Racism again

How irresponsible it is for people who influence opinion to immediately claim that any violent assault on a non-caucasian is racially motivated.

Before there's a police investigation, before the perpetrators and motives have been established, the accusations that it was racially motivated have started.

Australia has been getting a lot of criticism lately, particularly about attacks in Melbourne on Indian students. There's no doubt that some were racially motivated, and my guess is that a lot of those are copycat attacks by neanderthal youths who brag to their friends about it.

However, many are simply muggings and some are by people of the same ethnicity as the victim, as I've pointed out in previous posts (just hit the 'racism' label to go to the earlier posts if you're interested).

A Malaysian-born Australian was killed in Sydney on Sunday. In Australia we had the headline "Race-hate fears over fatal bashing".

Malaysia's New Straits Times had "Road rage or hate crime?" The story went on to emphasise the race angle:

"Australian police should work quickly to ascertain the motive behind the murder of Malaysian-born Mohd Shah Saemin who was brutally attacked by two men in Sydney on Sunday night.

Police there linked the attack to a possible road rage incident but Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, while offering his condolences to the victim's family, asked if the incident was a race-based hate crime.

In a statement released on Monday night, Anifah urged the Australian authorities to "thoroughly investigate the case to ensure that the incident is a genuine road rage case and not a case of race-based hate crime".

Australia was rocked recently by a series of attacks against Indian nationals and students living there.

There have now been arrests.

Guess what. Race isn't remotely involved.

"Love triangle behind murder of consulate employee Mohd Shah Saemin" says the headline.

"THE wife of a Sydney taxi driver accused of murdering her alleged lover is due to face court today.

Nita Eriza Iskandar, 46, was yesterday arrested in Leichhardt and charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder, and hindering a police investigation.

Her husband, taxi driver Hazairin Iskandar, 55, was arrested at his Croydon home on Tuesday night. He was charged with murder and will appear in court again in April.

The couple's 20-year-old son was arrested in Singapore, and NSW detectives will seek his extradition today."


I don't pretend that race crimes don't happen, and when they do they should be exposed as such. But politicians playing to their voters and the media looking for sensationalism by immediately screeching 'racism' at every opportunity do nothing but irresponsibly add to tensions.



Road rage or hate crime.
Love triangle behind murder.