By Jon Richardson
Dwelling on the African background of youth offenders misrepresents the African communities in Australia, and taps into older prejudices about Africa
The recent debate over youth crime in Melbourne has centred, in part, on how best to describe and label it.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said "of course it's African gang violence". The Australian showed it had no doubts on January 6, leading its front page with "African Gang's Reign of Fear". Others have addressed the question of whether these are really "gangs", how serious the violence is, and whether youths of African ancestry really are worse perpetrators than others.
My concern is the way in which the Africanness of these youths is dwelt on as a critical and defining factor, this affecting African-Australians in general, some suffering insults and hostility simply by virtue of having an African appearance.
Illustration: Matt Davidson
Calling gangs or youth offenders of African background African may seem innocent enough, hardly in the same league as President Trump's reported denigration of African countries as "shitholes". But to many Africans it appears to tap into similar veins of prejudice, particularly when crimes by a tiny proportion of this small sub-section of Africans appear to get disproportionate attention.
We should ask ourselves whether we would find it strange if Italian-Australian drug syndicates 30 odd years ago had been labelled as "European organised crime".
Part of the problem lies in stereotyping that lumps all Africans together as one and fails to take account of the nature and diversity of the African community in Australia.
Nearly 350,000 respondents in the 2016 Census gave their ancestry as from the African continent, and well over 500,000 had at least one parent born there. Almost 70 African ancestries or identities were represented, in terms of either country origin or ethnic groups.
Police and African-Australian community leaders patrol the Tarneit Shopping Centre and Wyndham area as a part of continued efforts to jointly address antisocial behaviour and youth offending.Credit: Paul Jeffers
African-Australian communities broadly can be divided into those who have almost exclusively come to Australia via the skilled migration program, and those whose have arrived through the refugee intake.
Skilled migrants - selected primarily on the basis of their qualifications and English levels - have a much higher level of educational attainment than the general population. Africans, being relatively recent arrivals, have among the highest levels of all. The Census found 61 per cent of Nigerian-born people over 15 had a university degree, near the top of the list Australia-wide. Kenyans were at 43 per cent, South Africans 39 and Zimbabweans at 38. This compares to 20 per cent for Australian-born, and 6-8 per cent for those born in Greece or Italy, for example.These are not usually the kind of families from which "gang crime" originates. As widely reported the groups identified as African youth gangs are predominantly of South Sudanese background, with a sprinkling of others mostly from refugee communities.
Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton and police minister Lisa Neville speak about crime and gangs.Credit: Chris Hopkins
But it would be a travesty to suggest that these kids are somehow typical of South Sudanese or other refugee communities. Community leaders, police and social workers point out that a high proportion of the offenders - themselves a small minority - come from single parent families, who have had a particularly traumatic experience of war and refugee life before coming to Australia, minimal English and difficulty getting jobs.
But many South Sudanese have thrived in various professions and walks of life. The proportion of South Sudanese-born with a university degree, at 13 per cent, is still not far off the Australian average and similar to many more established migrant populations.
The African community in Victoria as a whole has not sought to throw the South Sudanese community to the wolves, but has united to encourage a considered response to youth crime and promote a better understanding of how African-Australians are contributing to society at large. One vehicle has been the Twitter hashtag #Africangangs which has carried an avalanche of positive images of South Sudanese people graduating from university, running businesses, attending the footy, celebrating with families.
Problems of stereotyping of Africa and Africans stems in part from lack of awareness of and interest in the continent, reflecting the lower priority it has had in Australia relative to countries in our own region and long-standing links to Europe and the US.
Most stories in the media about Africa stick to well-worn paths of war, conflict and disaster, reinforcing narrow and negative images. Sometimes these preconceptions tap into older prejudices about the "dark continent" that hark back to the days of colonialism and slavery.
Africa faces a range of common problems - weak governance, corruption, rapid population growth, as well as remaining pockets of conflict. But there has been real progress over the last 20 years in building democracy, economic development and reducing conflict.
There is also great diversity among and within Africa's 54 states, which comprise an area the size of Europe, South America and Australia combined, with some 2000 languages spoken. Two African countries, Cape Verde and Mauritius, outranked the US in the latest Freedom House ratings of democracy and civil liberties, while Ethiopia, Djibouti and Tanzania were among the world's six fastest-growing economies worldwide last year.
A better appreciation of the African community in Australia and of the African continent would be helpful in treating the youth crime issue in Melbourne in a constructive and measured fashion.
Jon Richardson is a former Australian High Commissioner to both Nigeria and Ghana, and is currently a Senior Adviser with consulting group African Geopolitics.