We must learn

History is not there to be liked, sanitised or rewritten. It is there to be learned from.”

I received this message from a mate last week, as debate continued about the rights and wrongs of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If there had been no pandemic I may have marched, as I did in the anti-apartheid demonstrations back in the 1960s in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Then, again, not if I suspected it was going to be violent!

Racism has been around a long time and has not been confined to British and European imperialism, which introduced it to the New World countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The ancient Persian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman empires all treated those they conquered badly and included what today would be described as racism and slavery.

And racism today is not confined to countries with European or “white” majorities, but exists in most world countries including China, India, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America, where minority groups are persecuted or treated differently by the majorities.

Racism is abhorrent wherever it raises its ugly head, but we are primarily responsible for our own country — Australia — so let’s make our priority eradicating it here, and especially in relation to our i ndigenous people.

An Australian Human Rights Commission internet page entitled Who Experiences Racism says a survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Victoria found 97 per cent had experienced racism within the past year and that two out of three had experienced eight or more instances in a year.

I was amazed to read those figures!

I have always believed racism is confined a small minority of our community — and maybe it is — but these figures make me think it is more widespread and more deeply entrenched than I want to believe.

I was brought up in the 1940s and 1950s, and, through the Scout movement, I always had friends of different racial and religious backgrounds.

Nauruans and other Pacific Islanders and Chinese and other Asian people I met at jamborees

and later an Aboriginal mate I had coffee with regularly and an Apache Indian pen friend.

I met Pakistani and

Asian students at dances at the Gordon Institute where I studied for several years and used to take them to the home of my father-inlaw-to-be where we would discuss politics, religion and social issues.

And, in more recent times, I have met other people of different races, again including Aboriginal people through footy and shared time and friendship with them.

Two or more years ago I used this column to try, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to have the visa of a young African student studying at Deakin extended so he could gain an additional qualification.

He returned to Australia last year on a brief visit and arranged to meet me at home to say “thank you”.

I see all races and creeds as a part of the great human family, all sharing strengths and weaknesses, virtues and frailties and none of us being perfect.

Racism is not confined to Europeans, but in countries where we are in the majority and racism exists those of us who believe in equality must try to eradicate it.

It is pretty simple isn’t it? You simply treat everyone the same, with respect and offer the hand of friendship.

I’d like to finish with another quote, this one from that wonderful song by the Seekers:

“We are one, but we are many. And from all the lands on Earth we come. We’ll share a dream and sing with one voice, I am, you are, we are Australian.”