Neelima Kanwar* 70

47 Area Studies : A Journal of International Studies & Analyses Prejudice and Acceptance (?): Issues of Integration in Australia 69. The Deccan Chronicle, October 10, 2011. NEELIMA KANWAR* 70. The New Indian Express, July 13, 2011 71. Strategic Digest, May 2011, p. 399. Look here You have never seen this country, It's not the way you thought it was, Look again. (Al Purdy) Contemporary Australia is a land of varied cultures inhabited by the Aboriginals, the Whites and non-White immigrants. The Indigenous people of Australia have been dominated by the Whites since the very arrival of the Whites. They have not only been colonized but have been permanently rendered as a marginalized minority group. Even in the present times; their predicament has not changed much. They are still under the control of the Whites while limiting the Aboriginal people to the periphery of the continent have occupied the central position. Since the early 1970s, Australia has experienced multiple waves of immigration from Southeast Asia which have transformed the character of Australian society more radically than the earlier post-war immigration from Southern Europe. These non- white/coloured immigrants have remained sympathetic towards the original inhabitants in their new found home. However, the social positioning of these coloured people has somehow followed the same pattern as of the Aboriginals. They * Dr. Neelima Kanwar, Associate Professor, Department of English, International Centre for Distance Education and Open Learning (ICDEOL), Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla. 49 Area Studies : A Journal of International Studies & Analyses Prejudice and Acceptance (?): Issues of Integration in Australia 50 too have been pressurized to abandon and forget their own “ …this country shall remain forever the home of the native culture in an alien land which they have sought to make descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to their second home. Nevertheless, the coloured people have an establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race.” advantage over the Indigenous people because of their (John Curtin) education. When the Whites arrived in Australia the Aboriginal The words of Australian Prime Minister John Curtin after the people were illiterate and uneducated (in the formal sense of outbreak of war with Japan reflect the philosophy of 'White education). It were the Whites who taught them to read and Australia'- the name given to Australian immigration policy write whereas the coloured people were armed with education, from federation until the 1960s.The origins of the 'White could express themselves in writing and had greater awareness. Australia'ploicy can be traced to the 1850s. As a result of the Thus, they could not be reduced to the same status and plight as discovery of gold in Australia, Chinese came to the continent in the Indigenous inhabitants. Still, the White Australians large numbers. Chinese diggers were very industrious and hard dominated the non-whites and did not allow them to fetch a working. White miners, who had also arrived there in search of superior position and place in the Australian society. gold, were full of resentment towards the Chinese diggers. This Present day multicultural Australia, thus, incorporates the resentment culminated in the violence of the Buckland River in Aboriginals, Whites and non-whites. However, for these three Victoria and at Lambing Flat (now Young) in New South Wales. components of Australian society the notion of home and Therefore, the governments of these two colonies introduced integration remains distinct and different.The present paper restrictions on Chinese immigration. Later, it was the turn of focuses on three short stories from the collection Home and indentured labourers from the South Sea Island of the Pacific in Away: Australian Stories of Belonging and Alienation edited by Northern Queensland. These labourers were known as Bruce Bennett and Susan Hayes. All the stories written between 'Kanakas'. Factory workers in the South became vehemently 1920s and 1990s have the subject matter ranging from colonial to opposed to all forms of immigration. They thought that the huge post-colonial times and from notions of 'White' to 'Multicultural' influx of non-White immigrants into Australia might threaten Australia. These three stories Alexandra Hasluck's 'The Shade their jobs. The factory workers believed that the non-White of Difference', Robert Drew's 'The Needle Story' and Vasso immigrants would accept a lower standard of living and would Kalamara's 'The Fence' are unified in their reaction to racism and easily work for lower wages thereby, depriving them of their inhumanity practiced by the White Australians towards the jobs. non-whites. Also alienation from the culture and the White During the Second World War, many non-White refugees society form the focus of these narrations which makes it entered Australia. Most of them left voluntarily after the war, difficult for the coloured people to integrate with the but many had married Australians and wanted to stay. In the mainstream Australian society. words of 49 Area Studies : A Journal of International Studies & Analyses Prejudice and Acceptance (?): Issues of Integration in Australia 50 too have been pressurized to abandon and forget their own “ …this country shall remain forever the home of the native culture in an alien land which they have sought to make descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to their second home. Nevertheless, the coloured people have an establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race.” advantage over the Indigenous people because of their (John Curtin) education. When the Whites arrived in Australia the Aboriginal The words of Australian Prime Minister John Curtin after the people were illiterate and uneducated (in the formal sense of outbreak of war with Japan reflect the philosophy of 'White education). It were the Whites who taught them to read and Australia'- the name given to Australian immigration policy write whereas the coloured people were armed with education, from federation until the 1960s.The origins of the 'White could express themselves in writing and had greater awareness. Australia'ploicy can be traced to the 1850s. As a result of the Thus, they could not be reduced to the same status and plight as discovery of gold in Australia, Chinese came to the continent in the Indigenous inhabitants. Still, the White Australians large numbers. Chinese diggers were very industrious and hard dominated the non-whites and did not allow them to fetch a working. White miners, who had also arrived there in search of superior position and place in the Australian society. gold, were full of resentment towards the Chinese diggers. This Present day multicultural Australia, thus, incorporates the resentment culminated in the violence of the Buckland River in Aboriginals, Whites and non-whites. However, for these three Victoria and at Lambing Flat (now Young) in New South Wales. components of Australian society the notion of home and Therefore, the governments of these two colonies introduced integration remains distinct and different.The present paper restrictions on Chinese immigration. Later, it was the turn of focuses on three short stories from the collection Home and indentured labourers from the South Sea Island of the Pacific in Away: Australian Stories of Belonging and Alienation edited by Northern Queensland. These labourers were known as Bruce Bennett and Susan Hayes. All the stories written between 'Kanakas'. Factory workers in the South became vehemently 1920s and 1990s have the subject matter ranging from colonial to opposed to all forms of immigration. They thought that the huge post-colonial times and from notions of 'White' to 'Multicultural' influx of non-White immigrants into Australia might threaten Australia. These three stories Alexandra Hasluck's 'The Shade their jobs. The factory workers believed that the non-White of Difference', Robert Drew's 'The Needle Story' and Vasso immigrants would accept a lower standard of living and would Kalamara's 'The Fence' are unified in their reaction to racism and easily work for lower wages thereby, depriving them of their inhumanity practiced by the White Australians towards the jobs. non-whites. Also alienation from the culture and the White During the Second World War, many non-White refugees society form the focus of these narrations which makes it entered Australia. Most of them left voluntarily after the war, difficult for the coloured people to integrate with the but many had married Australians and wanted to stay. In the mainstream Australian society. words of 51 Area Studies : A Journal of International Studies & Analyses Prejudice and Acceptance (?): Issues of Integration in Australia 52 Louis Becke: large numbers crossed this estimate. Almost one in four of Return? Not they! they go back? Here they had all Australia's twenty million people was born overseas. Historian things which are wont to satisfy man here below. A Geoffrey Blainey expresses severe misgivings about trends in paradise of Eden- like beauty, amid which they Asian immigration to Australia when he says: wandered day by day unheeding of the morrow; Australia in the next decade will be under heavy food, houses, honours, wives, friends, kinsfolk ,all pressure to accept more and more immigrants from provided for them in unstinted abundance,and nearer Asia, and especially from Hong Kong. The certain continuity, by the guileless denizens of these possibility of uncontrolled immigration cannot be fairly isles amid this charmed main.(Bennett,56). dismissed.…Australia can gain much from However, Arthur Calwell, the first Immigration Minister, was sensible, selective migration from parts of Asia. But determined to deport them, arousing much protest. massive or inappropriate Asian Migration-in defiance of public opinion could prove a disaster The first step towards a non-discriminatory immigration policy (11-12). was taken by Minister Holt in 1949. He allowed about eight hundred non-European refugees to stay in Australia.

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