There was a time in our history when Australia kept immigrants and visitors with dark skin at arm's length. Indian students and others from the Subcontinent and South East Asia were also a rare species. This was the era of the White Australia Policy, which remained on the statute books until 1972 when it was repealed by an act of parliament.
But in 1950 a new educational scheme, called the Colombo Plan, became a centrepiece of Australian Foreign Policy. It marked the beginning of the end of the White Australia Policy and played a significant role in the thawing of old entrenched attitudes.
The Colombo Plan affected my teenage years on a very personal level. As a Muslim teenager of Pakistani ancestry growing up in Perth in the late '50s, I was miserable and given to rehearsing rebellious speeches in front of the mirror, speeches that went no further than my bedroom. I envied the freedom enjoyed by my Anglo-Australian friends and spent a lot of time daydreaming about taboo pastimes, like dancing the twist and 'going out'.
There were no other Muslim families in Perth. My grandfathers had ventured to Australia in the 1890s, years before 1901 and the slamming of doors in the faces of people who looked like 'us'. On weekends I entered a twilight zone. I knew there had to be more to life than taking my baby brother to the cinema. This was decades before mobiles and the internet linked you up with like-minded strangers.
But one sunny day a normal teenage life became my lot, and my father's hair did not turn grey overnight. Suddenly I had friends who looked like me and we could go out together as a group. I owed it all to an Australian initiative for students from the Asia-Pacific region, an educational scheme light years ahead of the times.
Under the plan the first students to enrol in our tertiary institutions came from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. In the early phase of the plan many students happened to be Muslims. Nursing, engineering, business studies and economics were popular choices.
Certainly the students were carefully selected: intelligent, proficient in English, friendly, charming and good looking young people. Friendships were forged and many Anglo-Celtic homes 'adopted' the newcomers. So did service clubs and sporting and church organisations. Universities treated them as special guests.
The students were happy to