Muhammad Dan Suleiman, Christopher Isike, David Mickler
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
As part of its strategy to win African votes for election to the UN Security Council (2008–12), Canberra sought to leverage its soft power potential by presenting Australia as having “no colonial baggage” in Africa while framing Australia as “a country from the Global North, located in the Global South,” and one that would “work with other small and middle powers.” Ultimately, the campaign was successful, including up to 50 of Africa's 54 countries voting for Australia. This paper considers this framing in the context of a shared but differentiated colonial history, including its contradictions, given that Australians fought several wars on African soil on behalf of the British Empire, supported white minority regimes and anti-communist movements on the continent, and maintained the white Australia policy until the 1970s. The paper deploys decoloniality theory to engage Australia's lack of a neat fit within a historicised articulation of a “coloniser-colonised” relationship between Europe and Africa. We show that, despite this lack of fit, Australia's relations with the countries of Africa reinforce long-standing of patterns of knowledge, power, and being associated with colonialism. Accordingly, the paper makes three recommendations for cooperation and innovative thinking in foreign policy and diaspora diplomacy between Africa and a more independent and multicultural Australia based on the “equality of being.”
期刊介绍:
The Australian Journal of Politics and History presents papers addressing significant problems of general interest to those working in the fields of history, political studies and international affairs. Articles explore the politics and history of Australia and modern Europe, intellectual history, political history, and the history of political thought. The journal also publishes articles in the fields of international politics, Australian foreign policy, and Australia relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.