Indian Student Attacks Continue In Australia Amid Outcries Of Racism [video update]
In the news from Australia this morning, more attacks on Indian students there fuel the fires of a possible international crisis between the two nations. Australia has a growing population of students from India and other regional countries. The most recent victim, Mohit Mangal, was attacked by four Australian youths early this morning while traveling to a mall in Sydney. According to reports Mohit, who works as a supervisor at the mall, was hit from behind with a beer bottle and then summarily beaten with a baseball bat. According to the news, the young man is out of danger, but his family and the community there are angered by still another case of what is apparently rampant racial tension in that country.
Despite attempts to reduce violence, and rhetoric from Australia’s PR and other officials, attacks continue and whether they are racially motivated or the actions of opportunistic criminals, it is clear that Indian students bear the brunt of the assaults. This is the fourth racial attack on Indian students since Union External Affairs Minister S M Krishna visited.
Demonstrations over literally dozens of attacks this year threatened to turn violent last month, as Indian students railed against the assaults on their countrymen, vowing to strike back if the incidents continued. There are roughly 90,000 Indian students at colleges in Australia. It appears that this community of students believes that all Australians are not racist, but it is their view, racist elements are probably the ones carrying out the attacks.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned against vigilante action by the Indian community last month too. His view is that while the violence is deplorable, it is “equally unacceptable for so-called reprisal attacks”. Australian authorities have admitted that the attacks are racially motivated in most cases, but they also point to a criminal element that preys on the students as targets of opportunity. It appears that intensified police patrols and a watchful police presence has not deterred the antagonists all that much. India has called for a greater effort to stem the violence, but attacks since last month and this latest incident, do not indicate progress for the whole situation. World opinion will likely heat up with this latest news, as the situation focuses even more negative attention of Australia.
These events have damaged Australia’s reputation a great deal. As for Indian students studying there, they are simply scared and frustrated as the government’s efforts to resolve tension and stop the attacks appear to be either half hearted, ineffective or both. For this writer, the racial undercurrent seems a little more real and personal here. The Australian government has already “guaranteed” the safety of these students, supposedly stepped up security, and talked a good game. However, as any of us knows, what is said and what is done are often divergent ends of the reality spectrum. I know from personal conversations with programmers and students in many fields there, that Australians (at least in the conversations I have had) are not thrilled with student from other countries period. Many contacts we have on the continent have expressed degrees of discompfort for some time, and I can only imagine how these latest events have effected them.
Video Update: ABC story about Indian students in Australia
Australia relies on foreign students to prop up their economy as well. According to the Telegraph, the international student aspect of the economy there is worth $15 billion a year, making this market what would seem, a boom for some Australian businesses. If the government cannot fight these attacks on one front, it seems logical that businesses there, who benefit from these students being there, might offer some support.
Regardless of the government’s stance on these issues, it seems almost inconceivable to me that Australia’s people would not be up in arms about this. I can only thing of similar situations from back in the states where populations of every description have come to find a better education. Just why Australia seems so violent in this regard leaves me speechless. We will update this story as it develops, for the better we hope.
Indian students unify in protest to racism
About the Author
Phil Butler is editor-in-chief of Everything PR and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. He’s a widely cited authority on beta startups, search engines and public relations issues, and he has covered tech news since 2004. Phil wrote in the past for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Profy, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, AltSearchEngines. Follow Phil on Twitter or send him an email at phil [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.
Helyn, Thanks for stopping by. Well, I am riding the fence on this I guess. One side of me wonders ...
hi - what are your thoughts on how this effects and/or adheres to the faith and future re: end of ...
All I'm saying is some people, including myself, work hard for our trips and look forward to them. It ...
They don't stand a chance if they don't hire somebody to manage PR for this. Even the press release you ...
Comment by Kate M on 10 August 2009:
‘I can only thing of similar situations from back in the states where populations of every description have come to find a better education. Just why Australia seems so violent in this regard leaves me speechless’
This article disgusts me Mr Butler, you are making a massive generalization on the Australian public and your comment about what you would expect in ‘the states’ does nothing for your credibility and denounces the article. Very disappointing.
Comment by Phil Butler on 10 August 2009:
Hi Kate, I am sorry you found it so disgusting, perhaps you should have read it again and grabbed the tone a little better instead of reacting. I do not blame you to an extent, I would not know how to react either if the shoe were on the other foot. Here is where I used the attacked subjects of the article to express how all Australians are not to blame.
I made reference to this fact a couple of times, but I guess since I did not put it in bold letters at the top of the post, it was not good enough. I must say though, if this were happening in the states (as it actually has before), I would be just as indignant as these Indian students are. If you read my stuff you know I just say it like it is, or at least how I see it. If you guys in Australia do not want some criticism, perhaps you should stop jumping on me and talk to your own government. I do not see any banners going up reading; “Good Australians Against Racists” all over the country. In fact, in the time it took me to write this two more Indian students were attacked. I think you, and all of us, need to figure out waht is going on there. This was the point of this post, not to bash the average Australian.
Always,
Phil
Comment by Flavian Hardcastle on 10 August 2009:
Hi. Correct me if I’m wrong, but by the standards of any Western nation, 26 assaults over the space of three months, is not a particularly high assault rate for a population of 90 000 students. On the contrary, it is a totally negligible number.
In fact, the only reason the situation seems really dramatic is that the Indian media persists in giving each individual incident front page coverage.
Admittedly, in India, assault rates are astonishingly low. In Australia, where the assault is not particularly high (lower than the US for e.g), the rate for a population of 100 000, is about 60 per month. In India, by contrast, it works out to about 21 per year. So many Indians would probably be unaware that our assault, while lower than most other Western nations, is so much higher than their’s.
But there is an element in the Indian media which is absolutely on overdrive doing hatchet jobs about Australians, and salivating as it does so.
For instance, when an undercover Indian journalist was attacked in Australia recently, while investigating some rip off merchants here, it was plastered all over the media there. The Indian English language network “Times Now” even produced a special half hour segment entitled “Yes, it’s Racism!” in response to the attack.
They never bothered to mention, however, that the woman’s attackers were themselves Indian (as were the rip off merchants she was investigating.)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25850818-601,00.html
This is in fact quite typical of the coverage this small number of assaults has gotten. Indeed, the first attack to gain attention by the Indian media, in late May, was the attack on Sourabh Sharma on a train in Melbourne. It was never mentioned in any of the reports, but it is pretty clear from the CCTV footage of that incident, that at least two of Sharma’s attackers were themselves Asian. Those are just the ones we can identify, as they are the only members of the gang wearing hoods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zYh6-i-M5c
I’m afraid that the whole issue really is built on nothing but a kind of strange strange mass hysteria in India. And I suspect that the reason that more Australians aren’t up in arms about it, as you point mention it, is that telling people that they are getting angry about nothing doesn’t usually calm them down. The whole issue is basically just too strange to tackle head on.
Comment by abhishek on 11 August 2009:
I am studying in canberra probably considered safest of all cities and in top university but amount of racism here shocks me to no end, it’s as aussies are living in 18th century, There are many shops that we will not just employ anyone who is not white and i mean big shops employing atleast 50 people. If you want i can give you addresses , go have a look and you will find not a single non white guy, so many times i have been asked by locals that when i am going back , when i tell them my IT skills can fetch me more money here , smiles just stop on there face , and most of them think everyone who is coloured is muslim and personally near kambah once i was having stroll with my friend i saw three biky guys encircling us , it was only other fellow knowledge of local small lanes in between homes that helped us escape from bashing. Not everyone is racist here but many of them are. GET IT AUSSIES YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE ACCEPTING ASIANS, AFRICANS, MUSLIMS, LEBANESE , INDIANS. ONLY EUROPEANS APPLY AND YOUR GOVT SHOULD LET THE WORLD KNOW SO THAT WE CAN INVEST OUR TIME , MONEY IN STATES.