I have to say, the March for Australia protests that occurred across the country at the end of last month made me uncomfortable on many levels.
As the daughter and granddaughter of migrants who came to Australia in the 1940s and 1950s, whose family has thrived by being welcomed into the greatest country in the world, I am uncomfortable at the suggestion that this opportunity should be denied others.
I am also uncomfortable because my Middle-Eastern cultural heritage would not be included in the “Anglo-European” ideal advocated by some speakers at the rallies. According to these people, despite being born here, my family would still be viewed in some corners as being Australians only through the benevolent concession of those who represent “true” Australian culture and our welcome contingent on our assimilation into this group.
As one of the speakers at the Sydney rally said: “NSW was not for sale to the highest bidder – but was set aside for sons and daughters of Brittania, the nation-forming people of this land, and other Europeans who assimilated into our number.”
The irony of this is, of course, that other than our Indigenous brothers and sisters, we are all migrants or descendants of them and a difference of 100 years or so in the migration date of our ancestors matters little in the long history of Australia.
I am uncomfortable as someone who would be identified as a conservative, because the March for Australia is another illustration of the tendency to link a socially and politically conservative worldview with an anti-migration (and often, anti-migrant) one. I reject the idea that true conservatism rejects generous immigration wholeheartedly.
And finally, I am uncomfortable as a Christian, because – unfortunately – some of the most prominent voices in this debate are Christians.
Don’t get me wrong. Christianity doesn’t require open borders, and there are some legitimate concerns about inappropriately high migration numbers. These concerns, such as wages, housing supply and strains on infrastructure, are aspects of policy on which there can be legitimate disagreement from a Christian perspective.
However, I suggest that some of the other reasons given for protesting migration levels are more troubling because these reasons project a message that does not view each and every human equally.
For example, the advertisement for the March for Australia hosted on its website read (in part): “MORE INDIANS IN 5 YEARS, THAN GREEKS AND ITALIANS IN 100 And that’s just from one country… We know migration has a cultural impact. This isn’t a slight cultural change – it’s replacement plain and simple.”
No one wants to be ‘replaced’ nor suddenly feel like a stranger in their own home, but it is hard to see the singling out of a specific ethnic group as enforcing anything except an ‘us and them’ mentality.
The March for Australia for the sake of the preservation of Australian culture is also noticeable for what it does not address, and that is the uncomfortable truth that those who organisers and speakers deem to fit the mould of contributing to “Australian” culture are contracepting and aborting the next generation out of existence.
The absence of any advocacy for preservation of culture through the upholding of marriage and family life is an unfortunate – and telling – omission from this cause.
This week, the annual Walk for Life is being held in Hyde Park. It commemorates the passing of the state’s terrible abortion laws back in 2019. Its numbers will be much smaller than what we saw on 31 August, but its message is much more important in the culture wars. As my dear friend Lyle Shelton commented, “If you really want to march for Australia’s future, this is the one.”