It’s a sad fact that Australia has had a long history of intolerance of non-white and non-European people – including its own indigenous Aboriginal people. Proof of this is in the fact that it was only in 1962 that Aboriginal people were ‘given’ the right to vote in their own country, and only as recently as 1973 that Australia finally rescinded the White Australia policy which had dominated Australian immigration policies since Federation in 1901.
Nonetheless, despite the end of the White Australia policy, and the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975, a small but vocal group of right-wing white Australians have continued to actively agitate against non-white non-European immigration to Australia and against Aboriginal rights in Australia.
These right-wing white Australians have always been vocal about race issues in Australia but the intensity of their rhetoric tends to rise and fall with the flow rates, in particular, of asylum seekers that arrive at Australia’s shores by boat. The racists that object to boatpeople tend to couch their arguments in terms of it being part of a broader debate on immigration to Australia generally. However, this is just a cover to deflect criticism of their real motives for objecting to boatpeople. The cover is transparent by virtue of the language they use to voice their criticism. Instead of calling them what they are; asylum seeking refugees, the racists tag them as ‘illegal immigrants’ in order to vilify them.
Boatpeople that come to Australia do so as refugees seeking asylum, something they are quite entitled to do under international laws and agreements which Australia are a party to. Once having arrived here, their claims are verified and, if they are found to be genuine refugees, they are offered sanctuary in Australia. Those not found to be genuine refugees are returned home. It is all very simple and straight forward. For the racists though, this is too much.
Virtually all of the boatpeople that arrive in Australia are non-white non-Europeans and it is this that the racists really object to. The vilification of asylum seekers that arrive by boat is reinforced by the fact that the racists ignore almost entirely the real illegal immigrants that are in Australia who have arrived by airline on visas the conditions and limits of which they have every intention of ignoring. However, because the vast majority of them are white Europeans (mostly British and American) the racists seem not to be concerned about them.
The racists’ argument against accepting boatpeople based on concerns regarding Australia’s population growth, particularly in light of recent statements that Australia’s population could be 35 million by 2050, also does not hold water since boatpeople make up less than half of one percent of Australia’s total average annual immigration intake. While the percentage value varies, depending on the geo-political stability of the world, it would rarely rise above one percent, yet the more extremist elements of the racist right-wing of Australia, particularly in the Australia’s mainstream media, are writing almost daily about the so-called swamping of Australia’s shores by boatpeople.
The media, it seems, has now had a profound effect on Australian public opinion with the result being that Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has caved in to the racists of Australia by announcing that the government will not be processing any further asylum claims from Sri Lankan or Afghan refugees.
The move has placed Rudd in a moral dilemma with some even suggesting that the move is in contravention to the Racial Discrimination Act. Certainly, the move has been made for purely political reasons; to placate a section of Australian society that are clearly gullible to racist’s fearmongering at a time when the Australian people face going to the polls later in the year.
Rudd has claimed that he has made the move on the basis that both Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are now stabilized and that people from these nations need not now seek asylum in foreign countries. The reality is somewhat different. Sri Lankan authorities have been arresting Tamils since the war ended, and, in some cases, have been executing them summararily, while in Afghanistan the war continues to rage with another of Obama’s so-called ‘surges’ imminent.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has exposed Australia to be a truly racist nation by bowing to the White Australian extremists demands of limiting or stopping non-white non-European immigration into Australia.
Shame on Rudd and the Australian Labor Party, and shame on Australia.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
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5 comments:
Australia's "racists" are sick of of the ghetto-ization of our cities, the free reign of race based crime gangs. We'll see how multi-cultural you feel when your son comes home beaten and robbed by a gang of Somalis who are bragging about throwing the White people out.
…and the very largest of Australia’s middle class and upper class urban ghettos are occupied by white Australians who have a tendency to exclude non-white non-Europeans from their communities. No wonder there are race based crime gangs, the vast majority of them are white European gangs looking for trouble with non-white non-European gangs who have been excluded from the Australian community of peoples because they are not white Europeans.
Their bravado about throwing white people out is matched only by racists like you who want to throw them out.
I remember members of the Howard government repeatedly using the term 'illegal immigrant' and being repeatedly informed that it is false and that refugees are entitled to land here and apply for santuary as you point out Damian. And not be jailed on arrival, either. Just appalling.
I don't know if the term was used by prior governments, but certainly Howard's used it often.
I have often wondered if the right of politics creates the problem from the beginning in the media because they traditionally benefit from it and the 'left' fall in and play their part on cue instead of ignoring it and waiting out the 'noise'.
Although somewhat different, my wife and I on Friday night went out for a meal and afterwards diverting to a local shop to buy bread and milk we had a very nasty encounter with a group of bikies loitering outside their HQ, drinking and harrassing passers by like us.
Our only course was to try and ignore their crudity and insults and keep walking, despite my inner fuming at this outrage.
Revealingly, they were all old enough to know better the ringleader being a stocky middle aged man along with most of his acolytes in this group of eight.
Most annoying but a mate of mine yesterday said we did the right thing in ignoring them as violence and crudity are a way of life for men like this.
A close call for us, and it really shouldn't happen at all in this day and age.
Verily, I can say that my wife and I are now very anti bikies!.
They should be banned and shouldn't exist at all!.
They were all white blokes too and as I say, old enough to know better!!.
your shaken friend,
Nylon Shirt (luckily not soaked in blood).
To Pb..
I would like to mention to all the white rednecks in Australia to stop trying to be American. Ghetto? Gangster? I’m white and American and yes I voted for President Obama and it shows that we have moved on. As for the word gangster and ghetto the white man use those terms to discriminate the black men. Blacks that we white stole raped and killed. Somalia’s on the other hand are refugees they come to Australia the legally way. Unlike your slaves and convicts ancestors. White Australians are the illegal immigrant drunks and whores, only few ever education. It’s the white Australians that come in shackles never forget that. You people raped and killed indigenous out of hatred and also because you all where convicts and thieves. You are still a convict and killers. White Aussies should get over the black man envy, we all know it is about the size of a black man you envy the most not just the skin. As a women it true what they say about the black man, it’s all there.
We have moved on in the US about our dark past. My race stole the black men and my race is the ghetto and gangsters. You white Aussies are know all over the world as low life convicts, for crying out loud even south Africa has moved on. The world should boycott Australia like South Africa.
Proud to be white and not to racist.
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