Peed off, mate!

Peed off, mate!

As an Australian resident in Jakarta, I was shocked when my
wife told me, after our two-hour wait at the embassy merely to
submit her visa application, that she felt humiliated by the
process nurtured by the Australian Embassy, and by, one must
presume, the Australian government.

My wife majored in Oceanography at one of Indonesia's top five
universities, comes from a highly respectable family, has won two
significant awards in her career as a journalist -- second prize
in AOL-Time Warner's Henry Luce Awards and first in the Hong Kong
Foreign Correspondents Award for reporting on human rights -- is
a consultant to the government and the mother of our two
(Australian) children.

That she felt humiliated by the process demanded by the
Australian Immigration Service perhaps reflects Indonesian
attitudes. I cannot, unfortunately, help but also reflect on what
this process and the policy behind it says about the Australian
government's attitude toward its Asian neighbors.

I have discussed this mindset with a former senior Australian
government official in Jakarta, who told me that he believed
Australia's attitude toward Asia reflected an unconscious stand
of the John Howard government that is intrinsically racist. We
can all understand the need for strict security measures in the
wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, yet it is difficult to understand
why the Australian government cannot realize that it would be
more beneficial to the nation if it took a more cordial and
balanced attitude toward countries in the region and the citizens
of those countries.

Is it too much to ask the immigration section of the
Australian Embassy to provide a special window for families? In
our case, my wife has visited Australia a number of times, has
never thought of overstaying her visa, which, after all, when one
finally gets one, is sufficiently generous in its provision of
time. Yet even the requirement to pay a (non-refundable) fee of
around A$60 for a visa when Australians visiting Indonesia pay
nothing raises the question of whether this arrangement is fair.

When we return to Australia, we inevitably spend money. Money
spent on accommodation, travel, gifts for friends and expenditure
on everyday things contributes to the Australian economy. Why
then should legitimate visitors, people who have every right to
claim permanent residence, be submitted to the cattle market that
is the immigration section at the Australian Embassy? I can only
conclude that this is an insult to Asians, and Indonesians in
particular.

KEITH LOVEARD

Jakarta