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Pseudo-Hyphens and Barbaric/Binaries: Anglo-Celticity and the Cultural Politics of Tolerance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Fiona Nicoll
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Extract

[T]he point being made is not that the discourse of enrichment places Anglo-Celtic culture in a more important position than other migrant cultures. If this was the case, it would simply be reflecting reality. More importantly, this discourse assigns to migrant cultures a different mode of existence to Anglo-Celtic culture. While Anglo-Celtic culture merely and unquestionably exists, migrant cultures exist for the latter. (Ghassan Hage)

A few months ago I was having dinner with the family of a friend. This family came from India to Australia in the 1960s and has divided its time between both countries ever since. The parents and children are all intellectuals of one kind or another: teachers, journalists and academics. The discussion turned to Hansonism. Why, I wanted to know, hadn't the journalist published an opinion in the Australian press about Hanson? Because, it was patiently explained to me, non-Anglo-Celtic Australians are only allowed to tell one kind of story in the mainstream media: that of the opportunities that they and their family have enjoyed since coming to this country. Political critique is reserved for the opinion columns presided over by those Anglo-Celtic warhorses such as Frank Devine and Padrick McGuiness. Now I knew this. So why did I ask in the first place? And why did I feign surprise when the answer was pointed out to me? This paper is, in part, an attempt to understand this Anglo-Celtic reflex.

Type
Research Article
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , May 1999 , pp. 77 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

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References

Notes

1 Hage, Ghassan, ‘Locating Multiculturalism's Other: A Critique of Practical Tolerance’, New Formations, 24, Winter 1994, p 32 (my italics).Google Scholar

2 For a detailed historical account of changing government policies of multiculturalism in Australia, see Theophanous, Andrew C., Understanding Multiculturalism and Australian Identity, Elikia Books, Melbourne, 1995.Google Scholar

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6 Chakrabarty, Dipesh notes of Bengali ‘autobiographies’: ‘they seldom yield pictures of an endlessly interiorized subject. Our autobiographies are remarkably “public” …when written by men, and tell the story of the extended family when written by women. In any case, autobiographies in the confessional mode are notable for their absence’. ‘Provincializing Europe: Post-coloniality and the Critique of History’, Cultural Studies, 6.3, October 1992, p 341. This raises the question of what happens when this subject becomes a migrant within a multicultural nation-state such as Australia, where the thirst for autobiographical accounts of ‘others’ — in the confessional mode — is apparently insatiable?Google Scholar

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