Villawood riots hard to stomach, but we're wrong to rush to judge

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 30 April 2011

As the daughter of European refugees, I'm hard-wired for empathy rather than judgment on the subject of asylum seekers. But even I felt a ripple of indignation over the recent violent protests at Villawood, in which nine buildings were torched.

At some level, the attempt to hold the authorities of an enlightened country to ransom smacked of opportunism and bad faith. And I couldn't help questioning the wisdom of letting in people who are so contemptuous of the rule of law and so willing to risk the safety of others.

The wave soon passed and shame set in. I'm just one generation on from tyranny and persecution and debilitating helplessness, and already smug indifference settles in, or tries to. It can happen faster still. Migrants who once paid a fortune to people smugglers, who still keep a stash of forged documents in a battered old suitcase, now chant ''send them home''. I've seen it many times. Gotta love human nature: the urge to self-pity can overwhelm.