ESSAY: Australian racial exclusionism was taken up by German political theorist, Carl Schmitt, in the preface to the second (1926) edition of his book, The crisis of parliamentary democracy. Schmitt argued that democracy is inherently exclusionary in some way, and should not be confused with liberalism, which he saw as inclusive. In this context, he wrote:
“Every actual democracy rests on the principle that not only are equals equal but unequals will not be treated equally. Democracy requires, therefore, first homogeneity and second—if the need arises—elimination or eradication of heterogeneity.”
Australia, Schmitt thought, was an excellent illustration of this general principle. He noted that it used its immigration laws to exclude potential immigrants who are not the ‘right type of settler’. And he drew on Myra Willard’s classic book, A history of the White Australia Policy, which defended the policy as it narrated its history, and which had appeared just three years earlier. He quotes from Willard in an endnote:
“National self-preservation is the object of the policy. Australians feared that non-European immigration … might radically alter, perhaps destroy, the British character of the community. They knew that racial unity, though not necessarily racial homogeneity, was essential for national unity, for the national life. The union of a people depends on common loyalty to common ideals … to preserve the unity of their national life, a people can admit emigrants from alien races only if within a reasonable time they show a willingness and a capacity to amalgamate ideally as well as racially with
them … [Australians] believed that at present non-Europeans of the
labouring classes have neither this willingness nor this capacity.”
