You can’t blame Pauline Hanson for stipulating that her Brisbane home not be sold to a Muslim. Just imagine what they would get up to in there. All those lovely Heuga carpet squares covered with prayer mats, the fridge stripped of ham steaks and pineapple rings to make way for so-called “halal” tucker, the Hills Hoist replaced with a minaret, the Commodore with a WRX.
The concrete Aborigine, gone. And possibly even the installation of a complex network of underground caves from which Jihad – or “holy war” - can be launched on the people of Coleyville in the first step towards establishing an Islamic caliphate running from Caloundra to Surfers Paradise.
Hanson’s latest spray is consistent with her past efforts in that it is both unworkable and irrational.
Unworkable because it suggests that Muslims come with handy labels so that you can pick them out on auction day, or that the law could somehow be amended so the real estate agent could ask if there’s any fans of the prophet Muhammad in the crowd before taking the opening bid.
Irrational, because it so patently is. I mean, who spends time worrying about the prospect of not having to share a house with someone they don’t like?
Normally you’d just smirk and shake your head at Pauline’s latest pronouncement. Until this humdinger, her most recent foray into public life was to declare that she’s getting away from intense Islamic immigration by moving to – here’s the punchline – Britain. That of itself suggested the former leader of One Nation has drifted off into a nuttier new orbit, even by her standards.
But her latest outburst is worth a closer look, as it contains a statement which was not so much depressing but heartening about the character of Australian racism.
This might sound like an impossibly chirpy bit of glass half-full analysis. But if you look at what she said, there has been an interesting change in her mindset in a very short space of time.
Before she sunk the slipper into Aussie Muslims on the Sunrise program yesterday, Hanson was asked how she would feel if her house was bought by an Australian of Asian extraction.
“To an Australian who is of Asian background, no problems whatsoever,’’ she said.
This seemed like an uncharacteristically generous statement.
After all, this is the woman who was disendorsed by John Howard’s Liberals for making racist remarks, elected in a landslide as the independent member for Oxley at the 1996 election, and subsequently used her rabble-rousing maiden speech to build much of her brand around the fear of the Yellow Peril.
“Mr Speaker,” Ms Hanson said in her first parliamentary address. “I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country.”
Perhaps Ms Hanson was right. Maybe we’ve been so successfully swamped by Asians that even the former leader of a racist, ultra-right political party isn’t just inviting them into her home – she’s gleefully urging them to buy her home.
It’s taken just over a decade for Hanson to make this shift. In the scheme of things, it is not much time at all.
And it says something about the cyclical nature of Australian racism that the woman who once advocated the complete abolition of the Asian migrant intake is now pretty laid-back about their presence here.
This will of course provide limited comfort to Australians of a Middle Eastern background or from other parts of the world which adhere to Islam.
I am not suggesting for an instant that it’s their lot in life to just ride out the prejudice that they currently enduring, as if it’s some kind of phase that the nation is going through. There’s an imperative for us non-Islamic types to check our prejudices and reflect on the presumptions we make about that diverse mass of folks of the Islamic persuasion.
Nor am I saying that Islamic Australians should wallow in self-pity and maudlin victimhood. Clearly there are some members of the Islamic communities of Australia who are having a hard time working out what is expected of them – that is, an adherence to liberal, pluralist values, respect for women and respect for law. And there’s a hope that the overwhelmingly moderate members of those communities will become more forceful in shunning those who don’t embrace our way of life.
The point is this – Hanson has unwittingly drawn attention to the fact that Australia has gone through waves of prejudice, none of which have endured. It seems laughable now that a couple of generations ago Anglo-Australians were muttering darkly about Italians and Greeks, Balts and Slavs. When Howard flirted with Asian immigration as a potential vote-winner in the late 1989s, when Hanson tried to rev it up again in 1996, there was a level of disquiet then about our Asian immigration program which seems a world away now.
In the post September 11 world, with wars continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s been inevitable that Islamic migration and settlement would become much more of a hot-button issue than it ever had before.
But our history suggests that these tensions will not be a permanent fixture in the national psyche, but something more transitory.
One of the best pieces of writing on these issues in Australia was by a young NSW National Party MP, Adrian Piccoli, who as his surname obviously suggests is of Italian parentage. The Griffith-based MP wrote a column a few years ago in the form of an open letter to Lebanese Australians about the marginalisation and abuse which Italians used to cop. He recounted how they were stereotyped as Mafiosi assassins and drug dealers, with every Riverina home derided as a grass castle, even if their family had worked their fingers to the bone growing vegetables in Australia’s food bowl.
He said the Italian community got through it by ostracising the criminal element within, as the broader community gradually realised its foolishness in judging the majority on the actions of a few.
Those on either extreme of the race argument will beg to differ, but these divisive trends don’t last forever in Australia.
The prospect of Pauline happily shaking hands with young homebuyers Tran and Vinh in a couple of Saturdays’ time serves as an unusual pointer to that reassuring fact.
Don’t miss: Get The Punch in your inbox every day
Get The Punch on Facebook
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
It's a Sydney thing, but 95.3FM... Why? It used to be all Bohemian Rhapsody and Walk this Way; now it's Father to Son and Country Road. Wah.
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project
I’d like to be able to say that sharing the world’s largest radio telescope with South Africa…
Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics
When North Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen got the idea of launching a new political organisation…
Please enter your password
Help! I’ve succumbed to a crippling modern illness that can strike at any moment. Symptoms include:…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented