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| jh... |
 Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:31 pm |
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And here's the other really good piece from foul-typing-fingered
irongron, who on another newsgroup has announced that "Jesus was a
child molester." If nothing else, hopefully the example of irongron
will persuade other posters not to engage in this kind of vile stuff
in the future-something APST has *not* been immune to. If they do,
they become little irongrons.
Posting actually from the Socialist Alternative organization. I have
forgotten who they are affiliated with. The Grantites or Taafeites, I
think?
It makes clear that Dusty's racist notions come not from the history
of the Australian working class, but from the manipulations of the
British imperialists, which were resisted by the founding heroes of
the Australian labor movement in the Eureka uprising.
It's particularly interesting that this stuff all originated in the
Australian goldfields in the 1850s, right after the Gold Rush in
California.
Exactly the same sort of things happened in the California Gold Rush,
except that there was little or no resistance to the racism against
Chinese and Latin gold prospectors promoted in California, unlike
Australia. Except from some French prospectors under the influence of
1848, who tried to stage a "French Revolution" in a goldfield south of
Sacramento.
Clearly, the British were deliberately and consciously trying to
repeat the story of the California Gold Rush in Australia. They did
not succeed-at first.
The development and history of the Australian Labor Party and
Australian socialism is remarkably similar to that of the Union Labor
Party in California and California socialism, right down to the
smallest details. The difference being of course that the ALP was a
smash success, but the ULP was a failure.
The election of the ALP into office coincided with the peak period for
the ULP, when they controlled the city of San Francisco for a decade.
This is not accidental.
Nor is it accidental that Harry Bridges, the leader of the labor
movement in California during the Great Depression, was an Australian
immigrant.
-jh-
**************************************************************
It is a common assumption that the racism of our society originates
in
"human nature" or an inherent fear of the unknown. But for Marxists,
the
starting point for understanding the origins of racism is an analysis
that
centres on the capitalist system and the ruthless pursuit of profit
that
drives it.
Widespread racism in Australia today leads many people to conclude
that
somehow ordinary people are responsible. According to commentators
like the
ABC's Phillip Adams, it's our narrow minds and petty frustrations that
allow
politicians such as John Howard and Pauline Hanson to manipulate many
of us
for political gain. Something embedded deep inside us - human nature,
perhaps - allows racist fears to be fostered and exploited.
This assumption is shared by most historians who have written about
the
origins of racism in Australia. In particular, the "White Australia"
policy - under which non-"white" immigration to Australia was almost
entirely banned until the 1970s - is said to be the result of working
class
prejudice and trade union campaigns.
There are fundamental problems with this "race relations" model, and
the
history and politics which flow from it.
We can see this in the work of Australian anthropologist W.E.H.
Stanner. In
the 1960s, Stanner argued that a universal "human impulse to
clannishness"
leads to conflict whenever "radically different" cultures exist
alongside
each other.
Stanner - who saw himself as an anti-racist, advocating a deeper
understanding of cultural difference - endorsed the "White Australia"
policy
on the basis of "experience and commonsense". People just can't get
along,
so better to keep them separate.
Apart from leading to deeply pessimistic and right-wing conclusions,
this
approach rests on a false assumption - the supposed existence of
"races".
Scientifically, the idea of race is a straight-out lie. As biologist
Steven
Rose has pointed out, there is enormously more genetic variation
within
population groups than there is between any of the so-called races.
There is
every chance that I have more genes in common with Oprah Winfrey than
with
someone from Irish and English ancestry similar to mine.
The whole idea of "race", let alone the notion that some races are
superior
to others, is a very recent one. Famously, Marco Polo failed to notice
in
any of his writings that the Chinese were "yellow". The Roman Empire
was
similarly colour blind: at least one Emperor, Septimius Severus, who
ruled
from AD 193 to 211, was almost certainly black.
This points to another fundamental flaw of the "race relations"
approach: it
tends to ignore history. Falling back on timeless generalisations
about
"human nature", it cannot explain how and why sentiment about race
can
change so much in different places and times.
The Marxist approach to explaining racism is materialist. That is, as
Marx's
collaborator Friedrich Engels put it, "the simple fact, hitherto
concealed
by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat,
drink,
have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science,
art,
religion...".
How this production is organised forms the foundation for all other
social
relations. Under capitalism, production is carried out for the profit
of a
small elite. This ruling class controls the giant companies that
dominate
the economy and the state institutions (the police, army, judicial
and
education systems, etc.) that keep that control secure.
"The ruling ideas of any epoch", wrote Marx, "are the ideas of its
ruling
class". The ruling class, as we shall see, benefits from and so
propagates
racism.
The Marxist approach to explaining racism is also historical. That is,
we
must look at the actual development of racism in its particular
social
setting, rather than relying on timeless generalisations about "human
nature".
When the First Fleet sailed into Sydney on 26 January 1788, it didn't
just
bring convicts and their jailers: a whole set of social relations, and
the
ideas that justify them, was an essential part of the invading force.
One of these ideas was the notion of terra nullius, or "empty land", a
legal
doctrine which held that the Aboriginal people did not own their land.
In
one act of planting a British flag, the people of an entire continent
were
dispossessed.
Canadian philosopher James Tully has shown that the doctrine of terra
nullius was carefully developed during the centuries-long legal and
military
battles in North America, as a legal justification for the seizure of
Native
American lands needed for cash crops such as tobacco and cotton.
A key role was played by philosopher and British Colonial Office
lawyer John
Locke. By collecting and distorting a vast body of evidence on Native
American use of land, Locke came up with a theory of terra nullius
that said
that people who supposedly did not "mix their labour with the soil"
had no
legal title to their land.
In Australia also, the theft of Aboriginal land and the ideas that
justified
it have been clearly driven by the profit motive. From the 1820s, the
gradual expansion of the penal colonies around Sydney gave way to a
wholesale land grab. With profits to be made from shipping wool to
British
mills, pastoral capitalists "squatted" on land with enormous numbers
of
sheep, turning legal dispossession into a brutal fact of life for
increasing
numbers of Aboriginal people.
John Batman, one of the founders of Melbourne, was typical of this
breed of
capitalist. Batman expanded his wealth through generous land grants
from the
Tasmanian government in return for being part of several murderous
expeditions against the local Aborigines.
Batman was an enthusiastic participant in the "Black Line" in 1830,
when
colonists fanned out over Tasmania with instructions to capture any
Aboriginal people they could, and shoot those they couldn't. The aim
was to
clear the land of human beings, to make it safe for sheep and the
workers
who tended them.
The vicious racist ideas of this time were not the automatic product
of
racial difference - a number of colonists are recorded as finding
dispossess
ion morally unjustifiable and concluding: "let us not, therefore,
persist in
it".
The imperatives of expanding pastoral capitalism, however, required
that the
squatters and the state did persist in grabbing Aboriginal land. And
racist
ideas were necessary to justify this.
Small wonder that the squatters' mouthpiece the Sydney Herald mounted
a
vigorous defence of the men tried for raping, murdering, dismembering
and
incinerating 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at Myall Creek in
northern NSW in 1838. In the only case in Australian history where
whites
were hanged for the murder of blacks, one key witness was an
Aboriginal
stockman working nearby. The Herald railed against "the possibility of
four
men's lives being frittered away upon the statements... of a young
black
savage, possessing no more idea of ultimate responsibility... than a
baboon."
The same foul, racist ideology came in handy for the subsequent waves
of
dispossession, to make way for cattle bound for the world market late
in the
1800s, and to enable Australian capitalism to profit from the minerals
booms
of the 1950s and beyond.
Long years of struggle by Aboriginal people put land rights on the
political
agenda in the 1970s. When the Labor government introduced national
land
rights legislation in 1984, the mining industry led a vigorous public
campaign. Hugh Morgan, the head of uranium miner WMC, led the charge,
spouting that any recognition of land rights would be caving in to
"paganism, fear and superstition".
Mining capital is one of the most profitable and powerful branches of
Australian capitalism. As on so many other occasions, the Labor
government
quickly crumbled before them.
Looking at this history, it's little wonder that even most mainstream
historians assign a prominent role in promoting anti-Aboriginal racism
to
pastoral and mining interests, at least implicitly endorsing a
Marxist
approach.
Racism isn't just about ideas. The racist state established during
the
original acts of dispossession perpetuates its own traditions, which
are
continually reinforced by the actual situation of oppression. The
dreadful
conditions Aborigines are forced to live in, the fact that they are
more
likely to be unemployed or imprisoned than whites and so on, all
contribute
to racist stereotypes which are then used to justify their oppression.
It's
a vicious cycle. For example, police trained in a racist institution
make
assumptions based on the stereotypes and literally get away with
murder; the
ALP, which wants to run the capitalist state for the ruling class,
always
ends up taking the side of mining companies. All of this fosters the
idea
among whites that blacks are inferior and deserve fewer rights. The
reciprocal relationship between material, social reality and ideas
keeps
racism alive.
A different dynamic is at work with the other form of racism rife in
Australia's history - racism against non-white immigrants.
The "White Australia" policy was the first significant law passed by
the new
Australian parliament in 1901. Most historians stress the importance
of
popular agitation among diggers on the gold fields to explain this.
A close reading of the historical record, however, shows a different
story.
The first law against Chinese immigration - a landing tax of £10 per
head -
was introduced by the Victorian government in 1855 following the
Eureka
uprising of December 1854. Yet the miners at Eureka had demanded no
such
thing!
The Chinese presence on the goldfields had been an issue earlier in
1854. In
June a mass meeting on the Bendigo diggings had passed a motion
opposing the
Chinese on the goldfield. However a controversy followed at the next
meeting, with many supporting a motion asserting "the principle of
liberty,
equality and fraternity among the diggers".
In Ballarat the Diggers' Advocate, a mouthpiece for the radical wing
of the
democratic movement, denounced the racist sentiments of the Bendigo
diggers.
Indeed, the only race denounced by the Diggers' Advocate was "a race
of
capitalists... intent on enslaving the free miners" who were
"infesting" the
goldfields and reducing miners to wage slavery.
This stand by some leaders of the democratic movement meant that, in
the
numerous other meetings that culminated in the great Eureka rebellion,
not
once was a demand made to restrict Chinese diggers on the gold
fields.
Nevertheless the Royal Commission that followed the rebellion
recommended
the £10 tax. One of the commissioners was William Westgarth, one of
Melbourne's most prominent capitalists and politicians, who in 1853
had
campaigned for restrictions on Chinese immigration.
Chinese people were forced to camp outside the boundaries of any
declared
town. And new laws allowed European diggers to "jump" the claims of
Chinese
who could not show a receipt for the racist tax.
It was after these measures, not before, that the worst anti-Chinese
violence occurred on the goldfields. In example after example, the
ordinary
people who were supposedly leading the charge against the Chinese were
in
fact following the lead given by ruling class figures.
For instance, the first union to bar Chinese people from membership
was the
Amalgamated Miners' Association in Victoria. Reflecting the fluid
politics
of the day, the union's early history was dominated by figures such
as
Captain W.C. Smith. A prominent mining capitalist, Smith urged the
union to
concentrate on issues that supposedly united the "mining community",
such as
opposition to Chinese labour, rather than issues that might pit
working
miners against "speculative miners" like himself - such as the foul
air,
long hours and low wages. The mouthpiece for this social layer was
the
Melbourne Age, which raged against "moon-faced opium-eating
barbarians".
This was not simply political scapegoating. As the rulers of a remote
and
dispensable outpost of the British Empire, Australia's ruling class
was
always paranoid about the intentions of the French, the Russians, and
later
the Japanese in the Pacific. They sought the strongest possible ties
with
Britain to protect their strategic interests in the area.
Part of this was the desperate attempt by Australia's rulers to
involve the
British more deeply in the area - by various schemes to annex New
Guinea,
the New Hebrides, and Fiji to name a few.
Another part of this strategy consisted in strengthening what Henry
Parkes
called "the crimson thread of kinship" with Britain. Britain would be
more
likely to intervene to preserve Australia's interests, the thinking
went, if
Australia could be seen as "a new Britannia in another world".
Like other colonial settler states - such as the French colonists in
Algeria, the whites in South Africa and Zimbabwe - Australia's ruling
class
developed racism in part to strengthen the ties of Empire. Genocidal
policies against Indigenous people and a racist immigration policy
were both
expressions of this.
So Australian nationalism cannot be separated from racism. Small "l"
liberals try to pretend that racism is only the extreme edge of
chauvinism,
but there's a direct connection. As with Aboriginal oppression,
systematic
discrimination against immigrants is integrated into the way the state
and
the economy work. So migrants tend to wind up in low paid jobs and so
on.
Racist ideas benefit the capitalist system in two major ways.
Firstly,
racism divides workers - white against Aboriginal, Australian-born
against
immigrant, and Australian against overseas workers. But just as
importantly,
it provides employers with whole sections of the workforce who can be
super
exploited, increasing profits and creating a downward pressure on all
wages
and conditions, just as the oppression of women and sexism does.
So if the interests of capital are central to understanding racism in
Australia, how do we explain the deep hold of racist ideas? After all,
not
every racist is a Hugh Morgan, profiting directly from the
expropriation of
Aboriginal land.
Of course, most corporate and government-controlled media propagate
these
ideas. And to justify its racist policies, the government constantly
sends
signals that Aboriginal people are to blame for their situation of
powerlessness and dispossession, and that refugees are a threat to
ordinary
Australians.
But there is also the fact that racism has profoundly shaped our
world. The
places where we live and work have been shaped by centuries of
oppression
and division. In the 1850s, the practice of locating Chinese camps
outside
the boundaries of a town cemented a perception of them as outsiders.
Similarly, Aboriginal people were restricted to missions or
dilapidated
camps for most of Australia's history. Today the internment of
refugees in
remote areas makes it easier to demonise them and scapegoat them.
Given its long and entrenched history, and the way it has been built
into
the structure of Australian capitalism, racism in Australia will not
be
challenged without a determined fight. A fundamental change to that
structure is necessary in order to remove racism.
Understanding the roots of racism is essential in order to recognise
where
the solution lies.
The most powerful ally that the oppressed have in this fight is the
working
class which, unlike our rulers, does not benefit from the "divide and
conquer" strategy of racism. But to unlock the power of the working
class in
this fight requires a political alternative to the acceptance of
capitalism.
Thus the first real political challenge to racism in the working class
came
not from the Labor Party, but from the revolutionary Industrial
Workers of
the World in the early twentieth century. The IWW spat in the face of
the
vicious "White Australia" policy and urged their supporters: "Lay
aside
national prejudices, crush race hatred beneath your heel, join in
true
comradeship with the workers of all lands into One Great Union for, in
the
words of Karl Marx: 'You have nothing to lose but your chains
(economic
poverty and servitude), and a World to Gain.'"
It is in this tradition that Socialist Alternative proudly stands.
http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=538&It.... |
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