Violence on the train to Camberwell

But I didn’t.

And not because it was one of those situations where you only think of the witty thing to say in retrospect - no, these thoughts were pulsing through my brain while I was silently fuming 10 metres away.

So why didn’t I say anything? For the same reason as the rest of the carriage - fear. Not fear of an awkward social situation - but fear for our physical safety in a situation involving racial aggression.

What’s going on?

This is what has been making me increasingly mad over the past 24 hours - the constant reporting of a seemingly never ending stream of incidents of racial violence in Melbourne combined with the inadequacy of the police response has created a climate in which people are fearful of speaking out. All but one person in the carriage strongly disapproved of what happened - but no one could speak up until the guy left. And this was on a train to Camberwell in broad daylight.

Not only that, but the fact that the most extreme act of racial prejudice - violence! - is currently being met with public statements of equivocation from our law enforcement officials, is creating a situation in which the bigoted feel that they are able to spew the sewerage of their minds in public. By not striking forcefully and publicly against the extremes of racial prejudice we are sending the message that lower level expressions of racism like the incident I witnessed yesterday will also be tolerated in our community.

What should be happening?

I gave the Victorian Police then benefit of the doubt on this issue for too long. I assumed that as a professional organisation that they would deal with this issue. I trusted them. But no more. They have failed to deal with this issue. They have failed our community. No, they are not racists themselves as crudely portrayed by the Indian media. But their complacency on this issue has let down the Victorian community.

So let me spell it out for them:

1. I don’t want to hear any more equivocation about whether crimes are racially motivated or simply “crimes of opportunity”;
2. I want public recognition of the fact that racial minorities don’t feel safe in our community at present;
3. I want a public statement of the fact that racially motivated violence is worse than other forms of violence in our community. I want them to recognise that, unlike other violence, racially motivated violence has an impact beyond the incident itself. I want recognition that this kind of violence strikes fear into entire communities. I want recognition that this kind of violence gives people a reason to be fearful because of something that they cannot change - their racial background. They can’t avoid it by changing their behaviour - it goes with them everywhere they go;
4. I want a public statement that putting an end to this fear is the Victorian Police’s number one priority. The existence of this fear threatens the state’s economic prosperity by doing untold damage to Victoria’s largest export industry. More importantly, the existence of this fear in our community runs counter to every value of our democratic society; and
5. I want to see a plan for how you’re going to fix this that:
   

   - sends a clear message on behalf of our community that racial violence is not tolerated by our community and that if you transgress this strongly community view, we will come after you and smite you with the full force of the state; and
   - shows the community the consequences of racial violence. If a newspaper reports racial violence, I want to see similar publicity when those responsible are caught by the police and when they face the criminal justice system. The community needs to see action and results. These bottom crawlers need to know that the state is coming after them, that they will be caught and that they will face justice.

The time for public education has passed. Another “Harmony Walk” isn’t going to fix the situation now. The state needs to send a message of aggressive intolerance towards the prejudiced bottom crawlers in our society. This is a law and order issue.

We need to send a message to these people as Escalus, the Prince of Verona sent in Romeo and Juliet: