The System Works, It Seems

This week John Howard side stepped defeat by sheepishly Backing down on the proposed Immigration Bill. Having observed the same Prime Minister proceed with Volentary Student Unionism, Work Place changes and most notably the War on Iraq despite opposition; we are forced to ask what was the difference this time.

Was it the four ‘Rebel MPs’ who crossed the floor on moral grounds, was it a lack of commitment to the wishes of the Indonesian Government, who firmly supported the bill, or was it lobbying from outside of Parliament?

The Edmund Rice Center, a research foundation focussed on the human rights of international refugees, was in no doubt of their role in the dissmissal of the contraversial bill. This is evident in an email sent following Howard’s admission;

“The Government has withdrawn their bill to
process asylum seekers off shore on Nauru. The Edmund Rice Centre has
been working hard throughout the week with refugee groups and
parliamentarians to prevent the bill going ahead. Last week we released
findings from our ongoing research monitoring the fate of asylum seekers
returned by Australia. The report found nine cases where asylum seekers
had reportedly been killed on their return. We confirmed two of these
cases before being forced out of Afghanistan for safety reasons, and
discovered a further three cases of children being killed in attacks
targeted at their parents who were asylum seekers returned by Australia
from Nauru”

The Government’s decision is a significant victory for those committed
to human rights and the rule of law. It is a credit the people’s
movement that has formed since the arrival of the Tampa in August 2001,
and to the parliamentarians, particularly those within the Coalition,
who stood up for their beliefs”

The Edmund Rice foundation has received brief coverage in the news for the research it has done in regard to assylum seekers in the Australian system. It still however remains a mystical force which just seems to piss off Amanda Vanstone very effectively.
This feature would profile the Edmund rice centre and take a look at the research they have conducted and its implications for Australia. The feature would contain:

- A Brief outline of the proposed immigration bill and the opposition it received.

- The MP’s who crossed the floor; what they said and why.

- A representative from the Edmund Rice Centre outlining the efforts they made to bring down the proposed bill.

-Outline of the work done by the Edmund Rice Centre, where they get their funding and who is involved.

-Opinion of an immigration lawyer in regard to the possible consequences of the proposed bill.

healing a burned community

It is almost a year since the room at Auburn Girls High School, where The Australian Muslim Women’s National Network (MWNNA) held girls community groups, burnt to the ground. Following several threatening phone calls, MWNNA member Aziza Abdel-Halim woke up one morning to find the school rooms they used each week blackened from the flames of racial violence.

“They had called and said things like; go back to your own country you are not wanted here, which is strange because the network is not specifically immigrant, in fact we have several Anglo Australian members”Aziza said.

“A year on and we still all pile into some ones back room for our meetings, the girls don’t mind, but it is a shame. The police have still not charged anyone. It is a terrible thing for the school as well as us” she said.

The MWNNA now focuses its combined energy on community relations.

“prejudice comes from ignorance so we try to educate people from outside the Islamic community about our faith, we usually just all end up making loads of great friends by the end of the day, and all the serious stuff is forgotten”

The Islamic community often finds itself in the media spotlight. Negative discussion of extremist infiltration and the role of Muslim women, however, dominates the coverage. The Australian National Muslim Women’s Network is working towards a healthier community and this feature would aim to give some coverage to their good work.

Having been attacked themselves, they have bounced back and are hoping to work towards an Australian community which knows its neighbours.

This feature will profile the the Australian National Muslim Women’s Network and outline their activities, and give a voice to the girls who were effected by the fire at Auburn High School.

Following the conflict in Lebanon, the network has spent a lot of time working with the Jewish community in Sydney. It would be interesting to interview some of the ladies who attended the events planned by the network, and also attend an up and coming event in order to get an insight the effects of these gatherings.

The Community Relations Commision of NSW would be able to give some context to the networks efforts.

Terrorvision

The credits roll, unstoppable. The blank screen with unknown names in white text a welcome relief to the experience which preceded them. Then, silence and a sense of bewilderment. Looking around the red velvet seats littered with squished pieces of popcorn provide a stark almost insulting reminder that this is a cinema and this movie was intended as entertainment.

Many felt the strength of the recently released feature length; United 93, was its restraint. The movie strayed away from emotive blockbuster drama and maintained a sense of realness.

“I did feel it was well done, it was not too ‘Hollywood’, but i still felt uncomfortable watching it. It seemed a little wrong that i was getting some kind of entertainment or enjoyment out of loss of lives” Said Hayley, after watching ‘United 93′ at Cronulla Cinemas.

This film tells the story of the only plane which failed to reach its target on September 11th. Directed by Paul Greengrass known for the blockbuster hit; The Bourne Supremacy, this movie focuses on the actions of the forty passengers and the part they played in preventing the terrorists from achieving their goal.

Fives years on, September 11th still seems very fresh in peoples minds. There has however been an influx of movies, documentaries and television dramas dealing with the topic which until recently was deemed too painful.

I personally enjoyed United 93, but then felt guilty for getting a kind of emotional release from other people’s pain. There are of course many movies which deal with equally tragic realities, but there was something about the experience of spending an evening re-living that day with nibbles in my lap which troubled me, and i am sure others to.

There are also less subtle media money making projects which utilize the written drama that was 9/11, and a feature which asks as many viewers as possible their thoughts on this would be interesting, if only to clear up my personal discomfort with the movie.

What do people think about United 93, and the soon to be released; ‘World trade Centre’, are we dwelling on the past and forgetting the current strife in the Middle East which has resulted from ‘that day’?

Is it wrong to make money out of tragedy?, where to next; t-shirts displaying the motif ‘Where were you when the towers blew’?

The feature would include:
- An expert opinion from media studies professor.

-More quotes from viewers.

-Other reviews of the movies.

The Heart of Hip

The quite Street gives way to a deep red dungeon, deliciously scented by beer, peanuts and a reminder that non smoking laws are yet to be fully enforced in
Melbourne. The Union pub is a local’s local. This is a place where a seat at the bar is a privileged thrown to the alternative, reserved for chain smoking VB guzzling, artistic types with vocabularies larger than the extensive blackboard menu which covers the walls. Despite the feeling that you may not have been in Fitzroy long enough (since before it was very cool and not a yuppie magnet) to be accepted by the regulars, there are enough dark corners to settle into and inconspicuously observe the slightly muscular black clad bar maid at work, while tucking into a huge chicken palmer and pint of VB original. Despite having to move every time the next shot at the pool table requires your chair to be moved, after a ten dollar jug of draft this becomes all part of the experience. 

Last flight on sunday night

The garish red carpet is as unwelcome as the bright white forced smiles which guide the passengers like landing lights through the departure gate along the walkway and on to the last Virgin Blue flight out of Melbourne on a Sunday night. A short flight, a well known destination, a journey of duty, this is not the magic of air travel but a necessary evil for those whose business and pleasure

 stretches them across the thousand Kilometer divide between Melbourne and Sydney.  

The air stewards go about their ritualistic preparations for take off. It seems that they must be trained not only in the art of perpetual perkiness but also taught a traditional dance: Rather like a well coordinated West End production they walk in time and conduct their safety checks to the rhythm of a silent score. It is a performance which is reassuring. Familiar to the passengers and a reminder that for these pristine individuals trusting a nicely painted hunk of metal to get you thirty thousand feet into the air and back is routine, run of the mill and completely safe.  

As the plane picks up speed with a groan and lack of grace, the forced smiles are unchanged but directed towards the windows. Strapped to their special seats the stewards watch the ground disappear as they are in turn watched by nearby passengers, searching for a glimpse of the possibility that behind the smiles they too contemplate whether today they will fall out of the sky.   

Integration education

Do schools give young people the skills and knowledge which will equip them to live and work in a multicultural society?. In the past Religious Education meant the time of the day when “we pretended to read the bible and that Lebanese dude sat outside the classroom because he wasn’t Christian” said Jessica a 25 year old Uni student from Sydney. Has this narrow perspective on Religious Studies changed changed?

“not really, if you were out west you would have Muslim lessons but here in Cronulla  we just do scripture. They basically learn about their own religion” said Hayley McConnel a teacher from Cronulla High School.

Could better religious and Cultural education aid social cohesion?

“In the case of the Cronulla riots most people who were involved were past school age, so school based religious and cultural education would be limited in its effects on the current racial tensions in Australia” said Kevin Dunn, a Professor from the University of New South Wales.

This feature would look into current religious education in Sydney’s schools, and particular Cronulla High and Woolooware High schools. Interviews with students and teachers and a look at the state curriculum would provide an interesting insight into how much young people understand the multiple cultures in Australian society, and what opportunities they had to learn more.

A Door that Bangs

A dream in peeled paint, pink flowers flank the trestle door and sand gathers in the corners. This house encompasses the imaginings of anyone who has hoped to live where the ocean fills their hair and erodes the spokes of their children’s bikes.  The porch is guarded by a sleeping giant sprawled on a wicker chair, soft and floppy with tufts of white fur poking out from between the pads of its paws, which twitch in pursuit of an imagined rabbit.

 

This house, wears neglect well, like a kind of authenticity or a visual reminder that the owners are not weekenders from the city but people who would rather be at the beach than choosing curtains to match a bed spread from a warehouse of over priced domestic must-haves. Although the white washed walls are dirtied around the edges, they are set in foundations of solid gold. The land must be worth enough to make a real estate agent twitch at the sight of it and mentally plan the demise of the family home which occupies it in favor of a fright of glass and stone grey feature walls.

 

Never again will a young family afford to call this their own, watching their children grow to fill the wild back yard and feeling the sun work its way through the rooms warming every corner.  

Old John

He paces the meager space which surrounds the block of tired red brick units, where he has lived on the ground floor since his wife left him in 1976 due to a bad turn in the stock market and the subsequent loss of the family home. His back is so straight, proudly staving off the inevitable onset of an aged hunch. Each step is small and deliberate, but the creases on his face are surrendered to the painful pointlessness of his routine.

 

“I get so down in winter, I can’t walk when it is cold it hurts my knees” he says to a passer by who seems to be an involuntary participant in the conversation. A smile lifts the lose skin about his jowls, almost squeezing his eyes shut. Animated by the opportunity to talk to someone he continues, trapping his target who forces a smile and tries not to look at the food stains old eyes fail to notice. “Its getting warm now though, it will be summer soon, I do like it when it is hot” John says. I duck as he looks up at the window from which I watch this routine, ashamed.

 

Living in this apartment has become a tactical game of avoidance. All the residents learn fairly quickly that if you don’t want to be cornered by John for at least twenty minutes every morning before work, you have to plan your escape with the precision of a military operation. There is however a small part of me which aches every time I duck behind the hedge out of his limited vision and jump on my bike before he sees me and asks me if I believe in Global Warming. I tell myself he has family, its just they visit when I am not home. I convince myself there is some one who cares about him, children maybe who bring him gifts at Christmas, and drop in to check he has all he needs. But I have never seen this happen.

 

He once told me he used to be big in the television industry, he offered to have us round for chocolate royals, and said I could watch any musical I wanted as he had them all on tape. I meant to go, I really did, there just is never time.

Accenting the problem

Its hot, in a sweaty way. The queue of sour faced people overflows out on to the pavement. The take away bags bursting with goodies, are thrust out into the group of waiting people with a shout of a slightly mispronounced name. Kids run around the ankles of the busy staff screaming, and a red faced women restles her way to the front of the counter; “I didn’t order this, I asked for no – pe-per on mine and pe-per on the other one,I want my mon-ey back!”. She then turns to a friend; “I don’t think he understands me”. The shop owner’s brow furrows and a droplet of sweat trembles before embarking on the journey from his hairline to the end of his nose, he looks up; “Yes madam, I do understand you, I will be with you in a minute I am just serving some one” he says through a thick accent.”What!” she replies, redder than ever. ” I can’t understand you……why doesn’t anyone speak English in here!”.

The Vietnamese owner of the Cronulla cafe, Tom, watches the woman storm out, frustrated. “I have been here four years and when I arrived I had no English, originally I lived in Queensland and I learnt English there, but its like a different language down here in Sydney..maaate” he says through a playful smile.

“Sometimes it seems like people don’t want to try to understand you, I realise it must be really frustrating. Customers don’t want to have to strain to here you, that’s why I only hire staff who speak clear English” the owner said.

 ”Language is the biggest problem faced by immigrants, even those who have English skills when they get here struggle with the communication needed to find jobs, friends and services, it can increase isolation”said Rosemary; Humanitarian Case Worker from St George Immigrant Settlement Services.

 ”Recently arrived immigrants who have good English find the Australian accent particularly hard to get to grips with”Rosemary said.

Michaela Bobeck, a tall slender Swedish girl, who lived with her boyfriend in his home town of Bundaburg found people’s reaction to her accent exhausting.

“I was in this ice cream shop in Bundy….wasn’t I bud?” she refers back to her boyfriend in an awkward Swedish style Queensland slang. ” I asked for vanilla, three times and she still was like; ‘what Darle?, I cant get ya’. I was just so tired i asked a fourth time, and then I just started to cry. i have studied English for years ..it is so frustrating, and it makes me feel so home sick”.

It is widely agreed that communication is the key to a successful multicultural society, particularly in the case of recently arrived migrants. The services provided by the government for migrants from non English speaking backgrounds are however limited.

“They are sat in a class room with all different ages and once they have completed the five hundred hours that is it, whatever standard they have reached” said a case worker from Hurstville migrant services centre.

“it is not just language but cultural understanding that is needed and that comes from community projects, of which there are few” she said………..

This feature would aim to address the gap between learning to speak and understand English and having the communication skills and cultural know how to partake in society.

This feature would use the experiences of migrants, and employers to outline the difficulties migrants face on a daily basis. It would also address the existing community projects where newly arrived Australians can interact with those who have been here a long time.

Crime, Cricket and Prejudice

The SMH provided a well balanced article this week regarding the racial tensions which remain unresolved in NSW, and Sydney in particular. The Feature Crime and Prejudice, focussed on the areas of sydney which, rather like parts of the Middle East in international politics, have been labled by politicians; the failed suburbs of Sydney.

A refreshing break from the sensational racial profiling that fills the newspapers, this article was an indepth look at racial relations and crime. The wealth of information in the feature and the use of historical context, is arranged in neat clear paragraghs which are embroided with interesting language and metaphor;

“Equally remarkable is the chasm separating the reality in this generally peaceable, law-abiding melting pot and the “war zone” claims of Debnam and a noisy chorus of former police whistleblowers, politicians and media commentators who feel compelled to call the pot black. Crime and prejudice are like two hotted-up cars, racing along Canterbury Road towards next year’s state election. It wasn’t always so. Bankstown Sports Club, a suburban folly nestling amid an artificial rainforest and Corinthian columns in imitation stone, is the place where Paul Keating delivered his “sweetest victory of all” speech on the night of the 1993 federal election.” 

The article used positive descriptions of areas such as Bankstown, Lakemba and Punchbowl as well as indervidual and statistical evidence to contradict the portrayal of these suburbs as hot beds of so called ethnic gangs and extremism. The article, is not however onesided but seems to address the conflict between reality and perception in regard to middle eastern crime;

“Bureau of Crime Statistics figures show you are more likely to be murdered in western Sydney than in Canterbury-Bankstown; more likely to be burgled in the eastern suburbs; more likely to be assaulted in Gosford-Wyong. The figures for some offences, such as robbery with a firearm and motor vehicle theft, are above the state average, but the picture is mixed. The “war zone” hysteria has no basis in fact.”

“IN GREENACRE, the old fibro bungalows are making way for two-storey brick veneer palaces, often with three or four cars in the driveway. Early in the morning, veiled mothers drive their children to school in four-wheel-drives. But daylight reveals a burnt-out car near Gosling Park, the scene of an horrendous incident in August 2000 when up to 14 males led by Bilal Skaf raped a 16-year-old girl.”

The article is long, and utilizes many sources. The voices of police officers, politicians, community workers and residents are all heard. This gives the article a lively feel, and the reader almost feels part of a debate.

This description It is also a very timely analysis of racial steriotyping, as Channel Ten Commentator and Aussie Cricket legend Dean Jones, admits to calling South African Cricketor Hashim Amla a “terrorist” on air. The Cricket South Africa (CSA) are taking this very seriously. Jones now awaits his fate.