Australia citizenship test slammed as stupid, 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." But critics have slammed the test, labeling it "stupid" and "xenophobic." 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). The Australian government has produced a 46-page resource book -- titled 'Becoming an Australian Citizen' -- to be studied by prospective citizens and which lists specific privileges and responsibilities of being Australian. The 20 questions on each test are selected from an overall pool of 200 taken from topics in the booklet. 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. In Becoming an Australian Citizen, "values which are important in modern Australia" include freedom of speech, equality of opportunity and equality of men and women. According to the government, the listed values and principles "reflect strong influences on Australia's history and culture." The Government says these influences include Judeo-Christian ethics, a British political heritage and Irish and non-conformist attitudes. 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. "I think it's actually a xenophobic government that has a paranoia about people that don't look like [Prime Minister] John Howard and [Treasurer] Peter Costello," says Jeganathan, who regards the test as "racist." Smaller Australian political parties have also voiced their opposition. The Greens have called for the test to be scrapped and the test's funding–$12.3 million over four years to help people prepare for the test -- to be diverted into the government's English language program for migrants. Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Lyn Allison, says that the history and values of Australia contained in the Becoming an Australian Citizen booklet are those "according to the Howard government." In a videoed critique of the citizenship test posted on the YouTube website in late September -- in which Allison calls the test "stupid" -- the senator questions "peacefulness" as an Australian value. "Surely, this is at odds with signing on with $36.6 billion worth of war-fighting hardware and sending Australian troops to a bloody war in Iraq which has claimed more than 600,000 lives," says Allison. Aspiring citizens can prepare for the test by undertaking tutorials on the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's website, from where a copy of Becoming an Australian Citizen can also be downloaded. Additionally, prospective Australians can undertake a practice test on the site. The first practice question refers to one of the more controversial aspects contained in the government's booklet. 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." Jeganathan says that it does not make any moral or logical sense to "expect people to pledge every fiber of their being to defending a country that they've lived in for two or three years when they could well have lived in another country for 60, 70 or 80 years before that." Both Allison and Jeganathan also question whether citizenship should be determined by whether a person possesses particular knowledge about Australia. Another practice question asks what Australia's national floral emblem is. While Allison has no problem with the golden wattle being the correct response, "should you be denied Australian citizenship and therefore the vote because you don't know the answer to this?" she asks? Referring to a practice question on Australian sportsmen, Jeganathan says that "there's nothing wrong with being an Australian citizen from China and not knowing who Don Bradman was [and] in not caring who Rod Laver was." "It doesn't make you less Australian," says Jeganathan.