<
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-jon-faine-on-why-our-social-cohesion-should-not-be-taken-for-granted-268493>
"Social cohesion is in decline. This has become a common refrain, along with
despair about a crisis in our democracy. Yet amid the platitudes and wishful
thinking about reversing that trend, there is a glaring absence of strategy or
urgency.
At different stages of our history, social cohesion has meant different things.
It is an elastic term. Today, it is built on values of inclusion, harmony,
respect, equality, fairness and, particularly, multiculturalism. But it has not
always been thus.
There was a time not so long ago when maintaining the White Australia policy
was claimed to be essential to maintain social cohesion. What was then widely
accepted as Australia’s “natural” order was threatened by anyone with dark skin
or Asian heritage.
Today it is the reverse: the threat to social cohesion comes from neo-Nazis
targeting Asians, First Nations and other dark-skinned people. So let us not be
oblivious to how value-laden the term is.
Australia has seen racism since Captain Cook stepped ashore. We would be naive
to think it will not continue to show its ugly side.
When white settlers first arrived, whether in chains or not, hostility to
Indigenous people was unexceptional: they were regarded as savages and
dismissed as a dying race. When free settlers started to arrive, the English
colonists made life tough for the Scots, who were fleeing the clearance of the
Highlands by absentee landlords. Then the English and Scots together were
unhappy about the arrival of large numbers of Irish – survivors of the potato
famine.
Then they all banded together against Chinese gold miners. Then the same
happened to every other wave of migrants or refugees – persecuted Lutherans,
Jews from displaced persons camps after the Holocaust, then the Italians,
Greeks, Turks, Vietnamese, Lebanese, and so on, through to today’s punching
bag, people from Africa.
We cannot wish racism away. But neither should we shrug, accept it, and
minimise the instances and impact of it"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
