Well the Liberal Ads are on the air spouting the words "we'll stop the boats" and the latest polls are out today proving this and Labor's equally racist approach to the campaign is working well. When I spoke to someone from the Socialist Alliance last week, he asked me 'why do you think racism is part of the election campaign?' I considered a number of factors in my response. Firstly it is obvious that Australia has a bland history of racism from the arrival of the english deplorers (who arrived on boats) and instigated a long, painful history of brutally killing the indigenous natives of this country. This of course culminated in the fascist approach of immigrant politicians (who arrived on boat) who created the White Australia Policy in 1901, which was activated until 1973. Interestingly, the wikipedia entry on this policy only mentions it as a ban on non-white immigration, however it was also the policy and practice that led to the abhorrent treatment of the indigenous Australians, which saw indigenous children being stolen from their parents and the intentional breeding of indigenous mothers with white immigrant fathers (or mostly raping of indigenous mothers), which afterwards the children were then stolen again and given to white families or institutions, in attempts to wipe out the indigenous race. A sensational film that addresses these actions is Tracey Moffat's 'Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy', 1990 and a review of this which mentions Australia's "shameful policy" can be read here. Robert Manne wrote a fantastic essay on this tragic past (and present) of Australia and Tim Richardson comments on Robert's essay and the recurrent issue of Australia's treatment of refugee's below:
I was deeply moved and shocked by this essay. Until I read it, I had little knowledge or understanding of the actions of Australian governments that separated children from mothers for several generations. The way normal people became little cogs in this horrible machine is almost terrifying. Revelations about the mistreatment of British children sent to Australia, often under the lie that their parents were dead, show how easily governments can hide cruelty from us, or perhaps only when we don't look hard enough. At around the same time these policies were happening, Australia was denying entries to Jews trying to escape an increasingly uncomfortable Europe. This is why we in Australia should challenge the treatment of boat-bound assylum seekers. Do we want our treatment of these people to be a story to shock our children in years to come? This shows the relevance of this essay ten years after it was first published.
Need I mention the 12 years of little johnny's racism to finish this historical tale? If you cannot remember or were trying to forget, take a quick peek as it is critical that Australia comes to terms with its racist and brutal past and starts to find the light of a non-racist future. It is obvious that there is a long history of racism in Australia and more frightening than this horrid past is that in 2010 Australia is still trying the racist card to win elections and to develop policies on how to 'stop the boats' of refugees who are escaping their worn-torn countries (mostly the ones the original white boat people keep bombing). If our treatment of jewish refugees surrounding the fascist regimes in Europe is not lesson enough, need I remind Abbutt and Spillard that they too are living in this country because their families arrived via boats (whether they were criminals, 10 pound poms or from any of the other select countries that Australia thought had worthy immigrants that would work 60 hour weeks for minimum wage and pay taxes) the point remains the same. Why is it that Australians, in general, only accept the people that arrived on boats before themselves and not afterwards. Afterall some of the most prominent hero's of our past all arrived on boat; the first and foremost Captain Crook, the paraded Jessica Watson and the renowned boat Australia II for its famous victory in the 1983 America's Cup.
And most importantly, refugees are not immigrants. There is a very large difference. And need I remind the racists yet again that the terms currently being blown around in the political dryer such as "boat people" are derogatory and unacceptable in today's vernacular. These people are assylum seekers, which Spillard and Abbutt if you are not sure what that exactly is, particularly when you started writing your ill-prepared policies in an all-nighter cram session with your clearly ignorant political advisors, the definition of this term is:
Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.
Hence, the plight of refugees is not connected in any way to the 'queues' of immigrants who would like to come to this country because they like the weather or the thousands of visitors who arrive freely on planes each year and decide not to leave because the beach at Bondi is cool or anyone else who has the money, leisure and freedom to arrive in this country (by plane or any other means) for holiday or post finding a suitable queue to join. As Julia Gillard's family once did and Abbutt's equally Anglo-Saxon journey here. The point that needs to be highlighted here is that these people, the assylum seekers are escaping persecution, mostly from the countries that our country keeps facilitating wars in.
As it is pointed out below, these fellow humans are running from persecution and torture, not running to Australia because they have decided they want to live here and want to take 'our' jobs and land and money.
Refugees often have little idea about where they are going. They are running away, not running to. Those who come to Australia often have scant understanding about our country and the nature of society here. They have had no opportunity to prepare themselves physically or psychologically for their new life in Australia.
A significant proportion of refugees have experienced severe trauma. Many have been tortured. Arrivals to Australia have included survivors of the Balkan internment centres and "rape camps" and prisoners of war from the Gulf War.
Many refugees have also spent years (for some up to 15 years) in refugee camps that provide limited protection. For some refugees, particularly children, the refugee camp environment is the only one they have ever known. Refugee who do not live in camps are often in urban areas where they face serious threats such as arbitrary arrest and detention and severe discrimination. Educational opportunities for refugees are often very limited and schooling is frequently interrupted.
The scenario broadcast by political leaders in 2010 of these people arriving on boats who had other choices and whom are 'jumping the queue' to get here is completely ignorant and racist. As you can see from the definition above, one of the requirements to be classified as a refugee is that they are outside their country, thus there is no queue anywhere for them to line up in, they are escaping regimes that our ever-so reliable imperialists George Duh Bush and his fellow groupies Johnny and Blair labelled as the "axis of evil" way back then in 2002 when they were desperately finding excuses to bomb some countries, displace millions of people they will later turn away and label 'terrorists' and steal their oil. So how can their following leaders, who have continued this 'war on terror' say that these asylum seekers are not escaping the terror and evil that is the cause of these wars to begin with? In addition, more refugees actually arrive via plane each year, as seen in Claire Harvey's article below, so what are the political contenders planning on doing about that...
A total of 4768 "plane people" - more than 96 per cent of applicants for refugee status - arrived by aircraft in 2008 on legitimate tourist, business and other visas compared with 161 who arrived by boat during the same period, the Sunday Telegraph reports. And plane people are much less likely than boat people to be genuine refugees, with only about 40-60 per cent granted protection visas, compared with 85-90 per cent of boat people who are found to be genuine refugees.
Thus, I have pointed out Australia's past and current obsession with racism as the first reason political campaigns are still being centred around 'stopping the boats' and spreading fear throughout society, I think the second reason is centred around why these sort of campaigns seem to work. The latest polls today are showing a primary vote lead by the Liberal party and their racist, sexist and homophobic leader Abbutt.
GhostWhoVotes tweets that Newspoll gives Labor a morale-boosting 52-48 two-party lead from primary votes of 38 per cent for Labor, 42 per cent for the Coalition and 13 per cent for the Greens. Julia Gillard is up a point on both approval and disapproval, to 42 per cent and 40 per cent, while Tony Abbott has gone backwards: approval down three to 41 per cent, disapproval up three to 41-49. Preferred prime minister is essentially unchanged, Gillard and Abbott both down one to 49 per cent and 34 per cent. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/08/newspoll-52-48-to-labor-3/
And despite spillard slowly having just hidden her racist edge evident in the one and only debate, she is still preferred PM (just) and has been slowly loosing popularity since moving to more important and valid campaign issues, such as Education. I am interested to know why these leaders choose these racist paths in campaigns or end up dropping them? Is it that they are essentially racist and cannot even see that what they are saying is ill-conceived and inhumane or is it that racism is a proven winner in election campaigns. It pulled little johnny through in 2001 when he created the children overboard scandal to win votes from the fellow racist Australians who don't want different people coming to their country, especially if they are cruel to their children (which was of course false) and more importantly if they try and arrive on boat, after they did. It is pretty clear that the double standards that exist in our society in relation to arriving via boat and the abuse of children (which the asylum seekers were not even doing) is outrageous. Going by our history, it would have made more sense if we did allow the asylum seekers who were allegedly throwing their children overboard into our country and not making it an excuse to send them back. As seen with political partners such as the Catholic Church and government organisations, abuse of children has long been acceptable in our country, so I'm even more sure the scandal created by johnny in 2001 had nothing to do with the safety of children and far more to do with racism in general. Although I am sure Australia's history of white people from England abusing indigenous children and adults was more acceptable to the general public than any false allegations of Middle Eastern parents throwing their children off a sinking vessel; the abuse of indigenous australians was simply because the white immigrants did not want people with different color skin to remain in the country that was theirs wasn't it? What about our long history of the Catholic Church sexually abusing children or Catholic and Anglican nuns physically abusing children in homes and schools, yet they are still applauded by Abbutt and are no doubt large financial partners in his hideous political campaign. However worse than the desperate and tyrannical leaders who create these fear campaigns and fictional excuses to stir racism throughout our society are the people who believe it and too contribute to the promotion of this behaviour.
When is a person going to have the courage and determination to stand for election as a humane and intelligent leader, who can stand up and say this incessant racism has to stop and has to stop right now. To say proudly and confidently to the Australian public that these people, the refugees who are fleeing persecution and torture need our help and then have the patience and strength to create policies that will play our part in fulfilling our obligations to the UNHCR and better still, make Australia a country to be proud of, a country that cares for people, all types of people and that shares the universal obligation to ourselves, as humans, to help and love all the other humans in the world and to share this enormous and diverse stolen land of ours with all the people that are homeless, tortured and brutalised for simply not being born in the "lucky" country of Australia.
Posted via email from PunchyP
