Is Australia a Racist Country? —Razi Azmi
Although the overwhelming majority of Aussies are
not descendents of convicts, the country’s early history as a penal colony
gives it a particularly egalitarian and compassionate ethos. Australian
inclusiveness and multiculturalism are real and thriving. Immigrant success
stories are many. Jacques Nasser rose from being a poor immigrant boy from
Lebanon to head Ford Motors in Australia.
The recent “riots” in Sydney have not just given
Australia a bad image worldwide, but also prompted discussions about whether
Australia is a racist country after all.
As riots go, these must be the mildest of riots, perhaps a lesson for
riot-prone countries to emulate. First, no one got killed or seriously
injured. Although a handful of people got a bit of bashing, the main
casualties were cars and shop windows, besides Australia’s reputation as a
tolerant, multicultural society that welcomes immigrants from everywhere.
Second, police behaved with exemplary neutrality and efficiency. Displaying
courage and impartiality, the mostly white police officers put themselves in
the path of harm in order to protect some people of “Middle Eastern
appearance” from Anglo-Celtic mobs driven by a lethal blend of racism,
alcohol and provocation.
The “riot” on Cronulla beach, situated in a mainly white area of the city,
was followed by two successive nights of revenge attacks by groups of people
of the afore-mentioned “appearance”, who smashed hundreds of cars in two
beachside, white-dominated suburbs. Rather than feeling intimidated by the
racist “threats” issuing from Cronulla, gangs of youths of a particular
ethnicity went into an offensive that caused far more damage to people and
property than the event that sparked it.
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Sheehan describes the raids thus:
“Sydney had the appalling spectre of a large group of street brawlers
assembling in Punchbowl [a Lebanese-dominated suburb], forming a 40-car
convoy, proceeding like a military flying squad, hazard lights blazing as a
display of force and confidence, and causing havoc on the streets in the
eastern [mainly white] suburbs, with the police nowhere to be found.
Responding to any threat from the police with both numbers and belligerence
has been standard and effective operating procedure in this [criminal]
subculture for years.”
Sheehan goes on: “The shock and shame over the behaviour of a couple of
hundred idiots at Cronulla has overshadowed why thousands of people bothered
to go to Cronulla to protest in the first place.”
The Sunday Telegraph quoted a 17-year-old to answer that question: “People
are getting rolled, mugged and bashed all the time, and it’s always 20 of
them to one of us.”
Nadia Jamal, an Australian journalist of Lebanese Muslim background and the
co-author of The Glory Garage, Growing up Lebanese Muslim in Australia, has
been forthright: “Let’s face it. Australian Lebanese Muslims have a serious
image problem, especially the young men... Muslims need to ask themselves
why so many young Muslim men, not Muslim women, have problems; why some men
of Australian Lebanese Muslim background seem to be so aggressive and
violent.”
Does Cronulla show that Australia is a racist country? Of course, some
Australians are racist. But their numbers are miniscule. Before proceeding
further, I urge readers to pause and ask themselves about racism and
discrimination, repression and exploitation, past and present, in their own
countries.
The ill-treatment of the Australian aboriginal population in the past is a
documented fact of history. Every Amar, Akbar and Anthony in the world seems
to know this part of Australian history better than his own. It is also true
that Australia had a “white Australia” policy in relation to immigration
until the late 1960s.
Australia came into existence, so to speak, as a penal colony, for the
incarceration of white convicts from Mother England, whose jails were full
to the brim. Under British law of the late 1700s people could be hanged if
convicted of sending threatening letters, cutting down trees, forgery,
housebreaking, picking a pocket of more than a shilling, as well as more
serious crimes of rape, murder and treason.
Very often, transportation was seen as a substitute for execution, but for
many it meant death on high seas, thanks to the avarice of some ship owners
and masters. In order to increase their profits, they equipped the vessels
poorly and reduced rations, resulting in the deaths of nearly 2,000 men and
320 women in transit.
The total number of convicts transported to Australia from Great Britain
between 1788 and 1840 was 111,500, of whom 16,000 were women. Between 1830
and 1837, 42,000 convicts received 1.8 million lashes. Public hangings were
abolished gradually starting in 1853.
However, like the rest of the West, Australia has come a long way since
those unhappy beginnings. In today’s Australia, there are special safeguards
and programmes for the aboriginal population. One of its four citizens was
born overseas.
The net migration from overseas in 2003-04 was 117,600, an increase of one
percent from the previous year. This translates into 5.8 migrants per 1,000
population, equal to the net migration rate of Canada and higher than that
of the United States for the same period. The Howard government, which is
often accused of being racist and anti-immigration, proposes to raise next
year’s intake to over 140,000.
In 1982-83 immigration from China comprised only one percent of the total
while the UK-born contributed 28 percent. By 2002-03 the proportion of
UK-born had dropped to 13 percent and the China-born had increased to seven
percent. Between 1996 and 2004, immigration from Sudan increased the most
every year (26 percent), followed by Afghans (12 percent) and Iraqis (11
percent). Australia’s immigration policy is absolutely non-discriminatory
and blind to race and religion.
Writing about the Sydney “riots” on these pages, one columnist has commented
that “This is the other Australia that voted for Pauline Hanson and her
One-Nation Party that ran on an anti-immigration ticket.” He chose not to
mention that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party got a mere 1.19 percent of
the votes in the 2004 elections and failed to win a single seat.
(Readers may be amused to learn that the Lower Excise Fuel and Beer Party
got 2,007 or 0.02 percent of the votes, Non-Custodial Parents Party 1,132 or
0.01 percent, The Fishing Party 2,516 or 0.02 percent, and Outdoor
Recreation Party 3,505 or 0.03 percent.)
Pauline Hanson’s party, which had a lone representative in the national
parliament at the height of its “popularity”, has been wiped out from
Australia’s political landscape. Hanson herself went to jail for electoral
fraud and is now best known for dancing and dressing. Her political career
is remembered, if at all, as some kind of a joke.
Although the overwhelming majority of Aussies are not the descendents of
convicts, the country’s early history as a penal colony gives it a
particularly egalitarian and compassionate ethos. Australian inclusiveness
and multiculturalism are real and thriving. Immigrant success stories are
many.
Jacques Nasser rose from being a poor immigrant boy from Lebanon to head
Ford Motors in Australia and later became CEO of Ford’s worldwide operations
based in Detroit. The Czechoslovak-born Frank Lowy began his career in
Australia as a construction worker and is now the country’s second richest
and highly-honoured man.
As pointed out by Mr Jahanzeb Chohan , the governor and the premier of New
South Wales are second-generation Lebanese and Italian migrants, and
non-Anglo-Celtic ministers form the majority in the NSW cabinet. The premier
of Victoria is of Lebanese origin. Many federal and state legislators are of
diverse ethnicities.
Few countries today can boast such a record of fair treatment of all its
citizens, regardless of race, religion and origin, both in law and in
practice. And none of those countries are situated in Asia, be it west,
east, central, south or southeast.
