2013-08-12        David Timbs (Melbourne)       David's previous articles

Australia has long understood itself as a country of immigrants but this is, historically, a recent phenomenon. The first Europeans were dispatched by the British government to this vast Island Continent in order to establish a settlement for convicts. The ‘First Fleet’ arrived in what is now Sydney on the lower east coast in January 1788.

African immigration to Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon. With the exception of a large white flight from South Africa at the end of Apartheid and from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, black African immigration to Australia has been quite small. However, during the past two decades or so relatively large numbers of people, mostly people fleeting civil war have found a home in this country. They come mostly from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, and Liberia. For most of these new comers, readjustment has not been easy.

The reflections and observations that follow derive mainly from personal experience as a secondary school teacher and part time English language literacy tutor. In the main, they concern the South Sudanese.

In moments of candour, South Sudanese asylum seekers have indicated that even being relocated from their war affected homeland to UNHCR camps in Kenya and Egypt felt like being upgraded to five-star accommodation after what they had endured. The constant anxiety and insecurity of living in hell holes and murder traps such as the enormous refugee camp at Dafur and its surrounding areas were intolerable. But culture shock is a relative thing. Once accepted as refugees and relocated to Australia even more intense forms of social, cultural and environmental shocks greeted them.

One of the more challenging of these adjustments for these asylum seekers was to fit in and become part of a Western regulated society. They suddenly discovered that things worked in a way to which they were unaccustomed. This sudden immersion came at a huge psychological and emotional cost to many of them. At almost all levels they were now introduced to a bewilderingly complex three level system of government and bureaucracy: Federal, State and local.

Decades of social dislocation, dependency on outside agencies for survival together with alienation from cultural roots have also taken their toll. Increasingly, African immigrant groups, with rapid social absorption, are now experiencing severe stresses on and breakdowns in family and wider clan relationships. Many younger ones, having quickly acculturated to what for them is the emancipation of the liberal ethos and mores of the host society, are ignoring or rejecting traditional lines of internal social and moral authority and discipline.

Another struggle, not readily spoken about is colour. The Africans are acutely aware that the colour of their skin is a huge factor in their own self-perception, identity and public image. They stand out dramatically and in stark contrast with those around them. The sudden experience of massive difference is profound for them and potentially unsettling. Their anxieties need not be an enduring burden. Gradually the skin colour of Australia is changing to a light brown and it’s not due to suntan but the intermixture of many races.

A major handicap experienced by the new comers was, and remains, literacy in the English language. While most of the older ones were obviously at home in their own dialects and even had a good working knowledge of other languages such as Arabic, Swahili and English, they were effectively illiterate in all of them. In their new environment, the children quickly learned passable to good English but are tending increasingly to ignore the traditional ancestral language clans. As a result these young people are becoming isolated from the great oral traditions which had acted as a kind of social and cultural glue since time immemorial.

Over recent years coalitions of different groups have formed to offer post-school literacy programs to both children and adults. A vast amount of good will and genuinely cooperative and effective programmes have been developed and a surge in teacher/tutor volunteerism generated.

Most of those who came to Australia as adults or older teenagers have effectively missed out on most of an otherwise expected normal education. While most males have had an education up to mid primary level, 92 % of women have had no formal education at all. All of these refugees have experienced massive disadvantage. A whole generation of adults and older youth have missed those crucial formative years of education and skilling. Since the early 2000s, it has been not uncommon for twenty year olds and over going back into fifteen year old class groups and trying to play catch up.

These young people have had to confront and accept the fact that they simply do not have the depth of education to allow them to progress into the more academic levels and on to professional careers: Various State education systems offer Certificate of Applied Learning (CAL), Vocational Educational Training (VET) courses which are mostly the pathways leading to eventual employment in the wider workforce but very little prospect of advancement.

The younger South Sudanese, like most children born in Australia, are highly aspirational in their outlook but they often lack realism, particularly of what professional life actually expects. They often find the gap between dreams and reality to be profound and sometimes very disheartening. Time, education and emerging opportunities will eventually go a long way in bridging this gap between desire and reality, between present and future.

Few or no chances of employment: loss of sole control over finances, language, skills, organisational know how: discouragement, psychological problems: neuroses and psychoses (fantasy games: wandering around streets and shopping malls playing tradespeople/ business people in suits and with briefcases), loss of control over sons/ male dependents, domestic violence: courts, loss of honour. It is becoming clear now that an under-class is emerging among young and middle aged African men especially those from South Sudan and Somalia. A major factor in this is the break down in internal community. The traditional values and institutions of authority which formerly constituted social glue which held family and community together is no longer adhering.

Many males are rudderless and without bearings in a strange society which offers few familiar points of reference to guide them. The consequences are frequently shame and depression over the loss of traditional roles such as head of family, moral guide and the position of bread winner. Loss of overall control of finances is often experienced by adult males as an erosion of their traditional authority. Resentment, frustration and anger can surface and become manifest in domestic violence usually directed at the women folk.

Youth police problems: presenting as gangs when in fact it is normal social behaviour, aping the rap culture of South Central LA as it was ten years ago – trying to look cool when that kind of cool is not cool any more. With young people dropping out of school and further education programmes there has been a noticeable elevation in the crime rates in this community and increasingly over represented compared with the wider community. Offenses include public drunkenness, black on black extortion, robbery, rape. Increasingly there have been complaints from some African groups that police unfairly profile them and harass them in public spaces. Much of this derives from an inability of many Australians to make the distinction between youths simply gathering in friendship groups and the potential for passive aggressive gang-like gatherings.

The greatest potential for social reaction and perhaps even overt violence might arise not from white-black tensions but from conflict between Asians and Africans. Its causes will not be race but fear on the part of Asian business owners that groups of unemployed African youth who loiter in groups at least passively intimidate customers and so drive them away from their businesses. If problems do escalate in that area it will be the ethnic Chinese who will be the main players. So far, ethnic leaders and community workers are mostly succeeding in minimising inter-racial tensions.

Most of the challenges for the South Sudanese women are related to a sense of inadequacy and insecurity resulting from lack of education, of language difficulties and illiteracy. 92% of South Sudanese women are illiterate! These combine to cause bewilderment and confusion at the bureaucracy on all levels of government. Realities such as money management, social compliance demands are further compounded by frequent lack of cooperation and co-responsibility from male partners and older sons. As a result, many women are suffering high levels of emotional and psychological stress due to these factors.

There are, however, important factors at work in their new country which provide a source of empowerment and security for women. These represent a social and economic safety net,  housing, comprehensive free health care, relative financial security provided by social security benefits. The negative consequence of social dependency is that many women feel an understandable deep loss of pride and self-determination because of that dependency.

Immigration from South Sudan, Somalia and some other countries has largely been halted by the Australian Government since either national independence in these countries or by virtue of the fact that the United Nations has declared them secure. The actual situations in these countries, however, remain tenuous and fluid. Legal proclamations of facts do not create reality. South Sudan, one year after Independence, is a case in point. [1]

A number of things are emerging as both probabilities and certainties for the South Sudanese communities. Those who came here as young children or who are Australian born will almost certainly have a happy and successful future in this country. Their parents, for the most part, and many of their older siblings will most likely never feel completely at home in this new country and will never achieve adequate levels of education or professional competence. This has been the lot of previous waves of immigrants who have come to Australia over previous decades from comparable situations of cultural and linguistic difference and disadvantage. For this latter group, the challenge will be to avoid falling into the welfare trap and its related culture of morale-sapping dependency. Some groups have begun to exploit the riches of their culture and traditions and to further skills education and to establish businesses. There is much to be gained from this kind of flare, risk-taking and imaginative initiative. [2]

There are strong indications that South Sudanese immigrants to Australia have much less fear of returning to their homeland than other groups, for example, Afghans, Iranians and Sri Lankans. Many South Sudanese have returned for various reasons, some to visit family and friends, others permanently. South Sudanese, especially who have developed the appropriate skills and earned professional qualifications are looking at their homeland in a new way.

A growing number of males, middle aged and younger have decided to return to South Sudan to put their shoulders to the wheel of development in a new country where both newly resourced human capital and material infrastructure are desperately needed to make this nation safe, stable and economically viable. This should not be interpreted as a rejection of their new country – most have been very quick to take up Australian citizenship – but a growing sense of independence, confidence and a desire to rebuild their ancestral land so sadly and tragically reduced to ruin before their very eyes. Both public and private sectors will benefit enormously from all of this new energy, imagination and commitment. [3]

References:

[1] Immigration policy has change in relation to South Sudan since national Independence. After the initial euphoria, there are now reasons for some caution as the new country comes to grips with the complexities of nationhood. See here.

[2] Africans homespun entrepreneurs, learning of Australia’s multicultural society, have begun successful small businesses based on traditional culture such as cuisine, art and entertainment, for example See the references to The Sorgum Sisters

[3]Some five hundred Sth Sudanese Australians, despite the odds and obstacles, have re-established a vibrant community of expats to help build the new nation, click here. and here.

David Timbs writes from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

12/08/13

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