Earthquakes and Racism...not a fan

Woke up at 2.55 am to an Earthquake this morning. It was only 5 on the Richter scale but it still scared the shit out of me. No matter how many of these thing I go through, I don't think that I can get used to them. I really can't imagine being in somewhere like Pakistan or India where the houses aren't built for them.

The coverage over the riots in Sydney for the past few days and to be honest and it is quite crazy. The racially charged violence all started over a volunteer life guard being attacked by a few youths of mid eastern decent. Consequently, the right wing extremist youth groups have organized and rampaged through Cronulla, one of Sydney's southern beaches, hitting people who look middle eastern and destroying shops owned by immigrants. While I do think that these kids who attacked the volunteer life guard should be persecuted, the people who have organized this mayhem are beyond comprehension. What really disturbs me is that these actions don't surprise me at all.

Over the past few years I have seen some of the most pronounce (and subverted) racism in New Zealand and Australia. When I was traveling the amount of people refer in derogatory terms towards immigrants and aboriginals blew my mind. I really thought that in a country that idealized western values and put on a such a fun loving face, could have such an inherit racist attitude. For one thing, the government of Australia didn't even consider aboriginals as humans until the late 1960s. While being here I have heard of lots of actions like "Abo Bashing", where the police would drive around Adelaide and whack aborigine's with clubs.

New Zealand, while it prides itself as being the eco-friendly, fun loving, people of middle earth (or Narnia), is no different. The National party in the last election wanted to eliminate all Maori seats within parliament and the department of Maori affairs. Also, the current Labor government has given the most racist politician "Winston Peters", the position of Immigration minister in order to form a coalition majority government. He wants to change the structures of immigration policy to limit "Asians" from gaining access to New Zealand and keeping "New Zealand for New Zealanders. What the F&CK! Apparently that means for white New Zealanders of European decent....

Also, I have seriously been numbed by the number of times I have been offended at work by a racist comment WARNING: The amount of times I have heard, "Fucking Asian" or "Fucking Maori" has numbed me. Within the university as well, the students seem to segregate the international students (Being a white Canadian I don't see it as much but I do get the odd Yankee comment). The business faculty has large problems because of the large number of Asian international students. When I supervise exams I was told to watch out for the Asians and cheating and to count the number of Asian students compared to Kiwi's. This has shocked me and saddened me because I know that if I had been born with a different color skin I would be lumped into this boat (no pun intended). I really thought that, while things aren't perfect in Canada, we are raised as a more accepting people and a real cultural melting pot. I know that when I was at UBC we always tried to meet some of the international/exchange students, while here it really doesn't seem to be the case. Things like this really can't wait to get home...

Anyways I just really had to get these things off my chest. Hopefully I will have something a little more happy next time.