Australians chew over a new topic: war
International Herald Tribune
March 7, 2003
Thomas Crampton

Fly-fishing and the persistent drought still dominate conversation, but customers at Macca's Tackle shop have lately started delving into the unfamiliar territory of foreign affairs.

"Normally nobody talks about international issues," said Ian Norris, a shop assistant at Macca's Tackle and a 10-year resident of this former stagecoach stop 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Sydney. "There's more talk about the situation in Iraq these days than any other international issue I can remember since I moved here."

The outside world may have hardly noticed when Australia sent 2,000 troops to become the only nation besides the United States and Britain to put troops into position for possible war against Iraq.

But the deployment has unleashed a furious national debate at home and a stroll down the dusty main street of aging Victorian facades in a small city like Goulburn, population 22,000, reveals sharply divergent opinions.

Norris advocates assassinating Saddam Hussein by shotgun. Helen Manzin, owner of the Shamrock Bookshop, supports peace protesters.

Julian de Cseuz, owner of the Fireside Inn, thinks Australia should not be involved, while John Wiles, a schoolteacher, said solidarity with the United States must be an absolute priority.

This wide range of views has been reflected in politics, on the streets and in public opinion polls.

Although Australian troops have been sent overseas on many occasions, including the Gulf War in 1991, the latest deployment was the first time since the Vietnam War that Australian soldiers had left home without united support from the government and opposition.

Popular reaction against a war in Iraq took form in the largest demonstrations for decades when 450,000 people, more than 2 percent of Australia's population, turned out two weeks ago to protest against military action. On Wednesday, thousands of high school students across Australia skipped lunch to march against the war.

Nonetheless, a poll this week shows that 56 percent of Australians support the country's military involvement in a war against Iraq if it is approved by the United Nations.

At the same time, the prime minister, John Howard, has retained a popularity rating well ahead of his less hawkish rival. The poll, conducted for The Australian newspaper, showed that 54 percent of Australians preferred Howard as prime minister, compared with 22 percent who prefer the opposition leader, Simon Crean.

These seeming contradictions are manifestations of Australia's recently shattered sense of protected isolation, according to Hugh White, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"The protests reflect Australia's newfound anxiety about security," White said. "The anxiety about international security is qualitatively and quantitatively higher than anything I have seen in 20 years of observing these issues."

Australians, who had long considered themselves isolated from international problems by living on their own sparsely populated continent, started feeling threatened with Indonesia's bloody withdrawal from neighboring East Timor in 1999, White said.

In 2001, a domestic crisis erupted over a boatload of refugees seeking asylum. The Sept. 11 attacks in the United States introduced the terror threat, which was reinforced by the Bali bombing in October last year in which 88 Australians were killed.

"The bombing in Bali played on Australian anxieties and transformed global terror into a domestic issue," said Kim Beazley, a member of the opposition and a former defense minister. "Bali seemed so close to home for so many Australians."

Fears were further stoked several weeks ago by pamphlets sent by the government to each Australian citizen warning them that terrorism required everyone to be "Alert, not alarmed."

To many Australians the heightened anxiety meant that the government should focus on keeping the Australian military's 50,000 troops close to home.

"Nobody has properly explained to me why Australians troops should be involved in a Middle East conflict," said de Cseuz, owner of the Fireside Inn. "We will anger nearby Muslim countries and risk a backlash of terror like a second Bali bombing."

Many in Goulburn expressed a fear of sparking anger in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, which lies just 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Australia.

Within the region, Australia's position has not gone unnoticed. Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamed, last week told The Canberra Times that Australia's position is "something that we cannot understand but we certainly condemn."

While elements of anti-American sentiment tinged war protests in Europe, even hard-core protesters set up outside Parliament in Canberra emphasize their pro-America credentials.

"You will not find Europe-style anti-Americanism in Australia," said Michael Denborough, a protester who was forcibly expelled from Parliament earlier this week for shouting anti-war slogans from the public gallery.

"I am 100 percent anti-Bush," he said, "but have so many American friends."

Australia's strongly positive attitudes toward the United States are rooted in history and enlightened self-interest, said Paul Dibb, professor of strategic and defense studies center at the Australian National University.

"America made considerable sacrifices for Australia's defense during World War II when the Japanese knocked at the door," Dibb said. "This has not been forgotten and there is also a recognition that Asia without the United States would be a very dangerous place."

Asia's hot spots — the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait and Kashmir — are kept calm by a United States presence that many Australians want to encourage, Dibb said.

This sentiment resonates at the Goulburn Soldiers Club, a drinking place set up by retired military service people where the lights dim each evening at 6 o'clock while an ode is read for Australians who died in service to the country.

"I remember pedaling my bicycle around this town to celebrate the end of World War II," said John Wiles, a mathematics schoolteacher, who was nursing a beer at the club.

"We still need the United States so much that we must participate in an Iraq war at some level in case there is another confrontation in Asia when we need the United States."

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