National Insecurity
Australia is a nation that has grown up very quickly since the 1970s, a nation that no longer values a day at the beach as much as putting in overtime for the boss. Wealth has changed the core values of our society in ways we will only appreciate in decades to come. Our success has led to a nation that is more deeply insecure and less overtly compassionate.
On the tiny island of Nauru right now there are around 500 refugees in detention, held without knowledge of when their lives may resume and costing the Australian tax payers more than $1billion each year. They have been subjected to appalling conditions that are inhumane, part of a dedicated strategy by the Australian government to deter other refugees from looking towards Australia. Apparently we are so fearful of genuine refugees that our government sanctions their abuse and has been complicit in keeping the truth about such abuses a secret.
When the Nauru Files were leaked to the press this week, documenting over 2000 instances of abuse that have been kept out of the public eye, the relevant minister in charge of their care simply fobbed off the evidence as “allegations”. He took offence at the “hype”, as if somehow reporting the brutal and dehumanising treatment of innocent people was nothing more than a personal attack on him orchestrated by “leftys and loonies”.
You might be excused for thinking that it is privileged white males who are the real victims in modern Australia. Out government certainly acts that way with an appalling record of ignoring basic human decency while spending remarkable amounts of money on the pursuit of war and genuinely hyping up the perceived threat of terror. Ironically, it is their lack of humanity that will ultimately lead to real terror attacks in the future.
The entire world is now painfully aware of the capacity our government has for human rights abuse, and our politically inspired racism that targets anyone who is born “brown” instead of tanned. We keep giving extremist groups new reasons to want to hate our country.
The world knows we failed to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, offering to drop more bombs but not settle some of the millions who suffered from the carnage. The quota of 12,000 Syrian war refugees was a grand gesture at the time, but in reality less than two dozen have actually been accepted to date. Yet, on any given day in Australia there are roughly 15,000 British backpackers who have overstayed their visas and continue to live in Australia illegally.
The rise of extremist groups in Australia to champion the “white” and “patriotic” of our nation adds to the image of a nation filled with hatred.
These groups are cultivated within our society by the government and decades worth of dehumanising rhetoric on refugees. And I use that word intentionally. The overwhelming majority, in excess of 90%, are eventually determined to be genuine refugees. The remaining who are not usually lack sufficient documentation to prove their case, which doesn’t mean they are not genuine only that they are persona-non-gratis. Under the Howard government we saw the employment of language such as “asylum seekers” to suggest illegitimacy, but the truth is much more simple and much more human.
These are people fleeing the effects of war and terror, not people trying to bring war and terror.
Our government continues to practise unethical and dishonest strategies such as linking refugees to terrorism. In the same way that is would be folly to blame the meltdown of ABS census servers on Malcolm’s NBN screw ups, it is folly to treat refugees as a specific terrorist threat. By far the greatest threat to national security comes from native born Australians who are disenfranchised from the rest of society. Mass shootings such as Hoddle St and Port Arthur were not committed by refugees.
The Sydney Siege in December 2014 was committed by an Iranian born man who came to Australia as a refugee. Moni is best characterised as a violent sociopath rather than a refugee, a man who compiled a pattern of conflict with authorities, sexual predation and domestic violence since arriving in Australia. Anyone claiming that all refugees are terrorists because of this example would equally be able to claim all police are corrupt thugs based on the findings of any number of Royal Commissions.
What we can learn from the Moni example is that ramping up the rhetoric and hatred of ethnic groups in the basis of religion or origin is a great way to incite violence and hatred on both sides. A government that demonises innocent families and their children, held in detention and subjected to cruelty, does nothing to deter actual terrorist groups. It achieves the exact opposite, it draws attention to our nation for the wrong reasons and fuels hatred that leads to acts of terrorism. Every time we treat refugees inhumanely on the basis of their race or religion we give greater justification to real terrorists who might want to harm us.
Cruelty to refugees on Nauru, Manus Island and on our own shores serves only to fuel extreme attitudes within our own society, and harden resolve in foreign countries where extremist groups may seek to attack us. It does not make Australia safer. It makes us a bigger target and a less stable society, from outside and within. Our governments biggest fears are actually made more likely by justifying this insane scenario where innocent refugees are held hostage on a pacific island as a “deterrent” to people fleeing persecution.
It’s clear that basic human decency is not going to win over the policy makers of either the Liberal Party or Labor Party. Shame on them. But if the hard reality of national security is their singular objective, at any price, then everything about the current attitude towards refugees is a failure and only serves to make Australia weaker and poorer.
