Pearls and Irritations

It happened 133 years ago. Yet the Chinese Question remains, having now mutated to the China Question. Meanwhile the burden upon the Chinese as scapegoats, at the altar of racial purity in the first instance, cultural cohesion a century later and of late national sovereignty continues unabated.

 First, what happened?

One Saturday night in May 1888, a white mob of up to 2000 threw stones at the premises occupied by the Chinese in Brisbane city.  As the glass shattered the Chinese hid in their premises, in fear of their lives.

Towards midnight the mob was dispersed by the police.

One white person was subsequently charged, but a few months later he was declared Not Guilty by an all white jury.

The Chinese asked for compensation for their loss, but the Queensland government refused.

So what led to the attack?

It was election night in Brisbane. The Opposition Leader had won by an unprecedented margin. The new Premier was on his way home in Toowong, after delivering his victory speech to a rapturous crowd, when a little incident occurred.

Ding Chee was seen chasing after a white youth who had taken goods from his shop without paying. He was quickly wrestled to the ground by a group of “larrikins” in the crowd and relieved of his wallet.

He realised his mistake but managed to get back into his shop.

At that moment a stone flew into his shop window. Many more followed. The attackers then looted his shop.

The rampage went on for another four hours, with little hindrance from the police.

But how did a little incident lead to the attack of all Chinese premises in Brisbane?

The Chinese Question has been festering for decades. But political opportunism played a big part. In the lead up to that election the Opposition Leader, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, had campaigned on the “total and immediate exclusion” of the Chinese in Queensland.

The newspapers of the day cheered him on.

On the morning of the election a cartoon appeared depicting Sir Thomas on horseback wielding a whip at the weird cowardly-looking Chinamen.

And on that Saturday morning, the last installment of William Lane’s serialised novella, White or Yellow, was published in his weekly newspaper, The Boomerang. That last chapter detailed the white vigilantes killing all the evil Chinese characters and throwing their bodies into the sea.

As well, over the previous year and more Lane had published in the Brisbane Courier a series of “investigative” articles to vilify the Chinese concentrated in the poorer part of the city, Frog’s Hollow, where they ran hostels, opium, and gambling dens, and attracted white prostitutes not then legally prohibited from plying their trade.

The die was cast.

The population was primed for an attack upon the Chinese. All it needed was a little incident, at the wrong moment, and the unthinkable took off.

Echoes of Brisbane’s Night of Broken Glass 

The bell tolls. In 2020 the Chinese in Oz were treated as the harbingers of the Covid pandemic. Once more, the White Australia virus emerged, in a polity weakened by corruption and political opportunism. That visitation has now mutated into China’s threat to Australia’s sovereignty and the dubious trustworthiness of Chinese Australians in regard to their loyalty to Australia. It seems a khaki election campaign is being hatched for a second Morrison miracle.

Yet the disparate leaders within the Chinese “diaspora” in Oz are deaf to the tolling of the White Australia bell. Most know little about the history of the Chinese in Oz and even less about how to be effective in our political system.

Amongst the huayi leaders, born and bred in the ex-white colonies of Asia, the compradorship outlook persists. See no evil, hear no evil, do no evil. Be good docile boys and girls and get rewarded with medals, seats on advisory committees, and even sinecures in State upper houses. Others, amongst the more recent arrivals, might talk about calling out discrimination, human rights violations, or misinformation about China.

Sadly the current batch of leaders does not see or dare not face the need to rise up and reform the political culture of Australia, the chosen homeland for our children and grandchildren.

What can Chinese Australians do?

Stand up, stand up! For Integrity in public life.

It was the lack of Integrity in public life that led to Brisbane’s Night of Broken Glass in 1888: the Chinese Question was politicised for electioneering purposes.

In 2020, the Covid Question was politicised.

And there are signs now that the government might well continue to politicise the China Question for its re-election in May 2022.

In all these political manipulations the Chinese in Australia have to suffer, with little protection, just as those Chinese suffered in Brisbane’s Night of Broken Glass in 1888.

How are they to stand up?

Wage a campaign to urge their fellow Chinese Aussies, and all Aussies, to Vote Independents, and Vote Below-The-Line.

Corruption, policy paralysis, and sundry afflictions upon our body politic are well-known: sports rorts; climate policy bogged down in ideological jousting, still no anti-corruption commission, no significant action beyond platitudes to redress the abuse of women, no end in sight to right the wrongs done to the original inhabitants of this land.

Trust in our politicians is at an all-time low. With each new poll, trust in the old Liberal and Labor duopoly is eroding. For the first time we will see a significant number of “Voices of” community candidates, unaligned to any party or group, at a Federal election. So far, compared with the average quality of our current MPs, all are outstanding: well educated, with professional experience, age and maturity, and commitment to reform in critical areas of our afflicted polity.

This is a moment that Chinese Australians, could and should seize, for the sake of their descendants, and indeed for the descendants of all who inhabit this land.

Why do this?

We need a Disruption, desperately, to reform our political culture.

If the polls are reliable – and Scott Morrison should gain ground with a deluge of China-bashing, beguiling advertising, and seductive offerings – it is likely that we will end up with a minority government requiring the support of Independents, and the Greens if the latter are lucky.

We could and should grasp this moment and make it happen, by supporting the Independents at this critical time.

It is not inconceivable that when the Independents hold the balance of power, they would insist on the adoption of Proportional Representation in the Lower House, as has been successfully adopted in New Zealand for years.

Given our winner-takes-all political culture, that would be a new dawn. The quality and diversity of MPs would change, almost overnight. The mafia-like grip of factions would wither over time, as voters reward quality candidates and Parliament itself become more civilised.  Then our democracy would breathe with decongested lungs.

Chinese Australian leaders should stand up, and do what is good for our country, the homeland of our descendants, in what is likely to transpire to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Identify one or more “Voices of” community candidates whom “Chinese Australians” support materially, on a State by State basis.

Say support Monique Ryan against Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong , Victoria.

Monique is more than a worthy candidate: experienced leader in paediatric research; a woman not indentured to the winner-takes-all Party mentality; with an outlook that focuses on urgently fixing up the policy paralysis in the present government.

Build an impregnable wall against hostile journalists. Respond only to questions we deem pertinent. Put them down gently but firmly.

A possible scenario, just one example. But we must prepare answers to as many nasty and challenging questions our detractors might hurl at us.

Why are you against Josh? 

(Avoid a direct answer. Avoid falling into the trap of getting tarred with being partisan.)

“We are concentrating on Monique. She is a very worthy candidate … etc. Why she has chosen to stand against Josh is on her website. Professional journalists like you would have it all at your fingertips, I am sure.

For me as a Chinese Australian, it’s like going to a restaurant. We choose what we think we would like on a particular occasion. On this occasion Monica and her class of independent Voices of community candidates would inject a much-needed tonic into our afflicted body politic.

Corrupt political culture? 

“You know better than me, I am sure. Sports rort, carpark rort, marine park rort. Then there are the political nurseries that breed MPs and Senators, some of whom have never had a job in the real economy. And yet such scantily prepared politicians are promoted into positions to preside over the development of our education, health, and aged-care policies, with disastrous consequences, as we are all well aware.

“ The nursing home scandal for instance. You know that, I know that, we all know that.

“Fair go, mate! This is what I feel, as a citizen, one who is fortunate enough to live on the fat of the land. And for once I feel that as a Chinese Australian I should stand up for what is good for my descendants and the descendants of all Australians. But I am not about to participate in political jousting though, unlike our politicians armed with cheat sheets.

Implementation

State-based. With loose liaison among the State convenors.

Each State to select one or two or all Voices of community candidates to give our support to. Money, volunteering, spreading the word, and whatever else.

Victoria and NSW will be key. But Tassie offers a tantalising opportunity for us to help Eric Abetz into retirement from his long, long sinecure in the Senate. (Voters can make that happen, thanks to Malcolm Turnbull’s Senate electoral reform. Remember Lisa Singh?)

Start with a carefully prepared launch, to raise funds, and to achieve media attention. A well-crafted media release, heralding our coming-of-age debut would be critical. We will be re-branding ourselves, in fact. No more little frolickers in the multicultural circus; but competent and vital citizens rising to the occasion.

The entire focus will be on reforming the political culture of this homeland of our heirs.

Competent flag bearers.

Ideally, we need spokespersons like Jenny Leong and Jason Yatsen Li. Well educated, substantial and diverse experience in life, and above all at home with the Australian culture – never apologetic, kowtowing, or unnecessarily aggressive. And the capacity to put obnoxious or partisan journalists in their place, as though they were naughty adolescents.

A historical precedent

In 1998, against the conventional wisdom of petitions, the Queensland Chinese Forum launched a public rebuke of the State Liberal Party, then in government, for directing its preference to the Pauline Hanson Party in the coming State Elections. The subsequent media release achieved a success, unprecedented. For weeks we were reported in the media: broadsheets, tabloids, radio, even a live appearance on a Saturday national TV program.

I feel confident that this time Chinese Aussies can not only succeed but can in fact leave a legacy that all Australians would be proud of, for all time.

Most of all, it would change the cultural and political outlook of Chinese Australians forever. No more petitions, no more bleating: these did not work in the past, they did not deliver with Covid. We must stand up and take our citizenship assiduously and courageously.

It’s time: well past time in fact.