LESSONS ON LIVING

Some time ago I was travelling by public transport in Sydney to my spiritual group.  It was about 6pm on a city bound train and I was sitting in one of those compartments with two seats down either side.  When I got in to this compartment, there weren't many people in it although I noticed quite a lot of people in the other carriages.  It was Friday night and I imagine lots of people going into the city for some fun etc.  There was a young man sitting down the other end of the compartment from me with one leg in plaster and crutches.  I sat down on the seat closest to the entry and relaxed whilst the train continued to the next stop.  At the next stop a group of young Asian male and females got onto the the train and came into the carriage I was in.  They sat opposite me and I imagined they may have been students going home from TAFE, as the station we'd pulled into was right next to a TAFE College.  As the train travelled along I could hear these young people talking in their language quite gently and quietly.  After a minute or so the young man with the crutches called out 'speak English';......so obviously from the sound of him he was Australian born and bread.  The Asians ignored him and then soon after again, but with more aggression in his voice, he said 'speak English' more loudly.  The Asian youth stopped talking and looked across at him as they were sitting directly opposite me.  I looked at them and sensed the hostility building up in this carriage.  I could have moved but felt disinclined to do so.

I'm not racist and have been tired of the some of the Australian racist attitudes about for a long time now.  So I decided to get involved and see if I could diffuse the hostility in the young Australian man and prevent 'world war 3' from happening on this train.  I said quite disdainfully, as I turned to face the young man, "in the fifties it was the Italians and the Greeks......now it's the Asians".  He looked at me a bit startled and then asked me what I meant.  I then explained to him of how when I was a young child in this country, how aware I and others had become of the hostility and hatred many Australians had towards migrants from certain parts of the world, and at that time it was mainly Italians and Greeks.  But mostly Italians.  They worked harder than many Australians did and that was seen as a threat.  Now Australians have embraced the Italians and Greeks with sharing often in the cultural events and foods etc.  Then they represented the feared unknown, so now it's the Asians who are seen as the threat.  The young man seemed suprised and said in a youthful innocent way, 'I didn't know that'.  Then he asked why didn't they speak English anyway and I explained that who's to know when these people have arrived in this country and wether they have had time to even learn English etc.  Apart from that I said to this young man who had calmed down no end, 'no one has the right to tell people what language they should or shouldn't speak.  He sat quietly as I also stopped talking and then I got some kind a feeling of empathy for him and asked him 'you have a lot of anger about you, don't you'.  He replied that his anger was mostly to do with himself and his own frustration at having to be on crutches and his plastered leg.

What a miraculous turn about I felt.  His honesty touched me deeply and I learned something about prejudging others, as I also had judged him wrongly.   The Asian youth opposite had calmed down and relaxed and as we continued to travel along the young man and I chatted in a friendly manner.  What really surprised me was as we all got off on the same station, he apologised to the Asians saying that he had friends who were Asians too.  I felt like I'd won a major victory for humanity and had my faith in humanity restored immensely.   I thank Almighty God for the little miracles that He allows into my life every now and then.