Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 34 No. 12 December 2011 pp.

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Multiculturalism as nation-building in Australia: Inclusive national identity and the embrace of diversity
Anthony Moran (First submission December 2010; First published June 2011)

Abstract This article discusses the relationship between multiculturalism and national identity, focusing on the Australian context. It argues that inclusive national identity can accommodate and support multiculturalism, and serve as an important source of cohesion and unity in ethnically and culturally diverse societies. However, a combative approach to national identity, as prevailed under the Howard government, threatens multicultural values. The article nevertheless concludes that it is necessary for supporters of multiculturalism to engage in ongoing debates about their respective national identities, rather than to vacate the field of national identity to others.

Keywords: Multiculturalism; Australia; national identity; national culture; nation-building; policy.

In many Western liberal democracies, critics attack multiculturalism as a failed experiment that has threatened national cohesion and undermined unity (Huntington 2004; OSullivan 2005). Politicians and intellectuals argue that multiculturalism should be replaced by a renewed emphasis on common citizenship and shared national identity. On the other hand, many proponents of multiculturalism (or supporters of pluralism) are suspicious of national identity, seeing it as a homogenizing force that threatens cultural diversity (Hage 1998). But are the principles of multiculturalism on the one hand, and national identity, social cohesion, integration, and unity on the other, diametrically opposed, as these critics claim? The Australian experience provides a counter example multiculturalism
# 2011 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 online http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.573081

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was conceived as a nation-building project in the context of mass, multiethnic immigration, and as a way of rethinking Australian national identity in the context of the rejection of the White Australia Policy and assimilation. This connection with reimagining the nation has been part of multiculturalisms strength and tenacity as public policy in Australia since its inception. The specific focus of this article is the relationship between multiculturalism and national identity, and while the main example is Australia, the general claims made about this relationship are relevant to other multicultural nations. National identities are important sources of solidarity, even in the context of multicultural societies. Like Calhoun (2002), I defend a thicker notion of national culture, beyond the thin notion of proceduralist political culture advocated by post-nationalists, including Habermas (1992) with his concept of constitutional patriotism. Some political philosophers argue that people can belong to a polity without having a sense of belonging together as a nation, or sharing a national identity, and that this is enough to sustain liberal democracy and inspire commitment to the common good (Mason 1999). According to Wilcox (2004, p. 576), people belonging to a polity do not have to possess any special feelings of relatedness with or sympathy for one another to maintain a sense of commitment to their polity, or to support broader policies of redistribution and social justice. Stability and commitment can be maintained if a person identifies with most of a politys major institutions and some of its practices and feels at home in them; identifying with them means that a person regards her flourishing as intimately linked to their flourishing (Mason 1999, p. 272). It is claimed that this form of non-national belonging is better able to accommodate diversity, and to avoid illiberal tendencies, including demands for cultural assimilation. These are abstract possibilities rather than sociologically supported claims. As Calhoun (2002) argues, the republicanism and democracy advocated by post-nationalists, cosmopolitans, and constitutional patriots, depend on more than narrowly political culture they depend on richer ways of constituting life together (p. 151). For a national identity to support multiculturalism it must be conceived as predominantly post-ethnic, and as dynamic and changing, involving an open and ongoing dialogue about national traditions. However, even multicultural nations require some degree of (mainly civic) common national culture, supporting a sense of we-ness, that provides the context through which co-nationals can debate and are willing to debate together the complexities of identity, diversity, and contested national traditions.

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National identity National identity refers both to personal identity arising from membership of a national political community, and to the identity of a political community that marks one nation off from others (Parekh 2008, p. 56). National identities involve particularistic configurations of ethnic cores, myths and memories, religious beliefs, language, connections with territory, and political values (Smith 1991). Nations typically emphasize a shared cultural inheritance and way of life, and national identities reflect this. National identities are supported by national institutions, and reinforced through education systems (Gellner 1983), national days of commemoration and other forms of governmentsanctioned memorializing (such as national museums and national monuments), and in banal ways in everyday life where the nation is continually flagged and operates as the unexamined background and framing device for a range of narratives (Billig 1995). National identities are also constructed in relation to a range of others (Colley 1992). They are not simply voluntary, but also inherited (Canovan 2000). The myths and memories so central to national identities cannot be simply invented by intellectuals and other elites and foisted upon unsuspecting nationals-in-waiting; they must reverberate with historical, collective events, and experiences (Smith 1991). Theories of nationalism such as those proffered by Anderson (1983), Gellner (1983), and Hobsbawm (1990) have emphasized the inventedness, modernity, and imagined character of nations. Anderson (1983) argued for the origins of modern nations in the New World the so-called creole nations. The imagined communities of his famous book were nevertheless real nations. Gellner and Hobsbawm mainly discussed the older nations of Europe, but emphasized their newness and distinguished them from historically prior ethnic and other local identities. Eriksen (1993) argues that new nations like Trinidad and Tobago, and Mauritius, former British colonies that have existed as independent nations only since the 1960s, with immigrant and slave populations, no pre-colonial past, and no surviving indigenous peoples, must direct their nationalisms towards the future, not towards the past. These nations know and understand themselves as modern inventions, are unable to draw on a common cultural heritage and history and, as polyethnic, have their nationalisms challenged by strong ethnic ideologies. The issue of inventedness is a banal reality for citizens of these countries, and they know that their nationhood must be defined, created and recreated by themselves (Eriksen 1993, p. 3). Australia is a new nation, in at least two senses. First, its former British colonies only federated as a nation in 1901; even then Australia was not clearly separated from Britain, retaining many of its close ties

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and the British monarch as Head of State. Second, it is highly immigrant in nature: in 2006, 24 per cent of Australias population was born overseas, and a further 26 per cent had at least one overseas-born parent (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008). It is also increasingly polyethnic, a tendency likely to continue given Australias ongoing commitment to a high rate of non-discriminatory immigration. Hutchinson (1994) argues that, like other immigrant societies including the US and Canada, Australia is marked by national status anxieties related to its newness, requiring it to periodically assess its progress and to construct national milestones as galvanizers of future action (Hutchinson 1994, pp. 165 6). Though settler nationalisms draw upon the past for symbols, they are primarily oriented to the future promise of the nation (pp. 167 8). On the other hand, this uncertainty, newness, and future orientation has allowed Australia and Canada to embrace multiculturalism as a project of national identity renewal. In a world where many nations, even those with histories of relative ethnic homogeneity, experience high levels of ethnically-diverse immigration, it is arguable that they too will have to embrace their newness, perpetual re-inventedness, and promote inclusive national identities less organized by dominant ethnicity (Habermas 2001). Australias national identity has shifted from a racially-based white, British Australia, to a diverse, multiethnic, and officially multicultural Australia since the 1970s. The White Australia Policy, under which immigration favoured whites, excluded non-white immigrants, and discriminated against resident non-whites, was the official policy from federation (1901) through to the end of the 1960s. Under this policy, Australian national identity was constructed upon inherited concepts of ethnicity, race and religion Australians were British, white, and/or Anglo-Saxon and Christian (Davison 2009, p. 2). Racial myths were fused with myths of hardy, courageous, stoic, tenacious, and individualistic pioneers who (rather than politicians, governors, and government officials) settled the land and forged the nation (Hirst 1992), and solidaristic, egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, practical, laconic, and easy-going bushmen, the nomad tribe of pastoral labourers of Russel Wards Australian legend (Ward 1958). These myths dominated conceptions of Australian identity, with the bushman myth finding a potent reiteration in the Anzac legend of the citizen soldier during World War One, in particular through the experiences and mythologizing of the failed Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Physical prowess, bravery, stoicism in the face of adversity, mateship, anti-authoritarianism, innovation, and practicality were extolled as typically Australian virtues, and it has commonly been claimed, by political leaders, historians, and ordinary Australians since then that the Australian nation was born at Gallipoli (Inglis 1998).

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These myths about Australian identity have been challenged by revisionist historians who highlighted the racism and slaughter of indigenous people on the Australian frontier (Rowley 1970; Reynolds 1987), and by feminist historians who critiqued masculinist accounts of Australian identity and experience, arguing that mateship excluded women and highlighting womens often hidden contributions to national life (Dixson 1976; Grimshaw et al. 1994). Nevertheless, ideas and values associated with these myths, such as the fair go, egalitarianism, mateship, and courage in the face of adversity continue to resonate with Australians (see below), and the bush retains a special and powerful place in national iconography and mythology. The Anzac legend remains a powerful national myth reflected in a resurgent emphasis on Anzac Day (25 April), with large attendances at Dawn Services and marches, and with large numbers of Australians, including young backpackers, making the pilgrimage to Gallipoli and other European battle sites where Australian soldiers fought and died (Scates 2002). Anzac Day is Australias de facto national day, more powerfully resonant than the official Australia Day (26 January). White Australia, on the other hand, became a problem for Australian governments in the context of anti-racism, anti-discrimination, and decolonization movements after World War Two. The Britishness of Australian identity was also threatened as the British Empire collapsed after World War Two, and as Britain reoriented itself to Europe (Meaney 2001; Curran and Ward 2010). McGregor (2006) argues that Britishness was the necessary foundation for Australian nationalism. It was the only viable myth that could unite Australians in the federation period (roughly 1890 1915), and it gave the nation the sense of time-depth that all nations require. This was also an Australian Britishness that had to accommodate and manage the cultural, political, and religious conflicts and tensions between the mainly Protestant English and Scots, and the mainly Catholic Irish. These religious and ethnic differences shaped the character of Australian institutions, culture, politics, and civic life. However, they became less important, over time, than the developing sense of commonality and unity forged in new circumstances (see OFarrell 2000, pp. 11 12). Efforts to settle the land, including the violent struggle with Indigenous peoples on the frontier, the desire to be free of Old World conflicts and class distinctions, the experience of mixing in neighbourhoods, in the workplace, and in political parties, trade unions and other civic associations (Hirst 2005, pp. 11 23), and the perception of the Asian threat to Australian racial and national interests contributed to the consolidation of a common white British ethnicity. Australian nationalism combined Britannic ethnic symbols, myths, and memories with civic/territorial components centring on the

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distinctive entitlements and obligations of the Australian citizen and commitment to an Australian homeland (McGregor 2006, p. 499), but McGregor argues that the ethnic principle was predominant. Nevertheless, the deep connection with the Australian land became an increasingly important element of Australian national identity. According to McGregor (2006, p. 508), in contemporary Australia, Britishness has been de-accentuated rather than expunged from national identity, and Australian nationalism has shifted away from an ethnic toward a civic/territorial emphasis. Contributing factors included the above-mentioned decline of the British Empire and Britains turn to Europe, Australias need to engage with Asia, and the growing need to include Aborigines in the nation. But McGregor (2006, p. 508) claims that no single causal factor was more important than the substantial intake of non-British immigrants after World War Two. The first large waves of post war non-British immigrants were refugees selected by Australian government officials among Europes Displaced Persons typically white, young, and healthy. Though British immigrants were also actively sought through governmentsubsidized schemes, Australia took in large numbers of immigrants from Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and other nonBritish source countries in the three decades after the war (Jupp 2007). Small numbers of Asians were allowed to immigrate in the 1960s (Tavan 2005), but the first large waves of Asian immigrants were Vietnamese refugees in the aftermath of the Vietnam War (Viviani 1996). Post-war immigration has contributed significantly to Australias population growth, and to its ethnic, language, and religious diversity. People of British/Irish ancestry still dominate Australias ethnic make-up (between 60 and 70 per cent), but in Australias last Census (in 2006) about 19 per cent reported European ancestry (other than English, Irish, or Scottish); 10 per cent reported Asian ancestry (Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Filipino, and other Asian); there were smaller representations from the Middle East and of Maori and other Pacific Islander ancestries (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008). Reflecting high rates of intermarriage, at least 60 per cent of Australian people were estimated to be of mixed ethnic ancestry by the late 1990s (Price 1999). Australia was once overwhelmingly Christian, but recent immigration from Southeast Asia and the Middle East has contributed to increasing numbers of Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus (Bouma 2006, chapter 3; Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008). These demographic and associated social and cultural changes, including the emergence of ethnic leaders and social movements, as well as, from the late 1960s, intensifying Aboriginal activism and protest, meant that a new national narrative highlighting Australias

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multiethnic, multicultural, and indigenous origins began to circulate, challenging the myth of British origins (McGregor 2006, p. 508). Multiculturalism as nation-building Since the 1950s Australia had been gradually dismantling its White Australia Policy (Tavan 2005). Immigration policy was liberalized, and naturalization policy amended so that by the mid-1970s Australia was officially committed to removing racial discrimination from its immigration and other social policies, signalled by its Racial Discrimination Act (1975). Policy officials and politicians concluded that assimilation policy was failing, and during the 1970s multiculturalism achieved bipartisan political approval as the best policy for managing immigrant integration into Australian society. Just as mass immigration had always been constructed as nation-building in Australia, so too was multicultural policy conceived as a nation-building exercise. When multicultural policy emerged in the early 1970s, official statements described Australia as a multicultural society; what this meant for national identity was implied rather than explicitly addressed (Grassby 1973; Australian Ethnic Affairs Council 1977; Galbally Report 1978). These implications were made explicit in later policy statements. Multiculturalism for All Australians: Our Developing Nationhood stressed that multiculturalism applied to all groups in society, not just non-Anglo immigrants. Multiculturalism was not only a crucial policy for handling diversity, but also significant for Australias developing national identity. In discussing Australias national identity this statement presented immigration as a key underpinning story: For almost two hundred years, migrants have been coming to Australia and putting down their roots. They and their children were the pioneers who battled drought and flood, died at Gallipoli and the Kokoda Trail, pushed roads and railways across the continent, and laid the foundations of Australias strength (Ethnic Affairs Taskforce of the Australian Council on Population and Ethnic Affairs 1982, p. 4). For them the story had been an overwhelmingly positive one, while it was recognized that for Aboriginal people, however, the impact of white settlement was catastrophic equivalent to invasion (Ethnic Affairs Taskforce of the Australian Council on Population and Ethnic Affairs 1982, p. 4). The inference from this migration narrative was that no ethnic group held a preeminent place in the national identity. British or Anglo-Celtic Australians took their place alongside other ethnic groups in a plural society.

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The Hawke Labor governments main policy statement on multiculturalism the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia (released in 1989) somewhat retreated from this view of the equivalence of all identities as contributors to Australias national identity. The National Agenda declared unequivocally that Australia was now a multicultural society, and noted that it is the vigour of our diversity, and the degree of interaction between different cultures, that contributes so much to the uniqueness of the Australian identity today (Office of Multicultural Affairs 1989, p. 6). But the British heritage was given a prominent place in the discussion of the agenda. It was noted that Australias British and Irish customs and institutions, adapted to Australian conditions, had served its relatively homogenous British population well at the time (with the exception of Aborigines), but needed to adapt and change again to reflect and respond to the needs of a more diverse population than had existed a generation before. But adapting institutions did not mean that they had to be given up, or that identity had to change in a wholesale manner: Our British heritage is extremely important to us. It helps to define us as Australian. It has created a society remarkable for the freedom it can give to its individual citizens. It is a large part of what makes Australia attractive to immigrants and visitors. It is a potent source of unity and loyalty (Office of Multicultural Affairs 1989, pp. 50 1, emphasis added). Australias ethno-cultural diversity had many advantages and strengths, but it was not cited in the same way as a potent source of unity and loyalty. And nor did multiculturalism entail a rejection of Australian values, customs and beliefs. Rather, it entailed the recognition that any such common core evolves and changes over time and is thus open to change from internal and external influences. The right policies can help to ensure that the richness of our diverse origins can contribute as indeed they are already to an evolving, but distinctive Australian culture (Office of Multicultural Affairs 1989, p. 53). However, the conception of this British heritage de-emphasized the ethnic elements while emphasizing its civic and institutional elements. To qualify McGregors (2006) argument about the British ethnic component of early Australian nationalism, though Britishness was associated with race from the nineteenth century (i.e., Anglo-Saxon race myths), it also had strong, historically-rooted civic beliefs concerning liberty, free political institutions, and the rule of law, dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Gossett 1997, chapter XIII). These could be decoupled from race and ethnicity in

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new understandings of Britishness in Australia. This has also occurred in Britain, where post-ethnic British identity has been championed by some as a way of accommodating multicultural diversity while at the same time promoting a common national identity and sense of commitment and belonging among both immigrant and non-immigrant citizens (Modood 2007). In other official documents since the late 1980s, and in much social commentary, when the importance of Australias British origins and character are asserted, it is typically in this inclusive and civic rather than ethnic sense of Britishness; and it is assumed that anyone can partake of that culture regardless of ethnic or racial origins. The ethic of inclusiveness was evident in the National Agendas three main dimensions of multicultural policy:
. cultural identity the right of all Australians, within carefully

defined limits, to express and share their individual cultural heritage, including their language and religion; . social justice the right of all Australians to equality of treatment and opportunity, and the removal of barriers of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, language, gender, or place of birth; and . economic efficiency the need to maintain, develop, and utilize effectively the skills and talents of all Australians, regardless of background (Office of Multicultural Affairs 1989, p. vii). It is important to note here the emphasis on the individual right to expression and enjoyment of cultural heritage, rather than any concept of group rights, and this was emphasized again elsewhere, in the context of a stress on cultural mixing rather than separatism (Office of Multicultural Affairs 1989, p. 16). During the 1980s and the 1990s, governments, intellectuals, and media commentators also emphasized the importance of the Aboriginal narrative for Australian national identity. An indigenising form of nationalism highlighted the way that Aboriginal culture gave historical and spiritual depth to the nation, and rooted it more firmly in the Australian continent (Moran 2002). This narrative was prominently featured in the rhetoric emerging from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation during the 1990s reconciliation process. But some Aboriginal leaders have resisted this incorporation, emphasizing their separate status, ongoing sovereignty, and unique spiritual connection with Australia (Maddison 2009). Policy statements during the Howard government era (1996 2007) adopted the term Australian multiculturalism to emphasize the predominance of Australian unity over difference, but nevertheless contained statements confirming that Australia was in reality as well as by definition, a multicultural nation (Commonwealth of Australia

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1999, p. 6), and expressing confidence that Australian multiculturalism will continue to be a defining feature of our evolving national identity (National Multicultural Advisory Council 1999, pp. 13 14; see also Commonwealth of Australia 2003). The nation-building emphasis of Australian multiculturalism has contributed to the policys success, and to its approval (in certain respects) by the general public (Goot 1999; Goot and Watson 2005). Despite the claims of some critics, it has been a highly integrative policy, encouraging interaction between different people and full participation in mainstream society, and fostering a sense of Australian unity. It has involved very little cultural relativism, and has been primarily liberal in character, focused on individual rights to free enjoyment and expression of culture, rather than group rights. Multicultural rights have always been framed by liberal democratic values, and by loyalty to the Australian nation. Joppke (2004), when surveying the retreat of multiculturalism among liberal states, points out that multiculturalism has sunk deeper roots in settler societies like Australia and Canada because of the way that it is bound up with national identity there; thus the retreat of multiculturalism in the 1980s and 1990s was less pronounced in settler societies than in Europe. But how significant are multiculturalism and the acceptance of diversity as features of contemporary Australian national identity? Qualitative studies show that multiculturalism and diversity are popularly cited when people describe Australia and Australians (Brett and Moran 2006, Brett and Moran 2011). Lentini, Halafoff and Ogru (2009), based on their findings from fifteen diverse focus groups in urban and rural Victoria, argue that many participants saw multiculturalism as a major factor for making Australia a very tolerant society, and felt that multiculturalism helped transform Australianness into a distinctive Australian identity, and that it is a significant component of contemporary Australian identity (Lentini, Halafoff and Ogru 2009, p. 4). Many praised the diversity of their local areas, and most highlighted the importance and desirability of living in diverse communities (p. 21). Discussing Australianness, the general consensus was that it was diverse and dynamic, and while a few lamented the loss of a more stable, older Australian identity, most celebrated the fact that the identity had changed and would continue to change. Many saw cultural diversity as one of the forces for change, and in doing so viewed multiculturalism positively. Many also cited as one of the strengths of Australian society that it did not elevate in terms of importance any one ethnic experience or group (pp. 24 6). On the other hand, there was some consensus within the groups that it [Australianness] was associated with particular forms of behaviour. Thus, while participants readily accepted cultural diversity,

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this did not mean that they did not have expectations that people would accept an Australian way of life and adapt to it. And there was also much talk of the need to prioritize Australian values. The most frequently mentioned of these was the fair go, and some groups also discussed mateship, associated with caring for and helping out others. Many described Australians as easy going, laid-back, and open and also saw these as Australian values (p. 25). Nola Purdie and others asked a sample of 418 primary, secondary, Technical and Further Education (TAFE), and university students to write a short essay on the question What does it mean to be Australian? While traditional aspects of Australian identity were present in the responses, including giving everyone a fair go, mateship, being free, and physical traits like being sporty, diversity, respecting other cultures, and being multicultural were also prominent (Purdie and Craven 2006). References to diversity were mostly to cultural diversity, and were mainly positive; accepting differences was considered an important feature of being Australian (Purdie and Wilss 2007, pp. 71 8). Though based on non-representative samples, these findings are suggestive of acceptance of multiculturalism and diversity as features of Australian identity. In addition, quantitative data based on national representative samples indicates that Australians have shifted towards more civic notions of national identity, as evident from national surveys of their views about what makes a person truly Australian. According to the 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, achieved qualities such as feeling Australian (92 per cent), having Australian citizenship (91 per cent), respecting Australian political institutions and laws (89 per cent), and speaking English (92 per cent) were more important to being truly Australian than being born in Australia (58 per cent), having Australian heritage (only 37 per cent), or being Christian (only 36 per cent) (Goot and Watson 2005, p. 188). Jones (1999) has used similar findings from national surveys from the 1990s to suggest that only a quarter of Australians held more traditionalist, conservative nativist views of Australian identity, with three quarters holding more civic pluralist views. A range of influences has contributed to this shift to a more inclusive sense of multicultural national identity: the role of Federal, state and local governments as symbolic leaders on multiculturalism since the 1970s; the role of the education sector at all levels socializing students into a multicultural society; rising levels of education, including university education (Jones 1999); and the experiences of everyday life and mixing that for many people suggest the obviousness that they live in a multicultural Australia. Important in relation to the latter point is that the high rate of intermarriage in Australia between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians, and across ethnic and

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religious groups, especially in the second and third generation after immigration (Heard, Khoo and Birrell 2009) means that most individuals have at least some direct, personal experience with Australias growing diversity through their own extended families. Controversies about national identity and multiculturalism Australia has not been free of controversy over immigration, multiculturalism, and national identity. In the 1980s there were race debates about Asian immigration sparked by prominent historian Geoffrey Blainey (1984) and comments from conservative politicians, including opposition leaders Andrew Peacock (in 1984) and John Howard (in 1988) (Kelly 1992, pp. 133 4, 422 3). There were related debates about and critiques of multiculturalism throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Blainey claimed that multiculturalism was a recipe for ethnic conflict and warring tribes within the nation-state (Blainey 1984, 1991). Opposition leader John Howard ended bipartisanship in 1988 when he said that there are profound weaknesses in the policy of multiculturalism. I think it is a rather aimless, divisive policy and I think it ought to be changed (quoted in Jupp 2007, pp. 106 7). The late 1990s saw the rise of Pauline Hansons anti-globalization, antiimmigrant, anti-multicultural, and anti-Aboriginal rights One Nation Party, again sparking public controversy. More recent controversies in the 2000s erupted over the so-called failure to integrate recent African immigrants and a section of the Muslim population, a view promoted in explosive media reports of ethnic gangs and crime, and publicly promoted by some Howard government ministers (Costello 2006; The Age 2007). The December 2005 Cronulla riots, where a mainly white mob attacked people of Middle-Eastern appearance on a popular Sydney beach, followed by reprisals by Lebanese and Muslim youths in nearby suburbs, was read by some as the resurgence of white nationalism and a rejection of multiculturalism, and by others as highlighting the problem of Lebanese and Muslim integration. The Howard government, while condemning the violence, seemed to adopt the latter position, with Howard commenting in the riots aftermath that Australia had no underlying problem with racism, and that while religious freedom was important, its also important that we place greater emphasis on integration of people into the broader community and the avoidance of tribalism within our midst. I dont think Australians want tribalism. They want us all to be Australians (Howard 2005). In a speech in February 2006, Treasurer Costello criticized mushy misguided multiculturalism as one of the causes of that purported failure to integrate. Such multiculturalism, he claimed, undermined Australian citizenship and the commitment to Australian values (Costello 2006).

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Though the Howard government had been ambivalent about multiculturalism in its first term (1996 1998), cutting funding for ethnic specific services and programmes, and dissolving multicultural institutions including the Bureau of Immigration, Population and Multicultural Research, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs (Jupp 2007), it reaffirmed its commitment to the policy in 1999 with its New Agenda for a Multicultural Australia (Commonwealth of Australia 1999), and again in 2003 (Commonwealth of Australia 2003) before deciding in 2006 that it would no longer promote multiculturalism because of its supposedly divisive connotations. In early 2007 it changed the name of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Following the lead of the UK and the Netherlands, in 2007 it introduced a citizenship test for immigrants. This was necessary, it was claimed, because Australia was receiving immigrants from new source countries with value systems vastly different to mainstream Australia and to those of previous waves of immigrants, and to make sure that immigrants learnt English and fully integrated into Australia (Australian Government 2006; Robb 2006). During the public debate on its introduction it was opposed by some, including the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria (ECCV), on post-nationalist grounds (Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria 2006); suspicions were voiced about any construction of national values or national culture. Many supporters of multiculturalism see the nation in conflict with, and nationalism as the enemy of, multiculturalism; for nations and nationalism seem to rely on a level of cultural homogeneity (Gellner 1983) that would undermine the claims of multiculturalists to the peaceful co-existence, within the one state, of a plurality of cultures. When politicians and others emphasize national culture and national identity, the fear is that it will draw attention to the supposed destabilizing influence of difference, especially among immigrants, and result in the desire and effort to squash multicultural difference. This fear is legitimate. However, if political leaders and intellectuals vacate the scene by refusing to discuss national identity and issues of national unity and cohesion, another pressing danger is that advocates of more extreme forms of nationalism will take their place. Left-wing supporters of multiculturalism who deny the relevance of national identity and love of country threaten to undermine multiculturalisms legitimacy among populations, like Australias, that are patriotic and proud of their national identity (Pakulski and Tranter 2000). For example, the ECCV played into the hands of the Howard government that accused it of promoting separatist multiculturalism that ignored the importance of national solidarity and cohesion, and of being out

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of touch with ordinary Australians valuing of their Australian way of life (Robb 2006). On the other hand, Australian nationalists can be tempted along a different negative path. Stirred up by a perception that some immigrants rejected Australian culture and its values, Howard gave Australian identity a more explicitly ethnic and religious underpinning (as he noted in his 2006 Australia Day speech, Australian values were guided by Judeo-Christian ethics, see Howard 2006a). While there was diversity, there was also a dominant cultural strain. In a radio interview in February 2006, Howard argued against what he called zealous multiculturalism that viewed Australia as simply a federation of cultures. Not all cultures were equal. Australia had an AngloSaxon core culture and set of distinctive values, which also bore distinctive Australian traits that migrants, and all other cultures, had to fit themselves into (Howard 2006b; see also Tate 2009). Howards combative approach was counter-productive and even destructive in managing the relationship between national identity and multiculturalism. At times, Howard recognized that diverse immigration had made a valuable contribution to Australian national identity, including changing it for the better. But his predominant rhetoric characterized Australian identity as something looming out of the past, as a settled, permanent entity that people like his predecessors Hawke and Keating had believed that they could change, and which fellow-travelling intellectuals had endlessly and fruitlessly debated. Howard also saw secure national identity as an important counterpoint to the economic change to which he was committed, giving national identity a firm footing in his social conservatism (Howard 2008). As he explained when later reflecting on his government: On the social front we emphasised our nations traditional values, sought to resurrect greater pride in her history and became assertive about the intrinsic worth of our national identity. In the process we ended the seemingly endless seminar about that identity which had been in progress for some years (Howard 2008). In assigning national identity this conservative, reassuring function, it was difficult, if not impossible, for Howard to emphasize its dynamism and capacity to change. And as he began to enrol national identity in the battle against Islamist terrorism (as he and others like his Treasurer Peter Costello especially did after the London underground bombings of 2005), his discomfort with multiculturalism was given new licence, so that he could claim that it was the duty of all Western leaders to hold the line against those who would demand cultural concessions. A strong national identity was now seen as necessary to defend Australia, and like-minded Western and/or democratic countries,

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against the pernicious influence of Islamic extremists, who calculate that it is in the nature of western societies to grow weary of long struggles and protracted debates and who produce, over time, a growing pressure for resolution or accommodation (Howard 2008). Standing firm on, and being assertive of, national values thus became crucial in that fight for survival. Conclusion Despite the contribution of multicultural policy to the integration of large numbers of ethnically-diverse immigrants since the 1970s, from the mid-2000s Australias national governments, both conservative and Labor, were less willing than in the past to promote the symbolism of multiculturalism, instead emphasizing Australian citizenship. As in Europe, there was a symbolic retreat from multiculturalism, in part stimulated by the threat of Islamic extremism and terrorism. At the same time, most national multicultural policies remained in place, including funding (albeit reduced) for multicultural broadcaster SBS and for Ethnic Communities Councils at both national and state levels, the access and equity strategy aimed at full participation and equality among Australias diverse population, anti-discrimination, and anti racial vilification policies, and promotion of national Harmony Day. Unlike national governments, many state and local governments continued to promote the virtues of multiculturalism. Recognizing the growing importance of religious diversity and expression to multiculturalism, important initiatives emerged such as interfaith dialogues, organized primarily by local government and civil society organizations (even where supported by federal or state government funding) (Bouma 2006, pp. 210 11). In 2011, the Gillard government announced a halt to that symbolic retreat, praising the unique achievements of Australian multiculturalism, and promising a renewed policy (The Australian 2011). Multiculturalism in Australia is an evolving process, with new immigrant groups including Africans, increasing immigration from India, and ongoing immigration from the Middle East stimulating new issues and debates, including a renewed emphasis on the importance of religious diversity and accommodation, and new calls for the need to fight racism and discrimination in everyday life, and in institutions. The parameters of what it means to be Australian are also broadening as part of this process. Parekh (2000, p. 196) argues that a truly diverse society demands strong forms of unity and cohesion in order to nurture diversity, and a powerful political structure that can demand allegiance from its diverse citizens, otherwise it feels threatened by differences and lacks the confidence and the willingness to welcome and live with them.

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The shared view of national identity, he argues has a particularly important role in a multicultural society because of its greater need to cultivate a common sense of belonging among its diverse communities (Parekh 2000, p. 231; see also Modood 2007, and as discussed earlier). An inclusive Australian identity has served this purpose, and has contributed to the success of multiculturalism. While multicultural Australia is primarily a political community, a sense of belonging and commitment to Australia is not only a commitment and loyalty to a political culture and to a set of political institutions. Though the national culture is diverse and open, it has a history, and people feel different levels of attachment to the meanings that have accrued over its history. As indicated earlier, Australian national identity includes both nativists and civic nationalists, for example, who attach relative importance to different things in terms of being Australian. Even inclusive, predominantly civic national identities contain an important element of inheritance; others have come before us, and they have passed on the nation to us. For some members of a nation this means an inheritance passed down through generations of their families; for others, like first generation immigrants, the inheritance is more abstract, but as they join the nation they too join a national, inherited culture. For many Australians, diversity and multiculturalism are now key features of the national identity, but these sit alongside other features of longer standing, which emerged through a particular set of historical experiences. Though the notion of and commitment to the fair go is not unique to Australia, at the same time it has a particular national history in Australia, and is deeply embedded in the culture. Similarly, the commitment to civility in everyday life, though obviously also contravened through incivility, including racism, is an Australian value and tradition reflected in the low level of political violence and the generally orderly nature of the society (Hirst 2002). Commitments to equality, democracy, and freedom are also deeply held features of the national identity; universalistic values no doubt, but also national Australian values. The informality of everyday life, being easy going, and a distinctive type of humour, are typically noted aspects of the national culture. And the feeling for the land, and the space of Australia, is also an aspect of the national identity not explained by commitment to political values; the attempt by Australian national narratives to incorporate the Indigenous presence, and in particular the spiritual Indigenous connection to the land, indicates the emotional power of the land in Australian identity. An open, inclusive, self-reflective national identity can support multiculturalism and its values, as has been the case in Australia, for the most part, since the 1970s. Australians, like other nationals living in multicultural societies, need to continually create new stories of solidarity, new narratives of national identity, and explanations of

Multiculturalism as nation-building in Australia 2169

what things hold them together, not simply emphasize difference and diversity. Supporters of multiculturalism should not be afraid of engaging vigorously in debates about national identity in fact, in countries like Australia, that have strong senses of national identity, it is in their interests to do so. References
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ANTHONY MORAN is Lecturer in the Sociology Program in the School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University. ADDRESS: Sociology Program, School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora Campus, Victoria 3086, Australia. Email: a.moran@latrobe.edu.au

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