Ghassan Hage, White Nation, 1998.
Same as it ever was…
“
Immigration debates…still provided [a] kind of ‘White governmental buzz’. This was not because immigration debates and polls actually decided anything. Indeed, it is one of the peculiarities of immigration policy in Australia that no other federal policy has been polled and debated more than it has, while, at the same time, no other policy has evolved more blatantly in disregard of public opinion. This is why the explanation for the White media and the White government’s clear commitment to a quasi-institutionalisation of immigration debates lies elsewhere. I want to suggest that rather than being perceived as a meaningful tool for the formulation of policy, the immigration polls and debates should be seen, as rituals of White empowerment—seasonal festivals where White Australians renew the belief in their possession of the power to talk and make decisions about Third World-looking Australians.
”
3 notes