In Context: 5 Web Perspectives On A Story In The News

Tensions high in Australia, India over student murder

(University World News) Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna has called on Australia to better protect Indian citizens. Over the past two years, many Indian students have been attacked, especially in Melbourne. The last victim is Nitin Garg, who was stabbed to death by a member of a gang of youths on Jan. 2, while he was on his way to his work at a burger franchise. If the violence continues, Krishna has warned that it could damage relations between the two countries. Are those incidents a sign that racism is on the rise in Australia?

1.

Roots in the Cronulla riot

Scott Poynting, Race & Class 2006
Race & Class is an English-language journal on racism and imperialism. In this article, written in 2006, the author discussed the Cronulla riot. On Dec. 11, 2005, a crowd of 5,000 white Australians attacked anyone of Middle Eastern appearance they could find near Sydney’s Cronulla Beach. The author Scott Poynting argues that the event was more like a pogrom that a race riot. A fight between surf lifesavers and Lebanese Australians that occurred the weekend before might have caused the event. Others think that media vilification of Arabs since Sept. 11, 2001 is to blame for the rise of racial violence in Australia.

2.

One Nation's racist policies

One Nation
One Nation is an Australian federal political party. It believes that global warming is a hoax. It wants to keep "unsuitable" people out of the country, whether they arrive here legally or illegally, and deport the ones that are here now. It advocates blocking free trade with Communist China. It also wants to stop non residents from buying property in Australia, which has been one cause of the sharp rise in real estate prices, and subsequent drop in home affordability, over the last 15 years. Furthermore, it wants to stop foreign workers being brought into the country on visas as long as there is any possibility of an Australian being trained to do the same job.  On the Victoria homepage, One Nation states it is against foreign students taking Australians’ places at universities.

3.

More foreign students come to study in Australia every year

Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship
On this webpage, the department publishes yearly student visa statistics. Thus, in 2009, 320,368 foreign students applied for a visa to study in Australia. Of this number, 65,503 were from India, 54,015 were from China, 17,594 were from South Korea and 14,355 were from Nepal. Of the total number, more than one third were university students. In 2008, 278,184 foreign students applied for a visa. This shows that Australia has become a popular education destination for the Asian continent.  It will be interesting to see if the murder and riots will have had an effect on student visa numbers when the 2010 statistics will come out.

4.

Indian students should be careful in Australia

Indian Ministry of External Affairs
Following the murder of Nitin Garg, the ministry posted an advisory on its websites for students in Australia. Students are advised to not travel alone late at night; to keep to well-lit, populated areas; to make sure that someone knows where they are going and at what time they are expected to return; to not carry more cash with them than what is required and to not make it obvious that they are in possession of expensive items. The advisory stresses that while the majority of Indian students studying in Australia have positive experiences, the number of assaults and robberies has been on the rise.

5.

Australian professor condemns Australian government's lack of action

University World News
Simon Marginson is a professor of higher education in the centre for the study of higher education at the University of Melbourne. He gave a keynote address at the World Universities Forum in Davos, Switzerland about the Australian government’s lack of response to racist violence against foreign students. Marginson says that ‘curry bashing’, violence done against South Asian students by gangs of unemployed, uneducated, white Australian youths, has become more and more numerous in the last few years. Marginson believes that the Australian government and Australians are in denial. While Australia is a multicultural, tolerant country, racism is still present.