4 British anti-racism in Australia
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Alison Holland
Abstract
Between 1950 and 1960 leading Australian feminist Jessie Street turned her attention to the question of Aboriginal rights in Australia. This represented her conscious alignment to the labour movement and to a new praxis that moved beyond the interests of her gender and class after the Second World War. This chapter explores her anti-racist activism, locating it in a British anti-racist movement that had its lineage in anti-slavery but was shaped by diverse social and political investments in the twentieth century, including Communism, pacifism, anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid. Her activism was shaped by the particular historical relations between Australia and Britain but also by the conditions of the Cold War, which made her anti-racist commitments deeply problematic in Australia after the war. Exploring her activism around Aboriginal rights as anti-racist enables a rereading of it. As an emissary of the Anti-Slavery Society she connected with a range of activists and humanitarians during her decade-long stay in London and was exposed to a diverse transnational network around the globe, including people such as the Robesons and the Revd Michael Scott. The experience enabled her to interpret Australian conditions within a global context of colonialism and apartheid in a way that few outside the Communist movement in Australia were able to do at the time. Furthermore, her anti-colonialism was influenced by Indigenous political demands on the one hand and two anthropologists associated with the Manchester School of Marxist anthropology on the other.
Abstract
Between 1950 and 1960 leading Australian feminist Jessie Street turned her attention to the question of Aboriginal rights in Australia. This represented her conscious alignment to the labour movement and to a new praxis that moved beyond the interests of her gender and class after the Second World War. This chapter explores her anti-racist activism, locating it in a British anti-racist movement that had its lineage in anti-slavery but was shaped by diverse social and political investments in the twentieth century, including Communism, pacifism, anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid. Her activism was shaped by the particular historical relations between Australia and Britain but also by the conditions of the Cold War, which made her anti-racist commitments deeply problematic in Australia after the war. Exploring her activism around Aboriginal rights as anti-racist enables a rereading of it. As an emissary of the Anti-Slavery Society she connected with a range of activists and humanitarians during her decade-long stay in London and was exposed to a diverse transnational network around the globe, including people such as the Robesons and the Revd Michael Scott. The experience enabled her to interpret Australian conditions within a global context of colonialism and apartheid in a way that few outside the Communist movement in Australia were able to do at the time. Furthermore, her anti-colonialism was influenced by Indigenous political demands on the one hand and two anthropologists associated with the Manchester School of Marxist anthropology on the other.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ foreword vii
- List of abbreviations viii
- Introduction – Anti- racism in Britain 1
- I Domestic, imperial and global anti-racist alliances and encounters 23
- 1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913 25
- 2 From racist humanitarianism to colonial human rights 44
- 3 George Orwell, pan-Africanism and reconciling antiimperialism with ‘Britishness’ 64
- 4 British anti-racism in Australia 79
- II Anti- racism and the making of post imperial Britain 101
- 5 Celebrating African culture in the north- east of England, 1930s–40s 103
- 6 British Jews and the Race Relations Acts 124
- 7 South Asian political Blackness in Britain 143
- 8 ‘Unfinished activisms’ 164
- III Anti-racism, memory and identity 185
- 9 Memory, multiculturalism and anti- racism in east London, 1990–2006 187
- 10 Tartan inclusivity or workers’ internationalism? The St Andrew’s Day Anti-Racism March and Rally in Scotland 207
- 11 ‘Martin Luther King fought for a colour-blind society’ 228
- Afterword 247
- Index 254
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ foreword vii
- List of abbreviations viii
- Introduction – Anti- racism in Britain 1
- I Domestic, imperial and global anti-racist alliances and encounters 23
- 1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913 25
- 2 From racist humanitarianism to colonial human rights 44
- 3 George Orwell, pan-Africanism and reconciling antiimperialism with ‘Britishness’ 64
- 4 British anti-racism in Australia 79
- II Anti- racism and the making of post imperial Britain 101
- 5 Celebrating African culture in the north- east of England, 1930s–40s 103
- 6 British Jews and the Race Relations Acts 124
- 7 South Asian political Blackness in Britain 143
- 8 ‘Unfinished activisms’ 164
- III Anti-racism, memory and identity 185
- 9 Memory, multiculturalism and anti- racism in east London, 1990–2006 187
- 10 Tartan inclusivity or workers’ internationalism? The St Andrew’s Day Anti-Racism March and Rally in Scotland 207
- 11 ‘Martin Luther King fought for a colour-blind society’ 228
- Afterword 247
- Index 254
