Ethics in Public Life
The Prime Minister has succeeded in persuading many Australians that refugees who arrive without papers or authorisation are guilty of breaking the law and should be imprisoned. Our institutionalised sadism is designed to destroy human dignity. In our detention centres, there are no longer ’suicide attempts’: they have been re-defined out of existence and are now called ‘attention-seeking incidents’ or ‘blackmail’. The Government promotes a very narrow ethical agenda: sex, family, education, but rejects a broad one: compassion for refugees, peace, sustainability, tolerance, saving the planet.
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The term ‘queue jumpers’ is yet another name that this government uses for ‘boogie man.’
There is no queue for people from war-torn countries, or where there is religious, ethnic or political persecution to get into Australia. In many of these countries we have no diplomatic representation and there is no way for assylum seekers to apply through formal channels from within these countries for acceptance as refugeees.
In 2004 I took early retirement from the APS because I could no longer work for a Government that could adopt inhumane refugee policies for political gain. One of my major concerns was touched on in a recent SMH article (”Phantom aid never leaves our shores”, 28 May 2007). I started a blog in 2005 to highlight the ongoing brutality of Howard’s dishonest pitch to fear and racism. In one of my early posts I had this to say: “we are looking more and more like a xenophobic client state of the US, an uncompassionate society ready to disbelieve the legitimate claims of asylum seekers who didn’t stand in a non-existent queue of orderly people waiting for whichever repressive regime they are escaping to allow them to migrate. The silliness of this position overwhelms me at times. The history of propaganda reveals that you can package lies very successfully if they play to irrational fears – it is especially difficult to counter when cloaked in the garb of national security.”
Living in Europe - obviously far from the wide brown land - I am surprised how little the Australian media (and people?) have debated the legality, ethics and desirability of the new gulag for refugees that PM Howard and chums are building on Christmas Island.
I understand the cells include 24-hr CCTV and other apparatus designed to dehumanise and degrade refugees - typically people fleeing war zones like Iraq and Afganistan in an effort to escape a humanitarian disaster known by its perpetrators as the “War on Terror”.
Barry Jones is spot on when he describes Australia’s appalling behaviour as “institutionalised sadism”.
Regardless of the insidious racism of the past 10 years, I trust the majority of Australians will one day care for their fellow men, women and children in sufficient numbers to overcome this shameful abuse of law, public power and human rights.
Simon Milne
Vincennes, France
“Institutionalised sadism” - a great description, which could also easily apply to Telstra’s and Centrelink’s Callcentres.
What is happening to the asylum seekers who were sent to Nauru? Do we know the numbers? The conditions there, and psychological impact on these refugees? Ate they the ones who have been ‘re-defined out of existence’?
In Aust there are small armies of compassionate & committed citizens assisting many asylum seekers (in detention & out) to reclaim or maintain their mental well-being. Australians have elected a govt that implements this inhumane process of planned & precise demoralisation & descent into madness for innocents. I am ashamed to be Australian.
The recent 4Corners program on Telstra was also a shocking revelation on how that corporation treats its employees. It isn’t just the government destroying human dignity.
It is to Australia’s great shame that so many of our people have succumbed to John Howard’s nasty lies regarding the legal position of refugees and to his inhuman imprisoning of them. Australians, in general, have shown tolerance, compassion for those beset by natural disasters, a wish for peace, and for sustainability and helping to keep the planet fit for human life. Why then do they not see through the deliberate fallacies espoused by John Howard about those people who seek refuge from horrors in their countries, often caused by actions of his government? Surely Australians are not as cruel as our leaders, and will promote those to whom ethics have a universal meaning.
I have a dream. Barry Jones as the first president of the republic of Australia.
The best description for what we are now living in is “The Rule of the Tyrants”.
We have a docile, passive population, a compliant media, a ruthless corporate culture forcing globalism, a Government using cunning wedge issues and outright lies to divide and control, and a weak political opposition.
It seems to me as if Howard is set to win again this coming election. THe only opposition from Australians is coming from the unions and their anti Workchoice campaign.
Yet, that isn’t enough, and we know it.