Australia’s Problematic New Citizenship Test

Peter recently criticized the new U.S. test for naturalization, arguing that instead of tinkering with the questions, it would be better “to drop the test altogether and recognize the fading distinctiveness of the national community.” Wise words — ones regrettably ignored by Australia’s new citizenship test, which is being widely described as “stupid,” “xenophobic,” and “racist”:

Prospective Australian citizens will now be required to pass a citizenship test which will, according to the federal Government, assist in providing aspiring Australians with an understanding of “Australia’s values, traditions, history and national symbols”.

[snip]

The test, introduced on Monday, obliges would-be citizens to correctly answer at least 12 out of 20 multiple-choice questions in order to be eligible for Australian citizenship.

“Our big problem with this (test) is that this government, without any regard to the actual cultural makeup of Australia, is autocratically trying to impose a certain culture…on its immigrant population and its new citizen population,” says Max Jeganathan, legal spokesman for Civil Liberties Australia (CLA).

[snip]

Jeganathan, who arrived in Australia as a six-month-old refugee from Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, says the CLA is not necessarily opposed to citizenship being means tested. However, he argues that any citizenship test should reflect Australia’s democratic values, but only in a ”very, very general sense”.

Jeganathan told IPS that the test — which can include questions on topics such as the country’s flora, fauna and sports people — is “a superficial filter based on a very narrow reading of what Australia’s culture actually is.”

“The democratic values of Australia don’t include questions about (cricketer) Don Bradman and the national flower and (tennis player) Rod Laver,” Jeganathan says.

[snip]

Jeganathan argues that the Government is attempting to promote an Anglo-Celtic monoculture — which he views as being one part of the overall Australian culture — at the expense of a multicultural identity.

“They forget that expatriate Chinese people and expatriate Indian people and expatriate Lebanese people all contribute to Australian culture just as much as someone that’s an Anglo-Australian who was born in Australia with British or Irish heritage,” he says.

Critics are particularly angered by a question that a person cannot be a good Australian unless he or she is willing to defend the country militarily:

Participants are asked which one of three options is a “responsibility for every Australian citizen?” The correct answer is “Join with Australians to defend Australia and its way of life, should the need arise.”

“What if I was elderly or the mother of young children?” asks Allison.

The “responsibility” to defend Australia “should the need arise” is also problematic for the CLA’s Jeganathan.

“In theory, that can be taken to say that you’re supporting the concept of (military) conscription if your government considers it necessary, almost,” says Jeganathan.

“We should be prepared to have citizens in Australia that, while they don’t bear foreign citizenship or don’t owe allegiance to a foreign country, they just aren’t necessarily prepared to stand up and defend Australia,” he argues.

A spokeswoman for Kevin Andrews, minister for immigration and citizenship, told IPS that to defend the country with arms “is a responsibility of being Australian.”

Asked if a prospective Australian would be denied citizenship if that person was a pacifist and therefore not prepared to take up arms to defend Australia, the spokeswoman says that such an issue “would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”

A disturbing response — and one that indicates how deeply flawed the Australian test is. A test that assesses little more than the applicant’s ability to memorize correctly is bad enough; one that requires allegiance to a particular set of political beliefs — beliefs that are by no means universally embraced by “real” Australians — is even worse.