence in the market that characterises all global enterprise. Globalisation, seen in cultural rather than economic terms, is a force that imposes homogeneity of values upon diverse communities.3 From an indigenous point of view, it could be interpreted as the annihilation of spiritual difference, treating people in all communities as a giant market, cultivating – by means of seductive media – a desire to conform to stereotypical consumerist desires 1 Nancy Cardia & Sueli Schiffer: ‘In 1999, there were 6,638 homicides in S˜ ao Paulo . . . a rate of 67 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. The distribution of these homicides . . . is not homogeneous . . .’. In ‘Violˆencia e desigualdade social’ (Violence and social inequality), Ciˆencia e Cultura (Print ISSN 0009–6725) 54(1), S˜ ao Paulo June–September 2002, . As indicated in the quoted text, the article analyses the concentration of homicides by urban area and demographic and comes to the conclusion that poverty and the pressure of space are a cause of the high numbers. See also the Masters thesis by Braulio Figueiredo Alves da Silva, ‘Coes˜ ao social, desordem percebida e vitimiza¸ca ˜o em Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil’, Universidade Federal De Minas Gerais, . (All translations from European languages are by Robert Nelson.) 2 The unhappy fit between cultural diversity and nationalism has been related to anthropological prejudice by El´ oi Martins Senhoras in his history of Brazilian anthropology, which includes globalisation: ‘Cultura e poder: Um percurso da constru¸ca ˜o dos discursos e a¸co ˜es sobre ra¸ca na forma¸ca ˜o nacional’, Revista Urut´ agua, no. 8, . 3 Even structures of labour in Western expectations are a poor fit with Indigenous cultures. See Brigitte Barthas: ‘A first examination of the implications of the process of globalization makes us think that the indigenous community and what goes with it in terms of organization and internal cohesion finds itself under threat beneath the political effects of modernization, the semi-proletariatization of the rural population, etc. Till now, the different forms of subordination of the community to the capitalist economy were accommodated within its structure and did not necessitate its destruction. Now it presents as an obstacle to the definitive proletariatization of the rural economies and the liberation of its workforce. Hence cheap labour presents itself – and thus official discourses show it – as the major competitive advantage of the country and a sign of political openness’; in ‘La comunidad ind´ıgena como organizaci´ on, El caso de la Huasteca’, Encuentro de la Asociaci´ on de Estudios Latinoamericanos (LASA), Continental Plaza Hotel, Guadalajara, Mexico, 17–19 April, 1997, which I found at .

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and middle-class glamour. In every decade, it seems, indigenous people around the globe are placed in a more tenuous and invidious position relative to the capital-intensive promotion of desire for goods and services, many of which are inimical to certain core values in indigenous communities. There are major questions in the indigenous outlook and for indigenous identity of how to countenance this relentless pressure. By and large indigenous communities are not interested in the current international zeal for representing lifestyle, fashion and consumerist sleaze which characterises a great deal of the world’s media and has even penetrated the art scene in exhibitions that celebrate the passivity of media culture.4 For indigenous people throughout the world, the prospect of globalisation is a kind of culturecide or destruction of a continuous patrimony that has endured for many thousands of years. In Australia, the invasion by Europeans is relatively recent and, in spite of assimilationist policies which have prevailed throughout the 200-year period, the difference between whitefella and blackfella paradigms rises to consciousness as strikingly now as ever. A part of this consciousness is expressed in art, in which Indigenous people have acquired a powerful voice that resonates deeply within the mainstream European intelligentsia, both in Australia and internationally. There are many paradoxes that unsettle the appearance of exemplary social cohesion in Australia. For many Indigenous people, the uniformity of outlook in law and policy is bought at the expense of Aboriginal values. From the outset, this was apparent with the confrontation of a tribal society – with its formidable religious cosmogony pervading the consciousness of the land – by a dominant materialism from Britain, curiously spiritualised towards universal belief in one God who is the creator of everything. Even without Christianity, the colonial power saw the ancient spirituality of Australia as doomed.5 Today, the absolute quality of Aboriginal belief is understood to be uniquely creative, filled with the artist’s interpretive share in a holy geographic narrative. The fortunes of Aboriginal art have risen sharply in Australia and overseas thanks to this recognition. But the ironies are disturbing. The only artistic production which has earned Australia a widespread international reputation is created by a marginalised people who, in the touching words of the first great facilitator of the desert art movement, Geoffrey Barden, are ‘the brutally rejected and sick and poor’.6 With increasing urbanisation of Indigenous communities throughout Australia come obvious problems. Australia, when viewed from its spangling globalised metropolises, is one of the most cohesive societies on the planet. But in the northern regions of Australia where Aboriginal communities have expanded 4 In Australia, this includes figures such as Darren Silvester, whose exhibition at Sullivan & Strumpf in Sydney, 2005, mimicked the visual language of advertising and whose catalogue resembled a commercial brochure. 5 See my article in relation to such beliefs that influenced art during the 1920s: ‘Neither the last natives nor the least’, Sunday Age, Agenda, 12 November 2000, p. 12. 6 ‘I sometimes thought . . . that an older Australia was passing away forever, that our own symmetries had been set aside and made helpless and that a new visualization and idea of the continent had come forth . . . It is hard to be clear about an entire continent wondrously re-perceived by the brutally rejected and sick and poor: yet this is what occurred.’ Quoted in Susan McCulloch, Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999, 2001 edn, p. 61. Earlier in the same text, Bardon specifically described the community of Papunya (now flourishing in relative terms as an art centre) as ‘divisive, depressed and lacking in either cohesion or direction’ (ibid., p. 18).

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in an uncomfortable relationship with white infrastructure and authority, the social landscape looks very different. Indeed it is visible. Cyclone wire is used, as in Brazil, to separate white workers from potentially hostile and sometimes hungry and desperate Indigenous people. This has a great deal to do with health problems and is not a form of apartheid along prejudicially racial lines. The decision by Coles or Woolworths to build a safe outdoor enclosure for their staff is simply based on a policy to lessen the stress of their employees. For the management, faced with the challenges of morale in their business, it would seem hard to imagine what reconciliation might mean in these circumstances. Aside from the fabulous fortunes of desert art, Aboriginal Australia does not cohere socially with mainstream Eurasian Australia. There is a catastrophic gap which few white Australians seem to have a heart to peer into, though excellent studies have been published, especially on the destitution of the communities.7 For policy-makers, it is the great national embarrassment, only capable of being ignored because the populations are so relatively dispersed and also fundamentally benign. There are no class manifestations, no large-scale riots of an organised nature, no concerted revolt, insurrection, systematic resistance or methodical aggression towards the oppressor. Rather, the predicament might be characterised as total alienation, a disempowerment of a political and cultural nature, which has caused this community to lose its spirits. By grace of this spiritual defeat, Aborigines are not seen as a major threat to social cohesion. From being drubbed into submission throughout the colonial period, they are now frequently dispossessed in the most complete form, which might be defined as social self-estrangement. Just as there is no cohesion between Aboriginal and Eurasian Australia, so there is little cohesion within the Indigenous communities. With various dependencies and consequent psychological and physical damage of a harrowing nature, the basis for self-esteem, internal growth, confidence and self-reliance, the communities are often socially disempowered and psychologically mystified. According to various reports, children in remote communities run riot, scavenge lawlessly and cannot be brought under control. Their parents do not enforce the discipline of going to school and the children end up uneducated. The problem with Aborigines, according to the philosophy of the Hon. Dr Gary Johns, a former minister in the Keating government, is that they persist in being Aboriginal.8 Aboriginal children are drastically underperforming at school because Aboriginal culture gets in the way. They should get some discipline into them, learn a work ethic and train up for the workforce. Johns’ report, ‘Aboriginal education: remote schools and the real economy’, has recently been published by the Menzies Research Centre and has all the 7 In The Economic Status of Australian Aborigines, Cambridge 1979 (reprinted in 2006), Jon Altman and John Nieuwenhuysen repeatedly note that the documentation of the poor health, income, education, housing and other conditions among Aboriginal communities should not be taken to imply any assumption that the necessary improvements required the adoption of alternative cultural frameworks. Altman and Nieuwenhuysen carefully qualified their economic approach, seeking to eschew ethnocentric bias in the assumption that standard of living must provide the grid of cultural aspirations. They note that favourable economic change is not necessarily desirable, as when it yields socially disruptive consequences (p. xiv). 8 The whole text can be found at . Some of the paragraphs below have been grafted from my response in the Opinion pages of The Age, days after the paper was released: ‘Learning is not just the 3Rs’, The Age, 5 June 2006.

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hallmarks of appeal to the current government. Reviving an archaic assimilationist agenda from the 1950s, the report stands in contempt of reconciliation and represents an unsympathetic and regressive mood that has once again overtaken white Australia. Johns argues that there’s no economy in remote areas and educators need to make one: ‘if educators and governments understand that education is essentially an instrument in economic integration’, Aboriginal children might have some chance. Beside the white supremacist overtones of ‘integration’, this is educational fundamentalism.9 For thousands of years, European and Asian cultures have accepted that education is not an instrument for making money so much as a way of enriching a community with ideas and knowledge. Education has long been associated with spiritual speculation, for example among painters, monks, musicians and poets. This liberal spirit in education that flourished throughout our history – and which has generated the finest achievements of much of the world – cannot possibly be afforded for Aboriginal people in Australia. For Johns, Aborigines only need education to enter the real economy. Never mind the educational traditions in blackfella culture, which are all about a spirit world. Aborigines must not hide behind a ‘cultural curtain’, ‘on permanent holiday’. Their culture is ‘not conducive to western education’.10 In order to enter the real economy, Aborigines just have to ‘comply with the discipline of western education’. For Johns, ‘the only path is economic integration. Once this is established, the role of the educator becomes clear: to give students the skills to live in the modern world and to reinforce that these matters have priority over all else.’ Johns’ conception of the real economy is just as limited as his instrumental idea of education. He notes that there are about 450 people at Halls Creek on assured welfare ‘and yet there are a number of jobs in mining . . . available in the region’.11 It seems symbolically insensitive to invoke those jobs. To enjoin an Aboriginal person to work in mining is rather like requiring a pious Christian to earn his or her keep by demolishing churches, as might have happened under Ceausescu. 9 From the introduction (ibid., p. 5): ‘The correct policy response to failure at school will be determined not simply by additional programs at school, but by how various issues of transition to the real economy – work, individual obligation, mobility – are managed. The transition will be better managed if educators and governments understand that education is essentially an instrument in economic integration, and that many remote communities are not viable, and where they are not schools should not be used as pawns to keep them afloat. Moreover, educators and governments should understand that western education cannot and should not preserve Aboriginal culture.’ See also pp. 16–17. 10 This is actually a quote from the Reverend Steve Etherington, a researcher in Aboriginal education, who argued: ‘Almost no Aboriginal people live a traditional lifestyle or even want to. We have unintentionally created a group of people who are required to be on permanent holiday at various outstation/homeland centres without any meaningful employment and with a white staff to undertake management of areas of life that every other Australian sees as part of his own responsibility. This kind of publicly supported post-traditional lifestyle bears only the most superficial resemblance to pre-contact lifestyles and will create unemployable people capable only of living in this artificial environment’ (ibid., p. 7). Johns goes on to say: ‘The major problems in remote Aboriginal communities stem from the passively derived income of the parents and community and elements of their culture which are not conducive to western education, or used as an excuse to not comply with the discipline of western education’ (ibid.). 11 ‘For example, Centrelink can apply remote area exemptions from activity testing to individuals who have no local access to a labour market, labour market program or vocational training course. This means that welfare recipients do not have to comply with obligations to search for work or be engaged in training. Exemptions are being progressively removed around Australia and people may respond by moving to find work. Nevertheless, there are about 450 people at Halls Creek who have an exemption, and yet there are a number of jobs in mining, infrastructure and services available in the region. There is still a long way to go and the difficulty of compliance and monitoring should not be underestimated, but a start has been made’ (ibid. p. 24).

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The example of the minerals industry is not just infelicitous but inimical in a telling way. Johns reveals a lack of sympathy for his human subject matter. In fact, there are many Aboriginal communities with a thriving economy. It is an economy that Johns does not mention. It is called art. Much of it, admittedly, is not produced in very remote areas; but nearly all of it is produced outside the framework of Western education. And it is the envy of the world. It is the biggest single achievement that Australia has to boast about on the international circuit, raising global attention ahead of Australian science or humanities. When I contemplate the glories of our painters from the desert regions of the Northern Territory and Western Australia, I am humbled. In no other art can you see quite the sumptuous visuality of Aboriginal painting: its formal invention is without par, as is – above all – its sense of connectedness, an abiding relationship to narrative, country and meaningful ritual. Most pertinently, Aboriginal art is constantly changing. It responds colourfully to the times and will undoubtedly evolve further as various pressures reshape the communities. It seems strange that Johns can write about ‘the real economy’ and not acknowledge the global position (even in market terms) of Aboriginal art, art which is often produced by illiterate people. And would you not also have to consider that perhaps art might be a more appropriate measure by which to translate the national benchmarks in education, which are obsessively centred on literacy and numeracy? Rather than seeking to bludgeon Aboriginal children into conformity with white children, it would be prudent to investigate what Indigenous people are good at. Even white children have trouble with national benchmarks. Sometimes it is because those white children come from a rowdy household; but more usually it is just because they think differently and in certain respects more imaginatively. By nature or nurture, their minds are configured differently and they have other aptitudes. They might think visually or sensually rather than lexically; they might have corporal rhythmic intelligence rather than abstract intelligence. If Aboriginal children cannot always cope with whitefella expectations, would it not make more sense to enquire as to the special gifts that have been successfully nurtured for a very long time and are translated in myriad creative ways in contemporary Aboriginal life? Should that not form the basis of Aboriginal education? I cannot see why education has to be so wholly incongruous with traditional modes of teaching from ancient times. Johns does not contemplate this. On the contrary he warns that ‘too often, educators continue to defer to Aboriginal culture, without recognising that Aboriginal culture is the problem. Can a culture that is pre-literate and pre-numerate survive in an education system that is meant to make children literate and numerate?’12 Leaving aside the master-narrative of Aboriginal decline and extinction, Johns sees only one kind of activity happening at a school with Aborigines in it: numeracy and literacy. It has no art or music or dance or theatre in it. These arts, with 12 ‘Western education cannot and should not preserve Aboriginal culture. The moment a child walks into a classroom they change, so the idea of preserving something that the child brings to the school is a forlorn hope. Moreover, the task of passing on “culture” properly rests with Aboriginal people. If they are unable to do so, the state has no business in taking its place. Too often, educators continue to defer to Aboriginal culture, without recognizing that Aboriginal culture is the problem. Can a culture that is pre-literate and pre-numerate survive in an education system that is meant to make children literate and numerate? Can a (welfare) culture that has no work ethic be in a position to prepare its children for school? Too often, politicians wish for things that cannot be delivered’ (ibid., p. 21).

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their rich connections to the Aboriginal patrimony, are apparently alien to the author. Indeed, they could have no place in our schools if they were used by children to explore the Aboriginal patrimony, because Johns declares: ‘western education cannot and should not preserve Aboriginal culture.’13 I wonder why these little Indigenous people cannot cultivate anything of their own in school. Can we not let them paint pictures in the classroom? They might be better than anyone else’s. For Johns, Aboriginal culture represents a giant wreckage where children ‘have rejected the world in which their elders find value, but they are not equipped to embrace the alternative’. He can only see two paths, which means he can only see one: assimilation. We have to get real: ‘The option of leaving people alone has well and truly passed. Governments are intervening in Aboriginal lives, the object is to intervene in a way that gives children a chance to be independent, not live a life that mimics two worlds. A western education can provide the vehicle for the economic integration of Aboriginal children.’14 No, it can not. Or not so long as it is conceived the way Johns conceives it. A Western education predicated on all the cultural conditions that Aborigines lack is clearly doomed. The answer is precisely to try what Johns is so anxious to condemn, but which has never been given a proper go: an encouragement to study the Aboriginal patrimony through art, to learn with art, with music, dance and acting. Alas, even if the problem of attitudes to Aboriginal education could be cleared up – allowing for more sympathetic language and greater acceptance of flexibility of educational objectives and methods – our wider problem would remain. It would certainly help if art were seen in remote schools not just as a celebration of difference but an area of capability analogous to maths and English, championing the freedom of mind that ultimately makes for human dignity. Undoubtedly, the promotion of art would assist the standing, esteem and even economic robustness of the Indigenous communities; but the problem of social cohesion within Australia is not going to be solved so easily.15 Beyond the white intolerance of people who cannot get their children to read and write efficiently, mainstream Australia offends Indigenous people in other ways. Indeed, it is a problem throughout the world where indigenous people remain identifiable. It is the force mentioned earlier, known as globalisation, which is especially resented in the sacred domain of Islam, for example, but is structurally inimical to all holy societies, thanks to the irresistible materialism that globalisation entails. The horror of globalisation is not just a fear of the power of superior money, technology and resources but the values that they purvey. For Islamic fundamentalists, the relentlessly encroaching spectacle of commerce is ugly beyond all measures of profanity. First, it is resolutely secular and incompatible with religious values. There is nothing holy in the marketing of goods and services; and all 13 ibid. 14 ibid., p. 17. 15 Indigenous disadvantage is closely studied in two Productivity Commission reports written under the leadership of Robert Fitzgerald: Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, 2003 and 2005. They include key indicators, such as life expectancy, rates of disability, post-secondary education, unemployment, income, home ownership, suicide, child protection notifications, deaths from homicide, crime rates, and imprisonment and juvenile detention rates. See Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, Key Indicators, Productivity Commission 2005, available at .

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the energies and wealth-generating businesses of the West seem to be engulfed in marketing of one kind or another, forever guided by popular demand rather than religious tradition or authority.16 Second, the tools by which marketing is conducted are an abomination. Against decades of feminist critique, our advertising pathologically makes use of young women’s bodies to promote goods and services that bear only incidental relation to their naked flesh, their short skirts and wanton exposure, their provocative alluring made-up gaze, their orgasmically revealed upper teeth. A good proportion of advertising even in respectable newspapers and journals represents a continuous flow of low-level pornography that stimulates desire in sly ways, obscenely confounding the social and the sexual. Third, the basis on which these inducements are arrayed is a cynical strategy to manipulate appetite and greed. Relying upon the competitive zeal of the Western individual to amass more and more property, to attract young and gorgeous bodies, to rise to greater prestige through gratuitous spending, the operation of Western commerce structurally foments the basest materialism, the most unholy covetousness met with irresponsible indulgence, an orgy of wanting and fantasising that inspires the rich with the gratification of their pride and demoralises the poor with the tangible evidence of their inadequacy. Not for the wretched are the glamorous accoutrements and perfumes sported by lascivious-looking 20-yearolds in aristocratic pleasure-domes. The fibs of privilege and rapture are hard to view with irony when they advertise what a whole community lacks relative to the boastful West. And fourth, the technical instruments of such campaigns are not only unwholesomely seductive but insidious, irresistible and pervasive. In westernised nations, hardly a home is without a television. It is an organ of commerce, a conduit for messages of exaggerated volume and content, which inundate the spectator with illusions and vanity, pumping with popular music, with shameless display and emotional hyperbole. Almost all the media lie at the disposal of commercial interests, for the media depend upon free capital and serve the marketing industries above any educational charter. Television, even if censored by theocratic decree, infects a room with frivolous make-believe, which is ultimately conducive to the cynical call to hedonism, the great spell of the market which makes of all narratives an occasion for wish-fulfilment. And where there are no televisions, the same images will spring up on billboards, shop windows, brochures and newspapers, all with their enticing feigned expressions of joy in possession. Globalisation presents these fetishes in such profusion and with such invasive energies that, unless armed with solemn resolution, individuals and groups statistically succumb. Otherwise, the advertising would not be worth it. How individuals swallow such hackneyed allegories of bliss is mysterious to me; but 16 Diane Perrons, Globalization and Social Change: People and Places in a Divided World, Routledge 2004, pays particular attention to globalisation as the agent of change through the development of technologies and the information economy affecting social life, for example notions of community, migration and employment. But the sting is largely unfelt. This is true of many studies in the area, such as Chris Jenks, Culture (Routledge 2004), which examines the political and ideological bases in which the concept of culture is embedded. Modernist perspectives are also covered through the writings on Subculture, Visual Culture and Urban Culture. Similarly, Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Jacques Hersh (eds), Globalization and Social Change, Routledge 2000, which provides a useful critical analysis of the concept of globalisation. Some of the major themes include the impact of globalisation on social change; the effect of globalisation on social policy and finance in East Asia; and globalisation as a development of modernism.

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wherever poorer people have foibles, richer people can profit from them. Advertising has a history long anterior to globalisation; but globalisation makes it universal, inescapable, a necessity the world over, arrogantly promulgating the same vulgar fantasies of lust and voracity that fuel the exaggerated levels of consumption throughout the Western world.17 The global triumph of commerce is, in some sense at least, the death of indigenous culture, just as it is of Islam. With whatever humiliation is endured through the main force of the Western industrial nations,18 Islamic communities must in addition suffer the high symbolic arrogance of Western audio-visual projections, the commercial propaganda which is anathema to religious feeling. First, there is a material, military expression of Western prowess.19 But thereafter, and upon the menace of total conquest, comes the acceptance of Western commercial culture.20 It adds insult to injury. Culture is conditioned economically but it is defined symbolically. Globalisation entails a new persistence of persuasive commercial language, in which ownership of the ideal way to be, look, think and aspire inheres in foreign places; and meanwhile the old local and natural modes of deportment are expropriated, deemed unfashionable, redundant, backward, embarrassing. The discourse of world aspiration is controlled by globalisation. Each country is in competition with every other to find mass markets, to sell goods and services conceived strategically with the available tools of marketing and advertising. Each country must subscribe to the ideology that governs and perpetuates consumer culture, with its logos, its erotic pretension and exhibitionist wealth. Communities which have very little are enjoined to adopt the globalised airs and affectations of the rich. Before long, they too emulate the materialist zeal of those globalised communities endowed with more capital than discrimination. The conceited exaltation of the West is a degradation for indigenous communities, as it is for Islam. The great feelings of antagonism that cause young Muslims to kill themselves in order to kill us arise because of a large-scale suffering of dishonour, a worsening disempowerment that snubs religious values of 17 Long before globalisation became a motif in the structural analysis of change, similar phenomena were described with the term ‘Americanisation’. It is still used somewhat interchangeably with globalisation in various texts and is sometimes preferred: ‘It’s only in the last decades that the phenomenon of globalization or, better, of Americanization, has revealed itself in its fullness.’ Tiziano Terzani, ‘Lettera da Orsigna’, Lettere contro la guerra (Letters against war), Longanesi & Co., Milan 2002, p. 27. 18 ‘For Bin Laden and his people, the profession of arms is not a job but a mission that has its roots in a faith acquired in the obtuseness of the Koranic schools, but above all in the deep sense of defeat and impotence, in the humiliation of a civilization – the Muslim civilization – once great and feared, which now finds itself forever more marginalized and offended by the overpowering force and arrogance of the West’ (ibid., p. 25). 19 In itself indignity is enough: ‘For the fundamentalists, this westernisation of the Islamic world is an anathema and, now as never, this process menaces its identity. According to them, with the end of the Cold War, the West has revealed its cards and its project is clearer and clearer – for them “diabolical” – to incorporate the whole of humanity in a single global system which, thanks to technology, gives the West access and control of all the resources of the world, including those which the Creator – not by accident, according the fundamentalists – had placed in the lands were Islam was born and has grown: from the petrol of the Middle East to the timber of the Indonesian forests’ (ibid., p. 27). 20 Bruno Trezzini has noted how the neo-Confucianism of Chinese in Malaysia is conducive to commercial values, while the outlook for Islamic people is ‘less euphoric’: ‘In this connexion, it is readily observed that Islam underwent no historical development comparable to the Enlightenment, which led to a division between religious and secular realms of life. In spite of some modernizing reformers, Islam remained in this sense traditional . . . Above all for Islamic fundamentalists, it can be clearly posited that its representatives often seek the techno-economic efficiency of modern industry but reject its institutional (e.g. formal democracy) and cultural (e.g. individualism) premises’; in Staat, Gesellschaft und Globalisierung: Entwicklungstheoretische Betrachtungen am Beispiel Malaysias, Mitteilungen des Instituts f¨ ur Asienkunde, 330, Hamburg 2001, pp. 186–7.

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every kind. While other religions (Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism) have gradually acclimatised to secular culture, Islamic belief structures do not so readily lend themselves to a separation of God and state, and they consequently form a site of alienation with respect to dominant global forces. What humiliates is not the high quality of Western culture but the vulgarity of it. It is not through the pre-eminence of Mozart or C´ezanne or Freud that the West has alienated Islam; for Islamic cultures would begrudge the West none of the glories proper to it. The scandal is the moral paradigm of self-interest and marketing that the West foists upon the rest of the world. Indigenous religion perishes without the resistance that arises in Islam. But it leaves a gap which can apparently only be filled (or somehow made cohesive) by conforming to the ideologies of market materialism. One culture. The opposite of globalisation is diversity. Where diversity has formerly been most apparent to our eyes, the depredations of globalisation are perhaps more conspicuous to other eyes and most immediately felt by other senses. The attack on diversity has been seen as a cause of religious revivals.21 India serves as an example.22 Globalisation may not be so obvious in westernised cultures. It might be just as insidious but it is not as conspicuous. Change – visual or structural or behavioural – is inherent in modernisation. We accept as inevitable a bewildering rate of change, as if inbuilt, arising from technological developments, communications and free trade. The signs of globalisation are somewhat normalised as the signs of progress, in some way due, inevitable and natural in the Western psyche. The visibility of globalisation in non-westernised countries, however, is striking, anomalous, unpleasant, rude, outrageous, blasphemous. As the late Italian writer Tiziano Terzani puts it, Islam is the only ideology that resists globalisation after the collapse of communism.23 But the same marginalisation may be felt by any local culture, any indigenous group, any community, any family or individual or any single lived experience. All can be obliterated by globalisation.24 Never before have unmarketed poetic phenomena – to which individuals are privy in private collectedness – seemed so fragile. Ours is an age of 21 As affirmed by J¨ urgen R¨ uland: ‘Far from being – as neo-liberal economists assume – a linear, unified process, globalization is much rather stamped with an inherent dialectic. Globalization finds its counterpart in a strengthening localism; unification goes hand in hand with fragmentation’; ‘with greater probability, causal relationships between globalization and religious revivals in south east Asia are apparent’; in ‘Globalisierung und Religion in S¨ udostasien’, in G¨ unter Schucher (ed.), Asien unter Globalisierungsdruck: politische Kulturen zwischen Tradition und Moderne, Mitteilungen des Instituts f¨ ur Asienkunde, 323, Hamburg 2000, pp. 59 and 67 respectively. 22 See Clemens J¨ urgenmeyer: ‘The existential feeling of oppression, the fear of no longer being master of your own house, belongs with an alienation between self and society and stands in close interchangeable relation with societal changes and revolution which have occurred in India as a result of the process of modernization’; in ‘Modernisierung und Hindunationalismus: zur Politik der Identit¨ at im heutigen Indien’, G¨ unter Schucher (ed.), Asien unter Globalisierungsdruck: politische Kulturen zwischen Tradition und Moderne, Mitteilungen des Instituts f¨ ur Asienkunde, 323, Hamburg 2000, p. 45. 23 ‘With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism, the sole remaining ideology determined to oppose the New Order which, with America at the head, promises peace and prosperity to the globalised world is the fundamentalist and militant version of Islam’; in Terzani, ‘Lettera da Orsigna’, Lettere p. 24. 24 Noted by other authors, such as Jean-Pierre Warnier: ‘The industrial production of consumer goods heaps upon the market a flood of objects which . . . unto the remotest corners of the planet, are in competition with products of the local cultures: cassettes and transistors against the guitar and Andean flute, xylophone or gamelan; table and chair against the rug or tatami; hamburger against the crockpot; shirt and trousers against the loin cloth or skirt; supermarket against village exchange . . . in this sense, all the mass industrial systems traffic and “market” culture’; in Jean-Pierre Warnier, ‘elles marchandisent la culture’; ‘Nous y inclurons la television, la photographie, la publicit´e, le spectacle, le tourisme de masse’, La mondialisation de la culture, ´ Editions La D´ecouverte, Paris 1999, p. 18.

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commercial mediation, in which pleasures are commercially enhanced or at least facilitated; and, as so many energies are devoted to promoting delight through commercial interfaces (all marked by competition), there is a consequent devaluation of uncompetitive contemplative space, upon which most spiritual traditions depend.25 For Terzani, the problems of globalisation would not go away if Islamic fundamentalism were miraculously mitigated. The problem is within ourselves, manifest in our inability to live a life in harmony with nature, without the mediation of technologies and competitive marketing. This dependence can be derived from a failure to understand the world as an organic whole. Terzani’s critical ideas may be neither radical nor novel, but their significance lies in the vein of phenomenological observation and feeling that he brings to his case. The discussion of globalisation is not an abstract argument of a political or economic or even an anthropological kind. It is steeped in reflections on personal experience. There is a constant backdrop of reverie, filled with images, vignettes, evocations of the consciousness so rudely blotted out by globalisation. Many relate to nature or perceptions of the cycle of life.26 His specific political ideas, his critique of American militarism or the manipulative strategies of Western media, are again perhaps nothing new. But what he has invented – especially in almost careless incidental observations scattered passim – is effectively a method by which political dialectic can be related to personal experience, the ecology of feeling in favour of coexistence with nature and humanity.27 With mixtures of longing, indignation, pleading and personal reflection, Terzani is concerned with how globalisation intersects with sensory knowledge (usually negatively), how it limits the phenomenology of reverie, how it impinges upon the freedom of mind. So many of these scenarios are familiar to us in the sad plight of Aboriginal wisdom. To me, sustainable social cohesion entails a degree of psychological cohesion. We cannot boast of having achieved social cohesion when the original inhabitants are wholly alienated, set adrift. In the framework of social cohesion, we tend to ignore the Australian Aborigines, simply because they exercise negligible violence towards other groups and are therefore not seen as a threat to the stability of ethnic relations. But this should afford no satisfaction or cause for complacency for mainstream Eurasian Australia, as it is predicated on the wholesale dispiriting of the original inhabitants. Social cohesion should be based on something nobler, like genuine reconciliation. 25 ‘Without time to stop and reflect, caught forever more in the gears of a highly competitive life that leaves forever less space to the private, the person of consumption and high standard of living has lost his or her capacity to be moved or to become indignant. One is all concentrated on oneself, with neither ears nor heart for that which occurs around one’; in Terzani, ‘Lettera da Kabul’, Lettere, Milan 2002, p. 119. 26 ‘Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk, said in relation to a table . . . the table is here in relation to an infinite chain of facts, things and people: the rain that fell on the wood where the tree grew that a forester cut down to give to a carpenter who put it together with nails made by a blacksmith . . . If one solitary element of this chain, even the great grandfather of the carpenter, had not existed, this little table would not be here’; in ‘Lettera dall’Himalaya’, Lettere, pp. 177–8. 27 Echoing the Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff in his Ecologia, mundializa¸ca ˜o, espiritualidade: a emergˆencia de um novo paradigma (Ecology, globalization, spirituality: the emergence of a new paradigm), ´ S˜ ao Paulo: Atica, 1993, Terzani says: ‘the occasion is to understand for once and for all that the world is one, that every part has its sense, that it is possible to replace the logic of competitiveness with the ethic of coexistence, that no one has a monopoly on anything, that the idea of a civilization superior to another is but the fruit of ignorance, that harmony, like beauty, consists in the equilibrium of contraries and that the idea of eliminating one of the two opposites is simply sacrilege’ (ibid., p. 176).

10 Educational attainments, inter-ethnic marriage and social cohesion Siew-Ean Khoo

The concept of social cohesion derives from the work of Durkhiem and has been defined as ‘the interdependence between members of a society, shared loyalties, and solidarity’ (Jenson 1998, quoted in Berger-Schmitt 2000: 3). It has been suggested that social cohesion is a characteristic of strong communities and an important element in building them (Stone & Hughes 2002). Social cohesion has been described variously as reflecting the strength of social relations, shared values and a sense of common identity and belonging to the same community (BergerSchmitt 2000). Recent conceptualisation about social cohesion in Western societies suggests that it can be considered to have five dimensions: belonging – shared values, identity, commitment; inclusion – equal opportunities for access; participation – engagement in structures and systems; recognition – respect and tolerance; and legitimacy – pluralism (Berger-Schmitt 2000; Berger-Schmitt & Noll 2000). The definitions and dimensions of social cohesion described above suggest that social cohesion is more likely in communities and societies where there is less social, cultural, economic and religious diversity so that people have shared values and a sense of common identity. Two recent studies in the United States have suggested that social cohesion is difficult to achieve in multiracial and ethnically diverse communities. As yet unpublished research by Robert Putnam of Harvard University indicates that people in ethnically diverse communities are less trusting of one another (Wilson 2006). A study of four Chicago neighbourhoods also shows that multiracial communities had much weaker social and civic organisations, while communities that were predominantly white or black had much stronger social ties and civic institutions (Wilson & Taub 2006). These findings and the various dimensions of social cohesions imply that social, demographic and economic characteristics and processes that break down racial, ethnic or class barriers should contribute to attaining social cohesion. 114

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This chapter discusses two of these processes, educational attainment and inter-ethnic marriage, and their implications for social cohesion. Education has the potential to break down social and cultural barriers by increasing social and economic participation. Education generally increases one’s access to information, leading to greater awareness of social and economic opportunities and more confidence to engage with the wider community, thus contributing to the inclusion and participation dimensions of social cohesion. It also provides the human capital needed for better economic participation and integration. Interethnic marriage has been considered as one of the most definitive measures of the dissolution of social and cultural barriers (Bean & Stevens 2003). Studies of intermarriage between immigrants and native-born residents have considered it an important element of assimilation theory and an indicator of immigrant integration into the local community (see discussion in Jones 1995; also Price & Zubrzycki 1962). This is because intermarriage is seen as the outcome of close social interaction between people from different communities. Intermarried partners, although coming from different ethnic, social or cultural backgrounds, are likely to share some common values and aspirations as well as a commitment to each other. Inter-ethnic marriage also affects the social and cultural identities of the next generation, who will be of mixed or multi-ethnic heritage. Thus inter-ethnic marriage is likely to contribute to the belonging dimension of social cohesion by promoting a sharing of cultures and identities. The chapter discusses educational attainment and inter-ethnic marriage and the implications for social cohesion in the context of Australia’s ethnically diverse population, focusing on comparisons by birthplace and ancestry. According to the 2001 Census, 22 per cent of Australia’s population was born overseas and another 18 per cent were Australian-born with at least one overseas-born parent (the second generation). More than 200 different ancestries were recorded for the total population and the overseas-born population came from some 240 countries. The chapter compares the educational attainment of the overseas-born population by their birthplace and with the Australian-born population of the same age. It also compares the overseas-born first generation with the Australian-born second generation to see if the educational level of the migrant generation persists in the next generation, or whether there is a trend of convergence or divergence that may have implications for social cohesion. Similar comparisons are made in relation to inter-ethnic marriage patterns, with discussion of the social and generational implications.

Educational attainment of immigrants and their children Immigrants in Australia are very diverse in social and economic background because of the different contexts of their migration. Because Australia’s immigration program has family reunion, economic and humanitarian components, migrants differ in their educational attainment depending on their category of migration. Skilled migrants generally have post-school qualifications since they have to meet skills criteria for selection. Family reunion and

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humanitarian migrants are less likely to be as well educated because their migration is based on their family relationship or refugee status and they are not assessed for migration on the basis of their occupational skills. Just 57 per cent of principal migrants arriving on family reunion visas and 41 per cent of principal migrants arriving on humanitarian visas in 1999–2000 had post-school qualifications compared with over 99 per cent of principal migrants arriving on independent skilled visas (Second Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs). These differences in migrants’ educational attainment have implications for their settlement outcomes and those of their children. Studies have shown that immigrants’ employment outcomes are significantly related to their human capital endowments, particularly their level of education and English language proficiency (see e.g. Wooden 1994; Williams et al. 1997; Cobb-Clark 2006). Immigrants’ participation in the labour force is an important aspect of their social and economic integration into their new country of residence, and the characteristics that promote such participation would have implications for social cohesion. The diversity in educational attainment in the immigrant population is shown in Table 10.1 by country of birth. These differences partly reflect the fact that some countries are sources of mostly refugee or family reunion migration while others are the sources of primarily skilled migration. Birthplace groups with very low levels of educational attainment include those from Cambodia (which had the lowest proportion of working-age adults with post-school qualifications), Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. Many migrants from these countries, with the exception of Turkey, were refugees or other humanitarian migrants who subsequently sponsored close relatives as family reunion migrants. In contrast, migrants from countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, China, Indonesia, the United States and Poland, as well as Northwestern Europe, have very high proportions with post-school qualifications. Many migrants from these countries have come to Australia as skilled migrants and therefore have professional or technical qualifications. Overall, the overseas-born adult population is better educated than the Australian-born population of the same age. This is partly due to the migration policy’s greater emphasis on skilled migration since the 1990s. A slightly higher percentage of the overseas-born population aged 25–44 in 2001 had post-school qualifications compared to the Australian-born population, and this is true of both men and women. Both male and female migrants in this age group are more likely to have degree qualifications than their Australian-born peers; however, Australian-born men have a higher proportion with trade and other non-degree qualifications than overseas-born men. Are the differences in educational attainment by birthplace among the overseas-born population and between the overseas-born and Australian-born populations in the working-age groups also observed in the younger cohorts who are still completing their education? From the data presented in Table 10.2 on the participation of migrant youth in education, it seems so. A much higher percentage of overseas-born youth aged 15–24 were enrolled in education in 2001 compared with their Australian-born peers. The high percentage may be due partly to the presence of overseas students who are included in this age group. It

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Table 10.1 Percentage with post-school qualifications: men and women aged 25–44 in Australia 2001 by birthplace Males Birthplace Australia All overseas-born New Zealand Fiji Other Oceania United Kingdom Other NW Europe SE Europe Poland Other Eastern Europe Iran Iraq Lebanon Turkey Other N. Africa & M. East Cambodia Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Singapore Vietnam China Hong Kong Korea Other NE Asia Afghanistan India Sri Lanka Other South & Central Asia Chile USA Other America South Africa Other Africa

Females

Degree

Other qual.

Total with quals.

Degree

Other qual.

Total with quals.

16 25 14 21 16 21 25 13 27 16 29 17 10 12 36 12 44 53 39 37 17 42 48 40 43 12 53 35 54 14 47 30 40 31

38 31 36 37 25 40 43 36 42 36 25 17 23 20 24 14 19 20 28 32 13 20 18 17 14 13 25 35 17 40 20 30 36 32

53 56 49 58 40 61 68 49 69 53 54 33 34 33 59 25 63 73 67 69 30 62 66 56 57 26 78 70 71 54 68 61 76 62

20 25 15 16 16 22 28 15 29 19 30 15 7 10 31 7 37 46 36 40 14 32 39 37 36 14 57 28 47 17 53 33 38 26

23 22 24 27 21 14 32 26 35 24 25 16 13 13 19 10 21 20 16 22 11 22 20 18 22 18 14 27 13 35 16 27 28 26

43 47 39 43 37 37 59 41 64 43 55 31 20 23 50 17 59 66 53 62 25 55 59 55 59 31 71 55 59 52 70 60 66 52

Source: 2001 Census customised tables.

is likely that the very high percentages observed for young people from most Asian countries are due partly to this presence. Of the 121 135 overseas students present in Australia in mid-2000, nearly 80 per cent were from Asian countries, with the greatest numbers from Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, China, India and Hong Kong (DIMA 2001). It was not possible to separate them out from the Census data in Table 10.2. A higher percentage enrolled in education than the Australian-born is also observed among young people born in South Africa, Iran, Poland and other Southern and Eastern European countries. Since these countries are not sources of overseas students, the relatively high percentage in education among these birthplace groups indicates that young people from these countries who have migrated with their parents will have a higher level of education than their Australian-born peers. It is also encouraging to note that the percentage of young people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Afghanistan who are enrolled in education is also higher than for the Australian-born, even though the adults from these countries have much lower educational attainment than the Australian-born

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Table 10.2 Participation in education, youth aged 15–24 by birthplace, Australia 2001 % enrolled in education Birthplace Australia All overseas-born New Zealand Fiji Other Oceania United Kingdom Other NW Europe SE Europe Poland Other Eastern Europe Iran Iraq Lebanon Turkey Other North Africa & Middle East Cambodia Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Singapore Vietnam China Hong Kong Korea Afghanistan India Sri Lanka Other South & Central Asia Chile United States of America Other America South Africa Other Africa

Males

Females

51 66 35 61 49 48 58 65 63 56 79 59 52 55 76 62 90 84 62 88 63 91 90 88 67 82 82 85 59 60 63 68 73

54 65 37 58 50 51 61 67 66 60 81 53 43 48 72 56 88 83 62 89 61 91 89 85 72 72 80 71 63 67 65 83 73

Source: 2001 Census customised tables.

population. It would appear that young migrants from these countries have taken advantage of the educational opportunities available in this country. Young people born in New Zealand had the lowest percentage participating in education. It is also noticeable that while the percentage of young men born in Lebanon or Turkey enrolled in education is similar to that for Australian-born young men, young women from these countries are lagging behind Australian-born and other overseas-born women of the same age. In examining the participation in education of young people of migrant background, it is perhaps more useful to look at the second generation rather than the overseas-born because the second generation is not affected by the presence of overseas students. Also, the second generation has lived in Australia since birth and has grown up and gone to school with other Australian-born children. The implications for social cohesion of educational attainment may be more relevant for this group. Previous studies of the second generation in Australia have shown significant educational and occupational mobility between the first and second generations of some immigrant groups who migrated to Australia before 1980, notably those

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of Southern and Eastern European background (Birrell & Khoo 1995; Khoo et al. 2002). While the immigrant first generation of Greek, Italian and Yugoslav origins had relatively low levels of education, their children’s generation was much better educated and many were working in professional occupations. It was suggested that many immigrant parents believed that education was an important pathway to upward socio-economic mobility in their new country of residence and had emphasised the importance of education to their children (Birrell & Khoo 1995). This argument has also been indicated in studies of the second generation in the United States (Zhou & Bankston 1994; Kibria 2002). In their study of the educational outcomes of the second generation of non-English-speaking background, Portes and MacLeod (1996) have suggested that the second generation’s ability to adapt to and succeed in the American educational system will be important for their own and their community’s social and economic integration into American society. Differences in educational attainment and other socio-economic outcomes by parental background and ethnic origin have been observed for the second generation in Australia and other immigrant-receiving countries. A study based on the 1996 Australian Census showed that the second generation of Southern European, Eastern European and Asian origins was more likely to achieve better educational and occupational outcomes than that of other origins, while the second generation of English-speaking or Western European origins was more similar to third or more generation Australians (persons born in Australia whose parents are also born in Australia) in their educational and occupational characteristics (Khoo et al. 2002). The same study also showed that educational enrolment rates were particularly high among second-generation youth whose parents were from Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Vietnam, and above average among second-generation youths whose parents were born in Greece, Hungary and Poland (Khoo & Birrell 2002; Khoo et al. 2002: 74). In the United States, a study of Vietnamese youth showed that although many of them had come from modest socio-economic backgrounds, with parents who had no qualifications, they had a lower school dropout rate than other American youth (Zhou & Bankston 1994), and a study of the second generation in Canada also found variation in education outcomes by origin (Boyd & Grieco 1998). Portes and Zhou (1993) had introduced the concept of segmented assimilation to describe the diverse outcomes of second-generation youth whose parents had migrated to the United States after 1965. While some second-generation youth were integrating into mainstream middle class American society, others were assimilating into the socio-economic underclass. A third pattern of adaptation was that of educational and economic achievement while preserving the social and cultural values of the ethnic community, as shown by the second generation of some Asian ethnicities. More recent data from the 2001 Australian Census confirmed the high proportion of second-generation youth of Asian ancestry enrolled in education compared with young people of other ethnic background observed in earlier studies (Table 10.3). Over 70 per cent of second-generation youth of Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino and Indian ancestries were enrolled in education compared with about 50 per cent of third or more generation Australian youth. Second-generation youth of European origins were more similar to third or more

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Table 10.3 Percentage of first and second generation youth aged 15–24 enrolled in education, by ancestry, Australia 2001 First generation Ancestry/ethnic origin Vietnamese Chinese Filipino Indian Other SE Asian Polish Turkish Irish Lebanese Greek Croatian English Serbian Italian Macedonian Scottish German Dutch Australian (3rd+ generation)

Second generation*

Males

Females

Males

Females

63 87 62 79 75 65 54 45 54 55 67 46 70 49 60 43 55 45

61 86 61 71 73 66 47 47 45 58 69 48 74 56 57 45 58 45

85 82 73 73 70 67 56 54 54 53 51 51 51 50 50 46 45 45 51

89 83 77 74 73 68 62 56 53 56 54 54 52 52 53 51 50 46 54

∗ Australian-born with one or both parents born overseas Source: 2001 Census customised tables.

generation Australian youth in their education participation rate. It was also significant that a much higher percentage of the Vietnamese and Filipino second generation was enrolled in education compared with the first generation, indicating the likelihood of better socio-economic outcomes for the second generation compared with the first. It was also significant that second-generation females of Turkish or Lebanese origin had a higher rate of educational participation than their first-generation peers, although there was less improvement between the first and second-generation Turkish or Lebanese males. Second-generation youth of European origins have very similar educational participation rates as thirdgeneration Australian youth. An OECD report (2006b) suggests that the successful integration of immigrant children into the education system is a central concern in many countries worldwide. In a study of 15-year-old students in 17 countries, the report found that immigrant and second-generation children in Australia performed at similar levels as native-born children in mathematics, reading, sciences and problemsolving skills in the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment in 2003. Aside from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, immigrant and secondgeneration children in the other countries did poorly in the tests compared with native-born children. The report found that in the three immigrant settlement countries, students of migrant origin and native students came from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and attended schools with similar resources. This was in contrast to the other countries where immigrant children were more likely to attend schools with less favourable characteristics. The report also suggests that language support programs for schoolchildren that are available in settlement countries such as Australia and Canada can play an important role in improving

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education outcomes for children of migrant background. The comparatively favourable education outcomes for migrant and second-generation children in Australia suggest that their integration into the education system has been more successful than in many other OECD countries.

Educational attainment and social cohesion What are the implications for social cohesion of the differences in the educational attainment of migrants and their children? While there is no research directly examining this issue, the literature on economic integration of migrants shows that educational attainment is an important factor in migrants’ employment outcomes. Therefore differences in educational attainment are likely to be correlated with different degrees of economic participation, which will have implications for the inclusion dimension of social cohesion. As noted earlier, educational attainment is also likely to be correlated with social participation. Data from a survey of recent immigrants in Australia indicate that more educated migrants are more likely than less educated migrants to have contact with their neighbours and to engage with their local community (Table 10.4). The survey of immigrants who had been in living in Australia for about 18 months had asked them about the extent of their social and community participation since their arrival in Australia. The questions relate to attendance at social and community activities organised by the local school or council and the extent that migrants have contact with their neighbours. The migrants’ responses to these questions allow us to explore the implications of educational attainment for social cohesion, at least in terms of social participation. On each of the measures of community participation and social contact shown in Table 10.4, there is a clear positive relation between educational attainment and participation in social and community activities. More educated migrants are more likely to engage with their local community than less educated migrants. Migrants who have post-school qualifications are more likely to attend activities organised by their local school and community, while those with lower education are more likely to isolate themselves from their local community. Recent migrants who have more education are also more likely to have contact with their neighbours. The percentage of migrants who have no contact with neighbours is twice as high among migrants with less than 12 years of schooling as among those with degree or higher degree qualifications. The percentage that considers some of their neighbours to be friends is also much higher among migrants with post-school qualifications than among those without such qualifications. These data show that more educated migrants are more likely to interact with their neighbours and to have friends in their neighbourhood. While exploratory, these findings suggest that education may contribute to building social cohesion in communities with a migrant population since more educated migrants are more likely than less educated migrants to participate in local social and community activities and to have contact with their neighbours. This engagement is important to developing friendships and a shared sense of

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Table 10.4 New migrants’ social/community participation by level of education Social/community participation

Migrants’ level of education Higher degree %

Degree %

Dipl./trade cert. %

Year 12 %