Protecting the Nation: Nationalist rhetoric on asylum seekers and the Tampa (original) (raw)
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While the democratic paradigm of governance and its constituent political processes are well established in Australia, consistently negative media representations of people seeking asylum may be viewed as justification for institutional decisions allowing continued punitive treatment of people seeking asylum on Australian shores. Historically, notions of Australian sovereignty exist as a changing discourse with reference to land claims and the Australian Indigenous population (O'Dowd 2011; Due 2008). However, in terms of contemporary political claims about Australia's need to enforce border protection policies , notions of sovereignty are consistently framed through the themes, images and language of military discourses. Media scholar, John Street suggests that although there is disagreement about whether specific political outcomes can be attributed to press influence, the role of television in politics has been more comprehensively established as shaping broader world views in regards to ideas, values and practices that are considered 'common-sense' (Street 2011; Craig 2013). This paper argues that the increasing role of the military in the treatment and processing of people seeking asylum may be justified, through repetitive negative media representations of asylum seekers which secures public support for such practices, thereby undermining the very principles of the democratic paradigm, and indeed the role of the media or 'fourth estate'(Schultz 1998) in a functioning democracy.
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER, 2016
Dilemmas around how to deal with asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat have been a key driver of political and public discourse for over a decade. In 2012, an ‘Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers’ was established to provide advice to the Australian government about how to deal with the increasingly embar- rassing issue of asylum seekers drowning at sea and a parliamentary stalemate on the matter. Using frame analysis to understand how national and post- national identities are being recruited in this debate, this paper analyses submissions to the Panel. We demonstrate how arguments for and against asylum seekers are constructed around nationalism, regionalism and globalism (cosmopolitan). Australia was variously framed as having an alternative national character from that promoted by politicians, as having a key regional role, and hence identity, and as a global citizen (both in reality and in appearance). Contrary to expectations, we found that each frame served as a vehicle through which progressive arguments were articulated, indicating the utility of each in arguing for more humane treatment of ‘Others’.
This article provides a socio-cognitive discourse analysis of Australian news media's use of certain metaphoric concepts to represent maritime asylum seekers (MASs) and discuss how such metaphorical constructions function to shape shared knowledge and legitimise certain immigration policies. The article argues that Australian news media feature a range of figurative language that discursively and consistently depicts MAS as an 'uncontrollable danger'. Two major metaphoric themes are identified: MAS as water or water catastrophe (all italics in this document are my own italics for emphasis, unless otherwise stated), and Australia as an invaded home. These metaphorical constructions appear to have emerged at the expense of earlier concerns regarding assimilation and difference and the metaphorical use of the queue, suggesting a recent shift in the immigration discourse in Australia. We conclude that both the water catastrophe and the home metaphors cognitively concretise and socially amplify the link between boat arrivals and social menace, thereby giving credence to discourses of responsibility and border control. This reproduction of a new discourse contributes to legitimising restrictive government policies and creating further possibilities for anti-immigration measures.
Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 2021
This article draws upon content analysis of Australian parliamentary transcripts to examine debates about asylum seekers who arrived by boat in three historical periods: 1977–1979, 1999–2001, and 2011–2013. We analyze term frequency and co-occurrence to identify patterns in specific usage of the phrase “boat people.” We then identify how the term is variously deployed in Parliament and discuss the relationship between these uses and government policy and practice. We conclude that forms of “discursive bordering” have amplified representations of asylum seekers as security threats to be controlled within and outside Australia’s sovereign territory. The scope of policy or legislative responses to boat arrivals is limited by a poverty of political language, thus corroborating recent conceptual arguments about the securitization and extra-territorialization of the contemporary border. Résumé Cet article s’appuie sur une analyse de contenu de transcriptions de débats parlementaires austr...
This paper will use a psychodynamic lens to examine the policies of current and past Australian governments on the treatment of asylum seekers who have reached, and attempted to reach, Australia by boat. The paper contends that the failure of Australians past and present to adaptively solve the social problems arising from our colonial past - namely the illegal arrival of the First Fleet on the shores of Botany Bay, the British assertion of terra nullius, and the subsequent stolen generation has created an intertwined chosen glory/trauma which has enmeshed itself in the unconscious large group identity of Australians. The paper references the work of Volkan, who has written extensively on the topic of unconscious chosen glory and trauma, to examine the high level of fear held by Australians at the prospect of asylum seekers arriving on Australia’s shores by boat. In doing so, it makes the connection between these fears and the morally challenging policies pursued by the Australian government, with the strong mandate of the Australian people, to deter would-be asylum seekers. The paper is written in two parts – the first examines how, from an Indigenous Australian perspective, the arrival of the First Fleet has become a chosen trauma that has been transmitted through generations. It also examines how the same historical event is celebrated by the majority of Australians as a celebration of a chosen glory. This event, the paper contends, represents a melting pot of unconscious, unprocessed emotions of guilt, anger, oppression and mourning for all Australians and that the symbol of the boat arriving on the shores of Botany Bay has come to be an object of fear (especially fear of what might happen if the boat is not stopped). The image of the boat, therefore, triggers an unconscious terror that the oppressor may suddenly become the oppressed - that our connection to country, culture, language and shared memory may be irrevocably lost at the hands of whoever arrives on our shores by boat. The second part of the paper argues that this fear of the boat has given rise to some of the most draconian asylum seeker policies developed by a western government in modern times. It draws a conclusion that these policies arise as a result of our collective failure to adaptively resolve the social problems arising from the arrival of the First Fleet.
Recent history has witnessed an increase in global conflict since the 1990s. This factor, along with natural disasters, has resulted in the number of displaced persons exceeding 50 million, unparalleled since World War II. As the world frantically seeks to adjust to this crisis of destitute and vulnerable people, Australia has taken an increasingly austere approach to those seeking asylum on its shores. This paper examines the harsh attitudes and policies from an ideological perspective. The ideologies that will be discussed includes banal nationalism built on British-Anglo ideals, racism built on fear of economic competition, national security ideals built on political tactics that labeled asylum seekers as a ‘threat’, and ideals formed through geographical insularity evidenced by a disengagement from global affairs. These ideologies have developed successfully since European settlement because they have resonated with society’s fear of the ‘others’ and been promoted through political rhetoric and mass media. These ideologies, formed amidst hardship and survival fears of European settlers, are so deeply entrenched that they often go unrecognised or are denied. In order for Australia to address the complexity and plight of traumatised asylum seekers from a responsible, global position, it has to start by addressing the ideologies that have shaped its current bellicose attitude and policies towards those seeking refuge.