Kerryn Williams, Sydney
"Keep them out" declared the front-page headline of the July 6 Parramatta Sun. The article referred to a letter sent to the suburban newspaper by a university academic, warning that an increase in the settlement of Sudanese refugees in the Parramatta-Blacktown area would lead to a surge in crime and violence, and that it would amount to "national suicide".
"Experience practically everywhere in the world tells us that an expanding black population is a sure-fire recipe for increases in crime, violence and a wide range of other social problems", wrote Andrew Fraser, associate professor at Macquarie University's Department of Public Law.
Fraser's explicitly racist claims were in response to the Sun's June 29 cover story, which featured a young girl saying "Now mum and dad are Aussies just like me", after her Sudanese parents gained Australian citizenship.
In a comment piece in the same issue of the paper as the report on Fraser's letter, Sun journalist Charles Boag questioned his assertions: "Was the violence of America's deep south caused by black people? I always thought it was caused by whites. Was there murder and mayhem on a great scale in Australia, caused by indigenous blacks, before white people came? I always thought it was the white settlers who did that sort of thing."
Yet according to Fraser, "Anglo-Australians are once again expected to acquiesce in the steady erosion of their distinctive national identity". He laments that Australia "can no longer remain the homeland of a particular people", but must instead "become a colony of the Third World". He challenges the idea that "black Africans and Muslim Afghanis are Aussies just like the descendants of the Anglo-Celtic pioneers who settled and built this country".
When interviewed by the Sun, Fraser claimed that "it is clear that there are differences between racial groups" and that "these racial and ethnic conflicts are intractable". He claimed that, "By taking in people from Sudan we are potentially importing more ethnic conflict".
In his letter, Fraser wrote that it was "utopian fantasy" to believe that religious and ethnic conflicts wouldn't be transferred to Australia as "local African tribal groups grow in size and confidence".
Socialist Alliance national executive member Lisa Macdonald, who lives in Sydney and is involved in campaigns for refugee and migrant rights, told Green Left Weekly: "Anyone who has lived, worked or socialised with the Sudanese community in western Sydney knows that these claims are simply rubbish based on ignorance and racism."
Sudanese refugee Abohoraira Ali, who has lived in Sydney for 18 months, told GLW that Fraser should "learn about and understand what's really happening in Sudan" before he makes such "ignorant and unfounded" assertions.
Ali fled to Egypt in 2001, and in 2004 came to Australia after he was granted refugee status by the UN High Commission for Refugees in Cairo. He explained that the conflict in Sudan "is not between different tribes, it is between the Islamic fundamentalist regime and the people". He said that the "government makes the problem" for the majority of people, who "just want to live in a democratic Sudan".
"Here in Sydney, people from north Sudan, the west, the south, the east, Muslims and Christians, have all come because they have a problem with the government", Ali said. "They are here because the government killed someone in their family, or locked them up in detention."
In Sydney, "there is a Sudanese community, not separate communities of tribes", he explained, and "there is no fighting". People forced to leave Sudan have settled in Egypt, Kenya, Ethiopia, England and other countries during the past 10-15 years. In these countries, there "are no problems of fighting" within the community. "So why would it happen here?", asked Ali.
"Arabs and Africans from Darfur all work together here in Sydney in the one organisation, to try to help solve the problem" in western Sudan, Ali said. They share the same concerns, including that their families back in Sudan are "poor, and they need proper health and education".
"People who have to leave Sudan and come here look for a new life for their families, to support their kids, and to help their families survive in Sudan. They don't look to create problems here."
As a result of his concerns, Fraser also said that he "would like to see Australia withdraw from the [UN] refugee convention".
Stepan Kerkyasharian, the chairperson of the Community Relations Commission for Multicultural NSW, strongly disputed Fraser's claims, arguing that "at a very base level you should never condemn someone because of colour".
Kerkyasharian told the July 6 Parramatta Sun that Australia has an obligation to accept refugees and that they should not be selected on the basis of colour or religion.
Macdonald agreed. "Australia should be taking more, not fewer refugees", she told GLW. "The Sudanese who have migrated to Australia are fleeing starvation, war and brutal repression, circumstances that wealthy imperialist countries like Australia have helped to create — through transnational corporations' (including Australian companies) exraction of billions of dollars in natural resources from Africa, massive IMF loan repayments demanded of destitute African governments, and its government's pathetic aid contribution to the Third World in general, which is one of the lowest among First World countries."
Macdonald argued that "if Australia is indeed a nation that respects and upholds human rights, as its governments keep claiming, then we have a responsibility to provide a safe haven to any people who need it".
Macdonald also believes that if Sudanese migrants' "public discussion and concern about what is happening in Sudan opens up other Australians' eyes to world affairs and the lack of freedom and justice in so much of the Third World", then that "is a good thing for Australia".
From Green Left Weekly, July 13, 2005.
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