(I don’t want much, do I?!)
I’ve already mentioned the speech I have to do in october. The topic translates roughly as “Australian human rights and an Australian’s impression of Japanese human rights since coming to Japan”
This is just a guideline within which I can speak. I’m choosing to focus mostly on racial discrimination and prejudice as these are areas I have personel experience with here. I want to discuss issues both in Australia and Japan regarding treatment and attitudes towards foreigners, immigrants and indigenous people, areas which are good in each country and areas which need to be improved. Depending on how much info I can get and how much time I need to fill, would be interested in looking at refugee policies in both countries as well.
If anyone out there has any experiences of prejudice/discrimination, either in Australia or elsewhere, or friends who have experiences I would love to hear about them. Also, if there are areas in Australia which have impressed/appalled you with their acceptance or lack of. Any theories on how it could be minimised, how societies could be educated properly – Just saying it’s not acceptable is not enough of an education.
And basically any other thoughts or ideas you think might be helpful or you just want to put forth…anyone with experience in japan as well would be a bonus.
I’m trawling the net, but would really appreciate thoughts and theories from people I know, not just speeches and essays written who knows when. And any pointers – than you Nat and Ruth for the website suggestions – very helpful! (by the way, how _do_ I find out when soemthing on the web was written – I found an interesting article on discrimination in japan but it must be at least 4 years old because it mentions the mandatory fingerprinting of foreigners which no longer exists)
Thank-you 🙂
Well, my experience of this stuff is emigrating to Australia at the age of 7 or so, right in the middle of the fairly large wave of Asian immigration into Australia generally. I do remember copping plenty of “chink/gook go home”, but I also remember a larger chunk of the populace shrugging their shoulders and just treating me like any other kid. Sure, I may have confused them by not having any idea what football teams did, and which one I supported, but that didn’t really seem to matter.
I think the main issue with discrimination is actually lack of cross-cultural understanding. Things have slowly got better over the 20 years I’ve lived in Australia… I’d never get a “go home chink/gook” these days, not even from across the street. I get the occasional shouted comment from a moving car across the road, but probably the occupants shout at everyone…
The difference is that nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find an Australian family that hasn’t heard of buk-choy, where 20 years ago, nobody except the Chinese had. Familiarity breeds acceptance. It’s pretty clear that these patterns of “wave of immigrants, anti-immigrant fervour, cultural transfer, acceptance” take around 20 years, at least in Australia. The same cycle occurred with the “Wog” immigration wave starting in the 1950s.
I guess that’s my point – racial discrimination (all discrimination, really), is generally based around stereotyped fear and misunderstanding. All human races have far more in common than they do have different. Sure, there are differences, but they’re often differences in trappings, rather than in fundamentals.