I deplore the “selective cmpassion” of the advocacy industry, because that means we spend billions of dollars on only the rich few who can afford to pay for passage on a boat. Why not spend this money in the source countries to improve the lives of ALL the people, not just those with money? It was recently reported from a fishing village in Indonesia that some men had tried SEVEN TIMES to get into Australia. Where do they get the money from? Is anyone seriously suggesting that these people are genuine refugees?
BTW, the TV program where Tamils were questioned by a reporter - from my recollection, many of these people were in southern India, and under no “pressure” to say what the Sri Lankan government wanted them to say. They were all economic would be refugees. Get it right!!
The world will NOT be made a better place by wrecking the successful multiculuralism program we have had in Australia for decades. There are already signs this is happening. The minority who continue to get their selfish way, will only accelerate the process. I hope you all enjoy your “good” work!!

Yes Grandma, and if you would only learn to use your IPad and do some blogging you could fire off regurgitated prejudices in myriad forms without having spent five minutes on thinking through the outcomes of what you propose or thinking what might actually work and make the world a better place.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/06/25/%E2%80%A6then-where-will-we-be/

Hats off to one K. Rudd who successfully swept it all under the carpet

I wonder about Bruce Haigh’s credentials though. I see his name as a retired diplomat and so, this time, have looked up his CV. Looks like he fell out with the Keating government (or maybe Gareth Evans in testy mood). Could that have been because he said rude things about Keating’s mate Soeharto and was unwise enough to suggest that the Bandaranike dynasty were just as bad (not true but not totally untrue)? Anyway he seems only to have served v. briefly in Sri Lanka, where, btw, the Rajapakse clan really are approaching the Soeharto league.

But, also, Bruce if you are there, or maybe someone else could tell us about that Chinese naval base on the “west coast”. Is that meant to be a reference to Hambantota which is decidely not on the west coast but just to the west of the centre of the south coast, and not near to the turning point to the north which only the 2004 tsunami negotiated easily and swiftly?

The Tamil business is not nearly as simple as BH and some comments suggest though a shrewd remark was made about Sri Lanka in a recent Atlantic article to the effect that the Sinhalese are the only majority who behave and think as though they are a minority (no doubt because of the vast numbers of Tamils to the north in Tamil Nadu - in SL the total number is only about 17 per cent and they divide into two different communities historically and geographically). Amongst the problems once one sets aside the baleful influence of Bandaranaike opportunism from the 1950s in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka are, e.g. the fascist nature of the terrorist Tamil regime in the far north where the oppression of their own people was appalling, especially the uneducated peasantry and fishermen: let’s not forget that it was those Hindus who invented modern suicide bombing as a political tactic; e.g. the general ignorance amongst Sinhalese of their own history and demography (for example not knowing that the 8 per cent or so of “plantation Tamils” dating back to the foundation of British tea estate in the mountains of the south are a totally different community from the 9 per cent Tamils of the north who - another fact unknown to a typical Sinhales - have been there 1000 years and even were part of a Hindu kingdom of most of Ceylon. But…. before I go on….

The treatment of the Tamils is nothing like the treatment of blacks in Apartheid era South Africa except that one can find a hotelier or boarding house owner having to decide not to try and employ Tamils and Sinhalese together, even now when the civil war is over, because they don’t get on…. Funny when you hear Sinhalese, with very dark skins (much more suited to Australian sun than the Anglo-Celtic or Slav) speaking of the Tamils as black, or “very dark” (and therefore recognisable) in often somewhat disparaging tones. But Apartheid, forget about it. As Doestevsky might have put it, every unhappy country is unhappy in its own way.

Of course Sri Lanka was made to be paradise and blew its chances when it had good foreign exchange reservers in the mid 50s, Singapore had none to speak of, and one Cambridge educated leader - Lee Kwan Yew, showed another - Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, how to govern a country effectively. (One tiny clue: the practical Lee did nothing like the idiotic politicking of Bandaranaike in attempting to establish just one national language - and not English or Tamil, and one national religion - Buddhism, in a country with many Hindus, Muslims and various flavours of Christianity. But Lee didn’t try to appeal to allies on the left….Temptation to say something about Gillard foregone….).

The Tamil Tigers used civilians as human shield and you blame it all on the government. Be fair now.

Yes it is true that in the north (Jaffna), the Tamil community are socio economically disadvantaged. This is a legacy of previous political values that will take time to heal. The government appears to be trying to manage dissidence and LTTE sympathy.Like any normal person, I abhor the way they have used violence and oppression in this scenario but without ever living through a civil war it’s easy to sit back and criticise from the comfort of Australia.

So what do we do? Boycott the series? Boycott Sri Lanka? All that serves to do is take away one thing that helps to distract Sri Lankan people from the rigours of living in a third world country. The passion for cricket over there is rivalled only by India. Why punish the players and the citizens for actions by the government? The same applies to travelling there. Sri Lanka is a fascinating country filled with amazing food and friendly people. A western guilt complex wont help them. I really detest this banning, boycotting, removing culture we are creating. Perhaps instead of advocating for boycotts, the author could try to get a hold of Kumar Sangakarra or current captain Mahela Jayawardena and write a piece on their views about the situation and the glue that cricket is to their society at the moment..

certainly Oz needs to play by the rule and give asylum seekers fair assessment process. but one needs to be careful how the interview and assessment process is conducted. the best way is to let them tell their own story and judge from it. certain way questioning could give the non-genuine refugees ideas to concoct a story to pass the vetting process. having assistance from lawyers might lead to sympathetic advocates who help them to construct stories to meet the criteria, such as the case of hirsi ali, why even help her in the first place? the fraudster makes condi rice look credible.

improper procedure could lead to encouragement of more economic migrants to come. and it’s not just drowning or political issue one needs to worry about, when you create incentive for many to come they will exhaust the resources which should be directed to genuine refugees overseas desperate for a resettlement offer. but unfair procedure could end up harming those who have valid claims.