In recent weeks, there has been a lot of words written and spoken about racism but little to remind us that racism landed here with the First Fleet. It is very deeply embedded in our culture.
In recent weeks there has been a lot of words written and spoken about racism but little to remind us that racism landed here with the First Fleet. It is very deeply imbedded in our culture. We recognise that our founding fathers treated First Nation People as less than human but we seem to have forgotten that they brought with them the entrenched English prejudice towards Irish Catholics. From day one of the founding of the Australian colony to the 1960’s, Irish Catholics were a discriminated underclass.
They were accused of putting loyalty to the Pope and the Catholic Church before the British Empire and the King. They were treated differently and unfairly and denied equal access to both education and employment.
These negative attitudes derived both from religious differences and from the centuries of resistance to England’s occupation of Ireland. Furthermore the British had long regarded the Irish as an inferior people and commonly labelled them the ‘ Bog Irish’. Transplanted to Australia these attitudes were nurtured with bitterness by both sides and for decades here in Australia an almost virtual social apartheid existed between Catholics and Protestants . Those attitudes persisted for almost 200 years.
We now use the term “Anglo-Celtic” to identifying those Australians who made up non indigenous Australia before the post WW2 influx of migrants. However this description is an insidious distortion of our past and a denial of the struggle by an earlier minority group against oppression and demonization.
Also there seems to be total amnesia that these divisions were increased by the hostility and bitterness generated by the two conscription referendums held in 1916 and 1917. As WW1 dragged on enlistment numbers fell Prime Minister Billy Hughes was very keen to introduce conscription. He was convinced that Irish Catholics had played a central role in the defeat of those referendum and he made his belief very clear . His hostile rhetoric inflamed the divisions between Irish Catholics and the rest of the population and discrimination towards Irish Catholics actually increased. It was the influx of migrants post WW2 that pushed Irish Catholic up the social ladder and gave bigots a new group to focus on.
Born in 1931, I am of the third generation of my family born in Australia and part of my heritage is Irish Catholic. From an early age I was aware of this discrimination. Walking to primary school I regularly had to run the gauntlet of state school kids taunting me with the doggerel “Catholic dogs jump like frogs in and out the water”. There was a response i.e. “When the Catholics ring the bell all the Prodies go to Hell” but I was on my own and too scared to shout back at my tormentors. That young children were indoctrinated with these prejudices shows how deep seated the attitudes were.
Many private sector companies (banks, insurance companies etc) made no secret that their policy was to not employee Catholics. As a result in secondary school Catholic boys were advised to choose a career where they could be self-employed. Not a worry for us girls as we were destined to be wives and mothers but God forbid that we marry a Protestant ! Mixed marriages were an anathema to Catholics and Protestants alike and frequently resulted in a person being ostracised by their family!
I am writing about my own experiences of racism but am aware that the Chinese and other Asian people were treated with even greater hostility. The White Australia policy that was designed to stop them even entering our country was in place until 1973.
I submit that if Australia was a truly a non-racist society the slogan If you don’t know Vote No. would not have had such sway in the recent referendum. An open minded people would have made the effort to inform themselves of the disadvantages suffered by First Nation People. After all this disadvantage is very well documented and that this disadvantage continues should shame us all.
We can take some pride that today’s Australia is a country of extraordinary ethnic diversity yet in recent years we have had relatively little large scale conflict. The Cronulla Riots being the exception. And since the introduction of Race Discrimination laws open racism in employment is rare. However research consistently confirms that many people are regularly subjected to distressing, even frightening, behaviour because of their race so there can be no doubt that racism is still with us. The target group may change i.e. the Greeks and Italians replaced the Irish Catholics who were replaced by the Vietnamese who have now been replaced by Muslims but the behaviour continues. Is that we are so insecure about ourselves that we need to put down other ethnic groups to bolster fragile egos’?
We like to boast that Australia is the land of the fair go but to make that more than a feel good slogan we must eliminating every vestige of racism. To do that we must understand our history and face the fact that racism has been with us since the first days of white settlement. Plenty of time to put down very deep roots!
Barbara Wertheim OAM, a former Commissioner for Equal Opportunity, Vic., led Australia’s first Taskforce on Domestic Violence; has advised the Federal and the NSW Governments on policy and services re violence against women; She has advised some of Australia’s largest private and public organisations on anti discrimination issues.
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