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Where Gillian Rants....
Oct. 13th, 2005 07:02 pmIn the final moments of Yom Kippur, I was engaged in a very difficult conversation with an old friend.
She believes that 'racial purity' (her words) is the path Australians should be taking now; that there is such a thing as 'mainstream Australia' and that migrants dilute it; and that Jews are not Australian. She migrated to Australia as an adult while my family has been here a deal longer, but I am not Australian and she is - this was very clear - even First Fleeter Jewish families are not Australian. My ethnic group in her racial purity terms is Palestinian, which has nothing to do with my English/German/Polish/Bielarus and Moldavian ancestry, and an awful lot to do with her religious beliefs.
All I could do against the vast weight of error was remind her of the intermingling of people in the reality of complex historical events and land grabs and exile and, well, complex historical events. I also pointed out that she had strong precedent in the racial purity idea and invoke the dreaded H word. And that her good intentions and kind heart didn't prevent the link being made by other parties between the words 'racial purity' and the mass murders done in the Third Reich.
I understand where her views come from, but I hate them. If an individual mistrusts anyone who he or she feels is different to themselves they can avoid those people. As long as she withdraws herself from the situations she can't stomach, rather than telling other people they are wrong in their major life choices, it is her legitimate personal choice (which reminds me, I am going to go to the ABC website and nominate Gentleman's Agreement as my favourite film - it is very close to current Australia in some ways, where bigotry against all sorts of people is expressed gently and privately and irrefutably).
To argue that people she doesn't know shouldn't marry because they don't fit her view of ethnic divide and to simplify history to re-introduce really, really outdated notions of pure ethnicity - especially in a country like Australia - is to impose personal views on other people, and I hate it. I hate its consequences.
At one point she differentiated between Australians and migrants, this is when I discovered I was a migrant and therefore, by implication, should not marry an Australian. When I pointed out that all but indigenous Australians were recent migrants, she didn't answer. (When I say that Australia is failing as a multicultural society it is because of wall-building like this, not because of numbers of new migrants - just in case you were wondering.)
She is still a friend. I don't have to agree with people for them to be friends. She has one of the kindest hearts you will ever meet and is very courageous. But boy, *do* I disagree with her views. And I reserve the right to argue with them at every opportunity.
The timing of this particular discussion was very odd, though. It focussed me on one of the things I need to be addressing again this next year. There are some issues you can't turn a blind eye to, because turning a blind eye means 'racial purity' becomes a normative notion. And we all know where that leads.
PS Hating the messenger is a lousy answer to hating the message. All you get is lots of us vs them and a dysfunctional society. I hate the environment that made the message possible, because that sort of distrust arises from fear and hardship, all too often. Howard's Australia becomes more uncomfortable by the day.
She believes that 'racial purity' (her words) is the path Australians should be taking now; that there is such a thing as 'mainstream Australia' and that migrants dilute it; and that Jews are not Australian. She migrated to Australia as an adult while my family has been here a deal longer, but I am not Australian and she is - this was very clear - even First Fleeter Jewish families are not Australian. My ethnic group in her racial purity terms is Palestinian, which has nothing to do with my English/German/Polish/Bielarus and Moldavian ancestry, and an awful lot to do with her religious beliefs.
All I could do against the vast weight of error was remind her of the intermingling of people in the reality of complex historical events and land grabs and exile and, well, complex historical events. I also pointed out that she had strong precedent in the racial purity idea and invoke the dreaded H word. And that her good intentions and kind heart didn't prevent the link being made by other parties between the words 'racial purity' and the mass murders done in the Third Reich.
I understand where her views come from, but I hate them. If an individual mistrusts anyone who he or she feels is different to themselves they can avoid those people. As long as she withdraws herself from the situations she can't stomach, rather than telling other people they are wrong in their major life choices, it is her legitimate personal choice (which reminds me, I am going to go to the ABC website and nominate Gentleman's Agreement as my favourite film - it is very close to current Australia in some ways, where bigotry against all sorts of people is expressed gently and privately and irrefutably).
To argue that people she doesn't know shouldn't marry because they don't fit her view of ethnic divide and to simplify history to re-introduce really, really outdated notions of pure ethnicity - especially in a country like Australia - is to impose personal views on other people, and I hate it. I hate its consequences.
At one point she differentiated between Australians and migrants, this is when I discovered I was a migrant and therefore, by implication, should not marry an Australian. When I pointed out that all but indigenous Australians were recent migrants, she didn't answer. (When I say that Australia is failing as a multicultural society it is because of wall-building like this, not because of numbers of new migrants - just in case you were wondering.)
She is still a friend. I don't have to agree with people for them to be friends. She has one of the kindest hearts you will ever meet and is very courageous. But boy, *do* I disagree with her views. And I reserve the right to argue with them at every opportunity.
The timing of this particular discussion was very odd, though. It focussed me on one of the things I need to be addressing again this next year. There are some issues you can't turn a blind eye to, because turning a blind eye means 'racial purity' becomes a normative notion. And we all know where that leads.
PS Hating the messenger is a lousy answer to hating the message. All you get is lots of us vs them and a dysfunctional society. I hate the environment that made the message possible, because that sort of distrust arises from fear and hardship, all too often. Howard's Australia becomes more uncomfortable by the day.