Sharing an experience...

[fensaddler]

I’m not sure what I want to get out of this post, other than to share our feelings and experience - but any feedback is welcome, especially if you have had similar experiences or can relate to this.

 

In early December, my OH’s mum came from the UK to stay with us for a couple of months. We were very pleased about this – my own mum had been out a year ago, had loved seeing our new life, and really took to Australia.

 

Some background, my OH’s mum was born and brought up in Jamaica, moving to the UK at the end of the fifties as a young, single woman. At the time, Australia was off limits to her as a migration destination because of the white Australia policy, and I think she has felt ever since that Australia was not a country in which she was welcome. So on this score at least I think she had misgivings when we moved here – not because we migrated (after all that has been part of her life experience too) but because we came to a country that in her eyes was still suspect in its attitudes to race and colour.

 

Our experience was that Australia was not the country of fifty years ago – that it was diverse, largely positive about its diversity, and a good place. Whilst there was undoubtedly racism, it was probably no worse than the UK, and in many respects far better. And this is the view we reported back to family and friends.

 

Ten days into her visit, we went into the centre of Melbourne to see the Christmas lights on the Town Hall. Because of a litany of minor disasters in terms of missed train connections, we ended up making the last leg of our trip at midnight. In the ten minutes we were on that train, our picture of Australia changed, perhaps irrevocably. There was a group of six or seven drunken lads on the train – they were roaming the length of the train, staggering drunk, scrounging, loud, smoking in the passage between the two carriages, and generally being obnoxious. Finally, they decided to racially abuse my OH’s mum using the n***** word. My OH’s mum is in here late seventies, she moves with difficulty and uses a stick to walk. She is a gentle old lady. Our teenage daughter was distraught, and later hysterical.

 

When we got to our stop, we reported what had happened to the PSOs on the platform (the gang of lads could see us do this, and suddenly looked very small and meek). The PSOs showed significant concern, and radioed ahead to their colleagues. They clearly understood we were shocked and upset. But in the end, they took no names and addresses, and the unspoken message was ‘we have no evidence, we can’t do much’. Frankly, if the lads had been hauled off the train at the next stop and done for drunken disorderly (the evidence for that was obvious) I’d have been reasonably satisfied, but of course we don’t know whether anything happened.

 

But the impact on us has been pretty profound. We no longer feel entirely safe or trusting of Australia. Yes, we can rationalise that it was an isolated incident, that it was just a bunch of drunks, that the same could have happened in the UK (and the only reason it didn’t to us was because we never travelled on late night public transport in the UK). We are struggling to get past this, and to feel happy and secure here again. I guess we feel like many victims of crime do – troubled, traumatised, insecure, and resigned to the fact that nothing can or will be done – that the perpetrators who did this to us will get away without any significant punishment, nor any realisation or concern about the damage they have done. We’ve talked to friends here, and they are appalled and ashamed, as we are. But right now, two months on, we can’t uncouple this incident from the way we feel about living here.

[wolvesaussie]

All sorts of weird stuff gones on on the train late at night, I have been racially abused by Aboliginals twice in 6months... I just think of them as drunken idiots and dont let them cloud my picture of Melbourne people as a whole. Overall I feel far safer in Melbourne at night than I did in Birmingham at night... You just have to do the same, dismiss them as idiots... I know you have said you have tried and are struggling but there is nothing else you can really do about it.

[jen85]

Sorry you had to have such a horrible experience, but unfortunately its a city and an ugly side of it but all cities are the same. Melbourne is no different to idiots roaming the streets in Sydney or New York or London I'm sure.

[Guest Ptp113]

I’m not sure what I want to get out of this post, other than to share our feelings and experience - but any feedback is welcome, especially if you have had similar experiences or can relate to this.

 

In early December, my OH’s mum came from the UK to stay with us for a couple of months. We were very pleased about this – my own mum had been out a year ago, had loved seeing our new life, and really took to Australia.

 

Some background, my OH’s mum was born and brought up in Jamaica, moving to the UK at the end of the fifties as a young, single woman. At the time, Australia was off limits to her as a migration destination because of the white Australia policy, and I think she has felt ever since that Australia was not a country in which she was welcome. So on this score at least I think she had misgivings when we moved here – not because we migrated (after all that has been part of her life experience too) but because we came to a country that in her eyes was still suspect in its attitudes to race and colour.

 

Our experience was that Australia was not the country of fifty years ago – that it was diverse, largely positive about its diversity, and a good place. Whilst there was undoubtedly racism, it was probably no worse than the UK, and in many respects far better. And this is the view we reported back to family and friends.

 

Ten days into her visit, we went into the centre of Melbourne to see the Christmas lights on the Town Hall. Because of a litany of minor disasters in terms of missed train connections, we ended up making the last leg of our trip at midnight. In the ten minutes we were on that train, our picture of Australia changed, perhaps irrevocably. There was a group of six or seven drunken lads on the train – they were roaming the length of the train, staggering drunk, scrounging, loud, smoking in the passage between the two carriages, and generally being obnoxious. Finally, they decided to racially abuse my OH’s mum using the n***** word. My OH’s mum is in here late seventies, she moves with difficulty and uses a stick to walk. She is a gentle old lady. Our teenage daughter was distraught, and later hysterical.

 

When we got to our stop, we reported what had happened to the PSOs on the platform (the gang of lads could see us do this, and suddenly looked very small and meek). The PSOs showed significant concern, and radioed ahead to their colleagues. They clearly understood we were shocked and upset. But in the end, they took no names and addresses, and the unspoken message was ‘we have no evidence, we can’t do much’. Frankly, if the lads had been hauled off the train at the next stop and done for drunken disorderly (the evidence for that was obvious) I’d have been reasonably satisfied, but of course we don’t know whether anything happened.

 

But the impact on us has been pretty profound. We no longer feel entirely safe or trusting of Australia. Yes, we can rationalise that it was an isolated incident, that it was just a bunch of drunks, that the same could have happened in the UK (and the only reason it didn’t to us was because we never travelled on late night public transport in the UK). We are struggling to get past this, and to feel happy and secure here again. I guess we feel like many victims of crime do – troubled, traumatised, insecure, and resigned to the fact that nothing can or will be done – that the perpetrators who did this to us will get away without any significant punishment, nor any realisation or concern about the damage they have done. We’ve talked to friends here, and they are appalled and ashamed, as we are. But right now, two months on, we can’t uncouple this incident from the way we feel about living here.

This would never happen in Britain. Probably time to think about leaving?