The lucky country indeed... Image: Keven Law
I'm quite angry this evening. Not the annoyed, ticked off at a single event sort of anger. Genuinely angry, and genuinely sad.
Spending ten years away from your native country is an interesting experience. Whilst working as a foreign guest overseas, I got to peep at Australia from the outside in. I read about the Tampa and children overboard sagas and felt deep chagrin, and coming on the heels of Pauline Hanson (more notoriously representative of Australia in her time -- from an outsider's view -- than many Australians ever guessed), and centuries of abuse of native Australians, I seriously began to wonder what sort of country I'd grown up in, and what it was starting to mean to call oneself "an Aussie."
Then I saw the Cronulla Riots stuff on the BBC while overseas, and started to become genuinely disturbed.
Not long after I returned to Australia, my bi-cultural family in tow, the appalling sequence of violent racism-related attacks against Indian students in Melbourne was well under way. Australians, and especially the politicians, were going ever deeper into denial. Racism? A problem? Us? Never!
It's hard to put my finger on what exactly it is that really bothers me about some Australians, but I think it lingers somewhere in the huge hypocrisy of spouting about our egalitarian, friendly, down-to-earth and "fair go, mate" values, while drawing on a rich tradition of looking down on and often openly disparaging people who look or think a bit differently from us -- or just aren't as lucky as us, even.
But nothing disturbs me more than our attitude to and practical approach to dealing with asylum seekers. That election outcomes here are hugely swayed by asylum seeker issues (with one major party -- who won the popular vote in this year's election -- campaigning under the slogan of "turn the boats around"), when we are one of the richest, most under-populated countries on the planet, and yet take in the tiniest proportion of refugees amongst most major first-world nations, simply galls me beyond belief.
And yes, I have been teaching English to refugees here in Australia for the past couple of months. I now have a personal connection and experience that strongly flavours my views on the issue.
On the one hand, I'm sick of constantly feeling like I ought to apologise on behalf of the entire nation to these incredible people, whose hardships and bravery just can't register with the average Australian thinking the quest for the four bedroom house on the big block of land makes him/her somehow a "battler".
On the other hand, I'm constantly awestricken by their positive and thankful attitude -- even when, in the "difficult" neighbourhoods where they are housed, they have to endure all sorts of abuse and prejudices.
They are a powerful example of the notion of relativity, I guess...
With all these factors in mind, I was genuinely upset to hear the news of the Christmas Island boat people tragedy this last couple of days.
But that was nothing compared to what I had to listen to today, at your typical Aussie children's birthday party...
A young mother of one of the children approached the small group of people I happened to be talking to, and said "I know this is terrible and all [smiles], but you know the Chistmas Island jokes have started already..."
Her small audience of people groan "oh no" -- with big grins on their faces -- and demand to hear the joke. I'm starting to feel a bit nauseous, and considering moving away out of earshot.
Not quick enough.
"Heard about the latest cocktail, invented on Christmas Island?
'Asylum Seeker on the Rocks'!"
Through the guffaws that follow, I tell the woman point-blank that the joke seriously isn't funny, and that she should be ashamed. Everyone just assumes I am doing the fake part-of-the-appreciation-of-the-joke moralising. It doesn't register.
And that joke format, if applied to Australian aborigines, could result in an entire afternoon of jests drawing on a rich tradition of having a laugh at native Australians in the most appallingly disparaging terms.
Believe me, I know. We used to tell these jokes throughout my time in high school. And I used to think they were funny, too -- hilarious even.
And average Australians seriously, seriously think that we don't have a problem.
