The Generational Gap

As I was sat opposite my grandparents for dinner on Tuesday, the topic of Sonia Kruger's controversial statements on Muslim immigration were discussed. I am all for the hard hitting issues being talked over a nicely roasted chook and baked veggies, but I feel like this particular conversation depicted the strong mindset of the older Australian generation.

Whilst my Mum and Grandma agreed that Sonia had been brave to admit, in their words, "what everyone else is thinking" I kept my mouth shut. Normally, I am the first to debate with my family and articulate just what I think about the whole situation, but for some reason I wanted to get a real sense of what they thought. To my surprise, I managed to do just that and bite my tongue when the resurrection of the White Australia Policy was mentioned.

Sadly I feel like I have grown up in a slightly racist household. It wasn't intentional but through a combination of strange nicknames and inappropriate humour I found myself saying "don't be so racist" a little often. I don't want you to get the wrong idea about my family because we aren't a bunch of housos living in Beerwah without a clue about multiculturalism, but there are flaws. It was probably a good thing for me as I got pretty passionate and defensive early on in life with the comments made because they knew I would react.

Anyway, cast your mind back to the roast chicken and imagine my dismay when there were comments made about sending all the "others" back to their countries so we could claim back Australia. I am going to take this opportunity to say exactly what I think about this and do so in an environment where I can say what I want without the fear of being told I'm too open-minded.

The Islamic State scares the hell out of me and like Sonia I am scared for what the future holds if the world doesn't get a handle on the huge amount of terror attacks that seem to be happening every other day. However, I do not believe the solution lies in removing innocent people from their chosen countries just because of their religion or their need to have fled their countries of origin. We are naive if we think we can just "get rid of the bad eggs".

Hearing my parents and grandparents thoughts on this actually saddened me, knowing there is such a huge generational gap between my opinions and theirs. I suppose that is bound to happen as society changes and as Australia grows up as a nation, but I hope that my generation is the first to accept everyones flaws and work together to overcome them.

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