Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Australian Lessons
We the Student-Faculty Cell and the Peer Group members of the Indira Gandhi National Open University welcome the statement of the Australian PM Kevin Rudd that he will do all he can to prevent hate attacks and that even a single racist attack is 'unacceptable'. This statement comes after another Indian student and an Indian taxi driver were attacked in Melbourne.The Indian government too has responded well by suggesting a facilitative mechanism for students seeking work in Australia to help in carrying on their studies.Meanwhile welcome confidence building measures are being taken by the students such as harmony walks and even a Victoria police and Indian students cricket match. As we have been pointing out the spaces for building racial harmony are there and student bodies like FISA should move to consolidate them.Our concern by doing all this is to advance the process of studying in Australia. It is indeed ironical in this context that the student, Mr.MKA Khan, who was racially assaulted in Melbourne was in the process of studying hospitality management.Is it that the process of studying and teaching-learning is not getting its due weightage in the current context? Is this a result of racial or other kinds of narrow stereotyping which is hampering the educational process?Here we could well draw a lesson from Australia's past where the the narrow minded proponent of political economy, E.G. Wakefield ,was astonished to find that in Australia in the 19th century bourgeois socio-economic relations were in the process of becoming and were 'neither present by nature nor are they things'-a common presupposition in the already industrialised countries in the 19th century. Ofcourse we will not follow the disastorous path of imperial economics he imposed on Australia. But we could very well draw upon the lessons of socio-economic 'becoming' as a part of our studying process.A cooperative emphasis on the processes of studying to overcome our individual limitations on our own could help in building a study process.This approach could also help in participating in the broader multicultural processes of which both students in India and Australia could become a part. Afterall multicultural processes too are processes of becoming. In the current contexts in Australia and India this is often overlooked and it is often assumed that socio-economic relations are either present by nature or they are things.Thereby a whole range of educational options are missed. (SFC and Peer Group members of IGNOU with the help of Mr.Ajay Mahurkar and Dr.Dolly Mathew)
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ReplyDeletethe reference to E.G. Wakefield is interesting. Let us not forget the roots of the Australian Nation State. In fact we are here dealing with two Australias, one that was inhabited by the 'tribes' and the other that was created by those who were not wanted by the mother country"uK". Hence the other comes with a baggage and that baggage is what is perhaps potent in making sense of these senseless attacks.
Let us also not forget that in our own country too we carry too many such baggages from the past, caste as a case in point. Let us at this stage reaffirm our faith in the notion of secular socialist democratic rebublic that we are and recongise that the condemnation of these attacks is also the condemnation of a system that perpetuates discrimination.
We note with regret that inspite of the assurances given by the highest quarters of the Australian government attacks on Indians continue in Australia.On Monday (the 29th June 2009) in a bizarre racial incident a Sikh student in Australia was attacked with scissors.This was as if the instrumentality of things (a feature of capitalist social relations,noted by E.G.Wakefield)itself was being attacked by the Australian youth with the instrument of scissors.How was such an identification made in racial terms itself needs to be looked into.Quite clearly these Australian youth did not understand the different social and cultural circumstances which form the milieu of the Indian students.Perhaps universalizing of these preconceived system of instrumentalities within the current technological context made them predetermine the experience of interracting with the Indian students.Needless to say multiculturalism has a lot of work to do here to keep such predeterminations and preconceptions away.The study process in Australia, which the Indian students are building,would do well to tackle such predeteminations brought about by the conjunctions of a closed technological universe with political power and move towards their stated multicultural framework.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all we are all human beings(manav).We should all follow all the higher ideals of humanity.I have been a student and a counsellor at IGNOU.Tolerance and ahimsa as taught by Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi should be followed in practical life by all students.
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