I was in India recently, and the subject of racism against Indian students in Australia came up a fair bit. It's a huge issue there - headline news in most newspapers and TV news.

Indians don't understand it, and I had to say that I don't get it either. Before the recent news of the 2 Indian murders, I was saying that it was just a media beat-up. Two indian medical students told me that it's dangerous for young Indians in Australia and I said I thought this was overrated. I told them that the big cities are totally safe.

Now I'm not too sure - especially after the Victorian Police commissioner has come out to say that the Victorian police had identified a phenomenon of racist crimes against Indians in Melbourne 2 years ago - well before the recent media attention and protests.

Indians see it as a "complexion issue" - referring to the colour of their skin. I see the problem more as a cultural issue. If it was simply about skin colour, surely we'd be attacking Africans.

Australia is not an Aparteid state - we don't discriminate against "half-castes", "quarter-castes" or "quadroons."

We used to, of course. Up until the 1970s such ideas were written down in immigration and Aboriginal Affairs legislation. The White Australia Policy existed to keep Australia white as well as mono-cultural. We can hardly say that Australia has never been a racist country. Since federation, Australia has been explicitly racist.

But curry bashing? Why? And why now?

Indians don't get it. They don't understand it because, racially, India is a very accepting country. In a country of such a diverse population, you have to be. No matter what you might have heard, Indians are tolerant of other faiths and cultures. On the whole, Hindus and Muslims get on well in India, and Indians see this as one of their enduring strengths.

Indian emmigrants are, on the whole, extremely well educated and hard-working. Indian students in Australia consistently top exam results. In many fields, Indians are over-achievers, and globally, India is starting to make its presence felt as a burgeoning superpower.

Could this have something to do with the violence?

Culturally, there are differences. Indians are not laid-back. Their culture is loud, and often, Indians come across as overexcited and pushy. Try forming an orderly queue in India - almost impossible.

But setting someone on fire because of their race? I find this extremely hard to understand. If this is a race crime, it highlights a hatred of Ku Klu Klan proportions, and I can't see any obvious reason for Australians to hate Indians. We've faught on the same side in war. We play cricket together. Maybe I'm missing something. Still...

So my question is this: is there an underlying resentment towards Indians in Australia right now? And what causes it?

If not, is all the media attention just another tabloid frenzy?

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Yeh, except for when Hindu mobs rampage through cities in Gujaraat, cleansing entire suburbs of Muslims... apart from that, yeh it's fairly peaceful I guess.

They're Australians. Whether they have a Lebanese background or not is irrelevant.

I don't think an Indian whose being attacked would really care what ethnic background the person originally had, they are an Australian, in Australia, attacking them. Simple as that.

Yes some attacks have involved Lebanese, and probably many other backgrounds. When are Anglo Australians going to accept that people born, raised, educated, cultured here ARE Australians, no matter what their historical background. I'm sure when Arab Australians are great sporting heroes or other such things, you won't mind taking credit for their Aussieness...

Yeah there's always going to be problems with people of different nationalities and cultures.
However, the political truth is that if their skin is a dark, then it's a racist issue, but if their skin is fair, then it's an international issue.

I suppose we can somewhat blame corporate greed for resentments against Indians. Corporations are the ones who pay for cheap Indian labour, Indian people to persistently phone people at meal times and to make it hard for Australians to get a university place.
I've registered my phone number to stop Indians calling me, now they come to my door at meal times with their les.

This may have something to do with the repercussions, but there are more reasons involved.
Indian students most often choose the cheapest areas to live where crimes more often occur. They also often seem oblivious to dangers in the jobs they choose, and the places and times that they travel.
The Indian student recently murdered (was this the only Indian student murder?) was walking through an area which I know very well. There is no way that I would take this path late at night as it is full of recent African immigrants and gangs. It seems that this guy took that path most nights, ...just ridiculous in my book.

Now we have the Indian media drumming up the situation. It's easy work for them to take the stories reported here and put their own spin on it.
But do they report that India's murder rate is more than twice ours?
Do they report on the 8000+ dowry murders which happen in india every year?
Do they report on the Austrlians murdered in India? There are currently about ten "unsolved" murders of Australians in India in recent years.
Do they report that India won't extradite the drunken Indian motorist who killed a bystander and fled the country?
Murder doesn't make the news in India unless it's somebody of note.

The pathetic reporting by the Indian media will do nothing but inflame the situation. So too will Indian ministers who try to tell our government what to do when their own backyard is filth.
Is this a bit of sour grapes about our government's decision to overturn the Howard agreement to sell uranium to India because they haven't signed the non-proliferation treaty?
The uranium deal would've far exceeded the money that we get from arrogant whinging Indian students. I'd be happy to do without both.

Nope, India knows not about general opinions. They are an infantile democracy that will take thousands of years to mature.
The caste system, the dowry, the colour of neighbors, lives on as part of it's culture.
Hopefully that attitude will always be rejected here, although there are big signs that we are now accepting this caste system approach, which can only lead to a society of lies and filth such as India's.

There is no other perspectie to put it into other than Indians are vehemently trying to dupe us with their lies. They need out.

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Interesting that race is a non-issue in racism.

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Of course they do. If they didn't, they wouldn't label it racist. Being targetted for your race adds to the level of fear you experience.

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How so? Foreign students support our universities financially.

helian,

I very much doubt it has anything to do with religion. Lebanese youth who go out marauding in the streets usually have no idea, nor care for religion, and will often be of mixed christian/muslim backgrounds anyway.

Relating everything back to Islam, when this issue clearly has nothing to do with Islam, is just becoming petty, really.

Nope, I've just seen the trend...

Less religious -> more likely to be racist.
More religious -> pretty much no chance of being racist.

As someone practises Islam more, he'd have to realise racism is an extremely opposite concept to Islam, and could not maintain his racism.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 24^th, 2010, 5:42pm:

It's opposed to killing other Muslims too (apparently) and the muder of children (or so I'd imagine). It doesn't stop Muslims from committing those atrocities. Why would over-zealous Muslims stop at attacking Indians if they believed they should do so for their imagined Pakistani 'brothers'?

But anyway, I wasn't suggesting that Lebanese Australians involved in attacks on Indians were devout. I suggested that they may have acted on inherited (religious-defined) hatred.

Either way, its reasonable to speculate that the motivation for attacks on Indians, when committed by Lebanese Australians, may have its roots in religious animosity native to the Indian subcontinent, adopted by other Muslims (be they practising or cultural only).

But I will grant you that it is dangerous to be complacent about that being its only cause. Australia does have a home-grown racism problem that is not religiously motivated as may be demonstrated again on this Tuesday's National holiday which has transmogrified for some into Abuse-an-Asian day.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2010, 11:23pm:



Not to them it ain't. Nor is it irrelevant to these two Muslim-lebanese-jordanian losers:


Australian man jailed for terrorism in Lebanon
By Middle East correspondent Anne Barker

Posted Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:14am AEDT

An Australian man has been jailed for two years in Lebanon for his involvement with a group accused of terrorist activity.

Imad Farouk Bsiso, a 35-year-old Jordanian-Australian from New South Wales, was one of seven men sentenced to jail for various offences related to terrorism, arms trafficking and forgery.

The military tribunal in Beirut found the men guilty of planning terrorist acts in Lebanon, trafficking weapons, and falsifying official documents.

Bsiso was sentenced to two years jail with hard labour, but with nine months deducted for time already spent in custody.

A Jordanian-New Zealand man was also jailed, along with two Palestinians.

Three other men, all Palestinian, are still on the run and were sentenced in their absence.




Calling them hyphenated-Australians is an insult to every Australian.  They should be called Lebanese and Jordanian Muslim perjurers who hold Australian and NZ passports by lying at their citizenship ceremonies. Such perjury should result in the loss of what was gained by it.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 24^th, 2010, 9:08pm:

There's nothing logical about racism. It's much like religion... Founded on absurdities, half-truths, hearsay, prejudice and lies.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 25^th, 2010, 12:14am:

They are hyphenated-Australians. Always a dead giveaway.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 25^th, 2010, 7:15am:



Because you look like and identify with the Mohammed bin Laalaas. The hyphen would indicate that you are a pseud.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2010, 11:23pm:


not irrelevant when they see indians as imposing on ''their suburbs''

It would go a long way if the curry-munching community could be persuaded NOT to store their clothes directly above the curry pot and to take morning showers with soap and use anti-stale curry deodorants.

Their dogged clinging to the 'cultural heritage' of reeking of BO and stale curry is behind these attacks on the subcontinental community, in my view. These are crimes in response to extreme olfactory provocation.

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So the Cronulla riots had no connection to any racism?

Soren wrote on Jan 25^th, 2010, 8:08pm:

Yeah and euthanase old people... They stink of stale urine.

alevine wrote on Jan 25^th, 2010, 8:22pm:



Go ahead, you are the master of your destiny.

pope urban 2 wrote on Jan 26^th, 2010, 8:59am:

Should be no more than five to a house... That's the decent Christian way... Any more is demonic.

Hey carefull, us Catholics might recruit some suicide bombers and start a religious war. we havent forgotten the Reformation

I know ye jest, but you strike upon a root cause of ill will towards migrants, and that is that they bring standards of living with them that we dislike.
I was renovating a single fronted terrace house in richmond, back in the early eighties, and vietnamese moved in next door, so I got to observe their living habits over the next couple of months.

They had sixteen adult people living in the one tiny house, they had four people sleeping in two, side by side, lean to structures just 4 feet wide, by 8 foot long, built against the rear fence.

I saw different people leaving these lean to's in the morning, and others go in who must have worked the night shift, to go to sleep.

The poorestaussies had to compete for the lowest paid jobs, with these people, now they could not get rent for $5, because they did not share beds, or squash inordinate numbers into smal spaces, and so resentment grew between the least successful in our society, and the newcomers, because their standards were lowered because of what the newcomers were prepared to put up with.

Since seeing this, I have always felt that this lowering of standards, and competition for accommodation and work, at the lower end of the social scale has been at the root of racial tensions in this country.

mozzaok wrote on Jan 26^th, 2010, 9:35am:



This was precisely the line the unions presented when they successfully agitated for the white Australia policy.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 26^th, 2010, 10:53am:




Let them in, make them fail, boot them out - under that frazzled beard of yours lurks an utterly monomaniacal, frayed and persecuted mind - if mind is the word I want.

Sleeping in shifts, four to  a bed in a lean-to is your idea of innovation. Glorious third world building standards are your idea of  innovation.

You're assuming living 10+ to a house is how they intend to live the rest of their lives. It's not much different to students or teeners living the same way for the same reason... sava da money.

Karnal wrote on Jan 27^th, 2010, 9:32am:



Well, an awful lot of third world villagers seem to want nothing more than the dreadful loneliness blissful solitude of Western suburbia...

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Don't kid yourself.

Most are here to get educated, nothing more nothing less.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 27^th, 2010, 4:26pm:



... apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order. And peace, Reggie, peace.



They want nothing more than to get educated, apply for permanent residency, get a job, buy a house, get married and raise a family in peace.  Even if it means leaving the huts and the corruption and the suffocating backwardness behind and putting up with having a car or two, a big enough house for grandma to have her own room, and a chance for their children to grow up in a meritocracy.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 27^th, 2010, 4:26pm:


You talk as if a superior education system, worth leaving your country for, is some accidental natural development, unrelated to the place that created and maintained it.

The lunar symbol of Islam is apt in your case - you are lunatic.

Racism has always struck me as being particularly parochial and inbred. I could never understand at any time in my life why people should be scared of other people just because they have a different skin colour.

I don't see the point in denying that racism exists in Australia. It's obvious. Having said that, I think it's worse in the UK and France, and it's definitely worse in Scandinavia.

In parts of Africa, I've seen an obsequious form of reverse racism, which is even more intriguing. An African guy can be left for hours waiting at a bank whereas a European will be seen immediately. All the bank staff were African.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010, 9:14am:



Muslims flocked to them from all part of the empire. There was no 'flocking' by the kuffar.

athos wrote on Jan 29^th, 2010, 6:00pm:


The caste system is not as deeply embedded in India as you might think, Athos.

And from my experience - from the Brahmins I've met in India and Australia - there is no sense of superiority. Upper-caste Hindus are motivated by a sense of service, not a sense of superiority. And you're totally mistaken if you think Indians apply the caste system to non-Indians in Australia. They may be a tad disgruntled by drunken racist pigs, but...

On the whole, Brahmins work as doctors, teachers and social workers - helping professions. Upper caste Hindus, in my experience, are not uppity at all.

The majority of Indian students in Australia are from families with money. It's a mistake to think that caste in india equates with money. It doesn't. It equates more with values and upbringing.

Karnal wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010, 6:03pm:


Yes caste system is very deeply embedded in Indian Psychology.

Everything what you’ve just said is a romantic bull poo that has nothing to do with reality.
When I was sent, as a supervisor, in the company’s department in India very shortly I realized how caste system is much more important to Indian employees than the formal official management structure. Every Indian was some sort of priest and new his position in terms of his cast and within his caste. The higher ranking priests were more in charge than their official superiors.  
To conclude, Because of their caste system Indians are actually themselves the biggest racist on the planet.
Different thing is that Anglos like and trust them because Indians have been trained to be perfect Pome slaves. Now Grate Brittan wants to get rid of them (Half London are Indians, Pakistanis etc.) and massively send them in their colony Australia. When they come in Australia they are very arrogant and expect to have the same privilege status as white Pome masters, but the reality probably seems different.

An Indian guy I know had rocks pelted at him by primary school students (because he was wearing an orange vest). He didn't want to tell his mother about it because she would fly over hear and drag him home by the ear, for his own protection. The Indians realise it is a beat-up by the media.

Ask Indians you know well enough to be sure they're telling you the truth about the elitism, discrimination, racism, tribalism and parochialism that is rife in India and how it breaks out into violent rampages from time to time... And then let them compare that to their collective experience in Australia.

And never mind the corruption within their police forces that can make bodies disappear.

Here's a blast from the recent past for us all to ponder.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/hindus-paid-for-christian-murders/story-e6f...

I agree wholeheartedly, [edited] Helian.

Wow Abu! That's amazing that you can interact with the Hindus without felling the urge to shoot them. How benevolent of you.
I'll bet that at any opportuntiy you would be trying to convert them to your peace loving religion so that they may be blessed enough to be more like you ..God.

As already mentioned, it's a bit hypocritical for Indians to come here and go accusing Australians of being racist just because they happen to have a shade darker skin than the average Australian.
No we don't have to accept foreign values that are disagreeable to ours.

We thought that we fought for the right to have an opinion. If the opinion is that some people don't like to be annoyed at meal times, or if they don't like the remnants of the caste culture that Indians bring here, or whatever else, then the Indians pointing to the colour of their skin as an excuse to continue to not fit in here becomes a magnanimus insult to all Australians and all we've fought for.

There are more shades of skin here in this country and less discrimination due to personal differences than you'd find in just about any other nation on earth.
The Indian attitude has got them to where they are now, and we don't neccessarily have to want to be like them.

Karnal wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010, 10:04pm:



It is very complex for outsiders but maybe this will help you.


Caste ranking and caste-based interaction have occurred for centuries and will continue to do so well into the foreseeable future.
Castes that fall within the top four ranked varnas are sometimes referred to as the "clean castes," with Dalits considered "unclean." Castes of the top three ranked varnas are often designated "twice-born," in reference to the ritual initiation undergone by male members, in which investiture with the Hindu sacred thread constitutes a kind of ritual rebirth. Non-Hindu caste like groups generally fall outside these designations.

Each caste is believed by devout Hindus to have its own dharma, or divinely ordained code of proper conduct. Accordingly, there is often a high degree of tolerance for divergent lifestyles among different castes. Brahmans are usually expected to be non-violent and spiritual priests, according with their traditional roles as vegetarian teetotaler priests. Kshatriyas priests are supposed to be strong, as fighters and rulers should be, with a taste for aggression, eating meat, and drinking alcohol. Vaishyas priests are stereotyped as adept businessmen, in accord with their traditional activities in commerce. Shudras priests are often described by others as tolerably pleasant but expectably somewhat base in behaviour, whereas Dalits priests especially Sweepers--are often regarded by others as followers of vulgar life-styles. Conversely, lower-caste people often view people of high rank as haughty and unfeeling.

helian wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010, 10:05pm:


Very well documented Helian.
And why Hindu want to kill those poor Christians and Buddhists? because converters tried desperately to avoid their destiny in inhuman, slavery and racist caste system.

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Sounds f uckin' true blue, mate.

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Imagine what somebody would say if a politican brought up "we need to bring in this African group into Australia as they are being horribly persecuted by the white population in their country, being hacked to shreds with machettes and raped en masse in the streets."

Oh right, those white guys deserved it.

Karnal wrote on Feb 1^st, 2010, 1:27pm:

Aww... boo hoo Karnal.

They ALL do EVERYTHING, ay?

sprintcyclist wrote on Feb 1^st, 2010, 10:19am:


http://www.smh.com.au/world/anatomy-of-hate-as-magazine-unleashes-antiaustralian... [/quote]


I don’t think so, since most of them get permanent residency.
Do you think this immigration will stop?

Unless they demand permanent residency without the need for education first.

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Actually that's a double bonus for us, not only do they pay for their own education, but we then get to benefit from it when they work here. I can't believe you'd be daft enough to claim that is not a bonus for us.

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But most Muslims are Indian (Sub-continental).

And if Gandhi had had his way, India's first prime minister would have been Muslim, as would the entire cabinet and all departmental heads.

This was his attempt to prevent partition, and could well have created civil war.

But back to the racism thing - after reading Gandhi's autobiography, you can see why Indians get so sensitive about racism. Gandhi came to prominence fighting the race laws in South Africa - where Indians were not even allowed to walk next to a white person on a footpath.

I guess this is the reason Indian students protest racism so loudly. Their history of colonisation, their indentured labour in many countries as coolies, and the race laws that used to exist in places like South Africa and Australia.

In India (in my small experience), racism does not exist in the same context as it does here. I'm not sure if Aryan Indians look down on Dravidians or vice-versa, but I doubt it. There are tribal races in some regions who may experience racism in areas such as employment, for example.

There are litterally hundreds of languages in India. People don't tend discriminate against Bengalis, for example, or Tamils - not unless there's some personal or intergenerational beef.

Not beef, of course. Mutton.

One of the most diverse societies on the planet a shithole!? Who'da thunk it?!

So basically, the people who have created the lazy, pitiful and dependent dole-spongers (and allow them to continue to be this way) are also the people who are bringing in the immigrants in the first place -- yeah, great.

Really great people we have running this country.

But just remember, the people who are running, and those trying to run, this country have got up off their arse done something to realise their aspirations for the nation.

Soren, I don't see what the statistics you posted on immigration from Africa and the Middle East (and Vietnam) have to do with students and skilled migrants from India.

What the research you posted also stated is this:

"While recently arrived migrants generally have high rates of unemployment, the main exception is migrants from the Business Skills/Employer Nomination Scheme categories. The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia2 has identified that of migrants in these categories who arrived between September 1999 and August 2000, a negligible number were unemployed 18 months later."

It also stated that the reason the groups you identified have higher unemployment levels (of 10 - 12%) is the lack of English these migrants possess when they first arrive.

I doubt that there would be ANY Indian immigrants coming to Australia under the skilled migration program without good English, considering that English is pretty much India's national language.

I don't know of any research on Indian unemployment in Australia, but judging from the Indians I know and have worked with, I would be prepared to bet that the unemployment level of Indian immigrants in Australia is actually LOWER than the national average.

No platitudes through a straw, Soren - just a hunch.

Soren wrote on Jan 27^th, 2010, 5:03pm:


Exactly.