An Iraqi Refugee in the Australian Suburb in Ben Eltham’s The Pacific Solution

Abstract

Ben Eltham’s The Pacific Solution (2013) deals with several issues such as nationalism, political intimidation, racism and stereotyping of Muslims. It critiques the Howard government’s hard-line policy with Asylum seekers and its amendment of the migration act, known as the ‘Pacific Solution’, which excludes offshore islands from Australia’s migration zone and undermines thereby refugees’ attempts to seek better chances of life. This is portrayed on stage through the reaction of three white Australian housemates to the arrival at their front door of an Iraqi refugee to apply for asylum. In this paper, I investigate the representation of cultural diversity in the play and argue that it is a critique of dysfunctional models of inclusion where persons from minor cultures are marginalised in the Australian national and social spaces. In so doing, I consider some of the concepts discussed in Ghassan Hage’s White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (2000), namely those of managerial capacity, tolerance, and the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion. In addition to critiquing the dysfunctional models of including Muslim refugees, the play examines their representation in the mainstream media and their treatment by the legal process in Australia. To explore the impact of this on Muslim refugees’ alienation and marginalisation, I investigate studies of the representation of Muslims in the Australian mass media and their relevance to the stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists in the play. Drawing on the above, I argue that, through this play, Eltham criticised the Howard government’s inhumane treatment of Asylum seekers and its dissemination of Australian norms as aligning with its premises.