Please read this short piece. It’s intended to address and hopefully help redress a frightening new campaign. Please either circulate it or your else own feelings in your own words to your groups. Australians do not need to spark the flames of racial discord or division within our own country.
It is truly alarming to learn that some Australians are today pushing others to boycott wines produced by Australian vineyards and wineries owned by people and companies of Chinese origin. Since their arrival in the early 1850s Chinese people have been an essential part of our culture and our society. The contribution they have made to our country is inestimable.
The wine-producing businesses owned by Chinese interests – and many of these owners are of course Australian citizens – have invested in Australian infrastructure, pay Australian taxes and employ Australian people of diverse national backgrounds. Their owners are bound by Australian laws, contribute to Australian community life, generate income for Australia when their wines are exported and, like most recent migrants to this country, deeply value and are emotionally wedded to Australian core beliefs and attitudes. I personally know a huge number of these people. I value their friendship and integrity.
Since the removal of the White Australia Policy, Australia has become rightly known around the world for the welcome it shows to non-Anglo-Saxon races and cultures, in the knowledge that our society will benefit from the diversity and energetic migrant spirit such peoples bring. Our recent prosperity has much to do with our recent population growth, much of which has come from China.
It would surprise most Australian people that those Chinese who take Australian citizenship do so in the knowledge that they are then immediately viewed very differently – and not entirely positively – within China and by its government. They are welcome here and brave, and this is now their home. Take this home away from them and they have no home.
The people being targeted by this knee-jerk reaction have done nothing to deserve it, just as Australian winemakers have done nothing to deserve their treatment by the Chinese government. But when did two wrongs ever make a right? It’s time for Australians to show who we really are. Or are we not as good as we tell everyone else?
What might happen if this ignorance becomes widespread? When does it spill over into outright racism? As I have said before, right now I am deeply concerned for the 1.2 million citizens and residents in Australia of Chinese descent.
Is the next step to boycott Chinese restaurants? Other Chinese businesses? Do we build walls around Chinese communities in our cities? Let’s not fall for the same ignorance that saw 7000 Australian residents (mainly citizens) of German origin interned during the second World War. Where will it end?
A few years ago I was in Shanghai on an anniversary of the Japanese sacking of Nanjing in 1937, a terrible event still very close to the hearts and minds of Chinese people. I was surprised and delighted by my Chinese colleagues and partners who chose that very time of year to frequent their favourite Japanese restaurants, which traditionally lost a lot of business that time of year.
Perhaps we might learn from their compassion and intelligence. If we honestly believe that the world looks at Australia for any example at all, it’s time we set a good one and stood by our friends within this country, whose only crime has been to contribute to our cause.
We are better, I hope, than we are being encouraged to behave.
