| Racial undertones to Australia's asylum seeker stance - By Paul Syvret |
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CIVIL war is an oxymoron. For there is nothing remotely civil about conflicts which tear nations asunder from within as ethnic, religious or political schisms erupt into blood-soaked chaos.Civil wars bring with them words like rape, torture, genocide, oppression, famine and fear. In a country riven by such carnage the only growth industries are death, weaponry and the dark art of people-smuggling – where the wages of sin are earned in the trade of human flesh and the profits are stained with misery.
So imagine, just for a minute, the following hypothetical scenario: It's 20 years or so hence and America is a failed state, its economy in ruins. Ultra-rightwing Christian fundamentalists – backed by factions of the nation's military – have seized power in Washington and declared martial law. Thanks to the Second Amendment, the heavily armed citizens of this once great state are now at war with one another, fighting and butchering in the names of noble causes like justice, freedom, national identity, and of course whatever convenient interpretation of God is most useful when it comes to rationalising the internecine violence. Cities are in flames, and millions are dispossessed, hungry, homeless and desperate. As the conflict rages and the detention camps swell, countless thousands of these refugees take to the waters in whatever is available. As parts of Manhattan burn, they flee across the Atlantic, and on the other side of this great continent they huddle aboard anything that floats, hoping against hope the vessel can make it across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. To Australia perhaps. To hope perchance. How would we as a nation react to such a humanitarian disaster as the collapse of the United States and the arrival on our shores of thousands of refugees from places like California, Oregon, Arkansas and Nevada? Would we seek to turn the boats back at their port of origin? When an overcrowded death trap with 78 of the world's newly dispossessed made landfall in Suva bound for Australia, would we leave them stranded in the harbour for weeks while we tried to make it the Fijian Government's problem? Were they actually to reach our waters, would Australian warships intercept the vessels and then incarcerate these people behind fields of razor wire and red tape? Or because they are (predominately) white-skinned, allegedly Christian, and come from a country that once espoused the same sort of democratic freedoms and peace we still enjoy, would we bend over backwards to help relocate these people in their most desperate hour of need? If America, Britain or even New Zealand were in flames, and their displaced citizenry were seeking refuge here, would newspaper opinion polls indicate that more Australians than not believe our Government is too soft on asylum seekers? No. Australia would be doing its level best to help these people find sanctuary here, away from the ravages that have stricken their homelands. In fact I'd bet good money we'd be sending boats to their shores in an attempt to rescue those in need. So why today are we so callous when it comes to those seeking safe haven here who have heralded from other strife-torn parts of the world? We call them "illegal immigrants", "queue jumpers" and worse. We devote billions of dollars worth of hi-tech naval and air force assets to monitoring and intercepting their attempts to flee the sort of perdition that our comfortable, white-bread lives could barely allow us to imagine. The refugee debate, tragically, is steeped in weasel words and conducted by a discordant chorus of dog-whistle politics that appeals to the lowest common denominators of human selfishness, insecurity, fear and greed. Is it because those seeking shelter and a new life here right now are of a different skin colour, prefer curries or pilau to meat pies, or are perhaps Hindus or Muslims, rather than worshipping in a church created by a murderous and obese English king (Henry VIII), that displaced foreign nationals are processed on Christmas Island? This is the unspoken subtext of racism and nationalism writ large. Remember that a refugee is someone seeking refuge asylum. A refugee from a war-torn state – be it Somalia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka or our fictional and futuristic America – often wouldn't know how to find the immigration queue or even have the necessary documentation to allow them to join the line, if one existed in the hell from which they are fleeing. These are people. These are our brothers and sisters on this little, fragile and sometimes fractured planet. These are human beings with families who love and give and laugh and want only for safety and a chance to rebuild broken lives. And we are an incredibly rich nation. We are positively corpulent with wealth in terms of land, resources and luxuries that others through the fate of birth, geography and happenstance could but dream about. Those people seeking asylum on our shores are simply you and I in different circumstances. Rather than debating how to spend yet more millions of dollars preventing their arrival, we should be assisting their relocation and welcoming the contribution they will bring to our already wonderfully diverse and multicultural society and economy. And yes, before some of you start writing vile messages of race and religious bigotry couched in cowardly euphemisms, yes I would welcome such new arrivals in my home. In fact I'd give them a key, make up the spare room and start cooking dinner. Source: |
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