Norman Schueler: A unified, cohesive society is capable of overcoming any challenge
One thing has become abundantly clear as humanity confronts the shared threat coronavirus – nothing on earth is as absurd as racism, writes Norman Schueler.
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Amid the anxiety, uncertainty and distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there has emerged a point of clarity.
This global crisis has laid bare just how absurd racism is when we are all ultimately alike, stricken by the same illnesses, susceptible to the same fears, and desperate to protect our loved ones.
Indeed, the descent of a global pandemic has revealed many truths about human nature, about our inherent fragility, and our potential for baseness in times of crisis. There have been fistfights in shop queues over toilet paper rolls, selfish, irrational concerns trumping sanity, a sense of community and a duty to think firstly of our most needy.
Some have descended into ugly racism, blaming this global calamity on people from the country in which the virus originated. Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon.
Economic downturn, political instability and the ascendancy of something terrible that is beyond our grasp of understanding has always led to violence, bloodletting and attacks on vulnerable, easily recognisable minorities.
But for all the selfishness, irrationality and plain hatred that has been uncovered by this time of rare stress and instability, there have been moments of beauty that have uplifted us, revealed our resilience, our common humanity.
In Italy, a country ravaged by the virus, quarantined Italians have serenaded each other from their balconies – showing social distancing need not equate to a distant society.
In Australia, hundreds of people have come forward, just as they did during our horrific bushfires, to volunteer, this time by delivering groceries to the elderly and infirm or by the simple, magnanimous deed of regularly phoning those living alone to check on their welfare.
We have harnessed the power of technology and social media, so often lamented as a source of societal decay, to stay connected, share messages of hope and to maintain the bond of community in eerie, uncertain times.
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A unified, cohesive society is capable of overcoming any challenge, no matter how grave. And a society marred by racism, pettiness and irrationality will always find a way to consume itself.
This crisis will not only test the limits of our health system and our economy, it will test what sort of a society we have really built here, and reveal what sort of a people we Australians truly are.
I know the chaos brought about by a justifiable stress and anxiety will pass, and in their place will remain the qualities of mateship, community, concern for our elders and our sick, and that unimpeachable Aussie determination to just get on with the job.
Norman Schueler is SA Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission chairman