If the 2016 American Presidential Election taught me anything, and it did indeed teach me many things; mainly that misogyny and bigotry will win over experience, it mostly made me hyper aware of how little I know about my own countries politics.
I am Australian, and while I like a good joke at how our country is full of animals trying to kill us, or jokes at the expense of Pauline Hanson and Tony Abbott; I am still quite ignorant about what is going on in our politics.
When Americans were outraged at Trump’s proposed “Travel Ban”, which directly discriminated against Muslims, I was outraged too, until I realized the Australian government’s reactions to Muslims and to Immigrants, were alarmingly similar to America. With Pauline Hanson’s “One Nation” party and the surprising support it has garnered, half of Australians want to ban Muslim migrations to Australia. I don’t have to say why that is damaging, but I also didn’t know the situation was this serious, in my own country, until America brought it into the limelight. The Foreign Minister of Australia, Julie Bishop, also said that Australia supports America’s travel ban.
When gay marriage was being legalized around the world, Australia was, and is still, not legalizing the union of gay couples in marriage. While Australia is a Western country, we are still so backwards in so many of our ideals and politics.
Even when we had our first female Prime Minister, she was ridiculed and pushed out of office, while people were commenting on her fashion choices. Misogyny is still prevalent in Australian society, as well as racism against our first people and bigotry against Muslims, while we label ourselves a “diverse society”, and that’s not talked about enough.
While these situations in Australia are gross and ignorant, what I also find particularly disgusting is that I didn’t know these things were happening, or the extent to how bad they were. As a millennial who ingests most of their news from the internet, I am more versed in American politics and news, then I am in Australian; and while it’s good to be informed on foreign affairs, knowing barely anything about my own country is not a good thing.
We should all try to be educated on worldly issues, obviously, but also educate ourselves on our own countries policies, especially if we’re against something in another country, like misogyny in politics, and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, and if you are, like me, oblivious to how that same thing is occurring in your country, I want us all to be more educated.
