Australians must be vigilant against divisive race politics, says Tim Soutphommasane

Extract from The Guardian

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In an interview for the Australian politics podcast, the former race discrimination commissioner warns fascism was enabled by democratic mechanisms

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Katharine Murphy Political editor

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Sat 23 Mar 2019 10.07 AEDT Last modified on Sat 23 Mar 2019 10.09 AEDT

Former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane says most people wouldn’t believe it appropriate to debate an Islamic terrorist, but some think it OK to engage with white supremacists. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Human rights advocate Tim Soutphommasane wants Australians to be vigilant, with nativism and nationalist populism on the march. He expresses his warning in stark terms. “I don’t think the race politics we are seeing at the moment can be conveniently explained away as an episodic venting of cultural or racial anger,” he tells Guardian Australia’s politics podcast.
“I don’t believe you’ve got to indulge this in order for it to pass through the system so you can then quietly reset in a few years time.
“History tells us if we are not careful, nationalist populism can be a prelude to something much darker, and when democracies fail, they don’t fail necessarily from some outside force coming in – they fail because they implode or because democratic mechanisms get used for non-democratic and illiberal political purposes.
“That’s the history of fascism. Fascism was enabled by democratic mechanisms … and that’s why we’ve got to be on guard against the rise of race politics and hate today.”

Just over a week ago, hate exploded during the Christchurch mosque shootings, and the horror of that event, the violent deaths of 50 innocents in a community centre and a place of worship, has reverberated around the world.

Soutphommasane, Australia’s former race discrimination commissioner, has been warning for years that hateful words can have diabolical consequences. Pre Christchurch, he warned that the Morrison government was limbering up for an election “campaigning on fear, seeking to incite hysteria about asylum seekers and border security”.
Post Christchurch, he’s one of a number of prominent voices arguing that it is past time for Australian politicians and journalists to engage in some productive introspection about the behaviours that help normalise hate speech.
He’s not an advocate of de-platforming extremists. He says journalists should interrogate their agendas. But he says the problem is not much of that actually goes on if you assess the evidence.

"Why did it have to wait until something like Christchurch before there was this push back on Hansonism and white supremacy?"

Tim Soutphommasane

Soutphommasane cites a Four Corners interview with Steve Bannon, the former White House adviser and Breitbart editor, as a case in point. “The interviewer said explicitly, there, now, Mr Bannon, I know you aren’t a racist, or words to that effect – that to me isn’t challenging the likes of Steve Bannon, that’s giving him a free pass.
“Think of just recently, the ABC live streaming a press conference that Fraser Anning held, and the news director of the ABC Craig McMurtrie within a day came out and acknowledged that was an error of judgment.”

He says Australia’s commercial TV networks have given Pauline Hanson a platform over many years. Soutphommasane references a recent combative exchange between breakfast host David Koch and Hanson, post Christchurch, “but all of us watching this are asking why the hell didn’t that challenge exist at any stage over the past three years? Why did it have to wait until something like Christchurch before there was this belatedly discovered need to scrutinise and push back on Hansonism and white supremacy?”
If journalists intend to engage with figures like Hanson, Anning or Bannon, he says the objective should be to scrutinise every view rather than give a platform to every view.
He also points to a double standard. “Most reasonable people wouldn’t believe it was appropriate for us in a democratic society to give equal time to Islamic terrorists, or give equal time to pedophiles in public debate – yet if you listen to the debates we are having about race and immigration, you do get the impression there’s a section of the community out there, including progressive-minded people sometimes, who believe it is OK to give equal time to white supremacism because you’ve got to debate those ideas.
“Well, it’s curious that logic isn’t applied to certain forms of extremism but is applied to extreme forms of nationalist populism or white supremacy that have as their goals the undermining of liberal democracy as we know it.”
Soutphommasane says race politics is like an addiction in Australian politics, with the protagonists insulated from the practical impact of their rhetoric. He points out that the federal parliament is nowhere near as ethnically or religiously diverse as the rest of the community, so the purveyors of race politics have “the luxury of distance” – imagining themselves in a “salon conversation” without any real world consequences.

He’s hopeful the shock of the Christchurch terror can force a reset of sorts, but says politicians will have to walk the walk rather than mouth soothing words in order to achieve a genuine circuit breaker.
He says he remains hopeful that progress can be made, and insists citizens remain the best guardians of liberal values. Returning to the lessons of history, he says the fascists of the 20th century rose because good people didn’t speak up. Otherwise good citizens were “indifferent, or complacent”.
Soutphommasane says citizens needed to demand a higher calibre of political representation, and “that must involve less race politics, less fear, less division”.
He says people can take practical steps in their lives to elevate the tone. “Think about the next time you hear people talking about racism and anti-racism. Whenever somebody says anti-racism is divisive, or calling out racism creates more harm than good – that’s your chance to speak out.
“Those ideas are talking points which can creep into normalisation of hatred – this idea that conflict is generated by us calling things out.
“Well let’s be absolutely clear, we have a problem with racism and the conflict in our society around race is caused by racism, not by our response to it.

“That’s a responsibility that everyone in our society can exercise in the conversations they have.”