The boat people. The war. The threads between the two grow more tangled.
The saddest moment in Canberra for me today was Phillip Ruddock explaining why he would introduce mandatory detention in federal law for the first time. The Indonesian people who bring in the boats, the people smugglers, no matter their stories or their circumstances, will now spend a minimum of three years in jail if convicted. At the moment, Ruddock said, the Courts were imposing a two year sentence for a first offence, with one year spent in jail on average after remissions. You know what? They got dental and medical treatment in jail, and they went back to Indonesia happy. Horrible. The assault on our values and principles – the discriminating against the poor of other colours and cultures gathers pace.
There would be some decency in the government’s stand if they cracked down on boat people and increased the numbers of Afghani refugees accepted from the millions in camps in Iran and Pakistan. But no. And what will we do when the war begins, and millions more flee in terror?
Oh yes, Howard says we’re all global citizens now, and we need international agreements to fix the terror. At the same time we rip up our obligations under the refugee convention, and officially demonise the boat people refugees as terrorists while the government piously denies it’s fermenting racial and religious antipathy and Howard urges us to respect our fellow Arab Australians.
Who cares. The latest Morgan poll shows Howard romping in with 60 percent of the two party preferred vote.
Tonight, contributors on boat people are: Cathy Bannister, Noel Hadjimichael, Mark Weegan, Bob Brown, Bhavika Haviez, Ivana Bottini, Michael Walton
Contributors on ‘The Crusade’ and its consequences are: Darren Tucker, Paul Walter, Richard Lawrence, Angela Sands, Hugh Wilson, Colin Hubert, John Stickle, Bradley Ryan, Bhautik Joshi, Andrew Fenney-Walch, Rick Pass, David eastwood, Ryan F Gunawan
BOAT PEOPLE
Cathy Bannister
There is an ongoing local tragedy of almost the same scale now as that in New York. Rust buckets of boats sink at alarming rates in the oceans between Indonesia and Christmas Island. The latest we heard about held 500 people.
Imagine yourself on a crowded deck when you hear the cracks and groans of fatigued metal, screams, holding your children close, watching people jump and try to swim for it. Knowing you are about to die. Not being able to do a damn thing about it. Drowning is painful.
Which organisation is responsible for so many deaths in the seas to our north? Our government, and that of Indonesia.
When a ship like this sinks, the children are the most likely to die. I’ve heard of babies being dropped in and drowning, children dying of disease en route.
If the government really wanted to bankrupt the illegal immigration business, they should open a refugee processing centre in Indonesia (or Christmas Island, but provide safe transport from Indonesia), and charge $AUD 20K for processing, with say, $10 K refundable if they are found to be genuine. Then, it would put the people smugglers out of business, mainly only genuine refugees would apply and it would fund a nice industry on Christmas Island which is struggling after losing the mining industry.
There are probably some practicalities that would need ironing out (i.e. buying off the UNHCR when they get wind of it). Of course it is reprehensible asking for that amount of money from refugees, but it is better than letting them drown, and better than what the government is doing now.
More than the scale of the New York tragedy, what scares me is that it signals a 180 degree turn around in the progress of Western society. We are being sucked back. Right now, more than ever, people who don’t want to see the return of the White Australia policy, who value this multicultural society, should do everything in their power to make sure that there is a reasonable voice heard.
If Australia wanted to find people with knowledge about the region and culture, who hate the Taliban, who can help with the fight, they need look no further than Afghan refugees. We shouldn’t waste this resource.
I still say people should join a party. Lobby groups can only go so far, but they would have to pick up on something enormous to not be ignored. There are a million little lobby groups trying their best to draw attention to something, doing stuff all, or having only limited effect. The powers that be chose only to listen to groups they already agree with (One Nation). Obviously it helps if you own a media conglomerate.
I’m not talking becoming part of the grass roots. I’m talking branch stacking with similar minded people. I’m talking subterfuge. I’m talking, moving to Canberra and cosying up to the back benchers and midbenchers. I’m talking people with manipulative skills, person skills, and a CONSCIENCE getting in there and pressing the flesh. That’s how you do it.
Noel Hadjimichael
Labor has bowed to the reality that the vast majority of electors, particularly in regional/rural zones, have a fear of the border protection issues raised by the Tampa.
Outside the Canberra/Inner Sydney/Inner Melbourne triangle of political power, the ordinary Australians are worried by the prospect of being “swamped”.
In a globalised world the elite can always leave their country of birth. Those of us who are not global players will be left to fight it out with the stream of worthy but poor asylum seekers.
The truth hurts.
Mark Weegen
I hope you don’t class yourself as an objective journalist because you have demonstrated over the past couple of weeks that you are not at all objective. Regarding the Government and the Federal court, I totally accept the Government’s position and believe that it is not the Federal Court’s place to interpret the law according to their personal beliefs. I’m glad the full bench saw fit to reverse this decision before allowing more money to be wasted in the High Court.
If, as you say, the reversal of a court’s decision by the government is a “nail in the coffin of the rule of law” then you surely don’t believe in a true democracy. We elect the Government to do a job, if we don’t like the job they are doing, we express our opinion via the ballet box. Laws are made and are changed on a regular basis because society is constantly changing. Governments are there to reflect the will of the majority of people. I’m sorry that in this instance, you are not part of the majority.
Greens Senator Bob Brown, statement
Mr Beazley, who yesterday criticized Mr Howard for making legislation on the run, is today running with him, Greens Senator Bob Brown said today.
Senator Brown condemned the Howard Government’s new package of bills to deter asylum seekers because it:
* removes access to the courts (High Court excepted now)
* introduces mandatory sentencing for the first time into federal legislation
* gives the minister power to regulate to excise from law all Australian islands – including Tasmania
* makes retrospective any illegal action under Mr Ruddock’s direction since the Tampa incident began last month.
“These bills involve fundamental changes to the time-honoured basis of law in Australia. They deserve scrutiny by the legal profession and public before parliament decides.
“I will seek to refer the bills to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee to look at over the next 3 weeks, minimum.
“It is appalling that Labor has collapsed into timid bipartisanship with Mr Howard over this issue because an election is imminent,” Senator Brown said.
Bhavika Haviez
I want to comment on the people we so generically refer to as “boat people”. Who can blame them for trying to come to Australia – our country is a pretty nice place. But on the other hand there are many other ways to get here.
People must have urgent needs if they are willing to come and travel on a boat to Aus, and if I were them I probably wouldn’t be saying this, but practically speaking it’s just not right.
If there are problems in their own country they are trying to get away from, running away from problems cannot be the only option. I think Australia has done a lot for refugees in the past, and should stand up and not let other countries criticise it in regards to this incident.
Ivana Bottini in France
I’ve just sat and read through all these emotional issues raised by John Howard’s refusal to allow the people on the Tampa to reach Australia. The first thing I have to say is that really most Australians are being harsh with themselves over this issue.
For a start you should forget how the foreign press has portrayed Australia as a result of what happened. Remember that the foreign press can be every bit as intellectually dishonest as the Australian press, and then some. If you are going to react to selective reporting and misreporting of the facts overseas then it will be very difficult to come up with a decent Australian response to what is an increasingly important global issue.
Although it probably isn’t reported in Australia, most of the Europeans I’ve talked to don’t want more refugees and aren’t particularly happy with the immigrants who are already here. That attitude is widespread even in countries like Italy which has provided millions of ECONOMIC immigrants to the rest of the world in recent history and hasn’t even come to terms with it’s own INTERNAL immigration, let alone come up with a decent policy on foreign immigration. Remember the Italian answer to Pauline Hanson is a guy called Umberto Bossi who basically thinks that Italians from the south are lazy scum and that the North should secede, this from a man who spent most of his life under-employed and supported by his Sicilian wife. Hanson is downright cosmopolitan and fair-minded in comparison.
And there are ignorant and vocal racist politicians in France, the likes of which are just unthinkable in Australia. For the most part people in Europe take the view that they don’t want immigrants at all, thank you very much, and countries like Australia should take them instead: first, because it’s a large country and second, because it’s a long way from Europe. This attitude goes a long way to explaining the foreign criticism of Australia over Tampa.
So perhaps there should be a little less hair-pulling and breast-beating in Australia and a little perspective. I’m sure Australia hasn’t handled recent problems perfectly but I’m also completely sure that Australia is a long way out in front in terms of dealing with immigration fairly and coming up with a coherent and decent immigration policy.
Michael Walton in Newtown, Sydney
We have all been horrified by the recent tragic events in the US, but back here in Australia this week Parliament debates several important pieces of legislation to which we need to turn our attention. The issues are shaping as a battle between national rights and human rights. The issues include the detention of asylum seekers and alarming attempts to deny refugees access to Australian territory and law.
From the outset, to ensure that there is no misunderstanding, it is appropriate to begin with two explicit and timely reminders. The first is that there is a fundamental difference between a refugee, who is fleeing persecution, and a migrant, who is seeking a better life. It is also necessary to remember that Australia has a proud history of accepting both migrants and refugees in to this country.
With these thoughts in mind, a brief review of Australias official humanitarian policy will prove instructive. That humanitarian policy deals with refugees and, of course, should never be confused with our immigration policy, which, as the name suggests, deals with migrants.
Current government policy imposes a total quota of 12,000 refugees on the humanitarian programme. It should be noted that this figure of 12,000 is not an absolute figure: places not used in one year can be rolled over into the next. For example, an extra 3,000 unused places from last years programme have been rolled into this years onshore programme.
4,000 of the official 12,000 places are reserved for the resettlement of offshore refugees. These are the refugees with which Australians are most familiar. They are the refugees who, it is claimed in the vernacular, wait patiently in the queue. The queue is administered by the UNHCR and is located offshore in its refugee camps around the world.
Another 4,000 places are reserved for the Special Humanitarian programme. Again, refugees access this programme from offshore and must be fleeing persecution to qualify. In addition, they must also be able to prove links with Australia, and have Australian sponsors.
To re-iterate: a full two-thirds of Australias refugee intake consists of offshore applicants, who come to us predominately on referral from the UNHCR or sponsored by Australians themselves.
It is on the remaining quota of 4,000 that I now want to concentrate. One-third of the humanitarian programme is reserved for onshore applicants, also known as asylum seekers. During the recent debate, it became clear to me that most Australians do not understand the nature of this category of refugee, or the basis of its legitimacy.
Asylum seekers do not, by definition, apply to the UNHCR. They apply for refugee status onshore. They arrive in a country, either with or without authorisation, by whatever means available to them, present themselves to local authorities and ask for asylum. Under international law this is a legitimate way of seeking refugee status. And if it were not, would the government and the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs devote a full one-third of the total refugee programme to an illegitimate category?
In other words, it is perfectly legal to seek access to the onshore humanitarian programme, even if entry is unauthorised. It is not a crime to seek asylum. In fact it is a fundamental human right contained in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It follows from this that we cannot call an asylum seeker who is assessed to be a genuine refugee (the procedure of assessment being rightfully the province of trained on-site government officials, not distant media personalities and armchair judges) a criminal, we cannot label them as illegal because they have committed no crime. They have simply sought refuge from persecution: they are refugees.
That most Australians do not understand the nature of this category of refugee is made obvious by the ill-considered repetition of the taunt queue jumper. That phrase has been finely crafted to outrage our sense of a fair-go, to manipulate our egalitarian instincts. But to apply that phrase to asylum seekers is both ridiculous and ill-informed.
Why? Because, when making an onshore application for refugee status, it is a precondition that the asylum seeker be onshore. Or to put it as simply as I can: it is impossible to access the onshore humanitarian programme from offshore, for example from a UNHCR camp, because the queue for the onshore programme is onshore. When it comes to the process of seeking asylum, there is no question of jumping queues, but rather of joining them onshore. How else can you join the onshore programme?
In fact, in the case of the MV Tampa, what this government did was to prevent asylum seekers from joining the queue. The asylum seekers were prevented from getting anywhere near the queue which, to add insult to injury, they were accused of having jumped.
Even if only one of the asylum seekers on a boat proves to be a genuine refugee, then we are legally and morally bound to identify that individual and offer them sanctuary. Of course, the ratio of genuine refugees per boat is much higher than just one per vessel. By the governments own figures more than 80% of the current wave of boat people are genuine refugees. This makes it even more imperative that we recognise and fulfil our international obligations under the Convention for the Status of Refugees (1951) and our moral obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Over the past few weeks, I have heard people say that we should withdraw from the Convention on the Status of Refugees (1951) and the associated Protocol of 1967. Are these same people seriously suggesting that we renounce the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well? Are we to ignore human rights when it suits us or our ends?
It should also be said that Australia, under international law, has every right to return non-genuine cases to their countries of origin. These people would also come under the UN Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (2000). That is, they would come under that Protocol if this government had signed it which it has not. This raises the valid question of this governments commitment, despite its rhetoric, to the global response to people smuggling. What could the Australian government possibly be objecting to when countries which have already signed the Protocol include the US, New Zealand, Canada and the EU? Could it possibly be because the Protocol makes a clear distinction between genuine refugees seeking asylum from persecution and illegal migrants?
Over the past few years the present government has deliberately set out to confuse, in the minds of the Australian public, the category of offshore refugees with the equally legitimate category of onshore asylum seekers. The government has also made no attempt to correct the widespread misconception that refugees are migrants. This feeds the popular belief that asylum seekers are illegal immigrants. Just like the phrase queue jumpers this description is, upon closer examination, simply ridiculous and ill-informed: to seek asylum is not illegal; and refugees are not immigrants. I call on the Prime Minister and Minister Ruddock to stop using these inaccurate and inflammatory phrases.
So if seeking asylum is neither illegal or an act of queue jumping, we, as a nation, have some rather serious questions to answer. Why did we violate the fundamental human rights of the asylum seekers rescued by the MV Tampa? Why did we deny them the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution (Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)?
Why is the government, through proposed changes to Australias Migration Zones, seeking to further restrict access to the onshore humanitarian programme?
Why is the federal government seeking to pass amendments to the Migration Act which would deny asylum seekers access to the courts, when such an act clearly violates the asylum seekers rights as refugees and as human beings? Specifically:
A refugee shall have free access to the courts of law on the territory of all Contracting States (Article 16, Convention for the Status of Refugees (1951)).
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law (Article 6, Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
And the most damning question of all: why is the Commonwealth government depriving asylum seekers of their liberty, behind barbed-wire fences, in detention centres which are closed to the public and the scrutiny of the media, when these people have committed no crime, when they seek only to exercise their fundamental human right to seek asylum from persecution under Article 14 of the Declaration? A short period of detention to run medical and other initial checks is reasonable, but beyond this the deprivation of liberty is a serious violation of fundamental human rights.
When we deprive asylum seekers of their liberty in these camps, we set aside a part of humanity and say to them: human rights do not apply to you. This is as morally confused as slaveholders proclaiming that all people are created equal.
We have also seen in this country a shameless frontal attack on the principles of liberal democracy in the form of the governments failed Border Protection Bill (2001). That Bill sought to grant the Prime Minister extraordinary and unconstitutional executive powers: in spite of any other law and without being accountable to the courts for his actions. This was an invitation to tyranny; if not to this government, then perhaps to a future one. It seriously brings into question this governments understanding and commitment to some of the fundamental principles of liberal democracy: the separation of powers and the rule of law.
That these things can happen today in Australia seems incredible. I can only put it down to the fact that the noblest aspirations of humanity, set down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are no longer read and studied in our schools, our homes and our parliaments.
I call on all Australians to reaffirm their commitment to the principles espoused in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the values of our liberal democratic tradition. And, as a part of this reaffirmation, I ask you to accept that amongst those landing on our shores are genuine refugees, people fleeing persecution, oppression and unimaginable violence. We must acknowledge and honour the humanity we share, offer these refugees sanctuary, give them all the assistance they require and stop depriving them of their freedom.
THE ‘CRUSADE’
Darren Tucker
What was all that noise?
that burning and crashing
Was that just lightning?
Now hear the sirens
See the lights flashing
…
All looked to sky
and what did they saw
Filled hearts with fear
And held heads in awe.
What was just there and now is no more
…
Now theres a great big bruise on the apple
Below life goes on helpers theres ample
Tomorrow we remember
but its like its not happened
All we see are those people clappin
…
How can we ever forgive those who ransom
Brand our mothers and sisters as whores
Burn our flags and chant down all we stand for
When we know that freedoms the cause
…
Look at the news those people wear sandals
Laying flowers at alters and then burning candles
The doors are all locked
but they havent got handles
…
Everyones seeing
but nobodys listening
When he died on the cross
they were too busy Christening
…
They didnt hear then
and they won’t listen now
Its too long ago
We are way past the plough.
…
Before the blood runs thick in the gutters
Before killing and hatreds all that matters
We need just to stop and think about others
Treat them just like our sisters and brothers
…
So they say that freedoms the cause
But while god shakes his head
The devil applauds.
…
We know all to well that bloods not the answer
but what do we do if not kill
were all taught to love one another
guess the lessons too difficult still.
Paul Walter
Wow, amazing! Four issues of Webdiary in one evening! Most haunting for me was D. Griffin in Hot words, cool heads and poetry, who allowed me a sense of the reality of what it must have been, and presumably continues to be like in New York, that no TV report has come close to allowing. Funny how print succeeded there, in giving a such a deep impression of the shock and the grief, the realisation of this as a also a vast, deeply “human” tragic situation. I also felt sorry for Farhad Haidari in the same entry. Sad that.
I note the usual nasty tendencies toward essentialisation and reduction occurring. If you’re sceptical or perturbed with what you see as contributing factors in the lead-up to this you must be a blood-sucking sadist with an unslakeable thirst for vengeance against American people.Then there is the idea now beginning to circulate that this thing somehow shrinks from its complicated historical global roots to only involving dimple-jawed white heroes versus sinister bods in turbans.
Sad to see Paddy McGuinness getting so unscrupulously involved with the situation,too.As it happens, Paddy, I’ve been a little sceptical about the boat-people problem too, if only for what it reveals about global responses to global problems(or the lack of any) and the lack of any attempt to see where these problems have come from.
But it is low of you and people like Peter Reith to use this situation to launch slimy attacks on genuine people who are only trying to make sense of this; using ethnic difference as a “stalking horse” in the furtherance of unnamed malevolent agendas. In the furtherance of such as these, the Jewish people, for example, were all but obliterated 60 years ago.
Perhaps the most disappointing remark of all so far came from American Reba L. Chappell in the same entry that Australians owed the US for their freedom from World WarII, and we would be obliged evermore to, accept unthinkingly anything that happens in the world on the basis of Conservative American explanations of those events, without even scant consideration for any varying interpretation to the one offered.
Sorry, no, Reba. I’ll do my own thinking thank you.
Aussies and Statesiders are,on the whole, good friends.We understand each other; as with Aussies and Kiwis, or British people, as members of a common civilisation, as well as a wider global culture. If people think about it, however, about it for a moment they will remember that the US was involved in that Pacific War first and foremost to defend IT’S OWN INTERESTS; it just so happened that we were “heading in the same direction”, so to speak, and we made common cause (as we have often since) But when something as critical as this has occurred we MUST try to think a little more deeply about underlying issues, even if there is a little discomfort involved.
Things possibly overlooked in the interim must be revealed, and an apportionate penalty for our tardiness in this WILL be a threat to civilisation of a most perilous kind!
Richard Lawrence in Sydney
Several commentators (eg Gay Alcorn and Robert Fisk) are demonstrating the historical links between US covert operations of the 80’s and 90’s and the organisations which spawned the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities. Since Bush Jr’s controllers are the same people who fronted these operations (Bush Sr., Cheney, Rumsfeld etc), I’m intrigued by the way that the Republican Old Guard currently in power in the US are playing the question of responsibility.
Training and abandonment by the CIA is a potent generator of fanatical resentment for those who grew up learning from betrayed mentors. The Bay of Pigs probably contributed to Kennedy’s fate.
Ultimately, the chain of causation for Sep 11 leads back from the fanatics to the foreign policy failures of the old men who ran (and still run) the US. I cannot see them taking the Northern Ireland option of sitting down and talking with the communities that support the fanatics – too much risk of the truth about the old men’s wild oats getting back to the heartland.
I suspect that spending an amount similar to that being lavished on the military options on basic aid (like food) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran, would buy far more protection than any revenge attack, but it isn’t going to happen. Never underestimate the power of old men’s guilt – or their capacity to cover their arses.
Angela Sands
Can we have compassion AND security?
Can we have a strong distaste, a gutchurning horror about about the terrible deeds of despairing fanatics, and a determination not to go down their track?
Can we observe the mean, dirty, choices of fanatics and coolly plan an intellegent defence, a powerful undercover system of identifying the the would be wreckers of civilisation without joining in vengeful wrecking?
Can we see beyond the blinding rage of being hurt to perceive the situation as-it-is in its full interdependent context and confront our own disastrous choices.( For those who have forgotten: the arming and training of the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein by the US and England!)
Can we, having seen, have the courage, wisdom and competence to change this disastrous situation before we sit, not just in the smoking ruins of NY but all the urban centres of this lovely planet?
Can we have vision and might? Take the difficult road without the comfort of knee jerks?
It is no longer possible to behave like a set of warring tribes because these tribes are armed with technologically perfected weapons of mass destruction. Our happiness and tragedies are now inextricably entwined and we can only take the enemy down by taking our friends and lovers and sons and daughters down as well.
This is the task of this time. This is the best of and the worst of times. It is also the only time.I pray we are up to it.
Hugh Wilson in Toowoomba, Queensland
Onward Christian soooooldiers,
marching as to war,
with new cru-sades before us,
more tech-ni-cal thaaaan before.
Well, if ever I had a doubt about the path this event may take in Australia all hope faded when I watched Kim Beazley and our PM immersing themselves so thoroughly in the religiosity of it all at the parliamentary service.
Not bad for a couple of community leaders in a secular, multi-cultural state is it?
Following this new found demonstration of Australian unity-in-faith was the terrible address by the American ambassador to Australia, repeated almost rote-like on ABC Lateline on Monday night.
Now, I don’t know about other viewers but I thought Tony Jones was very generous when this representative of the free world, – freedom, democracy, rule of law – said that as far as he was concerned the only court the USA had to appeal to was the ‘Court of World Opinion’ and the only evidence required was a general weight of probability supporting the US view.
Where the time to reflect on how rapidly evidence is ‘appearing’ in this investigation after such complete and utter silence and secrecy, apparently for years? What, no questions at the width of the broad path leading to Afghanistan? No doubts as to motive, even if the conclusion proves to be correct?
How different, how more responsible, how more reflective, how less destructive, was the Geoffrey Robertson approach of declaring the aeroplane destruction to be a ‘crime against humanity’ and going to The Hague for resolution?
Robertson’s suggestion is not appeasement- this approach is the only one that measures up to the rhetoric of ‘rule of law’ talk.
Nailing the crescent to the cross is not any sort of answer- the blood drips on those who stand below marking them just as much ‘beast’ as those they seek to destroy.
Colin Hubert in Glebe, Sydney
People everywhere are saying that war is inevitable. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It seems a bad word to use – ‘inevitable’. The weather is inevitable. The occasional earthquake is inevitable. Sunshine is inevitable. Night is inevitable. The wind is inevitable. The moon will go through its inevitable cycles.
But war is not inevitable. We don’t have to have war. War will happen because people want to make war. It is important to keep in mind that war is a human event. War happens with us, not without us. Without us,
there can be no war.
The people who have demonstrated the most intense longing for war are those 19 men who prepared so elaborately, and sacrificed their own lives, to do this thing. They want war. Do we have to give them what they want?
They were not the first people to do this. They were not even the only ones to do this in living memory. But they were the first to do this to America, and they did it bloody well.
John Stickle in Daglish, Western Australia
Now that people in the Pentagon have become actual victims of collateral damage”, I hope that abominable euphemism is eradicated from the lexicon of military operations.
Bradley Ryan in Singapore
I once overheard a Muslim man in Australia comment that the U.S.A were imperialists and arrogant $%*@#. The words themselves did not alarm me, but the way that these words were spat-out in anger did. To hear someone voice their deep resentment for the United States in such a manner was certainly alarming. I couldn’t help but think that this man, could be a possible threat to the United States as well as our country. I don’t believe that Non-Muslim Australians should hate or discriminate against Muslim people as the vast majority of them are harmless people. However, I do believe that Australians should be aware that there are some extremist elements associated with the Islamic religion. These extremist elements do pose a threat to any country in which they exist, including potentially Australia.
The links with Germany of some of the alleged terrorists associated with last tuesday’s attacks, I hope, reminds our Australian immigration officials to vigilantly screen all people before they are allowed to visit, stay or settle in Australia. Further, I also sincerely hope that the Australian intelligence and security agencies now take seriously the possibility of terrorist groups having members currently in Australia, just as it appeared the case in Germany.
Bhautik Joshi in Sydney
Minutes ago I just read there was a racist attack on an Afghanistani taxi driver in London. Go see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid-1548000/1548981.stm
He was hit with a bottle, and kicked while on the ground – now he is paralysed from the neck down.
And then there is the case of the Sikh petrol station attendant, who was shot and killed in Arizona. His only crime was to wear a turban and *look* middle-eastern! Go see:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/breaking/0917attacks-hate17.html
How many zealots and xenephobes around the world are going to take the law into their own hands? How many more ordinary, innocent people are going to get injured or killed? I’ll admit, London is worse than most – I’m of Indian descent, and I grew up there, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience – but how long is it going to be before something similar happens in Sydney?
The talkback cowboys (and cowgirls, let’s be fair) are within their rights to rant all they like with their anti-Islam comments, but how far are they from inciting some brainless idiot bringing harm to an innocent in the name of freedom’?
Sorry to rant, but from where I stand, this seems to be a growing trend. I sincerely hope that its just me being paranoid and it isn’t actually a reality.
Andrew Fenney-Walch in Lower Longley, Tasmania
I can understand the desire to hurt/punish/kill someone after a criminal/violent act against yourself/family/friends/etc. It’s a very human reaction, a completely gut reaction with not much thought. I have had that desire to hurt someone else due to fear for my self and family. Most recently, I walked into my kitchen from the study at midnight to find a man not known to me standing there facing away from me. My first thought was to grab something solid and hit him over the head with no warning so he couldn’t hurt me or my family (all asleep at the time) but sanity returned, I was a lot bigger then he and the police were called.
When I turned on the TV last Tuesday night just in time to see a jet liner fly into an already smoking world landmark I went cold. One of my first thoughts was that this will really piss off the americans and when they find out who did this they will nuke them. Initially I didn’t feel that I could argue with that sort of reaction because:
a. It was what my reaction would have been
b. The terrorists would have known the sort of reaction they would get
c. It was justified under “an eye for an eye …”
d. They will be afraid of being seen to be weak
However, what will this achieve? The terrorists don’t care that the reaction may result in their family and friends death’s by bombing or military actions. That happens already. They are used to being locked up, starved, shot at, bombed, deprived, poor and picked on. They already think that the rest of the world wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. How is “retaliatory action” going to scare them. The lives they lead we wouldn’t subject a stray dog to.
Ask Israel if they’re succeeding.
All it will achieve is to verify their view of the world.
The organisers of the attack should be punished but some thought needs to go into how to do this.
It was inevitable that an attack on USA would occur and the size of the attack is not that unpredictable. Think of all those action movies and political thriller books that portrayed a similar level of terrorist attack on the USA. The Superbowl has been nuked, blown up many times with 100,000 plus people in it. The Congress has been hit with a jumbo jet. Terrorist have laid siege to various US cities. Why would all these stories have the same theme unless America itself was aware of the hatred and wished for violence aimed at it. Is it possible that the movies/stories actually contributed to the scene that was set last Tuesday?
Given the life they have led and the stereotype they have been fitted into is it a surprise that someone has followed it all through to its horrific conclusion? And do we need the USA pushing the rest of the world to complete the cycle true to its stereotype and get it rolling faster and faster?
Rick Pass
There are so many issues swirling around the US attack that you could spend all day trying to counter much of the misinformation and prejudice that you encounter.
I guess the thing that bugs me the most is the inherent racism that I see in much of the commentary and debate. I don’t mean the blatant Alf Garnett type of bigotry. I mean a more subtle form which is displayed by even the most well meaning and sincere people. It’s a type of racism that says that the things that we perpetrate against brown/black people are somehow less pernicious than acts committed by them against us. It’s the thought that the death of a baby in the third world is less shocking than the death of one in the first. Like mothers in other parts of the world don’t mourn their children.
It’s the idea that what we in the West do, we do with the best of intentions, holding true to the principles of ‘virtue and honour and dignity’ as the US Ambassador has just said in my ear. Andreas Perdana in Hot words, cool heads and poetry
wrote that when the Americans fight wars they may kill civilians as collateral damage but that they do not deliberately target them, otherwise they would have nuked Tokyo and not Hiroshima.
In fact the Americans did target Tokyo with an attack using incendiary bombs designed to ignite the thin paper and wooden houses. The firestorm that swept Tokyo killed more people than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. That was why they didn’t target Tokyo with atom bombs. There was nothing left to destroy. For maximum effect and for research purposes the US chose cities which were relatively untouched and the reason that they were untouched was because they had no military value. (The British and Australians carried out the same kind of incendiary attack at Dresden.)
During the Vietnam War Nixon and Kissinger extended the bombing campaign into Cambodia in order to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Cambodia was a neutral country and the US executive acted without Congressional approval. In order to disguise this illegal and unconstitutional campaign the B-52 pilots were made to falsify their logs to show that they were bombings inside Vietnam.
At the beginning of the bombing there was a small and marginal resistance group in Cambodia which had very little popular appeal as compared to the much respected Royal family. By the time the bombing was finished the CIA estimated that 600 000 Cambodian civilians had been killed- about 10% of the population- Cambodian cities had swollen to gross and unsustainable proportions and the marginal resistance group had transformed into what the world came to know as the Khmer Rouge. The prerequisites for an appalling tragedy had been put in place. That is why commentators like Greg Sheridan always speak of Cambodian history beginning in 1975. They don’t want to admit what came before.
We need to admit that murder is murder. A war crime a war crime. A crime against humanity a crime no matter who is committing it. If we are to make any allowance then we must judge ourselves to be more culpable than a poor peasant in Afghanistan. We live in a country where we do have some power to influence the actions of our governments. We, as citizens of ‘democracies’, have no excuse when our governments commit act of barbarity. Unlike those who live under dictatorships, and often put us to shame with their brave struggle for freedom, democracy and human rights, we must take full responsibility for the actions of our governments.
David Eastwood in Sydney
Dean James’s critique of islam (see Clamour of discordant voices) in which he lists a wide range of atrocities focuses on a religious slant and suggests religious intolerance is inherent to islam. This view overlooks the economic realities of the islamic world.
For the most part, militant islam draws its power from a range of economically backward, non-democratic societies. Most of the terrorism seems born of these backwaters.
In such places, where poorly informed, fragmented and uneducated masses are ruled by despots or corrupt elites perpetuating religious, tribal and other legacy power structures it is easy to imagine extremism taking hold and being used as a tool of political advancement by fanatics, or indeed by the state where the two coincide.
Ironically, backwardness affords these fanatics far more effective use of modern tools of control and subjugation to perpetuate their strength than can fanatics operating in modern democracies. It’s getting harder and harder to stage a revolution while state control holds.
Islamic activism and terrorism is not so evident in mature democracies where islamic communities live in relative harmony, with perhaps the occasional intercommunity squabbles. Similarly, relatively advanced islamic countries such as Turkey and Malaysia demonstrate less religious intolerance and seem much more at ease with the rest of the world.
Is it possible that Islam is a troubled teenager? Perhaps a faith that is still developing and cementing its place in the world, trying to work itself out and fighting to be heard? Islam is a relatively young religion, not yet divorced from political power as Christianity has become. At the age Islam is now, Christianity exhibited much of the barbarism non-Muslims see in fundamentalist Islam now.
What were the crusades all about? The conquests? The inquisition? How much equality and what rights had christian women in those ancient ages? How much state sponsored terrorism and killing took place under the banner of christianity in those times?
Ryan F. Gunawan in Sydney
I have a faith .. and I hope you do too!
The tragedy that rocked the world,
has rocked my faith in humanity.
…
What was worse than thousands of people died in vain,
What was worse than thousands more watched in horror,
as the man-made flying machines filled with civilians,
mothers and fathers and children,
men and women,
old and young,
Caucasians and Blacks and Asians and more,
Christians and Jews and Moslem and more,
used as living missiles to destroy lives
for a sense of purpose held by a very few
…
What worse than these was that …
all of us,
every single of us,
were guilty of losing our faith in humanity.
…
Unforgiving racists attacks against everybody with
Moslem or Arab-Middle Eastern background took place
everywhere.. from America all the way to Australia.
…
Equally distasteful excuses that America deserves the
tragedy cluttered newsgroups, emails, talkback radios
everywhere.. from the Middle East all the way to
Indonesia.
…
Such a shame !
Are we forgetting what really matters ?
…
The thousand of lives lost in NYC and Washington DC
will be a miniscule compared with the potential
loss of lives if every single one of us
let our anger
let our hatred
let our bigotry
let our craving for revenge
rule us
blind us
from what makes us human..
…
Love, Compassion, Forgiveness,
Sense of Justice (and not revenge !)
.. and most of all Tolerance.
…
I pray to my GOD that something good will
come out this terrible tragedy.
.. and I hope you do too.
…
I have a faith that we will come back to
what makes us human.
.. and I hope you do too.