Today’s post is a bit of a mishmash – my views on a serious issue as well as a light-hearted food review.
Firstly, you may or may not have been aware that last Wednesday 24 February was Vindaloo Against Violence day.
Melbourne, Victoria and Australia has been subject to some shameful local and international press recently due to a spate of racially motivated crime, and Indians seems to be a particular target.
Many of us, including myself, are outraged and saddened by the rise of this sort of intolerant, violent behaviour as well as the lack of positive action being taken by the authorities. Mia Northrup decided to do something about it by instigating a peaceful grass-roots movement, designating Wednesday 24 February as Vindaloo Against Violence day – a day for Australians to dine out at their local Indian restaurant to:
- express their anger and disappointment that racially motivated violence is occurring in their city;
- embrace and show solidarity with the local Indian community; and
- mount a show of force against the perpetrators of violence.
So in the words of Funky Curry, we decided to ‘curry favour with Indians ‘ by partaking in some cheap and cheerful Indian food as our small contribution to Vindaloo Against Violence. For $9 we received two deliciously light freshly made naans, a choice of a meat dish and a choice of a vegetable dish.
I went for chicken vindaloo which had definitely been toned down for Western palates, and I didn’t need my mango lassi to help with the heat at all. The dahl was lightly spiced, with still chewy lentils visible – much better than the yellow mush you normally get.
J and B ordered the other available chicken dishes, the cauliflower curry and more dahl, and while all the varieties of curry looked remarkably the same, each imparted a distinctly different flavour. They wiped up their plates with the moreish naan so I assume the other curries were also pretty good.
On a more serious note, Vindaloo Against Violence should not be the end of it. I feel strongly about this issue as I’m an immigrant, I look Chinese, I speak another language – and I call Australia home. I don’t want the people of this country, whether they were born here or not, to feel fearful about being different or speaking up to openly confront racism.
If you care about these issues as well, check out and contribute to RM’s public Google Maps project Help Map and Track Incidents of Racial Violence in Melbourne which he started after he and I witnessed a particularly nasty incident on a train to Camberwell one day.
- Funky Curry, 164 Bourke St, Melbourne (and other locations) +61 3 9662 2299
apart from the occasionally stupid bogan do you really feel Australia is a racist country? I mean it just doesnt make sense to me
25% of the population were born in another country and 25% of people born here their parents were born in another country
Most of us are mixed raced (like me)…. ah a conversation for another time, my friend is a criminal barrister and he said the only reason why these attacks are ‘racially motivated’ is because indian students are usually passive, will not fight back and do not have cousins/family members who will seek revenge and are usually wealthy/have some sort of easily sellable items on their persons… to their credit of course
Twitter: easyasveganpie
| February 26, 2010, 9:32 am
Hi Carla
I’ve been fortunate that other than suffering mild childhood racism and occasionally being taunted by stupid kids/bogans, I’ve not been a victim of racism in Australia. But I also live in inner city, metropolitan and multicultural Melbourne. And unfortunately not everywhere in Australia is as broadminded or tolerant – I grew up in the state (and the adjoining electorate) that voted Pauline Hanson and the One Nation party to power.
Also, the other thing I have a problem with is why we even allow stupid bogans to make racist attacks on people? The shame I felt after that nasty train ride to Camberwell highlighted this for me. I’m pretty sure almost everyone on that train felt angry and uncomfortable, especially as one of the Asian girls started crying, but we were all too afraid to say anything in case we’d be physically attacked. That man could have easily been abusing my family or my friends and no one would have said anything to intervene. By staying silent, I felt like I had condoned his behaviour. I don’t want to live in a society where it’s ok to say such things, or worse, act violently, towards someone because of their race.
As for your friend’s comments – yes to an extent all those reasons are true. But I think they are almost excuses for the authorities’ lack of positive action about this issue. What if you replaced all references to ‘Indians’ with say ‘women’. “There is a spate of violence against female students at the moment. They are making themselves a target because they are passive, will not fight back, don’t have family members to protect them and are carrying iPods, laptops and mobile phones.” There’d be a huge public outcry and a push by the authorities to take some hard-hitting action.
Anyway, this is not really the right forum for political discourse. If you’re interested in reading more about this issue, I refer you to an excellent guest post by RM at Larvatus Prodeo (http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/01/14/guest-post-by-tim-watts-%E2%80%9Ci%E2%80%99m-not-racist-but%E2%80%A6-i%E2%80%99m-complacent/) I’m biased but I really do think he discusses the issues well. The comments are also interesting to read.
Jetsetting Joyce
Nicely balanced post Joyce.
Appropriate use of humour is something we all could do with more of.
My take on this is that it doesn’t matter if we think Australia is racist – it matters that the rest of the world are being lead to think that by the often biased and unbalanced media.
So upping our karma with some korma and “currying favour” with people who deserve to feel safe in the country they have chosen to call home is the least we can do to tell the world press a different side of the story.
Twitter: mysecondhelping
| February 26, 2010, 12:09 pm
Hi Jo
Welcome to MEL: HOT OR NOT and thanks for your comment! You’ve made a good point – education is Victoria’s largest export industry and so it’s important for us, if even only from an economic point of view, to maintain a tolerant and safe society where people from other countries feel welcomed. Hopefully Vindaloo Against Violence has helped somewhat in portraying Australia in a more positive light to the world community.
Jetsetting Joyce
That was very well-written Joyce, and with just the right balance of banter so as to not sound preachy. The unfortunate truth is that I’ve been subjected to racism aplenty since I first came to Melbourne, especially as I was already quite old and had a strong accent at the time etc etc. And racism isn’t always in the form of a blatant attack, but even snide and derogatory terms like “fob” and “internationals”. My experience is that diversity is not always embraced here – that for a foreigner to fit in (and sadly, especially an Asian foreigner), your best bet is to neutralize your accent and anything that’s different or loudly non-Australian about yourself. I’m sure that I’ve done a lot of it subconsciously to some degree, even though I recognize the irony and wrong in the black and white.
.-= Vee @ Munching (in) Melbourne´s last blog ..Vindaloo Against Violence: Namaste Indian Restaurant =-.
Ha! I went to Funky Curry for Vindaloo against Violence too! Except that I went there for dinner
I also had the chicken vindaloo (with a mango lassi) and found it to be decent but toned down for Westerners as you said. Next time you go there make sure you have the pav bhaji, it’s amazing and quite authentic to the Bombay version. (And ridiculously filling). That’s what I normally have there.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..Attica =-.
Twitter: alexlobov
| March 1, 2010, 9:08 pm
Good review and certainly endorse the anti-racism message Joyce:
“The dahl was lightly spiced, with still chewy lentils visible – much better than the yellow mush you normally get.”
Need to correct you here though. The dahl is meant to be yellow mush.
Hi Anidian
Thanks for your correction – next time I’ll look out for yellow mush!
Jetsetting Joyce