In the past, I have naively thought the facts would bring an end to the fear mongering — by explaining to people that we receive just a few thousand asylum seekers each year, and that they pose no threat to our way of life or sustainability. I want to explain that 99.99% of people who entered Australia last year, did so by plane; that Australia takes just 0.03% of the world’s refugees and displaced people; and that there are 76 countries that take more refugees than we do, based on wealth.
These days, I talk about a much simpler truth: the moral responsibilities that come with living in a free and democratic country, and what it means to be an Australian. This means we have a moral duty to act and show compassion to vulnerable, innocent people who are fleeing for their lives.
— Founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Kon Karapanagiotidis
It has been argued that the real reason the detention of asylum seekers remains solidly bi-partisan is not about the need for timely processing and administration concerns. It’s about how it looks. Talking tough, and looking tough, by processing asylum seekers behind an impenetrable fence — here and offshore.
So how does it look, for the government, for the private contractor Serco, for the Immigration Department, for a country’s human rights reputation, when a man jumps to his death on our watch?
That all depends on whether anyone cares. As Karapanagiotidis points out — and has, again and again over the years — stats don’t seem to budge public opinion. But what about desperate people doing desperate things? Will that kind of story ignite our “moral duty to act and show compassion”, or will it simply be dismissed as another headline?
Ultimately it’s up to the public to let the government of the day know, in no uncertain terms, this kind of thing is unacceptable. Whether they will is another matter entirely…
It’s not even the stats, it is the lie told by Ruddock that “only those in camps overseas have the right to our compassion.”
That claim has never, ever been refuted by one media outlet because they are largely ignorant, white and racist and don’t care.
It is in fact not true and never has been, the only people who have any right to apply for protection in Australia are those who can get here, deterring them was found to be illegal by the High Court in LIM way back in 1994 yet we continue with that language.
Why?
Because the media are too frigging gutless to state clearly that the “offshore program” is a sick hoax that we pay hundreds of millions for while spending hundreds of millions more to try and deny those with the rights to come here.
Under Article 1 D of the refugee convention anyone who has prior protection and rights in another country is not entitled to further “resettlement” in another country unless THAT PROTECTION IS WITHDRAWN’.
But I don’t think our media bother to read the law or the conventions, so much easier to prattle endlessly about policy, lies and statistics.
And the media could stop linking seeking asylum with border protection, they have nothing to do with each other.
The refugee convention is in fact anti border protection, but we don’t know that here because no-one reads it.
In fact it has taken more than 2 years of pleading even with Lateline for them to stop whining about policy and talk about the law.
1. Kon may be conning himself that he understands stats, but I wouldn’t recommend he take statistics as a subject.
2. Athough his stats seems on a par with the good shepherd marilyn’s grasp of English. One wonders whether the (hiding behind anonymity) marilyn’s accusations that the media are ‘frigging gutless” arises from her problem with the meaning of words, or it’s a Freudian slip?
The same is true of her quaint subconscious confession, “– I don’t think our media bother to read the law or the conventions, so much easier to prattle endlessly about policy, lies and statistics.”
When she returned three minutes later with another post, I thought, has she re-read what she posted and , finally, has seen the light, but no. That was holding out too much hope, giving too much credit, wasn’t it.
I read what Kon has written and I think I understand it. I read what Marilyn has written and I think I understand it.
I read what Norman wrote and I don’t understand it. Norman, can you try again please.
From memory, Tamo, and declining ancients like myself have to acknowledge our memories aren’t what they once were — especially, in my case, since I’ve made so many fruitless attempts to help language-challenged ‘progressives’ such as the shepherdess:
1. Kon isn’t applying stats in the manner competent statisticians should. True Believers of any cause tend to examine material which does NOT support their beliefs, but pay far less attention to detail, stats, or logical structure, when anything seems to support beliefs they want to protect. It needn’t be a question of conscious dishonesty, it’s simply how our species is biologically programmed, and it used to be a significant factor in why many a bright hard-working successful student had basic Philosophy I as his/her ONLY failure. There’s a term, cognitive dissonance, for this characteristic of human behaviour.
2. My general comment re marilyn relates to how (in our postmodern age) words are all too often rendered (a la Humpty Dumpty’s Dictum) too vague to have much precision, or even end up becoming virtually meaningless. As a rule of thumb, if a word can mean almost anything, then it means almost nothing.
3. Analysis of complex issues (when carried out carefully) is rarely easy; and is also often far from comforting for whoever attempts to carry it out. That’s why simply believing blindly in something’s ‘absolute truth’, can be so much more comforting.