“Go Back To Where You Came From” — Racism In Australia, A Personal History
I recently responded to a tweet by a politically influential, well-meaning Anglo-Australian who was shocked at the level of racism currently on display in the USA. My response was something to the extent of “Australia cannot act holier-than-thou: we just voted in three senators whose party capitalises on the fear of Islam and the middle-east, and is calling on a migration ban. Australia has an exceptionally long history of racism — towards migrants and also the Indigenous population”. The response from this fellow was something along the lines of “You can’t be serious — people in Australia aren’t shooting each other on the streets”.
I found this to be a very interesting point. It’s true — we don’t have people shooting each other on the streets in Australia, thanks to strong gun laws and also the Australian culture not being one of arms ownership. But is this a true measure of the level of racism in a nation? Are we to claim moral superiority because, in our country, people get physically and emotionally hurt from racism “but not killed”?
It seems that, in mainstream and online media, there is an increasing amount of space dedicated to people “speaking their mind” on the issue of race relations, particularly migration. Mind you, the voices that are given the air and cyber space are not necessarily those of people with an educated opinion — say, a professor on international relations or even a migrant or refugee. No, the most recent mouthpieces for multiculturalism in Australia are Tina Sparkle/Dancing With The Stars host and a former fish-and-chip shop owner turned politician, who prides herself on anti-intellectualism. It’s not that other members of society aren’t engaging in the conversation via online discourse and opinion pieces — they just aren’t being shared by the mainstream media. Naturally, the response from people to condemn the words of Hanson, Kruger et al. was swift and deliberate. However, any argument against their blatantly racist view points (namely “we need to cease Muslim migration”) was met with the trite argument of “I am allowed to voice my opinion, this doesn’t make me racist”.
It is 1998, and I am a 14-year-old girl who grew up in the extremely white suburbs of Northern Sydney, Australia. Having lily-white skin, lighter hair and speaking with a more refined Australian accent, I am relatively ignorant to the passing racism experienced by other Macedonian and Greek Australians in the 12 years I have been in this country. The only inkling of my “wog-ness” (a derogatory term used to describe the Southern/Eastern European migrants to Australia) is my surname, which absolutely nobody at my 750-strong high school can pronounce. I laugh this off. I was completely unaware of the xenophobia my parents were experiencing on a daily basis — I learn later that my parents intentionally kept this from my brother and I, in order for us to achieve our educational goals without this “burden”.
In English class, we begin to have a discussion on politics, and the question “if you could vote, who would you vote for?” Came up. A resounding majority of the class stated “Pauline Hanson”. To say I was extremely gob-smacked would be an understatement — this was a woman who was running on a platform of anti-immigration. I am an immigrant. These people, my peers, my friends, would vote to stop migration to Australia. They would stop my family from coming in. I confronted a couple of them about this, asking “Would you stop my family from entering Australia?”. I was met with the heartbreaking response of “I’d let you in, but not your parents, you’re practically Australian now but they’re not” followed by a staunch “your parents should go back to where they came from”.
Practically Australian. What did this even mean? We were Australian citizens, my family all spoke English, my parents each worked two jobs so that my brother and I could participate in all of the good ol’ Aussie extra-curricular activities such as netball and soccer (the irony is not lost on me here). Devastated, I go home and recount this event to my mother. She looks at me with sadness in her eyes — ”I’m sorry you had to experience that” is all she said. My father echoed her sentiments, and said “just keep standing up for what you believe in, and what you know is right”.
Immediately, I begin to see the subvert and blatant racism everywhere. People telling my mother that they can’t understand her accent, that she should learn how to speak English better. Parents of my friends telling me that they would rather not have me over because they don’t like my family’s “cultural ways”. The handful of Asian students at my school getting food thrown at them because “you’re taking over our country”. I suddenly realise that the years of taunts regarding my name, my family’s clothing, my parent’s accents have all stemmed from one ugly part of Australia’s being — racism. It dawned on me that this country that I love so much, whose fostering of inclusiveness was something I was so proud of, harboured these incredibly xenophobic attitudes and beliefs. But I was one of the fortunate ones — being technically a “white woman”, I was sheltered from the racism that people of colour experience every single day, throughout all aspects of their lives.
Australia has seen its racism targeted towards many groups throughout the decades. It is important to remember that Indigenous Australians have been systematically abused throughout Australia’s history — let us not forget the cultural genocide that happened from settlement, and continues to happen to this day. The racism I will focus on for this article, however, is directed towards immigrants.
Initially, it was the early Asian migrants — particularly the Chinese. Then, it was the Eastern Europeans, or “Wogs”. During this time, the “White Australia Policy” was installed, and then subsequently dismantled (and, despite its erasure from legislature, the xenophobia inherent in the policy remains to this day). The tide then shifted back towards Asian migrants, particularly when Hanson began her political rise. Public conversation shifted to “Asian takeover of Australia”, and other absurd statements. And then, around the asylum seekers of the Middle East into Australia as well as the September 11 attacks in 2001, we began to vilify Muslims.
I remember working my high-school job at the local bakery when September 11 happened. My supervisor at the time stated “look what happens when you let fuckin’ Muslims in — and we want to accept them as refugees!”. I was shocked and stunned that such blatantly hateful speech was widely accepted in society. I reflect, however, on John Howard’s “Children Overboard” moment, and his monumental “We will decide who comes in this country and the circumstances in which they come” moment when plugging his controversial “Pacific Solution” to undocumented maritime arrivals. Prior to this, nobody had any qualms about the influence of Middle Eastern migrants in Australia — we all loved the local kebab place for excellent food at a decent price, and Lakemba was the place to go for excellent fabrics, as well as great beef and lamb meals. It seemed to change overnight, however — all of a sudden, the “Asian Invasion” was not a threat. It was the “Muslim Terrorists” that were. At this stage, my father ran a kebab shop in Dulwich Hill. Speaking to local residents and customers, the fear that they would be vilified was high — and rightly so. In the 15 years since this time, we have seen Western social attacks on Islam and followers of the faith in enormous numbers. The Cronulla Riots in Australia (among many others) and the threat of not accepting Islamic refugees in America and Australia is telling the majority of Muslim people seeking a better life away from violence that they are “not welcome”.
It is 2009. At 25, I am fortunate enough to receive an internship to work for a refugee resettlement organisation in the USA. I am told I will be working with refugees from all over the world, but particularly from Iraq and Afghanistan. Excited as well as anxious, I begin my work with a welcoming smile whilst introducing my first family to the USA. Eager to show them just how friendly and warm their community is, I ask them what they are looking forward to most about America — ”I do not have a fear I will get killed here”, they tell me.
During my work at the organisation, I meet a number of families from the Middle East who have resettled as a result of extreme violence in their homeland. Many of them actually worked for the “Coalition of the Willing”, either as engineers, mechanics, logistical advisors or interpreters. It is their work for the “coalition” that has made them the target of radical extremists.
I meet one family whose story will never leave my psyche. They are a mother, father and four children. The father is employed as a contractor for the “coalition”, his belief in the Western regime so strong that he is willing to risk his life to fight for the freedoms his family so deserve. When the US forces begin to remove themselves from Iraq, he is threatened with his life — “you traitor”, he is told, as though he has done something wrong. But it is not him who eventually succumbs to violence — it is his 9-year-old son who is kidnapped by these militants, and held for ransom while being tortured. The family pay the ransom, and flee to Syria, where they are offered resettlement in the USA. I meet them on their arrival — they are warm and excited to be in the USA. But the scars and PTSD of their experiences are visible, with the 9-year-old (now 10) frequently wetting the bed, increasingly fearful of strangers and has taken to sitting in the corner, rocking himself to calm.
These are the people we are providing asylum to — the people who fought so strongly against violent extremism. And this is why I am devastated to hear the rhetoric of Kruger, Hanson et al. These people, families, have the same values as most of us Westerners — peace and a life free of politicised violence. However, because of our xenophobic attitudes, they cannot even get this peace when they are resettled into a “safe” country.
After reading comments condemning those who dare to disagree with Kruger, I am reminded of the statement “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept”. It would be easy to just accept Kruger’s viewpoint as just that — a viewpoint. But it takes further courage and conviction to call it out on what it is exactly — racism and xenophobia. We may lose friends and acquaintances in our quest to call-out hate speech. But think about what the alternative is — losing our values as a multi-cultural society, and making an already-vulnerable population that much more isolated that they feel they have no friends, no allies. And these people don’t have anywhere to go back to where they came from.