Legacies of White Australia: Race, Culture and Nation, Laksiri Jayasuriya, David Walker and Jan Gothard (eds). University of Western Australia Press, isbn 1876 26896 4, rrp $38.95
The collected essays in this book came out of a symposium that was held during the centenary year of Federation. This also marked 100 years since the Immigration Restriction Act (1901) was passed and the birth of the White Australia Policy. These essayists attempt to trace the political, social and moral legacies of the infamous policy. What emerges is a picture of certain cultural trends that arose from the earliest period of European settlement and have continued to influence Australian political life. David Walker describes these as ‘invasion narratives’: the fear some white people have of being overrun by dark-skinned foreigners. Ien Ang argues that Australians have a profound ‘spatial anxiety’: there is not enough space for all these foreigners who may endanger the great Aussie dream of the quarter-acre block.
Such narratives and such anxiety have contributed to the inhumane detention policy we now have. Robert Manne understands the Howard government’s refusal to allow the Tampa ‘to unload its refugees on Australian soil as represent[ing] a true turning point in the history of Australia’. He speaks of ‘a kind of respectable xenophobia’ that has emerged to make incarcerating asylum seekers seem a legitimate and humanitarian part of refugee policy. Across the essays, there is a strong emphasis on putting our current immigration and asylum seeker policies into a global geopolitical framework. This excellent book makes it clear that the spectre of White Australia still haunts us.
Kirsty Sangster
The Uniting Church in Australia: The first 25 years, William W. Emilsen and Susan Emilsen
(eds). Circa, 2003. isbn 0 958 09382 2, rrp $49.95
At the 1997 Assembly of the Uniting Church, Emilsen watched and wondered at the way members of different synods reacted to the discussion of sexuality. In response, this history examines the Uniting Church’s first 25 years state by state.
The various chapter authors include historians ranging from a postgraduate student to an emeritus professor, a sociologist and a journalist. So the chapters are in a variety of styles: academic, participatory, and in at least one case, there is a suspicion that the author is settling scores.
The sections on New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia all provide background to the way the synods have reacted to the 2003 Assembly decision on sexuality. The one on