Racism in Australia

by Chua, Wei Ling

• ISBN13: 9781452502656
• ISBN10: 145250265X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-28
• Publisher: Balboa Pr

Summary

In Australia, at any given time, there are approximately fifty thousand persons living in the country illegally. How these people are treated by the system and culture of their adopted country is a story freelance journalist Wei Ling Chua had difficulty getting published. It is a story that no one wants to talk about on the record. Racism in Australia seeks to address, investigate, and expose what he considers to be a top secret campaign to strip these people of their basic human rights and, in some cases, their lives. Police brutality against the indigenous Aboriginal people is also brought to scrutiny. That authority figures are not held accountable for their own violent, racist acts is a crime in and of itself. In his opinion, this is perhaps due to the fact that Australia is a Western country. It is very professional in the exercise of public relations through the endless commission of enquiries with no actual intention to make any improvement to the situation. This is, unfortunately, the true nature of Australia. How a country with such a massive and ongoing history of notorious human rights violations against minorities has successfully managed to able to escape the scrutiny of the world media is a story worth telling.

Excerpts

Racism is an age old issue. It persisted in every human society. However, it is typically serious in Australia throughout the history of this country. Racism resulted in hundreds of cases of physical assaults, murders, deaths in custody and police brutality across Australia. It also resulted in employment discrimination, education rip off, unfair and discriminatory judiciary sentencing between different ethnic groups. Racism resulted in up to 20 years different between the life expectancy of indigenous Australians and the national average. It also resulted in politician's inhumane treatment of asylum seekers arriving by boats with mandatory detention. Racism resulted in the sudden changed to immigration regulations in the eve of the 2010 election with a sudden rejection of tens of thousands of migration applications from overseas students whom (each) has invested hundreds of thousands of dollar to study in Australia with the understanding that they will be qualify for migration application at the completion of their courses. Racism also resulted in the irrational rejection of investments from non-western countries by politicians without even trying to find out the detail of the proposed investments and the possible benefits to Australia. Racism is hurting Australia short and long term national interest resulted in labour shortages, and dramatic drop in the number of overseas students coming to Australia in 2011. Racism is a human right issue that should be tackled head on, and should be brought to the attention of the world media, leaders and human rights organisations. The initiative to end the White Australian policy in the 70s by the Whitlam's Government and the acceptance of a large number of Vietnamese refugees under the leadership of Malcolm Fraser without stirring social unease were indication that the social attitude towards different cultures can be directed and influenced by political leaderships. Since 1996, when the Howard's government refused to condemn Pauline Hanson's anti-Asians madam speech in the federal parliament, and his government subsequence poll driven politics base on fear and racism such as the Children Overboard Scandal, the Pacific Solutions and the Mohamed Haneef's Incident, Australia has effectively being placed back on the world stage as a racist country. (On 13 Oct 2000, Australia is the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations) The Rudd's government sudden policy U-turn on asylum seekers and skill migration program few months before an election, and the Gillard's government East Timor Solutions in the eve of the 2010 election were examples of Politicians fuel racism in Australia. Is Australia a racist country? Does Australia need migrants in the 21st century to solve its problem with an aging population, skill shortages and to maintain its competitiveness in the world stage? Can Australia live in isolation without migrants from non-Western countries? What causes racism in Australia? Is there any solution? Through the use of a series of articles I wrote for some independent media and research on the issues of racism in Australia from a variety of angles over the last 18 months as and when they took place, and a series of new information and articles added to this book with detail description of the causes, incidents and the reasoning against racism, I hope that this book will provide useful resources for policy makers, and the society as a whole to come to term with the ugly side of Australia. The Gillard's government has just announced in February 2011 a nation-wide campaign against racism. I hope that this book will contribute to such cause. Please forgive me for the passionate language used in writing some of these articles. As English is my second language during my education in Singapore in the late 60s and 70s, I have limited vocabulary at my disposal. Therefore, I lack the ability to make statements that sound more diplomatic by simply using a more sophisticated vocabulary. I hope that readers will not get angry with me over the facts I presented, please feel free to question me if I get my facts wrong. My e-mail: [e-mail]. All the hundreds of incidents and examples of racism in Australia cited in this book have been properly dated with the sources and titles. Readers should be able to access the respective information by simply Google the 'news heading' or 'key words' next to the respective events. Alternatively, you may find the website addresses of the respective sources at the end of the book under 'bibliography and references'. I believe that most Australians including some of our politicians will be shocked by the numerous examples and incidents of racism I quoted in this book as most of the incidents were not on the prominent position of the respective newspapers. Some of the incidents only reported in localise newspapers and they took me an average of 5 to 6 hours a day over the last 2 years reading more than a dozen of newspapers internationally including more than half a dozen of newspapers across Australia to compile the information. Of course, I did not spend the time to read those newspapers for the sack of this topic. Some information in this book has been complimented with further internet search using a variety of key words. Over the years, there were a number of surveys by universities about racism in Australia. Virtually it has almost always consistent that up to 80% or more people in the survey believed or witnessed some form of racism in Australia. The thing that makes this book different from all those surveys is that, I used hundreds of actual incidents of racism taken place in recent years instead of public opinions to facilitate my analysis. Readers should take special note that from article 8 to 12, I have focus my attention using dozens of examples to push the concept of a key strategy in combating racism. That is the rule of law, and the need to put in place a mechanism for the monitoring and enforcement of the law. The reasons I persistently questioned the existence of the so-called 'Australian values' through a number of my articles in this book are that: 1. I believe that values are principles that should be used for discipline oneself and not as a political tool to belittle others; 2. It is more important to put in practice a set of values through the design of our written law, and the content of our public policies than to lecture others without practicing them ourselves; 3. When a set of values being preached and not put in practice, they become a source of hypocrisy and resentment; 4. Values that not putting in practices by oneself became nothing more than a hollow assertion of a superior culture over all others; It is a kind of artificially imposed 'US and THEM' concept that serving no positive purpose in creating a society with mutual respect, equality and acceptance; Therefore, by persistently questioning the existence of the so-called 'Australian values', I dream that one day, when the term 'Australian values' is mentioned by our politicians, my feeling of disgust will be replaced by a heartfelt smile.