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Rudd, Ruddock and the deep, dark currents of fear
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God it was like one of those Japanese horror movies, where a ghost appears on a videotape, and everyone who sees it dies. Lucky Phil Ruddock, hovering round the backbenches these past years — possibly because he knows that he’ll be a pariah when he leaves — popped up to tell us of TEN THOUSAND asylum seeking illegal queue jumpers coming our way. “They’re waiting in Iran, in Pakistan, in Syria …” In Manangatang and Naracoorte and Dimboola and Jerilderie … they come from everywhere man. To say Ruddock was enjoying himself would be a category error, but he appeared to be getting some relief from being the Coalition’s scapegoat for the shame of its refugee policies. I don’t mean he’s been blamed or set-up. The scapegoat is not sacrificed — instead he is sent into the desert, loaded with the tribe’s sins. The scapegoat is not worthy of sacrifice. The tribe purifies itself, by forgetting he ever existed. There was the old demeanour — the skin like wet paper mache, waiting to be molded, the hair like a wreath of cigarette smoke. Ruddock, a man of liberal instincts some years, decades, ago, took on the refugee thing for complicated reasons. It chewed him up, and spat him out, and the result, pulsating with resentment and vindictive and premature triumph, is what we now see on our screens. But is he right? Can this thing be kicked into touch? The answer is unknowable, because what happens in the next six months will tell us as much about the past as about the future. If Labor does not panic, and holds the line at some level, and the issue does not once again move to the centre of political life, then we know with greater certainty what this country is. We will know that the bias in creating Tampa politics lay with the Howard government – that they enrolled the evil angels of our nature in a campaign consciously framed to inflame, in the medical sense, certain sensitivities in the body politic, that had abated but not yet disappeared – a fear of boats from the north, whether it be the Russians, the Chinese, the Communists, the red menace, the yellow peril, the burnt orange fashion of the 1970s… However, if it all starts up again, then we will know we are in a different kind of trouble — if we simply get a re-run of the Tampa hysteria, then we will know that these currents run much deeper in Australian society, and that it has less to do with the political manipulation of some old fears, than with a modern indifference to the suffering of others based on selfish and foolish notions that occupying an island-continent somehow means we can pick and choose our engagement with the world. Of course if Labor doesn’t hold some sort of line, if it goes the full fear root, and tries to leapfrog the Libs on border security, then we won’t know anything. But there seems little likelihood that Labor will do that – not necessarily because they are more moral than the Coalition (though they are), but because there is no upside to it. You can’t beat conservatives in a fear fight. Fear is the chemical precursor to social conservatism, an attitude memorably summarise by Kingsley Amis once as “I want to get a gun so someone doesn’t come over the hill and steal my shit” (he was saying it approvingly). On refugees, Labor has no road but the high road. Put in pure political terms, Kevin Rudd could never sell himself as a sadist, the way John Howard did — and the sadism of Howard’s policy (“I don’t want people like that in this country”, i.e., let them stay bobbing in the water) was its essence. You think you’re hard, he was saying to the gen public, I’m harder. Rudd just wouldn’t play that way — he’s spent years cultivating the image of Labor as forward-looking, open, optimistic. Howard, though he talked of being comfortable and relaxed was like a political Arcimboldo picture, a man entirely made of resentments. Furthermore in a deeper sense, Labor’s whole rationale — as a social liberal party — is inherently humanistic and universalistic. It cannot take the deep conservative position that, to quote Herder, “I have met Prussians, Scots, Swedes and Levantines, but never have I met a human being” – it cannot retreat into a total indifference to the extra-national other, which was a feature of Howard’s policy. Quite aside from fomenting a revolt from the left, within the party, it simply does not sit with the rest of its philosophy. Labor may talk about “nation-building”, but that is a different thing to talking about “Australia-building” or being “a citadel of the West” or anything. “Nation” in this sense, stands for “society”, a word that cannot be used because it attracts derisive memories of Whitlamism etc. The ideological core of Rudd’s idea of ‘nation building’ is the idea of full development of Australian citizens, qua human beings. That because we are endowed with certain capacities, the only just policy is one that allows their full flourishing amongst whoever has them. So, since he has raised this idea, put it at the centre of his political claims, he has no choice but to live up it. Whatever malarkey is done with Christmas Island, bunkbeds, etc, favours from Indonesia, this is a fight he can’t duck — to talk simultaneously about a right to control one’s borders, and about the necessary respect for human dignity that demands a just treatment of refugees. That boat-borne arrivals are just a small but visible part of the flow of people travelling unauthorised (many of whom will then be judged as refugees once processed), that fetishising landfall on the Australian continent is ridiculous, that we can cope with whatever numbers even the most outlandish estimates would suggest. Doubtless the ALP has polling showing this to be a hard sell — as much to non-Anglo groups, as to the clichéd xenophobic skip. But if it does not take the high road, then it is immediately prone to an Opposition whose license for viciousness on this matter is an open one. Furthermore, the only way in which the Coalition could reverse the view that it is weak and the government strong is on this issue, where it can come together to a man and woman, save for its small (and departing) left-liberal remainder. Indeed if Rudd is smart he will add panic over refugees to the catalogue of weaknesses to be pinned on Malcolm Turnbull. He will paint him as a fearful leader who has no faith in the country’s ability to rise to challenges, calmly and authoritatively. He will push Turnbull to a point that he, as a man of liberal instincts, will have trouble going — at least with the full lip-licking gusto that Howard could spit up at the slightest prompting. You can’t choose the challenges you face, only how you’ll respond to them. Rudd’s hero Bonhoeffer was a people smuggler, arrested for helping Jews escape World War II Germany into Switzerland — and the German public were told that he and others like him were helping the Jews who had started the war escape with their gold. Rudd has hedged and cavilled on this issue, but the fight for the country’s soul is here. And if he wants to see what it’s like when you lose your soul, he should look at Philip Ruddock, a pile of ash in shirtsleeves, standing before the cameras intoning about thousands of arrivals, while the crew wonder whether his image will even be captured by the video… |
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48 Comments
“the full fear root” ?
I had a full fear root once. By god, she was terrifying.
I suppose I agree with Rundle but why is he so prolix - ie, write at such inordinate length? Come on editors, a word in the man’s ear
I hope to christ you’re right about Rudd Guy.
May the ghost of Bonhoeffer guide him.
The alternative is just too depressing to contemplate.
Free market devotee and satirist P J O’Rourke on abc Q & A earlier in 2009:
“The right-wing in many countries has got this wrong. Let ‘em in!…they are an asset to society.”
10,000? A p*ss in a lake.
The obvious answer is to hypothecate the increase in refugees (from push factors) to a decrease in economic migrants in our bloated immigration intake. Problem virtually solved overnight allowing for some language and cultural orientation courses.
I don’t think I’ve ever loathed another person like I do the Howard/Ruddock/Downer crowd. I find their attitudes demeaning and depressing. To think Ruddock once criticized the Hawke/Keating govts on their ‘lack’ of human rights legislation is chilling. This is what absolute power does to the human psyche. I hope I never forget it.
There’s a really good documentary called, “Unconstitutional - the fight for civil liberties in the US(or America?). It can be found on http://www.freedocumentaries.org just go down the right hand side of the screen, the titles are in alphabetical order. It covers what happened to many people in the US from the Middle East, (after 9/11) who were locked up or deported or just disappeared overnight, without even the chance to let anyone know.
It covers the PATRIOT Act, and how it was changed secretly, printed in secret overnight, and how it was voted for before people even had a chance to read it(remined me of Howard and WorstChoices plus the Anti-Terrrorism Bill); and how local govts the police and other outlets such as libraries and retail outlets that sold scuba gear etc, were manipulated, coerced and threatened to ‘co-operate’ with the FBI etc, and how they fought back! It’s good stuff!
The poem that finishes with’ and when they came for me, there was nobody left to protest’ (or words to that affect - I think the author of the original was a minister of religion in Germany during WW2 - it’s added to for the current situation )gives me goose bumps every time I hear it! It’s on while the credits are. Renewed my faith in americans! Worth watching!
I’d hoped that Ruddock might have had the decency to retire, but should’ve known better - he doesn’t even know how to look that word up in the dictionary - decency, that is!
Thanks Guy- i hope that they are listening.
Oh and just to add Karl Bitar ALP and George Brandis (Liberal) MPs on Lateline last Friday night, quoth:
“MARK ARBIB: Look, I can’t give you a ranking, but a bill of rights is not the issue here. It’s about human rights, and the Government, the Attorney-General, organised a committee which was commissioned last December to look at the issue of human rights, especially for vulnerable people. We’re talking about the homeless; we’re talking about people who are disabled, mentally ill.
LEIGH SALES: But is this a high priority for the Government, acting on the recommendations of this commission?
MARK ARBIB: Well, human rights is definitely a high priority.
LEIGH SALES: Is acting on the recommendations of this commission a high priority?
MARK ARBIB: Well, the report only came in yesterday - it was only released yesterday - so we need to have a long, hard look at it. And there was something like 35,000 submissions from the community. So we need to pay them the respect that’s warranted and have a look at the report and work out if the recommendations are warranted. Now, this is, in the end, about providing people with a fair go and ensuring that vulnerable people in our community are protected. And I think that’s good cause, and I think that’s something that George would also agree with and I’m sure his own party.
LEIGH SALES: Do you know how much this human rights consultation panel has cost?
MARK ARBIB: No, I don’t.
LEIGH SALES: George Brandis, you’re strongly opposed to having any form of a bill of rights in Australia. As a conservative, why do you not support the protection of individual rights and the ability of people to challenge the government if their rights are infringed?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Well, Leigh, as a Liberal, I profoundly support that, and I do agree with what Mark said at the beginning of his last answer. That is, this has to be a debate about human rights, not a bill of rights. It has to be a debate about ends, not means. ……… We proposed, and Father Brennan also adopted our recommendation, of the establishment of a parliamentary human rights committee that would scrutinise all legislation specifically from a human rights point of view. But our point, Leigh, is that we have to locate this debate in Parliament - in Parliament - where it can be conducted in the clear light of day by people elected by and accountable to the Australian people. ….
Exactly! The politics of fear and hate… lets move beyond it.
Great piece! Well done, one of your BEST yet…
Tom, the conservatives need to be stripped of the right to utter the sentence (or sentence fragment) “as a Liberal”
Phillip Ruddock, old, comfortably well-off white guy, really is the fag end of the Liberal Party.
I think it’s strange how the Liberal Party seeks to demonise refugee arrivals when they were the party in government who opened the floodgates of our Immigration intake by traditional routes. Tho’ hypocrisy was never beyond them.
I realise now what a sublime moment it was about five years ago on the open rear deck of the high speed ferry from Townsville to Magnetic Island. It must have been a Friday afternoon because the roaring boat was packed with returning commuters, a full-moon dance party crowd of Townies and a small group with the Federal Member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay, on their way to a Liberal Party branch meeting on the Island - with a special guest. Squeezed through the doors beyond the milling crowd near the bar I brushed past the known-to-me local member who smiled proudly and introduced me to his little mate.
That single, cool handshake cured the ten year old rheumatoid arthritis in my right hand and I never looked back. What can I say?
I certainly have no sympathy for Phillip Ruddock but he is a sad sight. John Howard and Alexander Downer have kept a glow about them, as if they know that they’re right and we’re wrong, but poor Ruddock has those empty eyes and same prattle. I agree that he’s probably just staying in politics because he’ll just wander around, being an object of scorn, for the rest of his life.
Demonising refugees it makes me sick; how about the Australian ethos of a fair go - too much to expect from some of our politicians, there might be a few votes to garner here from some of the willfully ignorant.
How many boat people did this country absorb successfully after the Viet Nam war - 30 000 or so, what the hell is the difference today (other than politicians) these people are escaping from the hell of war and strife torn nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka.
We’re about to find out of this country really does have AIDS.
If Mr Jagadeeswaran does exist, I’m sure Guy Rundle’s article would be of some comfort to him.
Like or not Howard’s famous words “we will decide who comes to this country and under what circumstances they come” struck a cord with the majority of Australians once, and sentiments to that effect will do so again unless the flow of refugee boats decreases.
How about some analysis of the seeming ease with which these people enter countries like Indonesia, and if necessary remain there until a spot on refugee boat comes up. It is too easy for counties like Indonesia to do little or nothing if the problem is eventually going to land on Australia’s door step.
Irrrespective of whether the people on the boats are economic or genuine refugees, it is still part of a criminal racket putting people’s lives at risk.
Thanks Guy, vivid images that remind us of our own failing.
” Howard, though he talked of being comfortable and relaxed was like a political Arcimboldo picture, a man entirely made of resentments.”
Please post images of Arcimboldo pictures.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Arcimboldo+pictures
RICHARD MCGUIRE - “Irrrespective of whether the people on the boats are economic or genuine refugees, it is still part of a criminal racket putting people’s lives at risk.”
And dodging bullets, bombs, waiting for your husband, son or daughters to be locked up(jails in Iraq are full of dissidents - Abu Graib exposures didn’t change a thing - except, that the US stopped using cameras?) or DU to give your kids horrific cancers? The women in Iraq, of whom so many are widows with children and perhaps elderly parents to care for(if they haven’t been killed already) are almost insane from the trauma of it all! I’d pick up my kids and take my chances, if the opportunity arose? I can’t think of a worse nightmare - even those on SIEV X - I’d still like to know the real truth about that? One day perhaps, someone’s conscience will get the better of them? Perhaps?
As you sow so shall ye reap the good book says. Another proverb says you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Notwithstanding the pros and cons of refugees and or illegal immigrants, the current government’s relaxation of the harsh regime administered by the previous government, whilst electorally popular with the chattering classes, has arguably provided a stimulus for people smuggling. The recent upsurge in numbers would support this assertion.
It is the people smugglers, whether their clients be true refugees or economic immigrants who make money out of this vile trade. One also has to ask why Australia is the destination of choice? The answer is quite simple. Once you get here, the returns are so high to the individuals concerned that they take the necessary risk to get here. True refugees could happily settle in any one of the countries they have travelled through to get here.
By relaxing the controls the government is encouraging more of this activity but it will not face up to the reality that relaxation of these controls is probably a significant factor in the influx of the influx. People smuggling by boat is but one channel of illegal immigration, and overstaying visas and shonky training colleges are much greater source of illegal migration into this country. Perhaps if the government cracked down on those alternative channels, it could provide more opportunity for genuine refugees to come to Australia. Unfortunately this would involve a policy decision which would upset the growing number of ethnic diasporas , especially as once illegal migrants get a foothold in this country it is difficult to get them out.
So the simple solution is to look good by relaxation of controls at home for domestic political consumption, and get the Indonesians do the dirty work for you. That way you can play the good guy at home and use the Indonesians as your police.
It would be much better if the government, if it wishes to control illegal immigration jointly to reinstate the harsh controls provided by the previous government and strictly enforce the rules in relation to illegal migration through overstaying of visas. Then as a consequence we could increase our intake of genuine refugees, identified through United Nations agencies and not by some self assessment process facilitated by people smugglers.
Right on the money Guy, top article.
A common enough response from both Greg Angelo and Raymond Church. If they can spare the time they might like to read this piece in the SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/more-global-conflict-means-more-asylum-seekers-20091014-gwh9.html
Greg, this is not right. Where can a Tamil asylum seeker find refuge on the way to Australia -not in Indonesia or Malaysia- they have not signed the refugee convention and have no obligation to process an application. In the case of Malaysia they have civilian gangs organised to assault refugees and asylum seekers so not a good place to stop.
As for Afghans- cant apply in Kabul, Islamabad, Delhi, Teheren- UNHCR offices not open for business- Australian embassies either. Nearest office is JakartaUNHCR. One problem- they are overwhelmed and under resourced so there they are told - come back in 6 months. With no money, no right to work what are they to do. Then they meet others asylum seekers who have been waiting 9 years- what would you do Greg?
Well done Guy. You’ve proved once again you’re one of our country’s most intelligent, talented and tell it how it is journo’s. We need you on TV bro, doing as the likes of Jon Stewart have done in the US. There must be a TV producer in this country that has seen the ratings of programs like The Daily Show and the consistent polls that, sadly, put them on top of the most trusted in current affairs and news reporting in the guise of comedy to outsmart and confuse the rightwing. The conservatives have a mortgage on fear, progressive’s best option is intelligent comedy. How hard is it to expose the right as the sick evil jokes they are. All it needs is for good men to do something and you’re doing it. The Daily Rundle, has a great ring to it.
Very kind of you Stephen, thankyou. An interesting read. Have a nice evening.
Guy is naive to trust Rudd. Kevin’s a phoney. He wants to be PM forever and he’ll do anything, sell anything (including his conscience) to stay in the Lodge. Tonight he talked of the “scourge” of people smuggling. That’s straight out of Ruddock’s dictionary.
Rudd will pander to the rednecks especially in Queensland so they’ll vote for him. Like his advisers he’s hooked on opinion polls. So, Guy, don’t look for morality in this Rudd govt.
It’s there for power not for principle.
Seig Heil Vincent !!!!!!
“He wants to be PM forever.” - well, that makes a change from the past two, no make that three, probably four++ incumbents. They all want to be PM forever.
People smuggling *is* a scourge. What we need to do is look at what the current government does to the victims of people smuggling compared to previous governments.
Greg, put your good book back on the shelf and deal in facts. If you can’t do that, then study the good book’s second half and do as your good god said to do. Arrr Christians! don’t you just love em
Which good book? I haven’t seen very many lately.
@Liz 45. No doubt Iraq and Afganistan among other countries are not very nice places to live. That does not mean the Australian people will, or should cop a procession of refugee boats carrying people who can afford to pay people smugglers, heading for our shores.
Hopefully the Australian Government can assist and work in cooperation with countries like Indonesia and Malaysia to stem the flow and get the message out that handing out money to people smugglers does not guarantee a one way ticket to Australia.
I was going to write something political and profound but Skink has made me laugh so much I cant now be serious….
Cheers MESKI,
that lmgtfy page is a brilliant find.
Labor for Refugees, an internal ALP party group, is made up of members of all factions, right, left, moderate and whatever else. Don’t assume it is just the Left who care about refugee issues. Many of the people who founded Labor for Refugees around the time of the Tampa were right wingers with a conscience, who were appalled at Howard and the walking talking skeleton Ruddock’s actions and statements and party conference after party conference there have been repeated votes by members of the party from all factions to improve party policy and practice from the bad old days when Kim Beazley was so supine in the face of the Howard government’s harshness. The question now for party members is whether the politicians will adhere to policy.
Asylum-seekers were dishonestly marketed (in cahoots with government and opposition) by the mainstream media as a symbol of out-of-control immigration numbers, the curbing of which would shore up Australia’s sovereignty.
The Howard Government and the Rudd Government used that symbol as a weapon in wedge politics and a decoy to the public attention, whilst they consecutively exploded the numbers of legal immigrants (as opposed to ‘asylum seekers’) beyond democratic and almost beyond demographic control.
The beneficiaries were the industry sectors that had demanded population growth - insatiable “Growth Lobby” consisting of the upstream and downstream beneficiaries of property development & finance, which had been opened to the world via the internet, with the cooperation of state parliaments and the NFIRB in watering down laws to protect citizens’ property rights and national equity.
The mainstream media - which has corporate investment in international property dot coms marketing Australian real-estate to the world - assisted, promoted and piloted this new-colonisation of Australia by repetitively normalising high immigration as unavoidable, irresistible and necessary for the Economy in a continuing series of propaganda pieces almost entirely composed of lies by pseudo-authorities.
State and Federal ‘leaders’ were also oft-quoted making misleading statements about how deaths outnumbered births in Australia (Steve Bracks) and how our ‘population was only increasing due to immigration’ (Peter Costello) in a media which refused to correct those statements despite complaints (including the ABC.)
ALP State governments, with their hugely remunerative party investment companies in finance and property development (Labor Holdings Propriety Limited or Labor Resources Propriety Limited) [Thank you Steve Mayne!] are arguably and alarmingly little different from commercial property development companies and have a similar vested interest in forcing high legal immigration on the Australian polity, in tandem with ever-increasing prices for vital resources, with no real safety margin.
In line with their interests, the various state ALP governments have made bad laws to suppress community resistance to costly new technologies, new roads and massive infilling demanded by public-private commercial interests in urbanisation and to support this unwanted and democratically unconsulted population growth. The collapsing of local government into state instruments has been a part of the structural assault on democracy to eliminate citizens’ power in their self-government. Meanwhile, the ideals of international human rights have not received effective new structures to compensate the loss of self-government to local and national populations.
The media production of government has left the public with almost no choice in the kind of people whose candidature receives publicity in elections. So we really seem to be stuck with the governments that Murdoch and the Fairfax board want.
As someone whose sociological research into these changes from the late 1990s caused her to attend Ruddock’s immigration consultation circus, I have observed the rise and fall of Ruddock as an immigration minister and I must admit that I cannot actually fathom where the man and the myth begin and end. That is a common problem in the study of politicians. Ruddock was an accomplished showman who appeared to prioritise public consultation until his government decided to massively ramp up the immigration numbers. After that we heard little.
What I would observe though is that Ruddock seems to have made one enormously positive contribution to Australian law, for which I am extremely grateful and which should redeem his memory. He forced massive positive changes to Australian defamation law. Because of these changes we now have something approaching free speech in this country. Before those changes political comment was severely crippled and it was almost impossible to publish anything really informative about anything.
Asylum seekers and refugees should be clearly delineated from the huge stream of legal immigration which has almost nothing to do with promoting the rights of the poor and oppressed. Commercial Immigration policy should not be allowed to hide under the cloak of humanitarian gestures and Asylum seekers should not take the blame for commercial immigration. Accurate information for the public on numbers is crucial because we are running out of water, power and land-development for housing is eroding our natural environment and local freedom.
I would be very interested to read what Ruddock might have to say about how things turned out. Has anyone asked him?
Ok time be serious….
The Libs are doing badly on climate change, cant take a trick on the GFC and doing appallingly in the polls so its time to dig out the old campaign of fear…seems to be - what they think - the only way to get the people back on side. Ruddock is quite simply….a ghost of a man…and he and his ilk should just retire and allow the new blood to come in…hopefully all from the Bruce Baird, Petro Georgio, Maris Payne camp.
Sheilah Newman’s bleak assessment assumes the politicians who support growth (economic and population) know what they are doing it for. Sadly they do not. In fact there is no need to think they are sabotaging democracy because if it hadn’t already been done they wouldn’t be in power, would they? But I doubt whether there is any future trying to resist the expansion of our population either by ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ means.
So, Baal, what should we do? Lie down and think of the Empire?
Come, come now. Slavery was once the norm and people were able to change that.
France and continental Europe don’t have high and unconsultative legalised immigration. That’s because of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Code, which gave citizens a code of Rights which included housing. So population growth was a public cost which had to be accounted for. The English system does an accounting trick to make the costs public but diffuse and the profits private but concentrated.
Enough. We have to forge ahead with a free media and start managing our democracy for ourselves.
Or slavery itself will soon be the okay thing.
Oh, also, Baal, I would like to know why you think that politicians don’t know why they are supporting growth.
sincerely,
Sheila N
Good article Guy - what Oz really needs is a bunch of more radical Islam migrants on the Dole - with their families of 10 ! Once a marxist, always a dickhead - you really believe “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Keep up the good work - you and your idiot buddies will shorten this Labor government significantly.
PS: The people smugglers say thanks too.
We don’t have a closed system separate from the rest of the world - much of which was
‘created’ by colonialism. We can pretend we have no responsibility to fix its excesses but being oblivious or isolationist won’t protect us from the reality of modern people movement. Politicians are elected but it doesn’t mean they are cogniscant (or even conscious) of their duties, obligations and responsibility. Or to put it another way they are part of the problem not the solution.
Philip Ruddock - Emperor Palpatine. the similarities are too close!!!
RICHARD MCGUIRE - “@Liz 45. No doubt Iraq and Afganistan among other countries are not very nice places to live. That does not mean the Australian people will, or should cop a procession of refugee boats carrying people who can afford to pay people smugglers, heading for our shores.”
No, those places are not just “not very nice places to live”. It’s due to us, that they’ve been so much worse since 2001 and 2003(Afghanistan & Iraq). We help create the horrors that these people have and still are being forced to live. Your glib comments are an insult to the degree of suffering we have helped inflict on these people. The numbers who make it here are only an extremely small sample of the tortured and psychologically traumatized people. We helped create this ‘mess’! Those who make it here by boat are not wealthy; they’re the result of extended family members pooling their money - sometimes it means, that they sell their farms etc and then end up as refugees - homeless in their own land, but they want a younger person, usually a male(he’s under more threat, and he’s probably unmarried and strong enough to cope with the hardships along the way?)
The so-called people smugglers (heroes who saved the lives of many Jews in another life) may be tuned in to Australian politics, but those from war torn countries don’t even have electricity every day or perhaps not at all - to suggest that they sit back in the evening watching their plasma or LCD TV watching channel 9 or ?? only shows your ignorance. Too many have been murdered in their beds - that’s if they’re lucky enough to have one. Many in Afghanistan are miles away from civilization, let alone a TV or newspapers? How do you think people live in a war torn country? Like or similar to you? Go and do some more reading, for god’s sake! You make yourself look like a fool! Further more, I’d hate to have to rely on Indonesia’s version of ‘protecting my human rights’ thank you very much. Just have a chat with people from East Timor. Sadly, you can’t ask the 180,000 dead people from East Timor who were savagely murdered by those wonderful upholders of human rights - Indonesian military, militia and police!
NEW CASSANDRA - (Edit)
Could the “10,000” of whom the Cadaver warned be “the whole villages in Iraq packing up to come here..” of which he warned us in 2000, before the Koalition of the Killing resumed blasting them back to the Sumerian age (they should be so lucky)?
The insouciance with which some of my fellow citizens follow the medal-driven, podium-fuelled dream is now applied to refugees. It’s Gold Gold Gold for Australia – the destination of choice of all refugees!
The real medal winners would be USA, Canada, Scandinavia, with Brazil sneaking into fourth place. Australia at best a top eight finish, punching above its weight once again.
But those little boats just can’t get any further than Oz, so the poor refugees from nearby have to settle for a minor place.
Well todays Radio Interview and media headlines will no doubt raise a wintry smile from the Grey One (Ruddock). He will be sniggering as he remembers his cunning command that “no Humanising images are to be shown”.
Clearly such clever media tricks are not being practised by the Indonesian government.
If the Tamil asylum seekers were in Australia they would be hidden from public view, have no access to radio or TV news and no contact with media, friends or family. This is the way they are welcomed into the secret refugee process.
However in Indonesia the Government have allowed the media on board to meet the Tamil asylum seekers and allow them to speak for them selves and explain what they want and why they have had to leave their homes and country. It would never happen here in our great democracy with “complete” press freedom.
Access to media and communications is only allowed after “the screening interviews and assessment “. In the Ruddock era this could take up to 13 months of total isolation but now the Labor Govt has instituted a much shorter time.
One cannot help but feel that the Indonesian Government does not have the heart for the vicious bruising dehumanising treatment of Asylum seekers that some Australians and their politicians so enjoy.
It was interesting to hear Rudd change his sound bites from ‘illegal immigrants’ to ‘illegal immigation activity’. Given the amount of work that goes into getting his message just right this was illustrative of the underlying currents mentioned in your article Guy.
I thought that Chris Evans was good last night on Lateline. He was calm and logical.