Group removed from hostel for being Aboriginal

A day after posting about ‘white flight’ in Australian schools, I read that a group of Aborigines from Yuendumu were asked to leave an Alice Springs hostel because they were “scaring” the other guests, most of whom appear to be foreign backpackers. Most of the criticism has been directed at the hostel management for asking the group to leave, and rightly so. However, if it is indeed true that this group of people was removed after complaints from other guests, it says something about the hypocrisy of international tourism. Most of the backpacker staying a the hostel would almost certainly have come to Alice Springs in order to, at least in part, have some sort of experience of ‘traditional Aboriginal culture’. A group of actual Aboriginal people staying at the same hostel, though, is enough to send people running to the reception to make a complaint.

‘Pure racism’: Aborigines chucked out

March 11, 2008 - 8:22AM

I felt like I wanted to cry because it made me feel like I wasn’t an Australian, like I wasn’t wanted there.

The Royal Life Saving Society Australia has accused an Alice Springs backpackers’ hostel of racism after it kicked out a group of indigenous guests.

The Aborigines from a remote community taking lifesaving classes in the central Australian town were allegedly asked to leave the Haven Hostel after checking in because of complaints by other guests, ABC Television reported last night.

The hostel’s management later said the mostly young leaders’ program members from Yuendumu were not allowed to stay because the hostel catered specifically for international backpacking tourists.

But society chief executive Rob Bradley said the hostel was guilty of “pure racism”.

“It was a very feeble excuse about a complaint having been made but looking into that, there was no compliant, there was no reason, it was just pure racism,” Mr Bradley told ABC Television.

“(There’s) total shock and dismay that something like this can happen in Australia today.

“It was just an absolute disgrace.”

The group of mostly women were taking the classes in preparation for the opening of a swimming pool in Yuendumu, located about 300km north-west of Alice Springs.

“They said that it was because of the colour of our skin and they didn’t like us,” group member Bethany Langdon said of the hostel management.

Fellow member Sharelle Young said: “They should apologise to us face-to-face and just say sorry.”

Ms Langdon and other members of her remote community are reportedly considering legal action against the Alice Springs hostel’s management following their weekend ejection.

“When we booked in, the manager, she gave us the keys to the rooms and we went and put our stuff in the rooms.

“We all went outside and the manager came out and told me that we weren’t suitable to stay there,” Ms Langdon told ABC Radio today.

“They said (it was) because we were Aboriginal. Other customers were making complaints that they were scared of us.

“I felt like I wanted to cry because it made me feel like I wasn’t an Australian, like I wasn’t wanted there.”

Mr Bradley said the incident soured the occasion for the Yuendumu community.

“We have worked over a long period of time to build the partnerships, to build the trust with 11 indigenous communities around the NT,” he told ABC Radio.

“This is a big stumbling block. I hope it doesn’t put people off.”

The territory’s anti-discrimination commissioner, Tony Fitzgerald, said the women could have a strong case.

“If the story is true, it’s disgraceful but it is not the only story exactly like this that we have heard anecdotally at the commission,” he said.

“The challenge for us is to convince people who do suffer this sort of unfair treatment to make a complaint so that we can investigate it and follow it through.”

The Haven Hostel released a statement saying: “Haven Hostel is a backpackers’ hostel catering for international backpacking tourists, which the group was not.

“So (alternative) accommodation was sought and arranged with their consultation, on their behalf. We also offered to pay for that night’s accommodation.”

The group found another place to stay in Alice Springs to complete the training, the report said.

AAP

‘White flight’ in Australian schools

The term ‘white flight’ is one I associate with the USA. I have never heard it used in an Australian context before. However, the Herald has just published a report about this phenomenon, which it says is producing an ever more ‘racially’ and religiously segregated education system. In both city and country contexts, they report, white students are increasingly moving into Catholic and independent schools and away from public schools with large populations of Aborigines, Muslims or Asians. An excerpt:

The NSW Secondary Principals Council conducted a confidential survey which raises serious concerns about “white flight” undermining the public education system and threatening social cohesion. Some teachers and principals have described it as “de facto apartheid”.

The findings are backed by research from the University of Western Sydney, which has identified evidence of racial conflict in schools in the wake of the Cronulla riots. It also suggests students of Anglo-European descent are avoiding some schools with students of mainly Asian background.

Not only have some public schools lost enrolments; they have become racially segregated. In pockets of rural and remote NSW, Aboriginal students fill public schools and white students attend Catholic and other private schools in the same town.

Around Sydney, the parents of some Anglo-European students are avoiding what they perceive as predominantly Lebanese, Muslim and Asian schools.

In New England, in towns such as Armidale, white middle-class students are flocking to Catholic and independent schools.

In their report, principals say this is so the students can “get away from their local school”.

“This is almost certainly white flight from towns in which the public school’s enrolment consists increasingly of indigenous students,” the report says. “The pattern is repeated in the Sydney region. Based on comments from principals, this most likely consists of flight to avoid Islamic students and communities.”

The term ‘white flight’ is not completely appropriate here because it’s not just whites who are making choices that leader to greater levels of segregation. On section of the article suggests, for example, that Asian families may be avoiding schools perceived to be ‘Muslim’. There is also the suggestion that in Southwestern Sydney, Aboriginal and white kids are ‘lining up against’ kids of Lebanese background rather than against each other, as was previously the case.

See also this article on the same theme, which includes details of students crossing from NSW to Queensland to avoid the local public school, perceived as ‘indigenous’ and (therefore) ’scary’ by students.

It would seem that there are several things going on here.  First, there has been a general move to private education among middle class families, which was exacerbated during the Howard years as more public funds were directed to private schools and policies encouraged school choice and student mobility.  Second, ‘racial tensions’ in schools seem to be on the rise — with the Cronulla Riots featuring, as a cause or result?  Again, one could argue that Howard government policies and rhetoric, which promoted a normative white model of Australian identity and encouraged xenophobic nationalism, have exacerbated this trend.  Third,  class is a factor, and much of this segregation could be understood as a product of increasing class segregation in Australian society.

I suppose another point to be taken from this is that this ‘white flight’ phenomenon, according to the reports, differs from the US in that families are not relocating away from neighbourhoods perceived to be undesirable and therefore creating monocultural ghettos.  Children are increasingly travelling long distances to schools, or boarding, but families are staying put.  It therefore doesn’t seem to be the case that ethnically homogeneous neighbourhoods are necessarily being produced.

Generally speaking, I see this kind of development as an example of the sort of thing that happens when governments move away from being producers and guardians of public institutions and collective ‘goods’, to becoming the facilitators of privatised choice.  Faith in public institutions, in this case schools, diminishes at the same time as people are encouraged to be more entrepreneurial in their choices.  In short, a sort of market force is at work, and what might appear to be good at the level of the individual — more choice — can produce a systemic racism.

Gerard Noonan, The Herald’s Social Issues Editor, makes similar points when he argues that there are two main factors underpinning the trend towards de-facto segregation:

The first is the ideological obsession with “choice”, which a decade ago in NSW changed the way students in NSW were able to enrol in schools.

Previously students attended their “local” school, based on where they lived. With few exceptions, it was a century-old tradition which ensured a genuine mix in schools - the smart, the scholastic pedestrians, the talented musicians and the sports-obsessed, the immigrants, the local Aboriginal kids, the funny, the socially inept, the goofy - all mixed together.

This widespread and predominantly secular approach allowed Australia to claim, with some justification, that its supposed egalitarianism and lack of class pretension was nurtured and cemented in the nation’s schools.

Now students can effectively enrol anywhere. They do, and one of the results is the abandonment of schools such as the ones identified in the principals’ survey, often for no other reason than distaste by parents in their thousands at having their kids rubbing shoulders with others from a different ethnic, class or religious background.

The second institutional factor is the deliberate effort by federal and state governments to pour billions and billions of dollars into supporting private schools and making them more and more attractive options for the well-off.

These schools, with a few exceptions, generally enjoy far better facilities, lower student-teacher ratios and more “choice” and they make their pitch for a “specialness”: the antithesis of the secular equality of opportunity which underpins Australia’s boastful egalitarianism.

It’s difficult not to see this officially sanctioned abandonment - so starkly revealed by school principals in a report that was kept under wraps for two years - as evidence of plain, old-fashioned racism at work. (See his full article here).

I think the claim of “plain, old-fashioned racism” is a little simplistic.  What this case shows is that a lot of individual choices which are not necessarily racist per se — just wanting the ‘best’ education for one’s kids — can add up to a sort of racism at a much broader level.  This is not to say that racism is not an issue, but just addressing individual attitudes to race will not fully ‘explain’ the situation.

Applying Anthropology in the Future: the future is now

I’m sure many of you have heard about Masdar, the ‘green city’ being built in Abu Dhabi.  For those of you that haven’t the city is touted as:

a world model of energy conservation with zero carbon emissions and zero waste. Compared to average urban levels, fossil fuel consumption will be reduced by 75%, water demand by 300% and waste production by 400%. Cycling and walking will be the most common means of travel.

Accoring to the city’s master plan, no one will be more than 200 meters from essential facilities, including shops selling locally grown produce. A fully automated, electric Personal Rapid Transit System will provide a flexible and comfortable alternative to private cars. A Light Railway Transport system will link the Masdar development to adjacent developments, the airport and in the future with the center of Abu Dhabi.

Through a micro-chip-like network of connections, developers plan to coalesce the expertise and resources to enable global technological breakthroughs in advanced energy technologies. There will be a university education and research center - the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (in partnership with MIT) - which will offer Masters and PhD programs in science and engineering disciplines focused on advanced energy and sustainability. Its research and educational institutions and partnerships will search for solutions to mankind’s most pressing problems: energy security, climate change and truly sustainable human development.

For the full story see –

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.feature/id/1497

While I applaud the effort to build more sustainable cities I recently came across an article which asks a provocative question; what impact will cities like Masdar have on cultural diversity?

If successful, Masdar City could act as a model for environmentally friendly urban planning and sustainable development. “Green cities,” such as Masdar, could become a future trend around the world. But are there unforeseen consequences for such initiatives? While the environmental advantages of promoting and constructing green cities are clear, such planning may also accelerate the homogenization of, and even destruction of, cultures around the world. Cultural diversity is currently in decline. Globalization and the dominance of Western (especially U.S.) economic and cultural practices have influenced and altered almost all regions of the world. Languages and cultural traditions are becoming extinct at greater rates than ever before.

For the full story see - http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/5989

 

While there is arguably potential in the development of ‘green cities’ to accelerate cultural homogenization historically people have found an almost infinite number of ways to diversify and differentiate and I’m relatively confident this will  continue to be the case.  However, as planed cities ‘green cities’ offer anthropologists a unique opportunity/burden in influencing the future of culture and cultural diversity. 

It seems probable that governments and city planners will hire anthropological consultants to advise them on the design an implementation of ‘cultural spaces’ (for example) within ‘green cities’. So while anthropology has typically been directed at documenting, analysing and comparing culture, if we take on a role in helping to plan the cities of the future will we become instead the creators of culture? If so on model will we rely?  Will the ‘cultures’ anthropologists instil in these ‘green cities’ be based on notions of tradition, authenticity and existing diversity or on notions of progress and sustainability?  Ultimately will anthropologists ask what kind of cultures have there been or what kinds of cultures should/could there be?  And what are the potential benefits and risks associated with our choices now?

‘Exploitation’ of foreign students

In a recent post I mentioned an article by a psychiatrist about the often poor levels of mental health found among international students in Australia.  Now The Australian has just published a piece in which it is claimed that many foreign students in Australia are being exploited.  A study done by researchers at Monash and Melbourne Universities is highly critical of an ‘industry’ that treats foreign students as ‘cash cows’.

Particularly striking for me was the revelation that a recent study by the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee on student welfare did not include overseas students in its scope.  This kind of exclusion accords with other structural impediments for overseas students, for example the fact that they do not qualify for student concessions.  In essence, international students are on their own — expected to be self-sufficient and not needing to avail themselves to the support of the state.  Dare I say that they are highly ‘neoliberalised’ subjects, existing in a much purer version of the ‘free market’ than domestic students would be expected to endure.

The full text of the article follows:

CONTRARY to their image as cashed-up BMW drivers, many overseas students cannot afford to eat, are paid well below the minimum wage and are among those most vulnerable to exploitation in this country, new research says.

More than one-third of overseas students struggle financially and about 60 per cent are paid less than the legal minimum wage, according to the research.

The alarming findings come as education overtakes tourism as the nation’s biggest services export, increasing by a huge 21 per cent in 2007 to $12.5 billion. The number of international student enrolments rose 18 per cent on the previous year to more than 450,000, the latest figures show.

The authors of the joint Monash University and University of Melbourne studies slammed universities for treating foreign students like “cash cows”, and criticised the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (now known as Universities Australia) for failing to include overseas students in a recent student welfare study.

They wrote that “many internationals are disadvantaged by their relative deficit of language and cultural skills, they are crowded into a narrower range of jobs than is available to their domestic peers, and they commonly offset these disadvantages by working for less than the legal (minimum)”.

The two papers, one on international students in the workforce and the other on the financial difficulties faced by overseas students, were based on interviews with 200 students at nine universities across Australia.

The researchers found that almost 60 per cent of students earned below the minimum wage and 37per cent had experienced financial hardship, including not having enough money to travel to university or even eat.

“I had a very hard time finding a job. (For the) first two months I was unemployed,” one 36-year-old Indian student told researchers. “My rent is very high - it’s $120 a week - and other than that you have travelling, eating, everything.

“So I starved.”

The researchers discovered 70 per cent of international students worked at some stage during their studies in Australia and a number admitted to working more than the maximum 20 hours allowed by their study visas.

“Of the students who reported their hourly rate, 58 per cent earned between $7 and $15 per hour at a time when the legal minimum for a casual waiter was $16.08 an hour and the rate for a casual shop assistant was $17.97 per hour,” the study states.

Conducted by Simon Marginson, Chris Nyland, Erlenawati Sawir, Gaby Ramia and Helen Forbes-Mewett, the research also found foreign students were more likely to be exploited because of their lack of English skills and ignorance of workplace rights. The researchers called for urgent action by governments and universities.

They urged better education for international students about their workplace rights and better investigations by workplace authorities to expose the injustices experienced by working overseas students.

Professor Nyland and his colleagues wrote that the decision by UA not to include overseas students in its finances study “sadly lends credence to the much repeated claim that Australian university managers view international students primarily as customers who exist to be milked”.

But UA chief executive Glenn Withers rejected the claim that tertiary institutions treated international students like cash cows and don’t care about their welfare.

He defended the decision not to include international students in their student finances survey, saying that that survey was targeted at the federal government to try to improve income support for domestic students.

Dr Withers said universities were helping overseas students where they could by providing support services and going into public-private partnerships to construct accommodation for students close to campuses.

“The biggest problems are the exchange rate - and universities cannot control that - and expensive housing, and universities cannot control that either,” he said.

See also: International study, mental health, and migration in Australia

UnAustralian Vegetarian?

I have started going to Yoga classes at my local Yoga center. In a recent class I was standing in the tree pose and staring fixedly ahead for balance. It so happened that the object of my gaze was one word on a nutrition chart; “MEAT”. The word stood out because it had been written above (and almost on top) of the word “TOFU” in black permanent marker. The nutrition chart was entirely vegetarian but for the minor addition.

The nutrition chart was not large enough for anybody but the person standing in front of it to see, so people would have to actually walk up and read the chart with some purpose if they did not happen to be standing in front of it during the class due to the room being slightly over crowded.

Somebody clearly felt that this piece of information should be communicated, “MEAT” was needed. Was this person concerned that people attending this yoga center might be confused with a nutrition chart that did not position “MEAT” under the protein section? Or perhaps that the chart was UnAustralian? The Australia day advertisements tell us that if we don’t BBQ lamb chops on Australia day we are UnAustralian… maybe this is something that should be added to the citizenship test? Who was Don Bradman? Which country “discovered” Australia? Do you eat lamb chops on Australia day?

I have signed up to Australian values!

I have been following with interest the “integrationist” turn in global immigration politics: it is remarkable that a self-described immigrant society like Australia is explicitly following, among others, the example of such a self-described non-immigrant society as Holland in introducing citizenship testing and value statements. It is no less fascinating that when European governments, and now Australia, have felt that they needed to come up with a set of values for the purposes of (symbolic) immigration controls, they have invariably emerged with tolerance, equality (specifically of women and sexual minorities), and freedom of religion — rather than the alternative set of Christian values. This was so even though in many places the tests were spearheaded by conservative parties such as the Christian Democrats in the Netherlands and the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, whose constituencies probably include significant numbers of people who would not pass the test. (E.g. the Baden test, later scrapped, included questions like “Your adult son declares that he is homosexual and would like to live with another man. What do you do?”)

Well, now I am applying for permanent residence in Australia, and to do so, I need to sign an “Australian values declaration.” (If I don’t, I can’t keep my job after my business visa expires.) I am able to do so in quite good faith, as I indeed value individual freedoms, equality of opportunity and “fair play” as well as acknowledge the English language as a “unifying element of Australian society.” (”Multiculturalism” or “diversity” is not mentioned as a value, but non-discrimination is.) Despite having mixed feelings about the introduction of such tests and pledges, I think this is quite a good statement, because it doesn’t place limits on individuals but rather seems to focus on expanding everyone’s freedoms.

Temple of Dreams screening at Macquarie

With a proposed new Islamic school facing strong community opposition in the Sydney suburb of Camden, it is timely that the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie is screening a new documentary called Temple of dreams. The film portrays similar challenges faced by a group of young Australian Muslims attempting to set up a youth centre in Sydney. Details about the film and the screening are below:

*Free screening*

Introduced by the director, Tom Zubrycki

(Molly and Mobarak, The Diplomat, Billal),

and followed by a post-screening Q&A discussion.

Temple of Dreams follows a group of Lebanese Australians who set up an Islamic youth centre in Western Sydney. The documentary - by one of Australia’s leading documentary film makers - follows the group’s battle against the local council to keep the centre open, and their struggle to fit into the wider community.

When: Wednesday 14 November

Time: 4-6pm

Place: Building C5C Room 498 (Enter via Research Hub EAST), Macquarie University

RSVP: By 12 November 2007 to crsi@scmp.mq.edu.au or on 02 9850 9171

**FREE**

Please spread the word to your colleagues and friends - download event flyer here.

For more information about the film, click here, or visit

http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/temple-dreams

Social cohesion symposium at Macquarie

Here are the details of an upcoming symposium to be held at Macquarie.

National Social Cohesion Symposium:
Australian Muslims - Growing Together or Apart

29 June 7pm Macquarie University

As a framework for living with cultural diversity the ideal of
multiculturalism has come under increasing attack in recent years both
in Australia and overseas. In the last two years a subtle shift in
policy and discourse has begun to take place involving a greater
emphasis on notions such as ‘integration’ and ’social cohesion’. This
shift in debate comes at a time of increased concern in some circles
over the ability of certain ethnic communities, especially Muslims, to
integrate into Australian society, despite Australia’s reputation as a
nation committed to the notion of a ‘fair go’. This symposium will
provide a platform for informed debate on these current trends in
Australian multiculturalism.

New film on young Australian Muslims

I just receive an announcment about a new film called Temple of Dreams, about young Australian Muslims in Sydney’s west. Directed by Tom Zubrycki, it will be premiering in the Sydney Film Festival on Saturday 16 June at the State Theatre. Here is the description of the film from the brochure:

Fadi Rahman is one of a new breed of Australian Muslim leaders. Young, charismatic and politically ambitious, he runs a youth centre/gymnasium in Sydney’s west in what was once a Masonic Temple. The Centre struggles in the face of council planning regulations and funding shortfalls. Fadi sets out to solve all their problems with the help of three determined but often argumentative young women – Alyah, Amna and Zouhour. First up to raise funds he flies out former rap star, turned born-again Muslim, Napoleon. Next, he and his trusty team organise a youth conference to discuss the problems young Muslims face in Australia. This event is much bigger than anything they’ve attempted before, and the stress is taking it’s toll. Meanwhile the Council deadline is looming, with the threat of closure imminent. Will the Conference succeed? Will the Centre survive? This is a story told from the inside revealing Muslim Australians in a way that dispels stereotypes of a vilified and victimised minority.

Click here more info on the film and the Sydney Film Festival.

Kentucky’s new Creation Museum (Adam and Eve were really hot!)

Hallelujah! The Creation Museum has just opened its doors this week in Kentucky, U.S.A, with 4,000 visitors the first day. Armed guards dressed in black with attack dogs patrolled the grounds, presumably to deter the handful of atheist protestors who showed up from thinking they could get away with sabotage. Inside, animatronic, vegetarian T. rexes graze in the same fields where children play. In the picture published on salon.com, a very tanned and sexy Adam and Eve look at each other longingly, and I’m not sure because they’re mostly covered up with her hair, but it looks like Eve may have had breast implants (thanks, God!). No, wait: maybe that’s just her breasts before the fall.

The new museum puts me in mind of some of the anthropology publications that I subscribe to which have recently been serving up homilies about how anthropologists should rally round to oppose the teaching of creationism and intelligent design (ID) in American schools. As Chris Toumey puts it,

“Our discipline of anthropology ought to take the intelligent design agenda seriously, and should actively oppose it, for two reasons: First, it is wrong for our public schools to mislead students. Secondly, intelligent design is a prominent feature of the so-called culture wars. Each victory for intelligent design in the classroom or the courtroom makes it easier to discredit the accounts of human origins that we generate in anthropology, along with the methods and concepts that guide our work.”

Edwin Segal, meanwhile, complains that ID “shows no understanding of science, scientific thought, or scientific progress.”

I’d like to see Anthropology News and its ilk publish careful ethnographic analysis of the debates over intelligent design and the teaching of evolution in the United States. For example, in the set-up of Us vs. Them, with Them attempting to overthrow logic, science, and “progress,” we might see the glimmerings of an intellectual line of descent between contemporary anthro attacks on ID and the notion of “progress” that characterized early anthropology’s attempts to give an evolutionary framework to culture. And I for one would love to know more about what broad visions of time and human history are imagined by proponents of ID. Is it still fundamentally a story of progress? Is it eschatological? Is it a cyclical process of cultural decay and divine renewal (as the Mormon account of ancient American history is)? In the Creation Museum, for example, visitors are taught about the “‘Six C’s of History’: creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion, Christ, and consummation.” Some of the interesting things that could be revealed about one nation’s multiple visions of human history get trampled down by the “down with ID!” line of attack.

For choir members who have heard enough serious talk about how Bad creationism and ID are, Colin Purrington has attempted to lighten things up a bit by proposing a hilarious set of science textbook stickers on evolution and intelligent design. The background: a school district in Georgia (southern U.S., not the former Soviet Union) mandated that the science textbooks that were being taught in the schools have a sticker attached to the outside of the books reading,

“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”

Purrington proposes that opponents print up competing stickers, to be affixed over the school board’s stickers. A sampling:

“This book discusses evolution. President George W. Bush said, ‘On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth.’ Therefore, until 2009 this material shood be aproched with an open mind, studeed carefuly, and critcly consid’rd.”

He also has a set of stickers that can be stuck to other texts that promote ID. A sampling:

“This book was anonymously donated to your school library to discreetly promote religious alternatives to the theory of evolution. When you are finished with it, please refile the book in the fiction section.”

There are more on Purrington’s Flickr website.

Back to the Creation Museum: how could anyone possibly poke more fun at it? This unbeliever is hard pressed to imagine anything that could be funnier than the museum itself, with its depictions of humans and dinosaurs peaceably living together and a Grand Canyon carved out instantaneously (geologically speaking) in the wake of Noah’s Flood. If Baudrillard could coin the term simulacra to describe a copy that has no original, what term might we coin to describe an object that is its own parody? I’m not an etymologist, so someone who knows Greek, please help me out here.

L.L. Wynn