Australia’s great shame
An excellent article in the age today on the plight of refugees. I am highlighting the bits that resonanted with me strongly. I just feel a great pain about this whole situation and Australia’s treatment of the “least of these”.
“ALTHOUGH there is wide acceptance in the community of John Howard’s lack of integrity, there is much less understanding of his lack of respect for human rights and for the sanctity of human life.
As today is the fifth anniversary of the ill-fated voyage from Indonesia that led to the Tampa incident, it is timely to look critically at the fallout, not just for John Howard, but the Labor party.
It is apparent that Howard, when directing that the Tampa return to Indonesia, failed to consider that his orders could put lives at risk — lives of the crew as well as of the asylum seekers.
Then there was the failure to arrange for civilian doctors and nurses from Christmas Island to visit the Tampa to treat the sick.
Howard’s obsession with the control of borders meant that the suffering of the survivors was ignored. Even permission for one of Captain Rinnan’s boats to go ashore and get medical supplies and a doctor was denied. The Red Cross was also blocked from the Tampa.”
When are we going to see beyond numbers, slogans such as “queue jumper” and see people?
August 26th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Preach it brother!
August 26th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I second (or third) that!
My own take is that we have no right to expect God to shower mercy on us as a nation until we have repented and learned to show mercy to the least and the neediest, the alien and the stranger. ..
August 27th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Thanks for including international relationships/treatment of refugees in a sanctity of life post. Here in America, we often too narrowly define sanctity of life and human rights issues to abortion…it is nice to be reminded that there are many life-oriented issues in the world around us.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:09 am
I wonder how I as an American can get involved with these issues. I often feel very accepted and welcomed, until I start critquing the government. Then I get, “well America is even worse… ect” Is my role here to advocate quietly with my actions but not in my words and in public protests?
rev
August 29th, 2006 at 11:16 am
butt out yank…take a look at te usa
I think. just as we critique HS and CCC from the outside, and we definitely critique the good ol USA from outside, you are quite welcome to fling mud and critique all you like - in fact an outsiders view would add to te depth of the discussion
August 29th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Rev, the very fact that you live in Australia gives you more than enough “credibility” to comment on Australian politics, lifestyle, workplace etc etc. Far different to the American who has visited once or twice on holiday (or been to a couple of conferences in the H$ thread!) - yet has such strong opinions on how things “should be done”.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
lack of respect for human rights and for the sanctity of human life?????
australia and the politically correct ought to have a very hard look in the mirror… we kill approx 2000 unborn babies every week… where are the protests for that, who is taking the popular culture to task for that one… we’re all for standing up for the rights of other races the poor and marginalised and any left wing bleeding heart that has a beef that he can whack the gov’t with… but there is an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about because we seem to be allergic to controversy that takes on moral relativism and exposes it for what it is…
August 29th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Abtruth, I would love to debate you on that point, but I’m not sur this is the thread….happy to either have an email discussion or open another thread….?
August 29th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
That’d be cattle farmers…damn farmers and their beef…whacking our politicians every time they see one…it;s not right…someone shuold do something
August 29th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
i’ll be doing something about this at about dinner time
August 29th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
I’m all ears.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
i was actually referring to gregs pun about the beef and dinner luke… man my jokes never go anywhere on this blog…
another string would be good for this debate … how about “australia’s REAL great shame”
August 29th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Yeah well I am actually quite opposed to that as well. And I actually put my money and my family where my mouth is. This bleeding heart politically correct person has counselled many young women through pregnancies and helped them by giving them shelter, and helped in the raising of the children, as well as offering to adopt babies to keep them from being aborted. Perhaps it is the right wings f’d up way of making everything into rules and laws and punishments, instead of finding ways to compassionately help people that makes us wince? And how can you turn your back on the people that you do see, but conveniently focus on the child that you cannot see? Isn’t it not an either or but a both and? And perhaps when we start having a proper value for all human life, people will actually be sickened by the idea of taking an unborns life!!!
In the states most of the anti abortion people are also pro death penalty, are most of the right wing here clamouring for the death penalty to be re-instated?
rev
August 29th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Fire up rev….tell us what you REALLY think! Hehehe….I agree abtruth, lets fire up another thread rather than hi-jack this one.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I was at a forum on the weekend where one of the speakers said that Australia had refused to ratify a UNHCR resolution that food is a basic human right. I have tried to follow this up without much luck. Has anybody heard if this is true?
August 29th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
im just having trouble picturing the rev as a ‘bleeding heart politically correct’ person…. maybe if the other person was bleeding on the canvas…:-)
August 29th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Well as an anarchist I am just about as politically liberal as you can get.
rev
August 29th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
i believe in Christianarchy
August 30th, 2006 at 11:16 am
I assume that all those who are so quick to condemn John Howard’s policy regarding immigrants are consistent with their actions at home. I assume there are no fences around your property, that your houses remain unlocked and that whoever knocks on the door asking to come in is given free entry to your home and pantry. I also assume that anybody is free to socialise with your family and children.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:32 am
And I assume, TBokar, that anyone who supports John Howard’s policies are ALSO consistent, with 7 padlocks on every door, a cage out the back to keep unannounced visitors in until they can be trusted, a 9-day inquisitoril process, locked in a basement, with anyone who comes to the house seeking help and a legal document claiming that the front yard, porch and garden of their house isn’t really theirs at all, and so anything that happens on that area isn’t their resposibility.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:47 am
… I hoped it would provoke a reaction, but in truth you need to address the comments I made, in your own heart, before dishing out the tired old rhetoric. How do you deal with the fact that you have room in your own home to put up a vagrant, or ten, but don’t? How would you make sure that the safety of your family wasn’t compromised whilst helping these needy people? Then on a macro scale, how would you address the needs of boat people, whilst discouraging more to make the perilous journey? How would you deal with opressive regimes on our doorstep who persecute their own?
August 30th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
I dunno….ummm….lock them up for 7 years? Breach the law in regards to my obligations to them? Demonise them to my family?
Seriously, if you’re trying to imply that people can’t object to inhumane detention policies that lock of children and women, create a climate of fear and demonisation and cause mental illness and rioting, unless they somehow run the local St Vinnies….then Lord have mercy on you.
You ask, “…how would you address the needs of boat people, whilst discouraging more to make the perilous journey? How would you deal with opressive regimes on our doorstep who persecute their own?…”
Well, here’s a start. You work with the Indonesian government, as the Hawke and Keating governments did. You process refugee applications in a timely fashion. You refer to them as “refugees” rather than the fallacious “illegal immigrants”. You do not demonise them in the public mind.
The Hawke/Keating governments, in some years, dealt with 10 TIMES the number of refugee arrivals that the Howard government has had to deal with in it’s most numerous period. Yet somehow they managed to deal with it without excising coastlines, vilifying refugees, detaining perosns for 7 years. You wonder how they did it, really…..
August 30th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
… still the hard questions remain unanswered.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Such as?
Go on….if you’re referring to your smart-arse remark that “…How do you deal with the fact that you have room in your own home to put up a vagrant, or ten, but don’t? How would you make sure that the safety of your family wasn’t compromised whilst helping these needy people?…” then I don’t see the need to get into a holier-than-thou contest.
But my family grew up with every drifter, loner, homeless person, widow, mentally ill person in town being welcome in my house. I have no problems with any of that. Could I do more? Sure. We all could. But at what point do I do ‘enough’ that I earn my licence to criticise the Government?
As for the rest of your questions, I answered them above. If you don’t like the answers, not my worry. But don’t accuse people of ducking them.
Here’s some hard questions for you. Are you proud of how our Government has behaved? Do you think that to turn others away out of fear is an example you would wish to set your own children? How much is too much, and how much is enough?
August 30th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
.. nothing smart arse. No contest. How do you answer that question though? The truth is that you are able and have the resources to help others, but don’t. Just like all the rest of us. How do we reconcile that? Give a thought out response, not a reaction.
August 30th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
My poiont is that yes, we could all do more. Sure. I do some. Do I do enough? What is enough? I agree, prominent questions.
But like I said, it doesn’t invalidate criticism of Government policy.
August 30th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
No, it doesn’t invalidate criticism, but I do think we have a responsibility to think through issues carefully. I believe we should try and resolve these challenges on a personal basis first, for the application on a larger scale will be the same. Bottom line is, there are no easy and glib answers to these issues and I certainly don’t count “Howard bashing” (and that’s exactly what that article is) as being the solution.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
There is a world of difference between what we do as a country and what we do as individuals - as a combined groupd - as a community we have the resoureces to house and feed any number fo people, we can give people the psychologiacl space of their own accomodation - as individuals we can’t committ to that (other than a few very open people who do open their homes.)
TBokar, I think that you aks a good question, however to say that if we don’t act like that personally we have no right to expect our government to at like that on our behalf is illogical.
August 30th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Yes Mr Spock, it would not be logical. However, the issue is that we make wise and informed choices as to managing our own housholds, and those under our care, and people in the wider community who could use our assistance. It is no different on a national scale, tough decsions are made as to who can settle here, and how to manage the vast number of people who would escape here if they thought they could. If we struggle to reconcile that in our own personal situations, then we have to be careful for expressing such prejudiced opinions on those who make the decisions nationally.
August 30th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
While I acknowledge your point that our lives must be consistent with our publicly stated beliefs, I reserve the right, as a citizen of a democracy, to disagree with and criticise the government anytime I like. And personally i would welcome refugees as nextdoor neighbours. Within the small measure of our own physical capacity we do have strangers come and live in our own home (people who can’t afford homes of their own). Another way of looking at it is that most of us would give to charities for the needy in some measure, what we are wanting is to do that as a nation. By the world’s standards we are incredibly rich — how can we face the rest of the world if we are not willing to share a little of that abundance?