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Abstract
This paper examines the anti‐terrorist package Let's Look Out For Australia: protecting our way of life from a possible terrorist threat (or LOFA) sent to Australian homes in February 2003. It seeks to accomplish two things. Firstly, it critically interrogates various political and mythological strategies used in the package, arguing that it fails to reassure the public against terrorism. Instead, LOFA reveals quite the opposite: the possibility of an authoritarian state, and a code of exclusive ‘Australian’ values. Secondly, the response to LOFA is examined. While many Australians expressed indignation at LOFA, debate subsided in a matter of weeks. Using the language of Pierre Bourdieu, it is suggested that the reception of LOFA was ultimately marked by an acceptance by the Australian community of the doxa, or orthodoxy, of terrorism as a global phenomenon.
Notes
The author wishes to thank the anonymous referees for their suggestions on a previous draft, the editors for their encouragement, and Helen Chambers for loaning her copy of LOFA.
Hage, Ghassan (2003) Against Paranoid Nationalism: searching for hope in a shrinking society, p. 27 (Annandale, NSW, Pluto Press).
LOFA, p. 9.
See Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002 (Cth); Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2003 (Cth), herein ASIO Act.
See, for instance, Bronitt, Simon (2003, June) Constitutional rhetoric v criminal justice realities: unbalanced responses to terrorism. Public Law Review, 14(2), pp. 76–80, claiming that some of the terrorist laws were unexceptional.
Only this aspect of Pierre Bourdieu's (1984) work is focused on, particularly as discussed in Distinction: a social critique of taste (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul).
Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism, p. 27.
For a good text, see Sinclair, Andrew (2003) An Anatomy of Terror: a history of terrorism (London, Macmillan).
LOFA, p. 2.
LOFA, p. 7.
LOFA, p. 2.
LOFA, p. 8.
LOFA, p. 4.
LOFA, p. 4.
LOFA, p. 14.
See Bonanate, Luigi (1979) Some unanticipated consequences of terrorism. Journal of Peace Research, 16(3), pp. 197–213, 197; Hocking, Jenny (1993) Beyond Terrorism: the development of the Australian Security State, p. 29 (St Leonard's Street, Allen & Unwin).
Simon, Steven and Benjamin, David (2000) America and the new terrorism. Survival, 42(1), pp. 57–75, 60.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004) The 9/11 Commission Report: final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, pp. 339, 361 (Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office).
LOFA, p. 8.
LOFA, p. 7.
LOFA, p. 9.
LOFA, p. 9.
LOFA, p. 9.
See LOFA, p. 4.
LOFA, p. 5.
The argument is made in Zˇizˇek, S. (2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five interventions on the (misuse) of the word, p. 3 (London, Verso).
See Bronitt (2003) Constitutional rhetoric v criminal justice realities, p. 78.
Hocking, Beyond Terrorism, p. 23; McKnight, David (2004, summer) Clear thinking, dogma and the war on terrorism. Sydney Papers, 16(1), pp. 88, 96–101, 98.
See, for instance, Lefort, Claude (1986) The logic of totalitarianism, in: John B. Thompson (Ed.) The Political Forms of Modern Society, pp. 273–291 (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press).
Hocking, Beyond Terrorism, p. 21.
Zˇizˇek, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?, p. 164.
Zˇizˇek, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?, p. 229.
Hocking, Jenny (2004) Terror Laws: ASIO, counter‐terrorism and the threat to democracy, p. 194 (Sydney, UNSW).
Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD, An Advisory Report on the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002, May 2002, Report 1, Foreword.
LOFA, p. 5.
Criminal Code (Cth) div 102.7; Charter of United Nations Act 1945 (Cth) s 15(5), amended by Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism Act 2002 (Cth) sch 3.
See ASIO Act, ss. 34G(8)‐(9).
Head (2002) Counter‐terrorism laws: a threat to political freedom, civil liberties and constitutional rights. Melbourne University Law Review, 26(3), pp. 666–689, 685–687.
Head, M. (2002) Counter‐terrorism laws, p. 669.
See, e.g. Criminal Code (Cth) divs 80.1, 100.1; Head (2002) Counter‐terrorism laws, pp. 668–670.
Bronitt (2003) Constitutional rhetoric v criminal justice realities, p. 79.
Rice, Condolezza (2002, December) A balance of power that favours freedom. US Foreign Policy Agenda: An Electronic Journal of the Department of State, 7(4), pp. 5–9.
See review article by Humphrey, Michael, et al. (2002, spring) New visions of the state. Social Analysis, 46(1), pp. 154–163.
Hocking, Jenny (2004, summer) National security and democratic rights: Australian terror laws. Address to the Sydney Institute, 3 February 2004. Sydney Papers, 16(1), pp. 88–95, 93.
LOFA, pp. 11, 13, 8, 7.
LOFA, p. 7.
LOFA, p. 7.
For recent discussion about Howard's politics, see Manne, Robert (Ed.) (2004) The Howard Years (Melbourne, Black Inc. Agenda).
Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism, p. 71.
Introductory Letter, LOFA Package.
In particular, see Hutchins, Brett (2001) Social conservatism, Australian politics and cricket: the triumvirate of Prime Minister John Howard, Sir Robert Menzies and Sir Donald Bradman. Journal of Australian Studies, 67, pp. 55–66, 213–215.
Hutchins, B. (2002, April) The uses of nostalgia: Don Bradman and Australian cricket. Social Alternatives, 19(2), pp. 35–39.
Frew, Wendy (2002) Who's driving our history? Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum, 2 March, p. 6.
Quoted in Fiske, John, Hodge, Bob and Turner, Graeme (1987) Myths of Oz: reading Australian popular culture, p. 53 (Sydney, Allen & Unwin).
Drewe, Robert (1994, spring–summer) The beach or the bush? Or the shark vs the dingo. Island, 60/61, pp. 4–6, 5. For the classic work see Dutton, Geoffrey (1985) The Beach: sun, sea, surf, sand—the myth of the beach (Melbourne, Oxford University Press); and a less academic text, Wells, Lana (1982) Sunny Memories: Australians at the seaside (Richmond, Vic., Greenhouse Publications).
Fiske et al., Myths of Oz, pp. 53–55.
Drewe (1994) The beach or the bush?, p. 6.
Fiske et al., Myths of Oz, p. 55.
Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism, p. 67.
Hage, Ghassan (1998) White Nation: fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural Australia, p. 232 (Annandale, NSW, Pluto Press).
Hage, White Nation, p. 18.
Stratton, Jon (1998) Race Daze: Australia in identity crises, p. 83 (Annandale, NSW, Pluto Press).
LOFA, p. 10.
LOFA, p. 10.
LOFA, p. 10.
LOFA, p. 10.
Quoted in Riley, Mark, Burke, Kelly and AAP (2002) PM's ‘veiled’ comments on how Muslim women dress. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November, p. 1.
Al‐Marayah, Laila and Issa, Semeen (2002) An identity reduced to a burka. Los Angeles Times, Sunday Opinion, 30 January.
Quoted in Harvey, Adam (2002) Don't judge us by how we dress. Sunday Telegraph, 1 December, p. 14.
This has been examined in Kampmark, Binoy (2002, June) Refugee identities and the MV Tampa. Antipodes, 16(1), pp. 66–71.
LOFA, p. 5.
LOFA, p. 9.
Kalgoorlie Miner (2003) Government's information kit on terror is a waste of public money, 15 February.
Dobyn, Anne (2003) Terror check in the mail. Sunday Mail, Letters, 2 March, p. 48.
Bouloukos, Letitia (2003) Congratulations on anti‐war stance. North West News, Letters, 19 February, p. 7.
On the stage with performer, Simon Kingsley Hall, MX, 18 June 2003, p. 28.
Harris, Tim (2003) The culture—buddy, can you spare us a hat? And other weapons of mass deduction. The Age, 14 February, p. 3.
The author now has possession of this particular copy.
Chopra, Rohit (2003, May–July) Neoliberalism as doxa: Bourdieu's theory of the state and the contemporary Indian discourse on globalization and civilization. Cultural Studies, 17(3/4), pp. 419–444, 421.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1999) Rethinking the state: genesis and structure of the bureaucratic field, in: George Steinmetz (Ed.) State/Culture: state formation after the cultural turn, pp. 53–75, 70 (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press).
Bourdieu (1999) Rethinking the state, p. 70.
Bourdieu, Distinction, p. 471.
Johnson, Natasha (2002) Terror attacks trouble children. 7.30 Report, Transcript, 17 December.
Quoted in Gonzalez, Caroline (2003) Terror worry stirs action. Diamond Valley News, 26 February, p. 3.
LOFA Fridge Magnet, available in the LOFA Package.
LOFA Fridge Magnet.
LOFA, p. 8.
Horne, Donald (2002) Best‐case scenario. Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum, 9 November, p. 4.
Conrad, Peter (2003) At Home in Australia, p. 174 (Canberra, National Gallery of Australia).
Kalgoorlie Miner (2003) Government's information kit.