Down, down, Down Under!

A dozen attacks, as this is being written. And are we counting? Hope not, but the hate brigade Down Under won’t relent, will it? As we keep count on the number of Indians attacked in Australia and seethe with anger over the anti-Indian events in Australia, a thought goes to the complex mix of population occurring due to the cliched  ‘world turning into a global village’.

Unfortunately, violence is a part of it, directed against “the outsider”.

But for one, it is not just about Australia.It is about the entire world, and how people from one country go to another seeking better education or life itself - “to seek a fortune” as Charles Dickenson would have put it.

Unfortunately, seeking fortunes academically or financially, it appears, is accompanied by hurt, physical and mental, as the newcomer tries settling down to focus on the task at hand.

For strange reasons, an “outsider” doing well irks the “insiders”, especially a part of the indigenous youth. They feel insecure, resulting in taunts and attacks.

The Australians have been shouting in defence from roof-tops that the attacks are not racist in nature, but admit that these are criminal acts. Subsequently, they have conceded that at least “some of the attacks were racist in nature”.

One notices insecurity among the Australian ruling establishment if all the attacks assume a racist pattern, because that would hamper upping the revenues from Indian students making a beeline to Australian universities for education.

They fear a decline in Indian students signing up for courses in Australian universities because of the attacks, especially if they are given a racist colour altogether.

But simply put, violence is violence; it is not a canine species categorised as per the breed, an Alsatian, a Doberman, or a Labrador.

If you bash up a person, he is not going to sit back and analyse why he was attacked, whether it was racist, communal or caste-based. He remains as mentally and physically traumatised, whichever one is the reason for the attack. The reason gains no importance.

Therefore, hatred and violence itself is what one needs to mitigate.Interestingly, some attackers who targeted Indians were of Lebanese and Caucasian origins, not original inhabitants of Australia or aboriginals. Around 90% of Australian non-aboriginal population is of European origin. So, were the Lebanese (West Asians) who attacked Indians targeted by the Europeans initially when they arrived Down Under to settle down, or for education?

Even if so, is that a licence to perpetuate such violence? And what satisfaction is obtained from these acts? It remains a sorry state of violent affairs.