2022-08-28
Australia has a long history of dehumanizing and denigrating non-white people, most recently asylum seekers arriving by boat. Media stereotyping has prevented widespread empathy, and this needs to be challenged.
By Tamsyn Heynes, Independent Dance Artist, Green Issue Co-editor & student of Philosophy and Environmental Humanities
Denigrate
From the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the land that is now Australia was force-fed the ideals of the British Empire – including its racism. Invading land which First Nations Peoples held sovereign, the modus operandi was typical of British invasion: disempower, divide, assimilate and exterminate – then denigrate. The Australian government and media have a long history of denigrating those who do not fit the ‘ideals’ extolled by odious White Australia Policy. Deliberate orchestration of visuals has created and fostered negative views of people who are considered ‘Other’. The specific use of invisibility and visibility, the nature of imagery and the timing that images are available to the public suggest manipulation and censorship that is nothing less than propaganda. Disempowered people have no control of the dehumanizing images that communicate negative, racialized tropes that are chosen to represent them. The effect has been particularly devastating to the treatment and safety of refugees.
A quick glance at public commentary on social media can remind us of the large far-right, white nationalist factions that exist in Australian society. While many Australians would take issue with being lumped in with such discontents, where do allegiances truly lie? According to the ballot box, Labor and Liberal. Orchestration, decision-making and the lack thereof by these two parties are responsible for the current cruel, unlawful incarceration of refugees. Regardless, the average Australian citizen does not align with progressive parties that prioritize seeing an end to this problem. Why?
Who is allowed to be an Aussie? Keeping Australia White
In the early to mid twentieth century, we see images of smiling, beautiful, innocent blonde European maidens, looking for a second chance at life, presented in crisp traditional clothing curtsying politely to politicians of the day. Strong, white, free ‒ and considering eugenic ideas prevalent between the wars ‒ superior. These were people working to get a fair chance at a productive life, who would strengthen the nation with their beauty and industriousness. (“Beautiful Balts” media campaign to welcome refugees, as mentioned in Professor Jane Lydon’s article “Fantasy Island”, 2018).[i] These were the ideal refugees, or rather misplaced people – a more palatable term. What is the Australian government’s current visual campaign for refugees? Visitation and photography to sites of incarceration – Manus (now closed), Christmas Island and Nauru – are strictly forbidden to the public, and as Professor Jane Lydon describes, a “blanket of restriction on photography”[ii] as a deliberate military and governmental agenda persists. Millions have been spent on anti-refugee visual and film campaigns, aimed at Asia, the middle east, and any soul who risks their life to come by boat.
Dehumanize
Images from afar of refugees huddled in pitiful masses on naval ships, not a single face visible. Parents, seen in aerial photographs, throwing their children overboard. Downtrodden crowds, faceless in their numbers, pressed up against the barbed fences, peering out like so many needy victims. This is the refugee visual campaign that the Australian government and military, facilitated by mainstream media, currently conducts ‒ hardly welcoming.
In 2001, the ‘Children Overboard” debacle saw the Howard government release images to the media showing Afghani refugees throwing their children overboard to compel the Australian Navy to rescue them. Playing on manic fears of Al Qaeda and terrorism, and ongoing hatred of ‘boat-people’, this concocted lie was exposed as a tactic to demonstrate strong border control to help win the federal election.[iii] The images shown were in fact from the day after, in the middle of an actual rescue. Ask the next ten people you meet what they think happened however, you may be surprised and let down about what they believe to be the truth (if they cared to remember at all). As for the outcome of this rotten political manoeuvre – he won. What does that say about us as a nation?
Operation Relex (2001-2006), “a restrictive public affairs plan that tightly regulated the collection and circulation of information and images”, was implemented. Defence Minister at the time, Peter Reith, “explicitly instructed personnel … [not to] humanize the refugees, to retain absolute control … [and] ensure that no imagery that could conceivably garner sympathy or misgiving about the aggressive … border protection regime would find its way into the public domain.” In 2013, under the guise of protection of individuals, the Gillard government implemented policy disallowing the photography of faces of refugees. By 2015, staff of the now closed Manus Island Detention Centre commenced a campaign of civil disobedience in response to reporting abuse becoming illegal.[iv] A dystopian nightmare for those stuck in this punitive mess, often indefinite and with no recourse. The faceless, dark masses remain non-human, not worthy of dignity and human rights ‒ kept invisible – their images only paraded out to support governmental agenda.
Lydon states that the dynamics of humanitarianism can perversely create social division[v] – it involves the duality of the powerful and the disempowered. Even activists and media with good intentions have inadvertently paved the way to the perception of the ‘helpless, pitiful victim”.
So we have our two prevalent stereotypes, both negative; pitiful, helpless victims; or dangerous, threatening criminals. Comfortable, as it confirms already existing societal bias towards the non-white. There is widespread fear of Sudanese gangs and Middle Eastern terrorists, of people unwanted in their own countries now coming to take ‘our’ jobs, of regressive persons coming to ruin democracy and Christiandom or secularity. The list of prejudicial fear-inspiring stereotypes goes on. Australia’s agenda of Keeping Australia White continues, still extolling racialized notions of worth as a citizen.
We may ask where Australia is incarcerating the Ukrainian ‘misplaced people’ – but we already know that Australia reached out a helping hand to them, providing them with a pathway while others languish, imprisoned. We may also ask why this country willingly took refugees from the Bosnian War and suddenly had no space for Rwandans escaping similar genocide in 1990s. We may ask why, Behrouz Boochani ‒ internationally revered, iconic activist and academic ‒ was not deemed worthy enough for Australian residency. And we may also ask how the happy ending for the Biloela (Nadesalingam) family is paraded as a great moment and not the shameful act of tokenism that it is.
German-Australian, Cornelia Rau’s tragic story that intersects mental illness with the punitive immigration laws, was made into a Netflix series and she received $2.6 million in compensation. Her story is an exception and has been treated as the tragedy that it is, but what about the people still stuck? Where are their Netflix series with A-grade actors? Lau was wrongly incarcerated but so are the current incarcerated refugees. It flies in face of the 1951 Convention of Refugees that Australia ratified.[vi]
It is a question of race – widespread desensitization towards non-white refugees where atrocity does not register as atrocious. The damage from past optics has been done and the current only serves to perpetuate it.
So how can this mess be fixed?
Professor Lydon rightly stresses the necessity of imagery depicting “horizontal relationships”[vii] that are universally relatable. For example, mother and child, a family unit calm and peaceful in quiet companionship. The innocence of a happy child overlooked by a caring parent. Spreading such imagery humanizes and communicates an egalitarian social relationship. Humanization through communicating familiarity bridges the gap of ‘Otherness’, thus adjusting the social division that has taken hold in Australian society.
Social Media
The function of imagery is even more pronounced in this age of uber accessibility. Social media is consumed voraciously and mindlessly ‒ look, read caption, like or not, scroll on. The image is what is noticed and absorbed. Algorithms create filter bubbles[viii], essentially placing birds of feather into a cyber echo chamber that serves only to strengthen confirmation bias.
When you come across images that defy the government’s agenda, like, comment and share. Help adjust the algorithms.
Platforms
Collaborate with refugees in telling their stories by offering opportunity for them to exercise their agency to humanize themselves. As Lydon mentions, artists and artworks, by way of film, photography, theatre and written word – humanizes. Support global literature at school level, which has been proven to decrease racism and prejudice.[ix] Be most mindful to avoid patronizing and “White Saviour” dynamics. Protect, support and share these works.
Voice
Let your voice be heard. Conversation with those nearest and dearest creates change on a grassroots level, do not let the suffering of the incarcerated remain invisible like the government hopes. Do not let their agenda, through silence, become yours.
Ballot Box
Vote for parties that will change the laws. Vote for parties that prioritize dignity, safety and equality for all.
With special thanks to Professor Jane Lydon
Professor Jane Lydon is the Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History at the University of Western Australia. Her research centres upon Australia’s colonial past and its legacies in the present. A prolific author, her books include The Flash of Recognition: Photography and the Emergence of Indigenous Rights (2012), Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians (2005) and the edited Visualising Human Rights (UWA Publishing, 2018), which examines the cultural impact of the framework of human rights through visual culture.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3083-4084
[i] Lydon, Jane. Chapter 6. “Fantasy Islands: Photography, empathy, and Australia’s detention archipelago”, in Photography and Migration, edited Sheehan, T. Taylor & Francis Group, 2018: 100 – 114
[ii] Lydon, Jane. “An Australian Politics of Indistinction: Making Refugees Visible”, in New Formations. At History’s Edge. A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, edited Jeremy Gilbert. Number 106, 2022: 100 -117
[iii] Lydon, Jane. Chapter 6. "Fantasy Islands: Photography, empathy, and Australia's detention archipelago", in Photography and Migration, edited Sheehan, Taylor and Francis Group, 2018: 100 - 114
[iv] ibid
[v] Lydon, Jane. “An Australian Politics of Indistinction: Making Refugees Visible”, in New Formations. At History’s Edge. A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, edited by Jeremy Gilbert. Number 106, 2022: 100 -117
[vi] Weis, Paul, and Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. “‘The Refugee Convention 1951. The Travaux Préparatoires ‘Analysed, with a Commentary’- Paul Weis, Book Review.” Journal of Refugee Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996
[vii] Lydon, Jane. Chapter 6. “Fantasy Islands: Photography, empathy, and Australia’s detention archipelago”, in Photography and Migration, edited Sheehan, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018: 100 – 114
[viii] Haim, Mario, Graefe, Andreas and Hans-Bernd, Brosius. “Burst of the Filter Bubble?: Effects of Personalization on the Diversity of Google News.” Digital Journalism 6, no. 3, 2018: 330–43.
[ix] Udell, Emily. “Antiracist Storytimes: Programs for Kids Spark and Normalize Conversations About Race.” American Libraries (Chicago, Ill.) 53, no. 5, 2022: 18
Header Photo: Image © 2022 Alessio Trombettoni, “In the Shadow of the Sunbaker”. Challenging the symbol of the idealized Australian, epitomized in Max Dupain’s “Sunbaker”, 1937.
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]