terra firma

Indian students and the Racism debate

The criminal attacks on Indian students in Melbourne is deplorable, must be condemned by every law abiding, free spirited Australian. However, the issue appears to have been blown out of proportion by the Australian and Indian Media as well as student groups in Australia.

Firstly, to protest is fine; but when you overdo it, people get irritated and you loose sympathy. Melbourne and Sydney got a taste of how students and others protest in India – occupy a busy intersection and make everyone’s life miserable. This is simply not on. Australia appeals to many skilled migrants because of what it is, because of the hard work of people who have lived here for many hundreds of years and worked hard to achieve. Australia is also appealing because there is a level of predictability about life in general, life is orderly, everyone minds their own business and more importantly everyone respects each others’ space. One’s freedom ends where the other’s freedom begins – and I have found ample evidence of this in how many Australians have dealt with me. Everyone gets a ‘fair go’. This to me epitomises the ‘Australian Way’ of life, not some jingoistic rhetoric about meat pies, southern cross and beer.

I read incredulously Simon Overland’s and Victoria Police’s initial calls to the Indian student community to pull their heads in! Jeepers, this sounds like blaming the victim to me. I cannot support this mode of action.

Whether the attacks have a racial connotation? I think there will be some level of racism. There are racists and racism everywhere, be it Australia, Indian, Timbuktoo or any place. I don’t believe that Australia as a country is racist – its no more or no less racist than India. This has been my personal experience in my few years in Australia. And, yes, I have felt racism sometimes – again no more or no less than anywhere else.

What worries me the media attention to these incidents have given a free reign to misguided narcissists to come up with hate websites like the one in Facebook. What worries me is that it gives latent racism an expression. These racists forget that many immigrants contribute significantly to the society, community and treasury greatly. These racists also forget an important part of history that includes the small matter of marginalization of a certain aboriginal group. These racists are also nimble minded nitwits who have no sense of population and economic needs of a country: if the population of Australia does not grow to a particular level, the economy will collapse and the much cherised way of life will become history. Already, there is nothing to write home about as far as the manufacturing industry in Australia goes. Immigration programmes are necessary to sustain this country. Countries like USA, UK and Australia can pick and choose whom they allow to immigrate – I think this is plain eugenics and ridiculous. Having said that, I can understand that a country may not be able to simply cope with providing services to people, when there is not enough people to work and churn the economy, so that enough is earned in the first place.

I suspect that the Italians and Greeks, reasonably integrated into the greater Oz culture, would have been treated similarly when they arrived in Australia all those years ago. Of course, we know of how generations of Australian-Italian and Australian-Greek kids were bullied at school and called ‘Wogs’. When a certain group arrives in a country in large numbers in a short space of time, it is a no brainer that locals will feel the changing landscape as on assault on their way of life. 

What is important and what determines the maturity of a country though is the ability to tolerate someone who does not look, talk or eat like the majority community and look beyond these attributes to the very fact that this a person with their very own story and life, trials and tribulations, triumphs and victories in this world.

If we are unable to tolerate someone who does not look like, talk or eat like us, then, no doubt, we are clearly racists. No doubts about that.