Gideon Polya, “Sins Of Their Fathers. Deportation of African students”, MWC News, 19 August 2007.
Sins Of Their Fathers. Deportation of African students
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY, Bundoora, Melbourne, ranks about #10 out of Australia's 40 odd universities. La Trobe University (main campus Bundoora, Melbourne) has approximately 26,500 students, including 3,000 international students (see CIS).
It is a major destination for overseas university students who constitute over 10% of the student body. For some background to the excellent La Trobe University and the continuing Aboriginal Genocide and Aboriginal Ethnocide by the racist Australian Government of the New Racist White Australia (RWA) see MWC News for "Racism in Australia. La Trobe, "Bundoora Arabesque" & Aboriginal Ethnocide" and "Sydney Madonna & Aboriginal Genocide" ).
The extreme right-wing, Australian Federal Government has now cancelled the student visas of 2 La Trobe University students from Zimbabwe and of 6 others as a punishment for their fathers - the students will be deported back to Africa. Three (3) adult children of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono are among eight (8) students attending Australian universities who are to be deported. Dr Gono's twin daughters Pride and Praise, are studying tourism and hospitality studies at Melbourne's La Trobe University, and his son Passion, is studying music production in Sydney. They have been told that the Government has revoked their student visas because the Australian Government doesn't like their FATHERS.
This is an advance on cancellation of the visas of Indian medical doctors working in Australia, most notably that of Indian medical doctor Dr Haneef whose work visa was recently arbitrarily cancelled by the Australian Government because they didn't like his SECOND COUSIN.
The fundamental reason decent people object to racism (apart from "all men are created equal") is the mind-boggling imnjustice of it - you cannot do anything about you skin colour, ethnicity, your FATHER or indeed your second cousin.
The Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has indeed admitted that this is, quote: "for the sins of their fathers" (news reports and comment ).
From now on, all student visa applications from Zimbabweans will be referred to Australian Foreign Minister Downer to decide if their presence would be against "Australia's foreign policy interests". There are 1512 Zimbabweans on student visas in Australia. According to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIMAC) "A total of 190,674 student visas were granted in 2005-06. This figure does not include Permission to Work, Change of Provider, or Student Guardian visas. This represents a significant increase of 9.09 per cent over the 2004-05 figure of 174,787 visas and is an encouraging trend for Australia's international education sector."
The Zimbabwe Mugabe régime has an appalling human rights-violating record - but then so does the militant, extreme right wing, racist, warmongering, child-abusing, Bush-Australian Coalition Government which is complicit in the avoidable death of about 1 infant every minute in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (see "The Cost of War" on MWC News ) and has just passed what the Australian Greens Leader Dr Brown calls "flagrant, racist" legislation against Australia's Aboriginal minority (see "Aboriginal Genocide" on MWC News ).
This arbitrary, unjust decision by the Australian Government threatens Australia's numerous overseas university students and threatens the Australian universities that heavily depend upon such students for income i.e. at any time of its choosing the racist Australian Government will revoke overseas students' visas , scrap their university studies and deport them. This is disgraceful, discriminatory, destructive and racis behaviour by a militant, extremist, racist régime.
There are about 15,000 Indian students in Australia on student visas as compared to 16,000 from China, 12,000 from Korea, 10,000 from the United States, 6,000 from Malaysia, 4,000 from Brazil and about 5,000 each from Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong (SAR of China) (2005-2006 figures). According to the Victorian Government Minister for Skills, Education Services and Employment, Jacinta Allan (March 22, 2007): "Last year [2006] international education was worth A$2.9 billion to the Victorian economy, and A$9.8 billion to the national economy.."
The Australian Federal Government has an appalling record of violent racism and abuse both at home and abroad – 9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably each year (90,000 have died avoidably in the 11 years of egregiously incompetent Coalition Government; post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories total (as of March 2007) 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively; and with cowardly Labor Opposition support it has just passed legislation permitting gross racial discrimination against Australia's horribly persecuted and vulnerable Indigenous Community that violates the 1975 Australian Racial Discrimination Act.
This latest racist injustice against African university students not only threatens nearly 200,000 overseas students in Australia but also threatens an "industry" worth about A$10 billion a year to Racist White Australia. This indeed is "cutting off your nose to spite your face" because of a pathological commitment to racism and injustice in the xenophobic, Bush-like New Racist White Australia. Existing and prospective international students would be well advised to avoid the prospect of having their student visas cancelled mid-course because the extremist, militant, racist Australian Government doesn't like their father, mother, cousin, second cousin … or whatever.
Why study in Racist White Australia anyway? On applying for student visas (and indeed work visas and tourist visas) you will quickly discover that under the secret, New White Australia Policy there is one procedure for Whites and what the Apartheid South Africans called "Honorary Whites" (e.g. Japanese) – and a quite different procedure for the rest, the "non-Whites" and what could be called "Honorary non-Whites" (notably most Eastern Europeans).
Would you eat in a restaurant that discriminates against "people of colour", Arabs, Muslims or indeed anyone? Sensible caution, self-interest and decency suggests that prospective and existing International Students should avoid Racist White Australia like the plague and urgently consider going to more respectable Anglo-Celtic places such as Canada and New Zealand.