One of the major difficulties Julia Gillard has in convincing her Indian counterparts that Australia is a safe port of call for Indian students seeking educational opportunity is that some of our competitors do a much better job at ensuring racial tolerance is more than just a slogan. Canada, particularly the west coast, springs to mind in that regard.
Attracting students to Australia’s universities requires convincing them, and their parents, that they will be secure and not face the prospect of being racially abused, and that if it does happen to them, they can do something about it.
The recent experience of Indian students in Australia suggests that this is not always the case. There is no doubt that race lies at the heart of the consistent physical and verbal abuse being meted out to Indian students in major cities, despite the irresponsible denials from politicians and police chiefs. Take New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees. On June 5 he was telling the media: “Very occasionally (there are) minor incidents. (There is) certainly no pattern and nothing racially based,” he said. Unfortunately, Rees is not Robinson Crusoe when it comes to this head-in-the-sand approach.
In fact, not only is the issue not minor, but there is evidence suggesting that racial abuse is a bigger problem among Indian students than we realise because many students simply don’t report abuse. Vish Viswanathan, of the Indian Consulate in Sydney, told SBS earlier this year that they do not go to the police because they think it might adversely affect their migration status or that something “wrong will happen to them”.
Meanwhile, in British Columbia on Canada’s west coast it’s a different story. When there are attacks on minorities, including foreign students, police and political leaders are not afraid to call them for what they are — hate crimes. Police departments have hate-crime and anti-racism teams and politicians, in sharp contrast to the head-in-the-sand approach in Australia, talk openly about the need to enhance multiculturalism and diversity and to stamp out race-based crime. Judges will increase sentences if it is proven that the crime committed was racially motivated .
A telling commentary on Canadian attitudes towards students from non-European backgrounds was provided earlier this year in Toronto when a 15-year-old Asian schoolboy was arrested by police after assaulting another student who had racially taunted him. The Toronto Sun reported on April 28 that “hundreds of students skipped classes to rally against racism and to protest the criminal charge laid against the boy, who they said was acting in self-defence”.
There is, of course, racism in Canada, particularly directed against indigenous people and Africans, but it is fair to say that one of the impacts of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms introduced in 1982 in that country, has been to make Canadian society more tolerant and individuals aware that human rights will be protected.
This difference in the legal and political cultures of Australia, and places such as British Columbia and other parts of Canada that attract foreign students, is not a trivial one. Australia’s perennial slow progress on human rights protection and the refusal of its political leaders to recognise that racism leads to crime presents a real opportunity for Canadian universities to attract Indian education dollars.
Actually Edward I spend a good deal of my time – around 50 percent – living in Melbourne and I know Hawthorn very well. I have witnessed racism in Hawthorn and am more than happy to give you chapter and verse.
When the Special Rapporteur of the UN (Professor James Anaya) recently made his preliminary Statement on his 11 day fact finding visit to Australia, the “what racist? us?” reaction was immediate and fierce. The “thou dost protest too much” saying springs to mind.
James Anaya asserted in his most diplomatic manner that the Northern Territory Emergency Responce (the Intervention) was racist.
Tony Abott responded that James Anaya was an armchair critic that “should get a life and visit some of these communities”.
James Anaya spent 5 hours in Yuendumu during which he spoke with many people and (increasingly unusual for us) asked many pertinent questions (e.g. “How much input does the community have in the design of the school curriculum” and “what percentage of the proceeds from the sale of Aboriginal paintings is paid to the artist”).
Catholic Bishop Eugene Hurley of the Diocese of Darwin happened to be spending a couple of days in the Yuendumu Community when Professor Anaya visited. He said, “I attended a community function with him. My observation was that he listened carefully to the people of the community and seems to have respected faithfully what he saw and heard.
It seems to me that it is not helpful to “shoot the messenger”. Indeed it would be wise to listen both to the message and the messenger.”
Jenny Macklin’s response was “the only Human Rights I am interested in are the rights of children to feel safe” as if destroying the social fabric of remote Aboriginal communities and disempowering parents and grandparents isn’t a form (albeit indirect) of child abuse.
Before dismissing James Anaya it would have been better for our political leaders to read what he actually said. And Ms.Macklin your concerns for children are addressed in Article 21 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and seeing as Australia has “signed up” to the declaration perhaps you should read the other 45 Articles and begin to implement them.
Racism is alive and well in Australia (much of it not obvious nor concious- much of it in the form of ethnocentricity and xenophobia), but the majority of Australians are repulsed by racism.
Edward re: “Don’t try and extrapolate the actions of some waste of space shitheads from the western suburbs who have nothing better to do than harass people in Train stations”.
And how can you deny that their actions, as concentrated as they are on Indian students (vs others) are not racist? Happy-ville in Hawthorn doesn’t devoid the fact that other actions against Indians could certainly be seen as racist.
Not that racism is limited to this subset of “waste of space shitheads”, of course. Rudd added nicely to the air of racism / cultural arrogance with his departing “Adios” sling to Sol.
Greg, You choose to live in the whitest place on earth (Tasmania). Please cite your ‘evidence’ that the problem is worse than we realise.
There are plenty of us living and working in cities and suburbs with loads of Indian students who aren’t having any problems at all.
Don’t try and extrapolate the actions of some waste of space shitheads from the western suburbs who have nothing better to do than harass people in Train stations.
We don’t need ridiculous ‘hate-crime’ legislation to further reinforce our ethnic differences under the law. If it is a crime for one, it’s a crime for all.
So, while you sit in Hobart and discuss how terrible racism is in Australia with all the other concerned white folk, I’ll be chatting about the cricket to my Indian mates in Hawthorn (Indian Students = good cheap curry in your suburb, everyone wins)
If you would like to show me some crime data displaying a statistically significant skew targeting Indian Students, I’d be very interested.