Australia tries to deal with Indian race attacks

The Australian and Victorian governments are now working on trying to cope with the fallout from a series of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne. The attacks have drawn global condemnation, and sincere cursing from the whole community in Australia.

Prime Minister Rudd has now moved into the debate, and Federal and state governments are being mobilized to deal with the issue. Even verbal racial abuse is illegal in Australia, under Racial Vilification laws, and these assaults have touched nerves in the community, where the unwritten law is peace between the various groups. By global standards, Australia is a relatively peaceful place, and nobody's pleased about this situation. There has been real concern that Indian students have been directly targeted. Australia’s multicultural mix contains people from literally every country on Earth. There was a history of colonial racism, the White Australia Policy, and a range of the typical Victorian era prejudices. So this has been an unwelcome reminder of the continuing survivor remnants of that culture. Indian students, statistically, haven’t been historic targets for abuse. This is new, and not much information about the identity of attackers has been forthcoming. There’s no apparent source, just a basic description of a motive of racism. The current series of attacks were initially seen as assaults by muggers and robberies, because a process of deliberate targeting wasn’t obvious until the number and type of attacks was realized. There’s also a possibility that some recent attacks have been copycat attacks by racist groups, which if they’re small in actual numbers, are very like their overseas counterparts. The law enforcement angle hasn’t had much time to get results, but the international response has definitely got the attention of both the Australian government and media. That, ironically, might do the Indian students some good, despite the repulsive circumstances. As this ugly situation has unfolded, a further problem, the circumstances under which Indian students live in Australia, has begun to emerge. Coming from India to Australia isn’t just a cultural experience, it’s a massive hit on their finances. Australia is a big provider of education services around the world, and the hype includes a great lifestyle, world class facilities… you name it. The fact is that the Indian students have been having to get jobs just to survive the costs of living in Australia. Some of the people attacked were coming back from work, at all hours of the night. The current work record is of an Indian student working for three solid days straight for a security firm. That’s bordering on suicidal, as a workload. Most Indian students go to college in the central business district, but have to rent houses out in the sticks to have affordable accommodation. This is the sort of job they have to get to make ends try and meet, and it’s evidently not doing that very well. It’s not the image the education industry is trying to project, and it’s hit the fan at an appropriate time. This is getting the news the hard way, but it might force a reassessment of the situation of foreign students. This will definitely set the dingoes among the sheep, as the industry tries to talk its way out of a mess.