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
