IN AUSTRALIA, shows like Customs and Border Security are prime time material. There is one reason for this – they cater to the innate sense of xenophobia among the Australian masses.
It is extremely unlikely that one will ever see a white man nabbed for carrying anything illegal on either of these shows. There are countless Thais, Vietnamese, other Asians, Jamaicans, or other black people, caught carrying anything from soft drugs like marijuana to the hard stuff like cocaine.
Of course, if programs like these did show white couriers and drug smugglers, the number of viewers would drop like a stone. These shows are just a means to drive up the fear factor and pull in white people who think they are superior to brown- and black-skinned people.
There is an inherent message in shows like this: brown and black people are bad, we white people are good. It is a necessary message at a time when the Western world is rapidly losing its economic superiority which, for long, enabled it to dictate things to the rest of the world.
Western commentators are quick to admit the hold that China has, in economic terms, over the rest of the world, but boy, does it leave a sour taste in their mouth!