Government and media whip up anti-african racism

from Socialist Alternative (November 2007 magazine)

On 1 October, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews was interviewed about the brutal murder of Sudanese man Liep Gony in Noble Park in Melbourne. His heartless response was:

I have been concerned that some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope and therefore it makes sense to...slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan.

One wonders how anyone could "settle" or "adjust" to being fatally bashed.

In true Howard government fashion, Andrews has used this tragedy to try to whip up a racist frenzy on the eve of an election the Liberals look set to lose.

Questioned later about his comments, Andrews said

The best way to deal with [a problem] is to name [it], for a start. If you don't name the problem, you're not going to adequately be able to deal with it.

I agree. So let's name the problem: it's racism, pure and simple.

Liep Gony was not killed because of a "failure to adjust". He was murdered by two white racists.

Time and time again, this government has justified vicious racism. Remember the soldiers dressed up as the Ku Klux Klan who were just "letting off steam"? Or Pauline Hanson, who was just shedding the burden of "political correctness"? Or the racist white riot in Cronulla which was merely a "law and order issue"?

The refusal to name racism for what it is creates a culture where racism becomes ever more acceptable. If the government can get away with blaming Sudanese people for all the country's ills, then it seems quite in order for others to do so. If it is acceptable for police to bash up Sudanese people - and recent reports in The Age have exposed the fact that such a culture does exist in the police force - then it is that much more acceptable for white kids to do the same. If it is tolerable for the media to promote racist stereotypes of African people, then it is OK for others to do so as well.

The government's "dog-whistling" about the "failures" of Sudanese migrants gives confidence to the racists to quite literally go on the attack. Sure enough, in the wake of Andrews' comments, we've seen an increase in the number of attacks on African people.

On October 9, a Sudanese-born teenager was attacked by four men in Melton. They stole his wallet and phone and then sent disgusting, racist text messages to the man's friends and family, gloating about the racist attack.

The blame for this increase in racism has to be laid squarely at the feet of the government. However, that is not to deny the long history of racism in this country. Indeed, anti-immigrant racism has been an enduring theme of Australian history.

What is generally absent from the discussion of this in our history books, though, is the overwhelming role of the ruling class in promoting this racism. While our rulers' ideological apologists and middle class liberals promote the myth that racism is the product of ignorance and prejudice among the lower classes, the reality is that the impetus for racism has always come from the top of society.

The history of anti-Chinese racism in Australia provides a clear example of this, as Jerome Small shows in his article on page 20.

Similarly, the "White Australia" policy was the product not of working class agitation but rather of the needs of the ruling class. Australia's position as a colonial settler state far from its imperial protector meant that the major fear for Australian capitalists was of being invaded by neighbouring countries. The "White Australia" policy, by restricting immigration from Asian countries while at the same time attempting to forge closer ties with Britain, was an attempt by the Australian ruling class to deal with these fears.

The ALP platform supported this racist policy, right up until 1965. Given this history, it is not surprising that the Federal Labor Party has not been prepared to criticise the government's comments on African migration. This is the historical continuity of the Labor Party, not a break from their past.

Although this latest attempt at whipping up racism has fallen flat, we can't afford to be complacent. It is unlikely that we've seen the last of attempts to win elections by using racist scapegoating.

And racist dog-whistling is not just an election stunt - racism is a tried and tested divide and rule tactic that ruling classes have always used to shore up their power.

In their relentless pursuit of profit, capitalists will stop at nothing, up to and including genocide. That's why fighting racism has to be linked to and be part of the broader struggle against the capitalist system itself.

Jo Mettam

Luckily some things are followed up by mainstream media:
Race row we didn't have to have
Jewel Topsfield, Canberra
17 May 2008
The Age

WHEN former immigration minister Kevin Andrews sparked a race row over his claims that African refugees were engaged in crime and failing to integrate into Australia he was acting contrary to advice from his own department.

In a confidential briefing to the minister, obtained by The Age, the Immigration Department stressed that studies suggested it was not ethnicity that determined criminal behaviour but a combination of socio-economic problems and other disadvantage.

The briefing was prepared for Mr Andrews in response to an article in the Cranbourne Leader suggesting that transit police believed Sudanese men were responsible for 99% of assaults and armed robberies on two Victorian rail lines.

The briefing, dated September 27, 2007, said: "Whatever the background of the perpetrators, it would be wrong to blame all people from a particular migrant group for the behaviour of a few."

But a week later, Mr Andrews appeared to ignore its advice when he cited the failure of Sudanese people to integrate as a reason for cutting African refugee numbers.

Yesterday Mr Andrews said the document was simply a departmental response to a news item.

He said his comments were influenced by an Immigration Department dossier that raised community concern about African refugees forming gangs, fighting in nightclubs and attacking other families. "I wasn't blaming a particular group. I said we've got problems there and we need to do something about it."

Despite the Darfur crisis in Sudan, Australia allocated just 30% of refugee places to Africans in 2007-08, down from 70% in 2004-05.

But the race debate was not ignited until October 1 last year, when Mr Andrews was asked about the fatal bashing of 18-year-old Sudanese refugee Liep Gony in Noble Park. It later emerged that Mr Gony's alleged attackers were not African.

Questioned at the time about whether better settlement services were needed, Mr Andrews said the refugee intake from places such as Sudan had been cut amid fears that some groups "don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope".

This was at odds with a media release he issued several months earlier saying the Howard government had changed the composition of its refugee intake because of an improvement in conditions in some African countries and the need to help Iraqis displaced by war and Burmese refugees living in camps along the Thai-Burma border.

The Government was accused of playing "ugly race politics" on the eve of the federal election.

Critics said Mr Andrews was "dog-whistling" to marginal outer-suburban electorates with large numbers of refugees.

Mr Andrews said yesterday he had no regrets. "When difficulties are occurring, you can't put your head in the sand," he said.

He had subsequently received supportive phone calls from Victorian police and visited migrant resource centres where he was told his comments were "entirely correct", based on their experiences.

The Coalition had tried to deal with the issue by reducing — but not stopping — the African intake and providing an additional $200 million in resettlement services.

Mr Andrews said he had read media reports a few weeks ago that police were working with the Immigration Department to try to deal with some of the problems.

"I think what I did was bring to people's attention what was an issue and now something is getting done about it," he said.

"If you remain without commenting on an issue, what would have been done?"