“I Won’t Be Silenced”: Mehreen Faruqi On Anti-Migrant Threats After Pauline Hanson’s Tweet
“People feel entitled to demand my silence because I am a non-white migrant.”
When Pauline Hanson told me to “piss off back to Pakistan” last Friday, she managed to pack a whole lot of what’s wrong with Australian politics into a single sentence.
I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times I’ve been told to go back to where I come from. Everyone who looks like me has copped it at one point or another, but I can tell you the hurt and sorrow you feel hearing it never lessens.
It’s made worse by the sheer volume of hate a figure like Hanson can whip up. Far-right figures have social media hordes at their beck and call. Comments like Hanson’s aren’t just one-off cracks at someone they dislike, they’re a signal to their followers, who dutifully pile onto the target.
In the aftermath of Hanson’s tweet, I received hundreds of abusive calls, emails, tweets, and comments, which said things like “people will piss on your grave,” “I will cheer when you die,” “all you pricks are an enemy of our country,” and, predictably, dozens of variations of “fuck off back to where you came from”.
Sadly, it’s not just Hanson’s supporters — “Pauline right on the mark!!!” Senator Jacqui Lambie tweeted on Saturday — giving hate room to flourish. Many media outlets chose to represent Hanson’s comment as if they were a mere rebuttal to the point I was making about the Queen’s legacy, and not a direct anti-migrant attack on a colleague. There was little comfort in the absurdity that some outlets used asterisks to censor the word “piss”, but saw no problem repeating Hanson’s sentiment that a migrant should leave the country for expressing a view.
Of course there’s going to be disagreement about the Queen’s legacy in the wake of her passing. Conflict will always be a part of political debate on such important issues.
But there’s never an excuse for attacking someone for who they are. We must not confuse discrimination with debate.
Unfortunately it’s all too common that any contribution I make on important public debates — whether it’s about animal welfare, education, women’s rights, or anything else — is met with attacks, not on my ideas, but on who I am. People feel entitled to demand my silence because I am a non-white migrant.
I won’t be silenced and neither will the millions of others around the world affected by the brutal reality of colonisation.
“There’s a bitter irony to Hanson saying Australia is “one of the most socially inclusive and diverse nations in the world” just days after telling a migrant to “piss off” back to where I came from, so far without sanction…”
Still, action is needed. With the safety and wellbeing of people who work in Parliament rightly being in focus over the last year, I’m conscious no decent workplace would tolerate such brazen discrimination against a colleague as Hanson has directed at me. How can non-white workers in the Parliament feel safe when someone in a position like mine is still told to “piss off”?
As well as revealing a horrible culture of sexism and harassment, the Jenkins Review found workers in Parliament felt they wouldn’t be taken seriously in raising issues of racism. It’s no surprise that a lot of migrants and people of colour see this and don’t feel Parliament is representing them.
Practically, there’s a lot we can do. First, holding Hanson to account. Second, ensuring new codes of conduct for parliamentarians are strong on protecting diversity and come with real consequences for breaking them. Third, mandating anti-racism training for the whole parliament.
It might not change Hanson’s mind, but training like this can certainly help most people understand what is acceptable ‘debate’, inform the workplace’s response to racism, and encourage people to be better allies.
There’s a bitter irony to Hanson saying Australia is “one of the most socially inclusive and diverse nations in the world” just days after telling a migrant to “piss off” back to where I came from, so far without sanction.
Inside Parliament and in the community, I’m painfully conscious this week that the same historical forces that make people feel it’s unacceptable for me to raise the destructive legacy of colonialism also work to give Hanson cover. We have to tell the truth about both if we’re to make any progress toward building an anti-racist society.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi is Australian Greens deputy leader and spokesperson for anti-racism.