ABSTRACT
As with Islam, Australia has a number of alternative futures, two of which bear thinking about. One is to follow the line it took for much of the twentieth century, as an isolated, defensive Anglo-Celtic enclave preserving its purity in its region. The other is to view itself and its contexts as a complex multiculture, and welcome the cosmogenic possibilities of its complex and ever-changing environment. Australia had never previously been invited to an Association of South-East Asian Nations summit, in spite of the best efforts of the then Australian Labor Party prime minister, Paul Keating, waving the banner of Australian multiculturalism as a credential. Australia’s presence at this summit, and the possibility that it would join a Free Trade Treaty, was seen as a coup for the Australian government, redeeming it from its image of not being ‘friends of Asia’. Australia’s multiculture is strengthened by including the contradictions, just as it is strengthened by the presence of the many ‘Asian’ peoples.
