Guest speakers at the anti-racism conference Hurriyet Babacan and Richard Frankland.

Conference tackles underlying racism

By Kerri Carr

Racism is one of the foundation stones of Australian nationhood, the anti-racism Stand up! Speak out! EmbRACE Diversity conference heard on April 28.

Hurriyet Babacan said: "Racism is one of the foundation stones of Australian nationhood and still continues to be...The nation of Australia started with the dispossession of indigenous Australians and continues to this day in different ways."

Ms Babacan is Victoria University's Institute for Community Engagement and Policy Alternatives Social and Cultural Development Professor.

Indigenous film maker, artist and author Richard Frankland said: "What's carving a scar in the soul of this nation in the most horrific way [is] an indoctrinated attitude that's been cultivated for the last 200 years. It's a condition of thinking about the 'other'..."

More than 350 participants including teachers, students, representatives from parents and the community and officers of the Department and Federation attended the conference, which was jointly sponsored by Federation and the NSW Department of Education and Training.

The conference examined the changing face of racism and effective practice in anti-racism education.

Professor Babacan said politicians spoke around the issues of race, but never use the word.

She spoke of "dog whistle politics" where political debates about "the concerns of 'ordinary Australians': jobs, terrorism, security, safety and so forth" are "both a direct and indirect way of creating exclusion".

Professor Babacan said the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Middle Eastern sentiment was being led "at the highest levels" by politicians and the media.

She said there was no direct racism in what was said, but the message was 'they don't fit in'.

"Fear is central to new racisms -- an important element that is used to mobilise anxieties," Professor Babacan said.

"The strong anti-Muslim and anti-Arab overtones are no accident.

"There's a very deliberate effort to try and create an enemy," she also said.

"We always need [a good enemy] to unite the tribe, and uniting the tribe has electoral outcomes."

Professor Babacan pointed out the power of silence.

"Violent racists are always a tiny minority, however, their breathing space is determined by the degree of ordinary, non-violent racism a government or a culture allows to flourish within it."

Mr Frankland investigated Aboriginal deaths in custody for the Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

"I discovered what was killing my people in gaol...it's not diabetes, it's not hatred from one individual, it's not a heart attack, it's not beatings, it's an attitude...it's what I call the inherent national blindness," he said.

Mr Frankland hopes to one day "look around and see there are no children hungry for education, hungry for equity, no children dying of third world diseases or dying because they are in fear of the police".

"I just imagine a nation where one day I will walk down the street and I see signs in Aboriginal language and hear a non-Aboriginal person say to me...in my language, 'hello,' and it's not unique or quirky, it's an everyday thing.

"I image a day where my mum can walk on her land without feeling threatened, where my daughter can speak her language and practise her culture freely and without it being a unique event...

"A land where we all own it; we all own the soul of it; in such a way that we have no fear talking about differences and that we're not threatened by the differences and the differences aren't unique because they're really the same."

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