I am still in the shock phase of grief. Fear isn’t allowed in yet. Some people in Australia have hit out and are threatening fellow Australians. Others have used the tragedy to bolster their case against allowing any Muslims into Australia, including the Tampa boat people. A few of these people have written to the Webdiary. Some others have written making judgements about the United States and suggesting it is responsible for last night’s events. I’ve chosen not to publish any of these emails at this time. Many Australians are still waiting for news on family and friends in the United States.

 

Keith Conley wrote to me today: “In light of what happened last night, please put a halt to the web diary. It can serve no purpose now. Any argument over refugees will be inflamed by the raw tidal wave of emotion that is about to be unleashed. This is not the time.”

 

I’d already decided the same thing, but have changed my mind. Today, I publish contributions from John Avery, Brian Bahnisch, Andrew Cave, Polly Bush, Colin White, Marc Pengryffn, Merrill Pye and Beris de Vanharasz.

 

John Avery in Adelaide

 

It is a reasonable guess that the perpetrators of today’s terrorism in the US are an extreme faction identified with Islam and probably connected to the Taliban. Having said that, it vital that the actual culprits are identified and punished with narrow particularity, not just for sake of justice but to defeat the purposes of these outrages.

 

President Bush has said no distinction will be drawn between terrorists and the regimes who support them. But that is the exactly the response these shocking deeds seem calculated to elicit. A key object of extremist factions, such as those competing with more moderate groups among the Taliban, is to prevent moderate groups defecting, to shut the escape hatches.

 

We have seen this tactic in Afghanistan with the desecration of the Buddhist monuments, the arrest of aid workers for (allegedly) preaching Christianity and the outrageous repression of women in that country. The terrorists believe that more extreme and outrageous the actions, the more reliably will their targets extend revenge to anyone tainted by association with them.

 

Under common attack, more moderate factions are forced to commit to the extreme hard line, whether they like it or not.

 

If this is correct, the US response should be to drive a wedge between the perpetrators and to their close supporters, rebarbative as they definitely will turn out to be. This course is unlikely to be followed because the extremity of the terrorists’ outrage is designed to amplify their victims’ hostility and harden their feelings of revenge.

 

Thus the huge scale of losses inflicted on the US are calculated to induce feelings of revenge that will not be satisfied with the punishment of a mere handful of scruffy tribesmen, even if Bin Laden were among them (should his group turn out to be culpable).

 

The vividness and power of these events, underscored by presumed religiously inspired suicides, make it emotionally difficult for the Americans to resist the terrorists’ overt message that they are primarily engaged in war with the USA or the west.

 

The war with the diabolical west may turn out to be their platform, but the real purpose of their attacks and their extreme high stake tactics seem to be fame, self-preservation and advancement within a specific regional politics marked by labile factional and ideological commitments to forms of Islam ostensibly opposed to modernity with a western face.

 

The world will pay a high price if America succumbs to these forceful temptations. President Bush, contrary to what he has declared so far in the heat of the moment, should lend support to the more moderate factions to isolate the extremists, contrary to the extremists’ desire to draw a savage response from the USA, but this is unlikely to happen.

 

It seems a small point to make now, but the prospect that the world might have developed better ways of dealing with the increasing flow of refugees from Afghanistan and nearby countries seems to have evaporated.

 

I had hoped that, in that context, Australia would be able to review its responsibilities to take refugees on a more compassionate and responsive basis. That would have changed things for the better. At present, it seems that we can only hope things do not get far, far worse.

 

Brian Bahnisch in Brisbane

 

When I was young there was a fellow called Gandhi. I admired his pacifist philosophy but could not bring myself to adopt it entirely. I would always be ready to kill if it meant saving my sister’s life. But Gandhi made you think. We do have to be careful about extending the cycle of violence.

 

Later when doing a course on ethics I read that every society on earth has legitimated killing in some form in some circumstances. Exceptions are possible but they are rare. Last year I met a Kiwi, a Moriori, who told me that the Moriori were so gentle they would rather die than fight the invading Maori. There are not many Moriori about these days.

 

Last night was a bad night. After Lateline finished I checked out the end of the Channel 10 news. There was a World Trade Centre tower burning. By the time I got out of the shower it was clear that bad things were happening. I watched in fascination, as it became clear that the world had changed forever.

 

This morning we told my 14-year-old about what had happened. His response? Bad things are going to happen. You know how the Americans are when some of their people are killed.

 

There was lots of comment on the radio. American voices, experts in terrorism and defense, saying that Bush should be careful about overreacting. One pointed out that the terrorists were just toying with the US. There was no payload of anthrax and they could have taken out the White House.

 

They spoke about how hard it was to defend against such an attack. Weapons could be taken on board and put together later. I realised that the terrorists would not have needed any weapons at all if there were enough of them and they were skilled in unarmed combat. In fact the woman who phoned her husband from one of the planes mentioned only knives and cardboard cutters.

 

It was an elegant plan. Use the power of the products of capitalism against itself. I wondered about what violence had preceded these unspeakable acts and what violence would follow. After all the Brits and the Yanks have been bombing Iraq for the last 10 years.

 

Then came Beazley. He expressed concern for the victims and their families and then talked about retribution. Is this what I want my leader to be saying? Shouldn’t he be calming things down? And I thought, give up Kim. People will never vote to change the government now with the strong man in control.

 

Then came Howard. He had compassionate words too and then spoke of a lethal strike. I called into the newsagent and picked up the Bulletin. I had been sweating on the Bulletin Morgan poll. The last one had been taken just after the Minister, who could not remember where he had been or what he knew, had given out five different stories to cover himself. Labor was then 57 to 43 ahead. This one was taken on 12 September. The gap had narrowed 10 points in two weeks. Howard was in the hunt. Now he would surely romp it in.

 

Then came talkback on the ABC. I expected it and it came. We must keep these Muslims out! They want to destroy our Christian society. Then a guy came on and said the notable thing about this attack was that it came from inside the US. And here in Australia we have one man (Justice North) subverting the will of our elected leaders.

 

So is this the end of what Fukuyama claimed was the end of history, namely liberal democracy and free market capitalism? Perhaps not, but it must be getting closer. Eric Hobsbawm says borders are becoming more porous, crime is globalising and the technology of violence is increasing to the point where it is hard for the nation state to exert control within its borders and make the place safe for global capitalism. He thinks the nation state reached its zenith about 40 years ago.

 

And what do we do? Throw up our hands in despair? Well no, we keep pushing the rock up the hill like Sisyphus even if it is destined to keep rolling down again.

 

Andrew Cave in Kuraby, Queensland

 

My wife went to the local supermarket about half an hour ago. When she came back she told me of overhearing conversations. Two young men talking to a checkout operator saying “All Arabs are crazy”. Another checkout operator saying “Now you know why we turned those boat people away.” A beautiful young Arab woman working on checkout defending herself against three other checkout operators who were evidently focussing on her as a representative of Islam and so having some responsibility for the terrible crime in New York overnight.

 

This sort of reaction is commonplace now as the message to fear the Islamic people of the world becomes internalised, part of the very moral and decision making framework of our lives. Unquestioned like the notion that man is the most evolved creature on the planet.

 

It is this sort of fear that attacking the boat people works on. Those who pander to it may think, isolated in their sane and well-educated suburbs, that this can be used for political advantage and that it can be contained like a controlled burn-off. But like a fire that gets to the tree crowns, it will run away from their control.

 

Watching the American news coverage, I have been struck by how considered and calm their commentary has been. There has been overt efforts to ensure that it is not assumed that it was Islamic terrorists and that a distinction is drawn between the people who did it and the people who may have unwittingly shared a country.

 

I can only hope that our media will do the same – even the shock-jocks. And I sincerely hope that the first politician to try and make political mileage by linking New York with the Afghan refugees is so vilified by the press that he (or she) never participates in public life again.

 

Polly Bush in Melbourne

 

Madness. Complete and utter madness. Excuse my age (24) but this is the biggest thing I have ever seen. This is the scariest feeling I have ever had. This is beyond comprehension.

 

Work was a joke today. I couldn’t do anything except mindlessly click the refresh button on any news site I could find. People walked around, mouths open, eyes vacant, silent, stunned.

 

And this is just Australia. Crowds gathered around the office TVs, but still, silence, stunned faces.

 

A male colleague of mine told me on one of many unproductive smoko breaks today, “I don’t want to be called up for war”. I never thought I would hear that from someone my age and seriously contemplate it.

 

Idiot callers on talkback radio likened boat people to terrorists, without making the connection this is what boat people might be fleeing from. Emails went wild. I got sent this Nostradamus quote: “In the city of God there will be a great thunder, two brothers torn apart by chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb. The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.” Ta for that, whoever.

 

Dubbya quoted the bible. Terrific. I recalled his father’s speech during the Gulf and the emphasis on the sons and daughters of the USA. I felt sick. I rang my Mum interstate for some vague reassurance that life is OK. She asked me to come home, so we can go bush and build a bunker. That didn’t help.

 

In light of the Tampa, I didn’t think news could get anymore depressing. It has. Unfortunately I think this will just enrage the racists in this country and around the world.

 

We live in dangerous times. I fear the future.

 

Colin White in Highgate, Western Australia

 

If reports are to be believed, this evil is the work of Islam. Why does Islam insist on hiding from the world the beauty inspired by Allah, presenting only the evil inspired by Satan?

 

I hope the American people have the fortitude to rebuild those beautifully elegant towers to their original design, as a living, working monument to all who perished there yesterday. A design in which, ironically, I have always seen the influence of Islamic architecture.

 

Marc Pengryffyn in Katoomba, NSW

 

Arbitrary slaughter of innocent people is the norm over most of the world, not the exception. The murder of thousands of Americans is a horrible tragedy. So were the deaths of the thousands in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Chile, Chechnya, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Palestine, the former Yugoslavia, China, Burma, etc, etc. There is no defence against terror, except to create a world without the depth of inequality and injustice that currently exists.

 

It disturbs me that the first thing I heard President Bush say was to promise revenge. Not justice. Revenge. This suggests that even more innocent civilians will be killed to ‘send a message’ to the terrorists. Why do the bodies of the innocent always have to be the medium of the message?

 

Likewise, the Australian government has been speaking in terms of retribution, rather than justice. Predictably, the noisy, hard-of-thinking bigots who patronise talk-back are threatening violent retribution against the Australian Muslim community. More innocent victims.

 

Tit-for-tat atrocities is not the way to end terror. Look at Palestine or Northern Ireland. The terrorists need to be brought to justice, and the conditions that foster fanaticism and terror need to be addressed at the roots. We need justice, not vengeance.

 

But few will listen. Few will even bother to think. They will only react, and the cycle of violence will continue. Sometimes it’s hard to be an optimist.

 

Merrill Pye

 

My worries for reverberations continue, but down the bottom of Pandora’s Box was hope. Just maybe some sort of common feeling might come out of this. New York and Washington DC now maybe can feel like Belgrade and Baghdad did. Those pretty pictures, like movies or computer games, missile-cam and night-vision, now connect with reality, with pain, grief, loss and destruction.

 

Beris de Vanharasz

 

I feel desperate for the world and all the decent people of all races and beliefs.

The identity debate has exploded, with questions about the state of our democratic traditions, particularly the rule of law, entering the picture. But the racism debate is still creating all the angst – it’s raw, it’s emotional, it’s genuine, it’s reaching out, and it’s engaged. Thank you, to all contributors.

You are: Robert Lawton, a favourite regular, Paul Wilson-Brown, Ron Williams, Bradley Lonard, Jack Nalbandian, Peter Kelly, Paul Wright, Charles Richards, Susan Jenner, Hardy Martin, Michelle Stein-Evers, Sonia Foley and Matt Eggers.

I begin with a poem by Brisbane boy David Peetz, in Quebec at the moment.

Is this “my country”?

I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!

But where like far horizons, our minds were once so wide

We’d welcome all and sundry, live with them side by side

The jewel-sea’s load we fear now, we scorn their ragged clothes

And beauty turns to terror if your eyes stay tightly closed

So if your land’s been swept away by droughts and flooding rains

If you seek a new beginning to escape from terror’s reign

Don’t come to our horizons, if we see you coming near

We’ll stand and sing our anthem, and this is what you’ll hear

“Australians all – watch us rejoice –

But we won’t hear your plea.

The Taliban may do their worst –

We’ll tow you back to sea!

Our land abounds in nature’s gifts

That we don’t want to share.

In history’s page, the world’s outraged

But we don’t really care.

We’ll show them we forget how to

Advance Australia fair.”

 

Notes: First verse by Dorothea Mackellar, ‘My country’, 1908; in last verse lines 5, 10 and half of line 7 from ‘Advance Australia Fair’ by Peter Dodds McCormick, 1878)

 

RACISM IN OZ

Robert Lawton in Adelaide

I’ve been reading the enormous triple and quadruple editions of Webdiary recently and feeling swamped. Swamped by the torrent of words on this issue, and sad that politics has become so routine that many people only feel driven to speak on a topic like this.

There’s been some joy as well: just seeing the monolithic Lab and Lib wedges splinter as people make their own choices rather than allow the party to think for them.

The pro-Howard Laborites may perhaps nail down some of the sillier policy ideas in a Beazley administration; the hard-to-kill Lib moderates will clearly have their day again, and on other issues than this perhaps.

A few comments on anti-Muslim feeling, speaking from an experience of Islam through Iranian, Bangladeshi and Malian friends; time spent travelling in Turkey, Jordan and Muslim India; and the old linkages of NW Pakistan to the Flinders Ranges through the Ghantowns of Farina and Marree…and the people of mixed Afghan/Aboriginal lineage now living through that area.

I say to people like Piers Denton (in Why we are racist): open your eyes to people like Nasser Hussain, captain of the England cricket team; Zinedine Zidane, a sensible, talented man perhaps the best all round footballer on the planet; Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who worked so hard to avoid the partition of India into what became India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; those brave judges of the High Court of Malaysia who have defied Mahathir in their decisions in favour of an open society; Malcolm X; Frantz Fanon of Senegal, who wrote so movingly of racism in the 1950s; Ataturk who promoted self confidence, democracy, feminism and openness in Turkey in the 1920s when Europe was going the other way; King Hussein of Jordan, who used dialogue and respect to counter Israeli

chauvinism and fear; even Gus Dur (the former President Wahid) of Indonesia who continues to use Islam as a way forward rather than a wall to contain the past.

I laugh at my 76-year-old mother’s anti-Catholic prejudices, because I can see the naked chauvinism behind them for what it is. Then I ask her why she cried so much when Robert Kennedy was shot.

Anti-Lebanese Muslim feeling is just the same as anti-Catholicism: the Lebanese happen to be in the gun in this country at present. In Germany it is expressed against the Turks, in France against the Algerians and other North African Arabs, in Britain against the Indian Muslims from everywhere from Uganda to Pakistan, Malaysia and Fiji. And in Israel.

There are still some people who hate Catholics for what they are. But in time anti-Muslim feeling will be just as marginalised.

Salaam wa laykoum: May peace be upon you. An Arabic phrase worth learning and using!

Paul Wilson-Brown

I never ring talk back lines, participate in online forums or normally have anything to do with media biased based debate of any sort. I’m too busy working. But I got a rare afternoon off so just thought I’d put my one cent in before John Howard changes the cross media ownership laws and I give up paying attention to the media all together (except for the wonderful ABC or what’s left of it).

It just seems to me that most of the people who call up the talkback jerks (Sandy McCutcheon excluded) are older white people who grew up in a Menzies induced torpor where white and might was right and whose only engagement with multiculturalism was a bit o’ Chinese food on a Fridee night. I’m generalising and making assumptions about a group of people and I really shouldn’t do that should I? But I wanted to say …

I was at a lunch party on Sunday afternoon with my Japanese girlfriend and we came across a pleasant fellow who spent several years in Japan. Well, she and he were chatting away quite nicely in Japanese when this (blonde OZ) girl stated form across the table ‘Jesus that shits me, you’re in Australia why don’t you speak Australian!? (Gee I thought we spoke English here but anyway)

“I’m so over all this shit,” (Multiculturalism I presume) she said to her friend.

Just yesterday I received a work-related call from a woman who lived in Strathfield in Sydney who in the course of the conversation calmly mentioned that the suburb was ‘overrun’ (a word usually associated with vermin I think) by Koreans!

“How rude they are!” she remarked (and remember she doesn’t know me from a bar of soap). “The young ones won’t get out of your way if you want to pass by”. I told her that anyone under the age of 18 is likely to be like that and on my recent trip to Korea, the Koreans were complaining about how rude the Americans were!

Actually I know a lot of Koreans and if it’s at all permitted to generalise (as it seems to be these days) they are some of the most earnest, honest, family oriented and generous people I know actually …. But I wanted to say.

An environment has been created where racists (and there are many levels of racism, from the subtle to the sick) feel very comfortable about airing their views in the confidence of an assumtion that the majority of “Australians” (read white Australians) agree. The 77% may see it as a breakdown in political correctness but actually it’s just a breakthrough in racism. I see it for the hard hearted empty headed crap that it is as does the rest of the world.

My family migrated to Australia from Scotland in 1970 when I was 7. We stayed in a crappy army barracks in Wacol in Brisbane. Man, it really sucked but I can only imagine (shudder) what the Afghanis are going through sitting in a shit heap in Pakistan and I don’t think I’d want to hang around in a drought stricken desert waiting for the Taliban to skin me alive and hang me from the flagpole.

WHAT I REALLY WANTED TO SAY WAS … It matters little what rhetoric you care to dabble with or how you attempt to rationalise your backward stance. You can feel strongly about something and still be completely and totally wrong.

So wake up, you racist shits. Cast off that cloak of self serving bigotry you’ve wrapped your “Australian” values in. Expel all the racist poison your parents injected into you when you were young and impressionable. Grow up and grow into the world.

Australia is the best country in the world, even though it’s now 77% thought free.

 

A FAIR GO

Ron Williams

What happened to a fair go? Nothing, mate, except that some of those people we’ve generously allowed into our country are busily turning it into a place I wouldn’t want to live in.

There are limits to the ‘fair go’. After all, if a beggar comes to your door, you don’t invite him in, say “Here, sit down at the telly, I’ll fetch you a cup of tea’. Nor do we.

There are limits, and I’m afraid I, along with many other Australians have reached ours.

 

OUR DEBATING STYLE

Bradley Lonard

Certainly one of the more amusing parts of the post-Tampa fallout has been watching the breathtaking hypocrisy of some prominent political and media figures.

Let’s start with our Prime Minister, John Winston Howard. The Australian today reports that while making an address, Mr Howard vehemently denied making political hay out of the refugee crisis: “I mean, what a ridiculous proposition.” The same story reports, with presumably a straight face, that the PM ‘spent more than half of the address talking about the refugee crisis.’ Quite.

Or there’s our old friend P P McGuinness, who decided to devote his Herald column to exposing the abusive emails and letters he’s received from readers unhappy with his hard line against the Tampa refugees. Some people might think it a bit rich that the man who turned Quadrant magazine into a vehicle for tirades against those with whom he happens to disagree – such as Robert Manne or Sir William Deane – should be complaining about receiving abusive emails.

Just as some people might be bemused at how McGuinness – a journalist, politician and long-time resident of one of Sydney’s pricier, trendier suburbs — regularly launches diatribes against ‘the elites’.

Over in the Australian there’s good old Frank Devine, who scores with a column sneering at those ‘halfwits’ who want to let refugees be processed in Australian, proclaiming that ‘hard hearts’ should rule; and then follows it up with a column warning Kim Beazley that he’s far too nice

Back in the Herald, Devine Jnr, Miranda, nips any thoughts of admiration we might have for the way NZ PM Helen Clark has handled the crisis by reminding us that the country’s a basket case that isn’t fit to lick our own country’s shoes. So there: New Zealand has a conscience so it’s obviously a wreck.

And then we come to the Webdiary. Well, there’s been some intelligent, reasoned criticism from both sides of the divide. There’s also, unfortunately, been a lot of abuse and too much sneering of the ‘If you want the refugees to come here, let them live in your home’ or ‘If you want to criticise Australia, go live in Afghanistan and see if you like it’ variety.

Christopher Hitchins calls this the ‘We have free speech here, so SHUT UP!’ argument. It’s intellectually dishonest. But then, intellect – as opposed to mere opinion and emotion – is one thing that’s been lacking from much of the entire affair.

This, really, has been the saddest part of the Tampa fallout: the way public debate has quickly turned into ‘I’m right, you’re wrong, nyah nyah nyah!’ ‘No, I’M right, you’re wrong!’ ‘No, YOU are!’ ‘No, YOU are!’ etc etc etc.

This tactic, which has been standard right-wing issue since the middle 1980s (witness Ackerman, Pearson, Warby et al), has now infected almost the entire population.

We all deserve better than this.

 

Jack Nalbandian

Ruminations on a nation. Thoughts occurring to me while filling holes in soil with seedlings on the process line. Trying to find a space in my mind around counting eight per punnet, I start thinking about some of what I’ve been reading in Webdiary and it strikes me as perversely amusing to read how threatened the affluent xenophobe feels, and how they talk of being marginalised and unrepresented.

I’m pissing myself now, and then I feel compassion because it must be hard to be in those shoes seeing as how the prime minister is a lesbian, parliament is full of Aborigines, Asians and women. Ha, ha.

We desperately need healthy dissent, debate, argument whatever you want to call it. At present I feel Australia has become some sort of psychological totalitarian state; a toxic fog has descended over our collective consciousness and we’ve become blind to our peoples’ and country’s unique potentials.

It seems to me that we all have to understand our own limitations and at least try to cross the mental boundaries we create in our thinking to attempt to see anothers point of veiw, and maybe even take enough real interest to ask the question why?

Sadly we live in reactionary times, on all levels, even the most mundane. Foresight and planning have been replaced with making the figures look good today. So don’t worry that the cheap crap you bought today to save some precious coin will stuff up the machine tommyrot, we’ll just have to feed it manually but be expected to meet the same production quotas with same amount of staff working longer hours.

Pondering aloud. What do the business leaders think about the Tampa situation.

Consider. I have a business and I export materials to the Scandinavian countries, Europe and Asia, Indonesia, China and other places . My product says it has been made in Australia. Should I now change the labels so as not to identify the country of production and not suffer the international backlash against it.

Remember how we monsterised the French Perfumes?

Some readers and talk back radios callers (they must be bored with their life) were saying shoot them and throw them in the water. Now since some of these educated Aussies have irrevocable proof that there is a certain ethnicity related to crime, I wonder if they have some of this particular ethnic genes in themselves from their great grandpa which is allowing them to talk such criminal nonsense.

What a big superpower we must be that we are afraid of 433 people with nothing on them other than their clothes. A flood of refugees will follow!!

So? That means that we are a third world country with an arrogant grandeur of being the best and the most righteous. 200 years only passed and the world has just found out that we are still a baby in the international forum.

 

Peter Kelly

Pastor Martin Niemoller, writing in Germany before his arrest in the 1930s: “The Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and

I didn’t speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant, so I didn’t speak up….by that time there was nobody left to speak up for anyone.”

It seems many, perhaps most, migrants support the tough policy stand of Howard in denying entry to the Tampa in particular and to refugees in general. But I am reminded of what Pastor Martin Niemoller said. The racial dog that Howard has baited can turn around and go for any identifiable group, even the one holding the leash.

The issue of refugees is important to us even if we are not refugees because we can all be identified as members of some group. It does not ultimately come down to refugees but to fear and insecurity and anyone of us can, inadvertently, inspire fear and insecurity in others.

I fear Australia is becoming very ugly and membership of an ethnic group that supports a tough line on refugees today may not make it immune from persecution tomorrow. But the refugees being persecuted today and the middle eastern communities being kicked by talk back radio shock jocks and politicians today will not be around to speak up for these other communities.

 

Paul Wright in Summer Hill, Sydney

An interesting aside before the meat of the question. Some correspondents are calling this an “unbiased soapbox”. A quick glance through the last few day’s Webdiary entries show several interjections and corrections by Margo – almost if not all on letters she disagrees with.

Censorship takes many forms, not least of which is the excessively personal and hateful language used against the Prime Minister.

This is not a moral problem, this is a problem of numbers and timing. If you accept that we cannot have unlimited immigration and refugee acceptance, then you accept that sometime your limit will be reached. And when that limit is reached, will you have the courage to stand by your own convictions. Or will you say “just one more”, and “they are really pathetic looking, we should let them in”.

When your limit is reached, will you feel like a racist, a redneck, no compassion?

When Howard went against the (slim) majority of people who wanted a republic, he was “the man who broke Australia’s heart”. Now he’s with 70% and he’s populist, and even racist. You can’t be both populist and racist, because each requires unswerving behaviour regardless of beliefs. Remember, if you dislike populism, then you should have been prepared to condemn Howard for letting them in, had the polls gone that way.

Seriously, to the anti-Howard crew, do you really think he would have acted differently if an election wasn’t coming? If you’re in the “populist” camp, where did he get the poll data instantly? And where’s the electoral advantage when the Opposition is in furious agreement?

Why is it so hard to acknowledge other people’s right to hold an opinion contrary to yours. I hear little hint of pluralism, or tolerance, from those that disagree with me. Can you call your fellow Australians racist bully-boys, and intolerant scumbags, while preaching tolerance and acceptance?

 

Charles Richards

I think this Tampa thing has become a biiger issue on whether Australians should let in more immigrants or end immigration full stop. The comments on the newsgroup aus.politics has gotten very nasty lately over the Tampa issue. Here is one such comment:

“Losers enjoy company, Guess that is why there are a few who want to open the floodgates of immigration so they won’t feel like they are the only ones accused of being bludgers because they are dependent on social welfare.”

 

Susan Jenner

Fear of difference.

One thing that has really struck me about the race debate is the extreme fear or dislike some have of people who are different.

Viewpoints I have heard over and over are that the boat people, immigrants, or Muslims in general are “not like us”, “have values different to us”, “won’t assimilate”, are “violent”, or “have no respect for our laws”.

There is a tendency in many people to look at someone that is different and regard them with fear or even hate. I believe this is because there is such a strong belief instilled in us from early childhood that things are either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

So if you are confronted with someone who has different views, or looks different, or is from a different culture there is an internal process, which is probably unconscious, that says:

“He/she is different so either they are wrong or I am, and I do not want to think that I am wrong, so they must be.”

I think xenophobic reactions partly come from a deep fear that it is really the self that is ‘wrong’, not the one who is different. Therefore the difference must be suppressed or others may believe that the different one is ‘right’. So there are attempts to dehumanise or vilify people of other races, or those who have different beliefs. Or to condemn a whole group of people by the actions of an unfortunate few, such as in the gang rape cases. All to prove that these people cannot possibly be ‘right’.

But different does not mean right or wrong, superior or inferior, it is just different!

A taoist saying really sums this up: “Different means different, not better or worse. Different means different, it isn’t a curse.”

 

Hardy Martin

I am deeply upset about the Tampa issue being reduced to a race debate, as though it makes any difference what country they came from. They tried to enter the country illegally and that is that!

It is assumed that because they are from another country that it is a racial thing. Of course they’re from another country – they are asylum seekers – so playing the race card is simply stupid.

I have read many contributions, and especially noted Susan Jenner’s contribution in Why we are racist, that have tried to analyse the “Australian Psyche” and tried (to no avail) to find some answers.

They are not there and the notion of a democratic country having a psyche upsets me even more than the issue at hand. These readers have wasted everyone’s time. Placing our own “guilt” on the list of reasons for turning them away – how about the real reasons?

They do not care for our laws and the countries they travel through to get here do not care either, so long as they don’t stop until they get to Australia. Maybe there was a statement to be made that rises above the typical “Oh my god, they’re boat people, we must accept them or people will think we’re racist” chant which is so easy to say when you need to wash your hands of racism, (Beazley) after all, its only another 460.

Nobody seems too keen to solve the problems, just to pass the buck. Johnny made the right decision this time.

But I’m still not voting for him, or Beazley, who should have grown some chest hair and supported the move.

Beazley’s “vision” speech is very nice, but it’s useless. He calls for co-operation and that’s exactly what he won’t get from the other key nations who have nothing to gain from doing the right thing.

And as for other countries pointing the finger at our “disgusting” behaviour – get real. Let those without sin cast the first stone.

So many issues have been raised and none have been settled. Why? Because we have raised too many issues for a democratic country to debate all at once.

I am a realist and I believe that by everyone kicking and screaming about 460 people on a boat, nothing has been accomplished. AS PER USUAL. Why? Because the general populace is not intelligent enough to see through all the supplementary issues raised by the media and everyone else who wants some free publicity, who just love to play the race card which always results in the same “Oh my god they’re boat people……..”

Congratulations, you have all just totally missed the point!

 

Michelle Stein-Evers in Double Bay, Sydney

What has happened to and because of the Tampa, the arrogant misbehaving in the face of (and the name of ) the rule of law, is something that, when the chips are down, could happen to every one of us here.

As the laws and conventions stand, when any Australian government feels threatened it feels that it has the right to push through any law (such as that declaring the actions of the Tampa’s skipper illegal retrospectively), conscionable or no.

These governments feel also that they can threaten fine folks to keep them in line (as with one of the plaintiffs in one of the Melbourne suits: he has been threatened by the Government that if they feel they have been discomfited, they will sue him for damages or costs and attack his personal assets to punish him for suing on behalf of those on board the Tampa).

These are tactics that would have made Hitler’s Goebbels proud. What is painful to me is to realise that the majority of Australians I’ve met think those sorts of governmental dirty tricks are just fine.

It seems that don’t consider that same arsenal of heavyhandedness is available to be used against them.

 

Sonia Foley

The issue about illegal immigrants is now the “hot topic” of the moment. Some people who do not understand the situation are shooting off saying that Australia is being “racist”. From what I have observed this is not the case. I spoke with an American friend yesterday and he said that the majority of Americans that he has spoken with support what our government is doing. They recognise that these people are “economic refugees” (those were his words).

This issue has nothing to do with race!!! Personally I would not care what country these people come from. The issue is this “Are these people really refugees or illegal immigrants”.

If they are true refugees then I would have no problem in them coming to Australia. However, it is very suspicious when they “lose” their identification and “do not know where they come from”. When illegal immigrants see a soft stand from the Australian government then they will take advantage of this. Please tell me why, if they are true refugees, they would not let the captain take them to Indonesia as this was his original intention. What they did, in effect, was pirate the ship!!! If they were truly desperate to go anywhere to escape their own country, why would they refuse to go to Indonesia?

I saw “A Current Affair” last night with the interview of the captain of the Tampa. It was interesting how he basically said that his ship was pirated by these people and that he was afraid. I am curious why he did not come right out and say it. However, from his own admission, this is exactly what these people did to his ship. These are not the sort of people who we want in our country. Their actions were criminal and we do not want more criminals in our country. The captain said that they came onto the bridge and were in his face, talking in an agitated manner and were saying that if he did not turn the ship around that they would “go crazy”.

Interestingly enough, when these people do not have any identification there can be no police checks done on their criminal activity and who knows what sort of background they have – after all, the way they are coming in is an illegal activity so who knows what sort of criminal activity they were involved in back in their original country. We have enough problems with criminal activity without letting in more people who can not have a thorough background check.

Also, if they were refugees I think it is interesting that there are so few women and children – so many single men. Where are all the families? If they have families, and their lives are supposedly in danger, why would they leave them behind?

I work and have worked with people from many different countries – Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Switzerland, Germany, China, Phillipines… the list goes on. Also, I have many friends from different countries. It may interest you to know that when speaking with my friends from different countries they told me, without provocation on my behalf, that they were not happy with the situation as these boat people are “queue jumpers”. These friends came in the legal way.

The statistics that I would be interested in finding out would be how many of the detainees that are here are deported and how many are kept. Also, how many are kept that we could not find out any background information on. The statistics that I heard were as follows: that 9,000 illegal immigrants were deported last year and that most of the escapees from the detention centres (which happened fairly recently) were due to be deported. Also, that some of the detainees have lodged action against our government about being detained for so long. Which ultimately means that we, the Australian taxpayer, will be footing the bill. I would like to know if this is correct. If anyone can supply correct information on this it would be appreciated.

I think that Australians are sick of the whole situation. We have enough problems without this one. The money that could be spent on hospitals, education and helping our homeless is spent dealing with this situation.

An interesting thought. What does the government to do with “refugees” that have no identification and no possible means of finding out where they come from? Do we put an unknown quantity in the general population? If so, how do we know that they are not criminals?

I do not think that people who encourage and allow these people to come here are “do gooders”. Actually I think they are “do baders” as they are rewarding bad behaviour and not rewarding those genuine, sincere people who do the right thing and apply properly for refugee status (with proper background checking). This means that other desperate people who are doing the right thing are pushed out of their position for people who “queue jump”. Australians are screaming at the moment about the fact that our legal system is not giving tougher punishment for crimes committed and yet they are wanting to reward this example of piracy.

We need to protect our country and reward good behaviour, not bad behaviour. Let in the refugees who come in the legal way!!!!!

 

Matt Eggers

When injustices were being committed against Aboriginal people in the not too distant past, the community didn’t get up in arms about things. The problem generally wasn’t in their own figurative back yard and they didn’t want it to be so they said nothing and let those perpetrating and advocating the wrongs, to go unchallenged.

Now, it is generally accepted that the actions of the government at that time were wrong. Why hasn’t this taught us anything? Why does the passage of time have to be the proving ground for recognition of social injustice towards those who are different to us?

Let’s hope that the current Government’s difficulty in saying the “s” word doesn’t manifest itself in the need to say it again in a few years’ time over their inability to recognise the right thing to do with refugees.