If Eddie McGuire says so, it must be so eh?

Though, if Eddie McGuire is a proponent of the idea that Australians are unusually racist, what could be wrong with the idea? Interesting that both of the examples he gives involve a white guy getting bashed up by...well read on. And yet the entire narrative of these and other recent assaults and murders has been cast as a simplistic "evil white Australians doing beastly things to oppressed but saintly non-Anglos" morality play by those keen to prove their own moral superiority over ordinary people. Interesting though that one of the people charged with the bashing of Indian student Sourabh Sharma is himself of Indian descent. But, as a member of a minority that has had its own share of trouble from parts of the wider society myself, I still reckon Australian society is overwhelmingly characterised by its openness and tolerance. I live in an area with high numbers of recently arrived and still establishing immigrants, especially from the Middle East and Africa. Arab and African Muslim women veiled in half a dozen different ways rub shoulders with Christians from the Sudan. There's an African church that meets every Sunday in the community centre, and I heard the choir practising outside one morning. Singing in English, but with that unmistakable African sound. And what a wonderful sound it was too. The men's hairdressing shop was bought by some Iraqi Shi'ites several years ago and they have turned it into a thriving business. Everybody, including Africans and Anglos, goes there. It's not perfect where I live. What or where is? But most people seem to get along quite nicely and I think that is what is normal in this country, despite what those who make a living from trying to sell fear, (at either end of the spectrum), say.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous