The Asianization of Australia (Part 3 of 3) Tim Soutphommasane  ;   This 3 part article is condensed from a keynote speech delivered at the Annual Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia held recently in Perth, Western Australia; The writer is the Race Discrimination Commissioner

JAKARTA POST, 23 Agustus 2014

                                                

Much has been said in recent years about the Asian Century, of Australia being poised to prosper from Asia. Our geography has divined our twenty-first century destiny. As economist Tim Harcourt has put it, the tyranny of distance has given way to the power of proximity. Yet there are three things on this that stand out for attention. It is on these issues that I will conclude my remarks. Each highlights some of the challenges that remain in Australia’s engagement with Asia. The first has to do with the language in which we speak about Asia. I use language here in more than one sense. As many others have pointed out, Australia’s Asia literacy remains alarmingly underdeveloped, at least for a country that likes to think of itself as proximate to Asia. While it is true that more than 1 million Australians speak an Asian language, it is sometimes assumed that the task of engaging with the region can somehow be outsourced to those Australians of Asian cultural background. The thinking runs thus: Why should we or our children bother with mastering an Asian language, difficult as they are to master when starting with an Anglo tongue, when Australia will continue to take in immigrants from China, India and elsewhere in the region? This goes to another aspect of our language concerning Asia that is a problem. Part of the reason, I believe, for our lack of Asia literacy is that our framing of regional engagement is so nakedly mercantilist. Where once Australians may have spoken in hysterical terms about the teeming yellow hordes, we now endlessly marvel at the billions-strong middle class emerging in Asia. People talk about how we can maximize the “rent” from our relationships with the region, of how we can “capitalize” on Asian growth. I have no doubt some of this has to do with the triumph of economism in our society at large, but some of it also has to do with the instrumental mindset we have taken towards Asia. We should not be surprised if we have failed in the area of Asia literacy. Cultural engagement can’t be sustained by economic ambition by alone. The second issue arises from this. If Australia is to embrace its Asianization, it must be thoroughly cultural in nature. We must be willing not just to see Asian neighbors as economic partners, but also be open to learning from them. Is there not something that we can learn from young emerging democracies? From societies that have had to develop cities and infrastructure to sustain much larger populations? Is there something in Confucian practices from which we can borrow or learn in dealing with our ageing population? Could there not be aspects of Asian practices of communal obligation or responsibility that may give us a new perspective on so-called Australian values, such as mateship and egalitarianism? The third point concerns expectations. As I said earlier, it seems as though each generation of Australians believes they have discovered Asia for the first time. This sense of discovery can lead to a lack of proportion when it comes to sizing up Australia’s role in the region. For a country of some 23 million, living beside countries much larger in population, and whose economies may develop with enormous speed, we may need to be fully aware of the limits of our power and influence. As former prime minister Paul Keating has noted, it may be time for us to recognize that our old sphere of influence — the dominant Anglosphere of the post-World War II period — is diminishing. The world has changed. According to Keating, “we have to be propelled not by regard of withering associations but by our enlightened sense of self”. The place where Australia can be most effective and make the greatest difference is in southeast Asia — namely, the wider ASEAN. This, Keating says, “is the natural place for Australia to belong; indeed, the one to which we should attribute primacy”. All this confirms that the reality of Asia today is much different. Its exponential progress may just catch many by surprise — no matter how much we tell ourselves that we are ready. But none of this is separate from the internal or domestic task that we have in coming to grips with Asianization. How we handle the task of multiculturalism within our borders, how we manage the various contests around race and national identity, will go a long way to determining whether we will be a success as a nation in a century that will see Asia ascendant. ●