Asking his country to confront racism, Australia's former Defence Force chief has stated that the attacks against Indians was a major problem and its nature made it easy to conclude they were racially motivated.
Asking his country to confront racism, Australia's former Defence Force chief has stated that the attacks against Indians was a major problem and its nature made it easy to conclude they were racially motivated.
General Peter Cosgrove told The Age after his address on Australia Day that the number of incidents against Indians seemed "too many to be coincidences". "Attacks recently by groups of people on individuals looks like a profiling approach to people from the sub-continent." "Rather than say nothing to worry about, I'd rather look more closely. If you didn't suspect a racial strand you'd be mad," he said.
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He said there was ongoing estrangement between the broader society and elements of the Muslim community. His comments, in an Australia Day address titled Sunshine and Shade, deal more openly and directly with race issues than many political figures have been willing to do. The speech also highlighted Australia's history of tolerance and positive attitudes to immigrants.
General Cosgrove, a former Australian of the Year, said the issue of violence towards Indians had been brewing for sometime, but "has erupted over the last several weeks to become a major problem."
"I sense in relation to the spate of attacks on largely Indian people, in Melbourne and elsewhere, Australians are very concerned and disinclined to downplay, much less dismiss, the potential racist elements in what is becoming a litany of criminality," he said.
Dismayed that there might be some kind of warped campaign in progress, he said "the vast majority of Australians who totally rejected any such despicable behaviour would welcome the rigorous prosecution of those preying on these visitors."
"Only that outcome will satisfy our determination to be, and to be known as, a just and equitable society. "General Cosgrove said he had lived in India for a year in 1994 and I love the place. Cosgrove in his address said that Australia's history back to early colonial days showed that periodically there had been "episodes of bad blood between sections of the community based on ethnicity, or very occasionally on religion".
"Yet they have almost invariably been quite limited in scope and duration," he said. By the time of September 11, 2001, some of Australia's Islamic community already felt alienated and isolated from the mainstream. "It is a volatile mix when especially younger people are told that they are surrounded by corrupt and impious behaviour at every hand."
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