26 April 2024

Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

 

 

TWO SIDES OF AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP

 

‘The Australian government has granted Bondi’s “bollard man” permanent residency. There are many of us, like myself and my Tamil family who know what it feels like to receive the promise of a permanent home in this country.

Stability. Security. Equal opportunity’  - Shankar Kasynathan in Guardian article -

 

 As we celebrate the permanent residency granted to Sydney’s ‘bollard man’, visa uncertainty looms over others

 

Shankar Kasynathan is presented by Migrant Workers Centre as follows:

‘Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth and Justice and a former Commissioner of Multicultural Affairs.’

 

I would declare   the most painful  experience of Australia, as follows:

‘InStability. InSecurity. UnEqual opportunity.

This is because, I relate to fellow Australians as part of the Indigenous community, who are the oldest community to whom this land has been ‘home’ for longest period. The rest of us are migrants.

How does one obtain the natural approval  of any community?

My response is – by sharing in their pain as if it were ours. Those who are driven more by the benefit produced by a community, are not fully fledged owners.

The Tamil author states:

‘Biloela threw its support behind the Murugappans. What can we do for similar families we know and love?’

The power of Love is absolute and is beyond calculations. If one calculates, it is no longer love.

As per Hindu philosophy, Tat Tvam Asi / That Thou Art is confirmation of  ownership. Once we feel ownership , any pain experienced by the one being loved, is felt by us.

The confirmation of love is known through Equal Opportunity. Murugappan family, if they felt pain, would identify with the pain of all Sri Lankan Tamils in camps and campaign for their immediate release. There is no such intelligence shared by the community.

Hence the inequality, when left unaddressed, becomes separatism, as happened in Sri Lanka. The black-dog keeps following the owner.

The Bondi attacker was a mentally ill person from mainstream community. As we sow, so shall we reap. We practice unequal opportunity, but claim status as Equal Opportunity practitioners, we become unstable due to unbalanced equation of causes and effects.