M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India - At least 12
Indian students have been attacked in Australia in half that many weeks. This
has put at risk not only the country’s multibillion-dollar education industry,
but also Australia's image as a tolerant and inclusive country.
The Victorian
police have deliberately refrained from releasing details of the attackers, but
the odds are that most of the attacks were carried out by youths of Eastern
European background. Given the post-war economic chaos and political stunting
in these states, the only "distinction" that migrants from such
countries have clung to has been their absence of tanned skin.
Many migrants
from Eastern Europe to North America and Australia are horrified at the
increasing number of immigrants with duskier complexions than theirs. This
sentiment was personally witnessed by this columnist during a visit to the
United States in 1992, when a group of Eastern European migrants expressed
their shock at the number of non-whites admitted to a country they had been
taught to regard as a white bastion. These individuals were clear that such
migration ought to be banned forthwith.
The same
sentiment was expressed this year by those who attacked Indians for being
different from Australians. The attackers seemed to be unaware that Australia
is almost entirely a country of migrants, albeit mostly from Europe until
Fortress White Australia began to be dismantled during the 1980s – almost
entirely by white liberals in that country
Although
professing to be a liberal, Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has never
concealed his subliminal contempt for India, a country which he equates with
Pakistan and similar powers, rather than one that is at least the equal of
France and the United Kingdom. Like fellow "liberals" in the United
States, such as Hillary Clinton, Rudd has been an aggressive backer of sanctions
against India, and of dismantling the world's largest democracy's tiny stock of
nuclear weapons, intended as a deterrent to nearby nuclear-armed powers.
Even after the
International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group permitted
near-normal nuclear trade with India, Rudd has been adamant that not an ounce
of Australian uranium will be shipped to India. This stance is at variance with
the extreme generosity his government has shown to China.
It was therefore
to be expected that Rudd would immediately adopt a posture of denial toward the
racism that motivated the attacks, which have shocked the 97,000 Indian
students in Australia.
At least one
apologist for the attackers claimed that the students brought it on themselves
"because they flashed their IPods." This is surely an interesting
explanation for the motivation behind a hate crime.
Although this columnist has no direct
knowledge of Rudd's country, the odds are that Indian students are not the only
ones using IPods
Although regarded
at present as a European hero, ultimately former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
may earn a place in history as the statesperson who began the long, painful
decline of European competitiveness. His generosity toward East Germany when
the two countries united proved too much even for his wealthy country.
Subsequently,
the pell-mell expansion of the European Union to include most of the countries
of Eastern Europe – long before adequate social and economic changes took place
– has resulted in the reality that the post-integration generation in Western
Europe is the only one in hundreds of years to be witnessing a fall in the
standards of living.
The implicitly
racist approach of the European Union – exemplified in its “Europe first and
last” policy – sits uneasily with a world in which the country with the largest
white population has elected an African-American as its president. Many
Europeans are openly dismissive of the United States, rather than accepting the
fact that it is far, far easier for a non-white to reach the top in that
country than in any part of "liberal" Europe.
Hopefully, Kevin
Rudd will someday use his considerable intellectual gifts to come to an
appreciation of what India is. For this columnist, this was brought home yet
again at the reaction to the passing away on May 31 of his mother Kamala Das –
who changed her name to Kamala Suraiyya after openly accepting Islam in 1999.
As anyone can
see from YouTube or other pathways on the Internet, the Muslim community in
Kerala opened its doors to all, allowing Amma's Hindu daughters-in-law to give
her a final bath before burial and to join in the prayers at the Palayam Mosque
in Trivandrum, her final resting place.
Since the
funeral was conducted on June 2, mourners of different faiths – Hindus,
Christians and Jews – have been visiting her grave at the mosque. The welcome
they have received is testimony to the reality that India exemplifies the
harmony of civilizations, rather than a clash. India and the West need to
understand that they have a common destiny – something made more difficult by
"liberals" such as Kevin Rudd.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced
Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal
University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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