I choose to invest in rainbows

Why I refuse to jump on the anti-immigrant bandwagon

Words & images © Paul Ransom

Humans have long been migratory. For multiple millennia we have fanned out across continents; as explorers, conquerors, fortune seekers, and in flight for life, liberty and opportunity. When the planet was less crowded and the distances greater, inter-tribal frictions may have been less frequent, though likely no less violent – because, although almost all of us have ancient ancestors who were once new arrivals, we have also tended to look askance at our fellow travellers.

It is therefore no surprise that our clannish habit of ascribing negative attributes to, and being fearful of, those we regard as ‘foreign’ continues to find expression in politics, on social media, and in unconscious bias. Our responses can range from vague unease to outright suspicion, subtle social censure to legal exclusion, name calling to state sanctioned violence.  

However, just because it is in our make-up to be tribal and, when it suits us, to weaponise this proclivity, I respectfully refuse to scamper to the dog-whistle. It may be presently enjoying an uptick in support, but to me the contemporary voice of anti-migration politics is, as ever, exploitative and cynical. I regard it as little more than sectional self-interest masquerading as the megaphone of a supposedly silent majority. Though it poses as a brand of resistance it is, in truth, a nakedly conformist repetition of old formulae.

Amplify, simplify. Divide, conquer. We good, them bad.

(Look away now, children.)

I realise that some will regard this as woke nonsense or condemn me for parroting left/elite crap. Fine, I can live with that. But what I am not okay with – and wish to have no part of – is a racialised herdthink that asks me to sanction the idea that relatively minor biological and cultural differences are so significant that they require me to ‘defend’ my country, my way of life, or my reputedly pure, superior genes against an invasive horde who, (so the flag wavers insist) do not ‘share our values’ or ‘respect our institutions’.

Sorry, folks…not liking that post.

Yet, to be fair, migration has always been problematic. Throughout human history host communities have rarely, if ever, been unanimously welcoming. To repeat: we are tribal, which means territorial. We are also wired to prefer kith, kin and clan. In addition, we are highly normative. As individuals, we overtly signal group membership and, collectively, we reinforce social bonds and cohesion through cultural/ceremonial practises, and by visible adherence to shared beliefs. This works to make out-groups (migrants included) more visible and to exaggerate the importance, and thus the threat, of difference.

That said, it is neither racist nor unreasonable to suggest that migration needs to be thoughtfully managed. Just as we cannot wish away our evolved tribal tendencies, so too we should acknowledge that the volume and diversity of migrant flows since WW2 have conferred a mix of cost and benefit to countries (of both origin and arrival) and to migrant populations. Zooming out, it is also clear that migration is largely, though not entirely, driven by economic self-interest. Migration is rarely an act of charity. 

Here in Australia, successive governments have used migration as a means to grow both population and GDP. Broadly speaking, this has been a go-to strategy for many Western nations for decades. Where local birthrates plateau or decline, the quickest (cheapest?) way to maintain a functioning and productive workforce, underwrite aggregate demand, and grow a multi-lingual, multi-cultural talent pool to compete in a globalised market, is to bring in fresh blood.

For First World countries this has been an easy get. Huge disparities in wealth and critical social infrastructure, plus both real and perceived gaps in quality of life, governance and opportunity, have fed the demand; meaning that host nations have been able to pick and choose.  

This, of course, is not the full picture. I do not pretend to have my head around the minutiae of Western immigration policies, nor the complex logistics and manifold challenges of welcoming new residents. Clearly, there are issues around language, integration, housing, social services…the list goes on. Managing the resettlement of people from a variety of backgrounds (and historical/political contexts) is not something that can be achieved merely with open doors or barbed wire. It requires long term planning, detailed and responsive coordination across many levels of government, plus a sufficient and sustainable capacity to absorb and acceptably deploy migrant inflows.

If that sounds like small print, I apologise – but migration in the twenty-first century is a shifting and complex phenomenon. Push and pull factors can vary in unpredictable ways, and some drivers are purely personal, and therefore not captured in broad brush data sets. Meanwhile, shifts in the political climate, unforeseen events, and economic concerns influence the priorities of both governments and individuals. So too there are the inevitable bad actors; politicians, criminals and others who would game the system. Thus, the catch-all explanations of social media know-it-alls and the grievance dramas of tabloid politics and culture wars invariably fail to take this into account, seeking instead to flatten the terrain with the convenient bulldozers of blame, fear stoking and, in some cases, hate.

Some, I know, will flinch at this. Hate is a strong word; like love, routinely overused. However, a cursory glance at our species’ track record should make it plain. The journey from resentment via fear to actionable hatred is nowhere near as arduous as we might wish. Last week’s neighbour is this week’s snitch, next week’s killer. If ever there was a slippery slope…

So, when I hear friends – many of them immigrants themselves – vexing about Chinese, Africans or Muslims and repeating the cynically deployed slogans of vote-hungry politicians to decry “people like that” or to warn me about “being swamped”, I try to remind them of the bigger picture. Of shared humanity, of individuality, of news drama and divide/conquer demagoguery.  

Usually, these attempts fail, which reminds me how easy it is to stoke anti-immigrant fires. Indeed, to turn us against one another. 

• A key plank of the age-old us/them strategy remains the ironically universal exceptionalism beloved of every ethnicity and culture; as if somehow the banalities of birthplace and postcode mean that ‘we’ are hard-working, honest, down to earth sorts, and ‘they’ are not. Our God is true. Our people chosen. Our nation indispensable. With respect, people, arrogant nonsense. You are not superior. Your genes and your traditions have not been granted an exemption from the evolutionary forces of nature and history. Moreover, your so-called patriotism is not a virtue. It is a vulnerability; one consistently exploited by people who know a sucker when they see one.

Given time, I could write a book on this – as I am sure some of you could – but this is not my intention here. The original impetus for this piece was not alarm or virtuous refusal. Yes, I cringe at the nuance free angertainment of news outlets and the self-serving, parasitic opportunism of anti-immigrant politics. And yes, I do worry that those who fan the flames with simplistic us/them rhetoric may well be starting a wildfire of cruelty, (intentionally or otherwise). Neither of these concerns are trivial, and both underscore why I would never attend a rally of flag wavers nor give support to the parties who leech off and enable them.

However, to focus solely on this is, to a degree, playing into the spectacle of rolling crisis. It could also be construed as yet more counter-productive moral theatre. (As if the world needs another holy warrior.)

What I really want to say is that I love the multicultural model. I want to live in a city of many colours. I like that when I get on a tram I might hear five, six, seven languages. I treasure the different ways we have of telling our stories, with art, with music, with food. I enjoy the added spice of Diwali and Chinese New Year. I love the life (and life stories) that immigrants bring to my home, just as much as I love travelling to theirs. Their presence, their prisms, remind me that mine is not the only way, simply a way. They show me both my limits and my possibilities. Their presence makes my tiny, encapsulated sliver of the planet seem less like a monochromatic enclosure and more like a widescreen world. I thank them for having the guts to uproot themselves from everything familiar and take a punt on another life. Just like my parents did.

Does this mean that all migrants are saints? No. (As a migrant myself, I can vouch wholeheartedly for this.) Am I okay with all so-called cultural practises? Hell no. Honour killing and female circumcision are not things I welcome; in this or any other country. Neither am I a fan of extreme religious belief, regardless of deity. Nor do I kid myself that all migrants are immune from prejudice.

But like I said, cost and benefit. Any large enough cohort, (irrespective of origin, religion or political persuasion), will have its spread of personality types. Hawks, doves, stoics, whingers. The wave of European migrants who ‘swamped’ this country in the aftermath of WW2 – when the White Australia policy was in full cry – surely did not come without its share of crime and misdemeanour; in addition to its substantial, nation building upside.

For me, the benefits of plurality are manifold. Aside from the enhanced genetic robustness generated by the inevitable inter-breeding that follows, there is also a wider socio-economic dividend. The skill base broadens, at least with regards to language and specific cultural knowledge, and this creates new opportunities, new markets, new problem solving capacity. Mono-cultures are more vulnerable to systemic decline and collapse, more likely to be rigidly conformist and, therefore, to atrophy.

And, with all due deference to those of you clinging to notions of racial purity and cultural supremacy, it is worth remembering that these beloved categories – and their nominated borders – are porous and dynamic. Indeed, even within the currently agreed manifest of races and nationalities there exist multiple sub-groups, some linguistic, others geographic, many self-declared. Sure, we can delineate ourselves into various clusters, but I would suggest that this is another slippery slope. As in, Asian becomes Chinese, becomes Cantonese, becomes…until you end up with billions. Rather like accents or dance music genres.

So…dilute the arbitrary divisions, I say, and bring on the mix. More colour, tastier food, sturdier genes. Much more fun than incestuous, nationalist pissing rituals and the endless rubber stamping of status quos.

Though some will bemoan what they regard as a potential watering down of ethno-cultural identity, and others a possible homogenisation effect, I would respectfully suggest that the paragraph before last addresses both. For, although we are profoundly the same, we are ever various. Tribal, individual. Root, branch, off-shoot. Always sprouting, always changing.

Here again, copy/paste anti-immigrant lore fails to register this; or perhaps just conveniently blurs it out to avoid offending the fragile sensibilities of its followers. (Read, patsies.)

The fact that migration poses serious questions, and its effects are long term and hard to accurately model, requires us to address it in a cool, detailed and flexible way. Not with wishy-washy, hippy-dippy platitude, and definitely not with reductive political opportunism. News drama, clickbait, and ideological posturing are not the right tools for the job.

Frankly, I am relieved that the task of managing the flow of new arrivals into this country is not mine. Furthermore, I am glad that my own migrant experience, though not perfect, has delivered more benefit than cost. I am grateful to my parents, who took the leap, and to this country, which took the risk.

Yet, more than anything, I am profoundly pleased that Australia abandoned its ‘white’ fixation shortly after my arrival. This country is more interesting, more vibrant, and less parochial than when I was young.

Back then, cappuccino and yiros were exotic, foul smelling concoctions spreading ‘wog germs’ and undermining Anglo-Celtic virtue. Japanese cars were poised to run over our economy and turn us into an impoverished Third World backwater, after which we would then be invaded by Indonesia. As for the aborigines, no one seemed to notice that they regarded ‘us’ as immigrants. A swamp. An invasion.

Call me woke or elitist or out of touch, brand me un-Australian if you like, but I do not wish to go back to that.

Instead, I will venture out tonight with a Polish/Jewish friend to mingle in a thriving laneway with a polyglot throng of Asians, Caucasians, Arabs and Africans, where we might enjoy delicacies from dozens of countries. Thereafter, we will attend a performance by a British man of south Asian descent that will reference both Sufi and western contemporary dance.

Granted, such fusion is a resource intensive, costly thing, and consensus is fragile, but what is the alternative? If it is the one pitched by anti-immigrant candidates, racial fantasists, and sundry paranoiacs, I will vote multicultural every time.

Because, given a choice of risk, I choose to invest in rainbows.