Australia: Are we all to blame for racism in Australia? IN THE last two weeks, we’ve been confronted with more evidence of racism in Australia, plastered across the internet as uploaded videos and leaked emails. On one end of the class spectrum, a young Brisbane man named Kader Boumzar was videoed abusing a security guard on public transport. On the other a senior University of Sydney academic and Abbott government consultant, Prof Barry Spurr was found to have been sending numerous racist and offensive emails. From academic institutions to train carriages, there is no escaping it: I am, you are, we are racist Australians. The social media fury that followed both incidents has become an embarrassing national pastime: we’re angry and disappointed in these (white) Australians. Buses, trains and trams are all apparently a fertile breeding ground for redneck bigotry, and now it seems so is the quadrangle of one of our finest universities. These public transport attacks are now occurring with such regularity that we cannot ignore them. Public transport has become an isolated space. Earbuds in, faces directed to smart phones and iPads, and these loud violent attacks jolt us out of shared silence. For those people at the receiving end of the abuse, what is so heartbreaking is the grim acceptance on their faces; that this is something they just have to endure until their stop. These are people who are part of our culture, our society. They’re either just trying to do their jobs, or get home from them. Yet when it comes to the perpetrators, it’s so easy to turn them into convenient scapegoats. I’m guilty of it. I watched the video of Mr Boumzar attack Joe the security guard, or the middle aged woman attacking the Asian woman and the man she thought to be her white boyfriend, or the racist Gold Coast women that attacked an Aboriginal man (I could go on with more examples). Each time, my initial reaction was to criticise their ignorance, their lack of class, status and etiquette. “Stupid bogans,” I thought, “What an embarrassment to the rest of us.” If I’m honest though, I don’t know that I could have the courage to stand up for Joe and intervene. I loathe confrontation in public spaces, especially when loud “bogans” are involved. I like my face the way it is. Here, in the safe space of an opinion piece, I can form an argument, decry ignorant young Boumzar. On the train though, would I have to courage to stand up and say, “Leave him alone”? I don’t know. How much do I care about racism in this country? Enough to do something about it when it’s truly difficult, or just in the aftermath, behind the safety of my laptop screen? The assumed social class of these train attackers is a convenient way to blame their behaviour and ignore the deep undercurrent of racism in Australia that leads to behaviour like this. Mr Boumzar is not evil, just an ignorant punk who is responding to the influences around him. He deserved to be lead off in handcuffs, and will face charges for his crime. However, I’m not innocent either. It’s easy to turn Boumzar and others into loudmouth racists in Guy Fawkes in Southern Cross board shorts; it’s a lot more difficult to blame more than just a lack of education or class. Which is why the Professor Spurr incident is so revealing. This is not a man in a tracksuit on a train, but a senior academic, an educated man of letters that has directly influenced our national curriculum, a lover of poetry, with friends in high places. Should I be more surprised that he displays the ignorance and arrogance to refer to minorities by offensive terms? Professor Spurr’s emails crack along with aplomb, unlike the slurred barrage of abuse offered up by Boumzar, which suggests perhaps a worse crime: an educated man choosing to use words that hurt, while a young man reaches for the only words he knows. In the ongoing debate on race (and religion), there is a deepening the divide between “us” and “them.” In the current climate “them” happens to be Muslims, but could easily be Asylum Seekers, First Australians, Asians, the list goes on (just check Professor Spurr’s emails, he covers them all). Overt (and of course violent) racism is easy to decry, but what about the more ingrained casual racism we dish out every day? This casual racism is a green light for others to move on to something more violent, motivated by a fear of losing what is “ours”. This of course means different things to different people: the right not to be told how to behave by a black man, a philosophical fear of losing our European heritage, or just my frustration when an Indian cabbie doesn’t know where he’s going. The individuals committing these violent acts on public transport are not acting in isolation; they are doing so because they believe they are in the majority. They just lack the politeness and good sense most of us have to be racist in our heads and homes, rather than in public (or on email). We’re in an era in which we’re told that free speech amounts to the right to be a bigot, and that our way of life (whatever that is) is under threat by this brown “other”. We’re told these things not just by some shock jock, but also by the federal government. What terrifies me is that these attacks will continue to escalate, with each racist verbal attack on public transport will go viral and we will keep shaking our heads. Soon enough, verbal attacks become physical. Recently, a Muslim woman was thrown from a moving train. Islamic communities are reporting unprecedented levels of abuse in public ever since the fear of IS was cemented as the latest threat to Australians. When the man charged shaping the young minds of this nation reveals himself to be no worse than a drunken kid on a late night train, I wonder if it’s already too late. As a white, middle class Australian, it’s easy for me to be angered in equal measures by ignorant “bogans” on trains and the lofty “snobs” condescendingly dismissing the experience of minorities. It’s much more difficult to take out my ear buds and realise I’m equally to blame. Every moment I don’t intervene, every moment I don’t recognise I’m part of the problem, I’m complicit in raising another generation of racists. Maybe it’s not safe to pipe up on the train, or take on someone with connections to the The Lodge, but that’s not always the case in the playground, the tearoom at work, or at family dinner table. To politely keep my head down might make the shared train carriage of Australia easier for me to ignore what’s going on, but at what cost?
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 07:02:23 +0000
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