This made the newspaper?!

From today’s Age:

RACIAL harassment of Africans increased following former immigration minister Kevin Andrews' claims they were engaged in crime and failing to integrate, according to a confidential Immigration Department report.

...

The Immigration Department maintained this was because of an improvement in some African countries and the need to help Iraqis displaced by war and Burmese refugees living in camps on the Thai-Burma border.

...Mr Andrews...claimed, after the fatal bashing of Sudanese refugee Liep Gony, that the refugee intake from places such as Sudan had been cut amid fears that "some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope".

The community update says African community leaders had reacted to the ministerial comments and public debate about the change of intake. "There was widespread unease that public comments encouraged racism."

...

Multicultural Affairs parliamentary secretary Laurie Ferguson said Mr Andrews had caused lasting damage.

"His comments were not only counterproductive in regards to stirring up racism and hostility. It is also now very hard to convince the African community the intake hasn't been reduced to zero," he said.

...

The chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, Sam Afra, said the documents obtained by The Age confirmed the group's worst fears. "Some might consider polarising society to be a clever political tactic in the lead-up to an election, but these alarming findings reveal such ploys do not come without a cost," Mr Afra said.

I can imagine the African-Australian community sighing one great collective “Duh!”

I wonder if the Age realises that the whole point of Andrews’ little stir was to redivide the community along ethnic lines again. Tampa was brilliant at that: “teh terr’izts ar cumin! in terh ebil botes! we muzt stops dem!’ (Ignoring the obvious fact that if anyone with a grudge against us were to come into Oz, coming by boat-generating massive media attention-would be the most unsubtle way of doing it) Tampa turned us against asylum seekers/refugees and won Howard the election. Sudagate (my God that was an awful pun) unsuccessfully tried to turn us against the Sudanese, and by extension the Australian black community, when Howard and co. realised that their only chance of winning wasn't just to tar and feather Labor but to find an easy scapegoat to blame for something.

So they waited for the opportunity to make such a statement-that ‘they' aren’t integrating into ‘our’ culture. Therefore, instead of examining the root causes as to why 'they' aren't integrating (such as lack of education or hostility and bigotry from other Australians), we must block the elusive ‘them’ from entering 'our' country. Of course, they waited and nothing happened. Hilali didn't say anything dramatic that could be blamed on Muslims, there was no Cronulla riots...it was almost mid-October, with a month and a half before the looming election, and there was still no 'other' for the Libs to divide the rednecks against. So, grasping at straws, Andrews used an example of a Sudanese being bashed to death by white racists to justify the Sudanese not 'integrating.'

I just love the fact that we didn’t fall for it this time...if still somewhat annoyed that something so blatantly obvious made the paper.