Unemployment and NESB
Unemployment, especially for mature aged people who have always had a job, is particularly difficult to cope with; but if you come from a Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) and find it difficult to communicate and obtain information it can be catastrophic.
A forum on this issue was held in Adelaide on August 3 and was attended by representatives from various ethnic communities, government and non-government departments, unions and employers.
The general consensus of opinion expressed at the forum was that this current recession was having a significantly detrimental impact upon NESB people with some ethnic communities experiencing unemployment rates of up to three times the average. This can be attributed to the fact that both male and female immigrants tend to be concentrated in the manufacturing and construction industries, both of which have suffered high job losses over the past decade. Also the industrial restructuring that has taken place during this time has resulted in a shift away from specifically employing NESB migrants.
Many mature aged NESB people, once they have been made redundant, experience both language and cultural barriers as they try to access vital welfare services to which they are entitled. Some women for example are unaware that they can claim Family Allowance Supplement even though their husbands are still working.
Despite the fact that over 30% of the Australian population defines itself as NESB, there has been so government strategy developed to deal with this issue. In fact, the only time that migrants get mentioned in relation to unemployment is when governments need a scapegoat to take the blame for the current economic crisis. This is of particular concern when you take into consideration the fact that most of these workers have been the backbone of Australian industry over the past 45 years, often taking on the jobs that Australian born workers refused to do. If the government is truly committed to the principles of multiculturalism then it needs to seriously take on the issues of concern for NESB people not just deal with them on a superficial level.
Dimitri Calantzis
Para Hills, SA
Israel
I must challenge statements by Sean Molloy on Israel, Palestine and Lebanon in your issue of 4 August 1993. In the otherwise excellent interview with visiting Palestinian Dr Ilham Abu Ghazaleh, Molloy states "In 1948 Zionist forces usurped power in Palestine." This is incorrect. The Zionists (along with Jordan) certainly took by ruthless force areas of territory which the UN had assigned to the Palestinians in their 1948 plan for the partition of Palestine. Both states thus denied the Palestinians their independent state. But the UN partition states, Israel and Palestine. The creation of the state of Israel was thus legitimised by the left and the right, the Soviet Union and the western powers.
Molloy implies that the very existence of the state of Israel is illegitimate. But what is illegitimate about the idea of a national homeland for Jews in the land where they have historical links, links which have been kept alive in their cultural memory throughout the period of their expulsion from it. In this age, the aspirations of peoples for self determination are universally recognised. Whatever we may think about the limitations of nationalism as a vehicle for social liberation, the contemporary form of that aspiration is the independent nation state. The complexity of the Israel/Palestine conflict is that at its root is a conflict between two fundamentally legitimate national aspirations. This conflict can be resolved only by compromise on both sides and recognition of the legitimacy of the claims of the other. The illegitimacy of the Israeli state arises from its attempt to resolve this conflict by brute force and colonial, racist repression denying the legitimate national rights of the Palestinians.
In his article in the same issue on the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, Molloy states "Israel asserts that Hizbollah and the PFLP began hostilities by killing seven Isrealii soldiers in the 'security zone'." Even if true... [my italics] We all know perfectly well it is true. What is the point of denying the perfectly legitimate resistance of guerillas to Israeli occupation of Lebanon and to the probable imposition of a humiliating peace settlement on the Palestinians?
This brings me to my third point of issue with Molloy. The good coverage of the documentary See No Evil on the Sabra and Shatilla massacres is marred by the headline The Other Holocaust. The word 'Holocaust' has come to be synonomous with the explicit attempted annihilation of an entire people, the Jews. This annihilation was organised with chilling technological and bureaucratic efficiency.
To imply comparability between this and single instance of massacre, no matter how appalling, is a form of Holocaust revisionism and denial. This denial is rooted in anti-semitism which continues to infect our culture. Unfortunately, this anti-semitism is not confined to the far right but is can also be found on the leftl. Left wing opposition to Israeli oppression of the Palestinians too often slides into this anti-semitism when it denies the legitimacy of Jewish aspirations for their own state. Holocaust denial or revisionism by the subtle dilution of the term trivialises the oppression of the Jewish people which was their impetus to struggle to found of the state of Israel. Without the Holocaust, it is certain that Zionism would not have gained the near universal allegiance of Jews or won their determination to implement it. Where else did they have to go? Certainly no other nation would take them in.
Why should national independence for the Jews be, of itself, any more racist than independence for the Palestinians or the Kanaks or any other people? The clash between Jewish and Palestinian nationalisms is solved only by compromise and commitment to peace on both sides. Unfortunately, at this point, Israel is refusing to offer realistic peace proposals which address the Palestinians' rights to an independent state. This refusal is based, I believe, on sheer terror for survival, arising from historical experience but certainly not based on current realities.
Of course, this tiny nation would be in no position at all to act out its historical trauma on the world stage in this way if it were not in the interests of the United States which bankrolls it. Israel is to the United States as the Lebanese Phalangist militia is to Israel. In our support for the Palestinians, let us keep the real enemy in mind, and not waste to much venom on its cats paw, the Israeli government. Let us be wary, too, of the anti-semitism of the left which underlies a lot of this venom.
Vivienne Porzsolt
Potts Point NSW