Australia is a weird country, and so are its people. Wynne is correct in stating that nature here is more interesting than the people, because little is more fascinating than the amazing flora and fauna down under. Also, Australian culture is closer to our own than Polynesian culture, for example, which tends to give the animals and plants center stage. However, the purpose of my travel is to learn about mankind, and I did not fail to make some remarkable observations about the people of the land down under. I shall also try to draw a conclusion or two regarding my quest for world peace from these observations.
Mostly everybody has some kind of stereotype of Australians—partly fueled by movies like ‘Crocodile Dundee’—as laid back and friendly people that say ‘hey mate’ all the time, that are a little rough around the edges, close to nature, and drink a lot. The last part is true, for sure. As for the rest, I might want to undertake a slightly more detailed analysis.
But I do not want to make one of the greatest mistakes often made when observing people. I am talking about over-generalization. We spent 95% of our time in Queensland, and therefore my analysis will not be of Australians, but of Queenslanders only. When in Victoria for a few days at the end of our stay, we found the people there to be much different. Good on them, I would say, using a common Aussie phrase, for my opinion on Queenslanders could hardly be worse. I shall explain.
Unfortunately and to my greatest dismay, I have to state that the most striking and prevalent feature I have recognized about Queenslanders is a deeply rooted racism, sometimes latent and sometimes obvious like a giant white-head pimple in the middle of the forehead. Naturally, I did not meet every single Queenslander, but the frequency and absolute predictability of this feature was shocking. Even though vast parts of the rest of Australia are very much like Queensland—low education levels, low population density—I desperately hope that racism is not as wide spread as in the north east. Perhaps Queensland is simply the Texas of Australia.
We did, first of all, find a lot of parallels between Australia and the USA. Both countries are fairly young, both countries were founded by white people on the land of indigenous tribes, both countries suppressed those people, and both countries keep those people in reservations now, seeking to make amends for the damage done without bending over too much or even—God the All-whitey forbid—costing them anything.
Australia, however, seems to be somewhat behind the US in its development. Until only about 40 years ago, the country was politically led and culturally guided by the unabashedly racist ‘White Australia Policy’, which strictly banned foreigners of other races than the Caucasian race from immigrating to the country. Apparently, Australians had forgotten that their population was already heterogeneous. The ‘White Australia Policy’ continued even after Aborigines had gained hard-earned citizen rights in 1967. Interestingly, it was the Vietnam War that brought an end to the policy itself, but its ideology is still perceptible all over Queensland.
We have found other forms of prejudice to be widespread as well. Though most Queenslanders will greet you with a platitudinous ‘How ya goin’, mate?’, often times you will not feel any warmth in the words. We frequently had the feeling that it might be my dread locks that caused such lack of friendliness, and even uncalled for and unprovoked hostility.
Let me give you an example. All over the country you will find Tourist Information Centers where volunteers, often retirees, help travelers seeking particular attractions, or just help them find their way. The elderly couple in the info center in Townsville was so unfriendly from the moment we walked in that it came close to a complete refusal to help. When we described a place we wanted to see, and tried to remember its name, instead of giving us more information about the place or how to get there, they would just say, ‘That’s not what it’s called.’ Not a particularly helpful comment. They even went so far as to make derogatory remarks about our hygiene when we told them we didn’t require showers at a camp area. How many backpackers in campervans do they meet that need daily showers?
The lady in the Tourist Information Center in Emerald was at least willing to help, though she showed no signs of friendliness or even politeness. We did, however, also encounter the diametric opposite. The two elderly ladies at the info center in Beaudesert were not only going above and beyond to help us—phoning camp areas to ask for rates and giving us their private cell phone numbers so that we could camp in their back yard in case nothing else worked out—but they also engaged us in a half an hour’s worth of conversation, inquiring with genuine curiosity and interest about my dread locks, and finally giving us a jar of homemade lemon butter because we were ‘such a lovely couple’. The lady in the center in Babinda was no less nice and happy to share stories about crocodiles and cassowaries with us.
The problem, however, is that friendly treatment should be the standard in a facility dedicated to service of visitors, who come in all shapes and sizes. I should not have to point out the rare friendly agents, but the occasional unfriendly one. Unfortunately, service in general is incredibly horrible in Queensland, and on that issue Queenslanders for once agree with me entirely. One could assume that Wynne and I are spoiled by the great service mentality in the USA, but in my homeland, Germany, no one is ever going to win a prize in customer satisfaction, either. However, there still is a wide and hugely perceptible gap between Germany and Australia.
In Brisbane, we had to take a bus to get to the rental place for our camper van. To make sure we got on the right bus, I asked the driver whether he was going to the stop we needed to get to. He told me he had never heard that street name. I told him the name of the main road our bus was supposed to go down, and asked if he was going down that road. He informed me that he was no GPS. I asked him if he was going to the neighborhood the rental place was in, and that much, at least, he could confirm. The problem was not solved yet, though, because he didn’t know how much to charge me, which apparently was my fault. I told him it was two zones and he went along with it. As hoped, the bus went down the main road that he wasn’t familiar with because he was no GPS (despite the fact that he goes down that road every day), and stopped at the stop I had inquired about at the very beginning. But the confusion was still all our fault, because in Queensland, it’s apparently not the bus driver’s responsibility to know his route, but the passenger’s. Especially when the passenger is obviously foreign and has dreadlocks.
When we dropped off a rental car in Mackay, we had to wait until the lady from Europcar had finished the sandwich that she was not willing to abandon for a single second, and were then helped while a significant amount of mayonnaise remained on her cleavage. Since Europcar does not provide a shuttle service, we inquired about the best way to get downtown. She said there was no bus service in that direction, so we asked about the walking distance to town. She assured us it was no more than two kilometers, easily walkable in 20 minutes. About twenty minutes later, a city bus overtook us as we trudged through the dusty heat out by the airport. After walking six kilometers and more than an hour, we arrived in town, sunburned and fatigued from the relentless 90° heat.
And finally, the mobile phone company Telstra screwed us out of about $25 worth of internet service. The thing that bugs me most about that is that I smelled the fraud and asked specifically about this situation at a Telstra shop. I was assured that I had nothing to worry about. Despite multiple complaints, it was not possible to get the stolen amount back. All I got through fatiguing email correspondence with customer ‘service’ was an admittance that I had indeed been screwed over and an apology for the inconvenience caused.
But even when I was the one providing a service I was never safe from the widespread prejudice and racism. When tending a bar, I was regularly insulted for my hair style and often called a hippie (which seems to be the worst possible enemy of mankind, according to Queenslandian doctrine). Once I was even given attitude for my ‘Yank accent’ and told that I should be proud of my German heritage. In other words, I am not supposed to learn English correctly in order to keep my national pride. What these people do not understand is that heritage, which depends only on where we happen to be born, is probably the very last thing in the world that someone can claim achievement for. Being proud of something not self-achieved seems not only laughably stupid but also to contradict the very definition of the word.
However, in most cases I was able to change people’s opinion about me by providing fast, efficient, and friendly service, which proves that their initial resentment was nothing but prejudice. The worst and most appalling thing I encountered while tending bar was a guy vigorously requesting I turn off the music, which happened to be playing Wham. He had a problem with the group because ‘George Michael takes it up the ass’. I was, for a second, tempted to suggest that he try said practice, which might help him lose his obvious fear of liking it, but then thought to myself that the mere fact that I’m in Queensland should not be an excuse for me to adapt the local service mentality.
I also feel very much disturbed by the fact that prejudice and racism are not only common amongst the general population. Recently, an overloaded boat with 250 Asian asylum seekers was thrashed into the rocky coast of Java, unable to maneuver due to the overload, the horror on the faces of the victims visible on HD video feeds. Almost every soul lost their life. Australian politicians blamed this on the country’s lax immigrant policies and called for stricter ones. The lack of offshore policing of immigrant boats would, so the argument went, encourage foreigners to come to Australia illegally. This encouragement was to be blamed for the incident. Though it is their right to control immigration into their country, this was not a particularly tactful response to a situation that called for condolences and showing sorrow.
Another politician—an elected official, not a right wing opposition extremist or anything—demanded that Asian immigrants take better actions to integrate, especially regarding the use of deodorant. Though she was forced to apologize, she’s still in office, making policy about cultural integration strategies for new immigrants. In this country a politician can seriously get away with claiming that all Asians stink!
Sadly, watching the news that day was not the first time that I had heard that terribly offensive claim. Another person in Australia had told me, after assuring me that she was no racist, that Chinese people all smell bad. Do people not realize that by assuring others that they are no racists they pretty much mark themselves as such? A non-racist would never feel the need even to mention it. This assurance, however, invariably precedes a racist statement and thereby proves itself untrue.
The people I heard call a help hotline and utter worries that they will just get a ‘bloody Pakistani’ on the line probably do not realize their lack of tolerance, either. They should maybe have preceded their statement with an assurance of racial impartiality, too.
When we went to hang out with our neighbors for an afternoon drink on Christmas day, it did not take long before jokes about Murrays (Aboriginals) were told and received with great joy.
Now, let me point out again that these are only case studies without any over-generalization. I have met an almost negligible fraction of the population of Queensland, and I predominantly encountered people with a rather low level of education, most of whom I assumed did not have a college degree. (If they did, that would make the things they said all the more disappointing). But the regularity with which one finds the opinions mentioned above is nevertheless shocking.
As stated earlier, I desperately hope that the rest of the country is less prejudiced. Unfortunately the news on TV that we watched almost daily did not give me a lot of reason for this hope. The ongoing debate about the Murray-Darling Basin, for example, reflects a related and no less discouraging mentality that I sense in this country. This basin is the most important water supply for east Australia, but farmers drain it for irrigation purposes to such a degree that in some months not a drop of water reaches the ocean. This, of course, has an incredible impact on the environment and even the climate. Experts warn that if measures are not taken right now, the entire system might vanish in the foreseeable future.
In that case farming would be rendered almost impossible in the entire region. Yet the claim remains: I’m a white farmer and I have a God-given right to use this water for whatever I want to use it for. After hundreds of years of bad agricultural practices have left virtually no fertile soils on the continent, farmers do not seem to have learned. They don’t seem to care a lot, anyways. A farmer we rode in the same car with tossed an empty plastic bag out of the window without even thinking twice about it. When we expressed our revulsion, he admitted never even having thought about impacts on the environment. This is, again, a farmer I am talking about.
Once more, this is a single case and might not be representative. Unfortunately, my overall impression of the people of Queensland suggests that it probably is.
We have also learned from some people here that Queenslanders do not give a flying flatulence about the rest of the world. This topic came up big when a significant number of Australian troops got killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan. All over we heard people ask ‘Why are we even there?’ And this is where we get to my insights on world peace.
Queenslanders see themselves as a peaceful people in a safe country. Of course, bar fights are a staple, but that should not be taken too seriously. On an international level, no one wants to get involved in any foreign wars. That could be called peaceful, I guess—if it were for the right reasons. It is, however, not due to a deeply rooted belief in pacifism, but to not caring. And I personally believe that world peace can almost by definition only be reached if we start to care for each other.
White Australia, for example, does not care about its indigenous people. Even though no real war, no open fighting, has happened in a few decades, I would say the two parties are far from being at peace. The world peace that I hope for is a state where oppression is replaced by equality.
These are the observations I have made about the people down under. You might have been surprised by my mix of examples, featuring racism, homophobia, prejudice, farming practices, and service mentality. I do believe that all five of them are closely related, concerning caring about fellow humans and the world we live in.
Obviously, I have a horribly bad opinion of Queenslanders and, of course, I have to ask myself if I am being unfair or maybe even hypocritical. Isn’t there racism all over the world? Don’t we find it in many of the southern states of the US as well as Europe? Don’t Italian and Spanish soccer fans insult players of their own team if the color of their skin is not white? Haven’t German secret services just discovered a radical right wing terror cell? Isn’t the Chief of Police of Dallas still in office after commenting on an unprovoked and excessively brutal assault on a homosexual by some of his officers with the words, ‘That faggot had it coming’?
First and most important, I have to say that the fact that racism is sadly widespread is not an excuse for it anywhere. It is to be condemned wherever it occurs. And second, I must say, I have never during my travels encountered so much and so frequent racism as in Queensland. I have visited some of the southern states of the US and most of Europe, two places with regular racist allegations. Even amongst Polynesians, a people that I hailed so much for their genuine friendliness and hospitality, their tolerance and spirit of equality, we found some weird hatred towards the tribes of rivaling islands, an old inherited hatred that I would love to see revised and abandoned. But I have never in my life seen hatred, racism, and prejudice displayed as blatantly, openly, and frankly as in Queensland.
Whenever I encounter deeply rooted hatred that exists for mere superficial reasons—like the color of skin or sexual preferences—I have to wonder where it might originate. What makes people hate? I cannot come up with any other reason but fear, the fear of losing cultural and possibly even genetic values and attributes due to the introduction of new ones. And that makes racists not only insecure but also extremely arrogant. They claim that their values are superior without having knowledge of any others.
Statistically, it is highly unlikely that one people has the perfect set of values. Only through cultural interaction, fearless and open interaction at that, can we find that perfect set that might help us take a great step towards world peace. Tolerance and lack of bias are absolutely essential for that. I hope that both Queenslanders and other racists the world over will eventually realize that, no matter the color of their skin.
I am aware of the fact that there is no absolute good and evil; we must not see this world in black and white only. Tolerant people with no prejudice usually have their faults as well, and even racists will in most cases have one or two decent features about their character. No culture that I know of has so far found the perfect way, which makes interaction even the more important. Only by learning can we improve.
So much for the interpretation of my observations. Now, even though I was often times appalled by the racism and homophobia I encountered, I must still acknowledge that Queenslanders are almost as extreme as their country. Alongside the unprovoked hatred for people of different races, sexual preferences, or hair styles, I have also found sincere friendliness. The rare people that featured it were so incredibly nice that I want to end on a happy note to honor them.
Our friend Guido who lived in our neighborhood for the two months that we were stationary, is the perfect example of how wonderful a Queenslander can be. He is a miner, a laborer without advanced education. Yet he is interested in interaction, in cultural exchange, in learning, in arts, and is far from being prejudiced. On Christmas, before we even became friends, he gave us a card with a poem he had written himself to comfort us for being so far away from our families over the holidays. Guido and the ladies from the Tourist Information Center in Beaudesert are what I want to remember about Queenslanders.
