Racism : Australia

Racism In Australia

In 1987, a sensational “discovery” was made by a Sydney University team, led by Australia’s most celebrated pre-historian, Professor D J Mulvaney. They reported that the Australian population in 1788 was 750,000, or three times the previous estimate. They concluded that more than 600,000 people had died as result of white settlement.

— John Pilger, Cathy Freeman’s broad Olympic smile is being used to conceal a multitude of Australia’s original sins, July 10, 2000

In June 1998, One Nation, an Australian nationalist party in Queensland won 25 percentof the votes with their main lines at fighting immigration by non-whites. This was made possible where unemployment was been high and where it was easy to convince the people that immigrants were taking their jobs, as it would serve to be a convenient excuse and avenue to vent frustration. In a speech the party leader said that Australia was “in danger of being swamped” by Asians and she also questioned the special welfare benefits for Australia’s Aborigines. The reaction to that meant the same party won only 6 percent of the votes two months later, in the State elections.

Australia has also had a very racist past in which apartheid has been practiced and where indigenous Aboriginal people have lost almost all their land and suffered many prejudices. In the past, the notorious policy that led to the Stolen Generation was practiced. This was the institutionalized attempt to prevent Aboriginal children (and thus future generations) from being socialized into Aboriginal culture. (This also occurred in various parts of the Americas too.)

Aborigines are the poorest group in Australia and suffer from very much preventable diseases. For more about these issues, you can start at these harrowing reports fromJohn Pilger a prominent Australian journalist who has been critical of many western policies.

The Sydney 2000 Olympics also brought some of Australia’s racist past and present to the fore. (On the positive side, many parts of Australia’s rich diversity in people is slowly helping relieve prejudism. However, some more traditional and conservative politicians are still openly racist.)

In 2008, a study found that Australians in general are welcoming of diversity but some 1 in 10 Australians still hold racist views — a ratio likely to be less than in some European countries, but still high the lead researcher noted. Muslims were most feared or loathed for “not belonging”, and followed by indigenous Australians and Africans.

In 2009 and 2010, there were increasing racist attacks against Indians with many Indians in Melbourne fearing racist attacks and lynchings were increasing. It even led to the Indian government issuing an advisory warning about the dangers of traveling to Melbourne.