What really defines these three aspects of our society: Its race or colour? Peace or violence? Street crime or racial crime?
You might have thought that race, peace and street crime are more commonly seen in our society. People generally do. But take a second to think about your answers.
To my mind, every person who lives in Australia should be given a ‘fair go’, an ideal that many Australians aim to hold. Australia was built by immigrants, and the influence of immigrants stretches broadly throughout society.
It has been a steep learning curve for both the Indian and the Australian communities, so why is it people cannot see that the social, sporting and economic interaction that occurs between India and Australia is beneficial to both sides.
The murder of Mr. Nitin Garg was a horrible heinous crime, which has opened the flood gates to many debates and has questioned our own humanity to answer questions on crime based on race, color and ethnicity.
Any person walking the streets (or indeed streets of any country) can be attacked, and any such attack is a terrible thing, but racism of any form is particularly abhorrent.
What triggers the incident? Usually, some of the attacks do carry a racial element and they come from younger and generally disadvantaged people of the society – usually people who are poorer/less educated.
They often blame foreigners for their situation in life, rather than doing something like getting skills or more education.
There were 1447 acts of violence against the Indians recorded in the State of Victoria as per Victoria Police, however way too many innocents have being injured and these are not even reported due to the fear of retribution.
Fear and prejudice are crucial mixes that lead to mistrust and social conflicts. The denial and the failure to address this can erupt into racial hatred, which in turn have led to further cycle of violence in the past.
The racism engendered in the attacks is not only a symptom of a lack of law enforcement by the courts and a lack of police personnel but it is also an act of cowards, idiots and thugs who prey on individuals from specific community and or background.
No one deserves to die or get assaulted so how do we explain these acts? For a country like Australia and a state like Victoria which is ranked the most livable place, it’s a disgrace that racial discrimination has become so institutionalized, that the system finds it easier to criticize the victims than to heal the wounds of these victims.
Lack of infrastructure with little or no guidance has left these students in a situation of paralysis. The solution to the problem is to have stringent law in place against such perpetrators and strict policies should be enforced.
It hurts to see that many fellow Indian students were hospitalized, some were in coma, some were unable to recognize their friends and family, some so stressed that they were afraid to walk on the streets, and in certain cases they lost their right to live. Yet, the criminals are on loose feet, walking on the streets, finding their next predators.
The system is not perfect and it seems that law itself cannot protect these students and when they defend themselves from the offender - that’s incitement, and they are blamed for it.
Old lived institutions have disappeared but the attitude still remains.
Is racism the biggest enemy of Australia? The answer to this lies within the individuals. What we really need to do is lead our lives by example.
By clearing the violence on the streets and by eliminating the racial element from the society we can become more multicultural and peaceful country.
The motto of, “Zero Tolerance and Total Accountability with Compliance” should be adopted to eliminate racial violence from the streets of country like Australia.
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