It’s time to understand why people embark on a hazardous journey
Crocodile tears for dead refugees
Since the Liberal Government of John Howard took office in 1996 refugees have been condemned as queue jumping criminals.
While many people anticipated a softening on this stance when Kevin Rudd swept Labor into power in 2007 little has changed.
We think that a hardline stance of sending refugees to remote detention camps on third world pacific islands will act as a deterrent.
We have no sympathy for refugees. We care little about the conditions they are forced to endure in detention centres or the length of time they have to wait before their applications are processed.
But now that a tragedy has occurred and many refuges have died when the boat they were travelling in sank, we want blood.
On one hand we condemn these people but now we shed crocodile tears when they drowned.
The likes of Andrew Bolt and many in the media will use this incident to target Julian Gillard and the Labor Government for the deaths of these unfortunates. Could have these deaths been prevented? Of course, if we lived in a utopian society, but we don’t.
We live in a world where there is war, famine, drought, death, poverty, rape, violence, persecution and destruction.
If you live in African, Asia and parts of the Middle East you will experience some if not all of the above.
Australians no longer have the ability to imagine themselves in these kind of conditions. We are obsessed with interest rates, home renovations and who Shane Warne is fucking. We can’t imagine what it would be like to have bombs dropping in your neighbourhood. We can’t imagine what it would be like to watch a your child starve to death or what it would be like to watch your mother and sister gang raped.
Maybe if we could actually imagine what it is like to live in shit we would understand a refugees desperation. We would understand that willingness to risk their lives in a hazardous journey to find a better life.
Until we find utopian refugees will continue to travel in crappy little boats across the Indian Ocean in an attempt to reach Australia. Many more will die, there are probably hundreds that die that we don’t know about.
If we cared about refugees we would process them on the Australian mainland in urban areas like Townsville, Cains, Darwin and Perth. We would work hard to ensure applications for permanent residency are processed in an expectable time frame. And we would stop bitching about refugees queue jumping.
Neither side of politics will change the heavy handed approach taken with refugees. To do so would invite criticisms of going soft and be seen as an invitation for more refugees to come to Australia.
Australians are deluded if they believe people who are thinking of entering a country illegally are going to be deterred by news reports of Australia’s hard line stance on illegal immigrants. Australian politicians don’t make headlines in London why on earth do we think they would make headlines in Dhaka, Ramadi, Kutu or Al Khurtum.
If we are not going to change our stance on refugees let’s not shed crocodile tears when a few die on route.
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I dont think thats it a misunderstanding of the willingness of these refugees to risk their lives to reach Australia that has most Australians being hostile towards them.
I dont beleive it is obsession with interest rates, home renovations and who Shane Warne is fucking either.
Yes, most Australians would not understand what its like to live in a war zone, but thats not it either.
What pisses most Australians off is the fact that almost all of these illegal refugees pay to “fly” from Irag, Afghanistan [insert fucked up countries name here] to Indonesia then jump on these pissy little over crowded boats, getting rid of their identification and then claiming asylym once they reach Australia.
For fucks sake…if you can afford to fly to Indonesia you can stay there while Australia processes your entry Visa application and enter through the front door like so many immigrants have done before…..its not that bloody difficult.
A “refugee” by definition is one who flees in search of refuge…..the dictionary doesnt state “one who flees to Australia in search of refuge”…..there are a dozen countries in between Australia and Iraq they could go to, so why all the way here?
The fact that “people-smuggling” is not illegal in Indonesia, Malaysia or any other third rate country in the area just goes to show the imcompetence the Australian government has, regardless who’s in power, to dealing with leaders of nations in the area regarding this issue.
Aslong as our laws allow us to take illegal immigrants and hold them for who cares how long, but they eventually get processed, then many more will continue to come.
You wanna stop the boats coming…simple…get the navy recruits to start using them for target practise…you watch them turn around in a hurry.
I came through the front door like so many others did aswell and fucked if Im gonna allow some cash up Iraqi to squeeze in through my back door in a wooden boat!
Ouch Doyle, MM has taken you to task here. Last time i checked there was 14 million people classified as refugees. Lets take them all.I also here there is a tidy 2 bedroom unit in Parramatta just waiting for a chance to house a family or 3. C’mon Doyle you know you want to….
Taken me to task…Max should probably spend more time watching Oprah, maybe he will learn something. Or perhaps he should just pull his head out of his arse. Maybe he would realise for the past 8 years we Australians have gleefully been assisting the US bomb the crap out of Iraq. Over 100,000 thousand civilians killed. I guess you guys would sit there waiting for your Australian visa while your watch your families die. We are the ones with blood on our hands. So should we let them in? FUCK YES!!
fuck australians talk loud on asylum seekers. I wonder what they would do if suddenly, for the sake of hypothetical argument, Indonesia launched an all-out invasion of australia, with the backing of say the full chinese military, and not a single other nation came to australias aid. Melbourne – smart bombed, scorched to the ground. Sydney – napalmed beyond recognition, and the fleeing masses to the blue mountains rounded up, raped and imprisoned, if they were lucky. Would you launch an aussie-pride resistance army against the invaders? would you bomb their military headquarters? make roadside attacks against the slanty-eyed motherfucking invaders? wouldnt that be the ‘aussie spirit’? then what? would you fight to the death? if i was there i probably would. But then what? when all hope had been sucked from your life, when it seemed that the whole world could not give two fucks about your countrys suffering and misery, might you try to escape your hell? and if by some miracle you could make it to new zealand, or the US, how happy would you be to know that that countrys citizens told you to fuck off back home.
but no wait, ausrtralians do suffer, listen to the angush in this mans heart who had to endure watching them die… the horror..thank god for the ‘debrief’ and tax-payer funded professional counselling!
“I’m having trouble concentrating right now. It’s really starting to haunt me, everything that’s happened. I need to debrief and talk to someone professional.” Dive shop operator Simon Prince, who threw 16 of his own life jackets to victims as they flailed in the huge seas, said yesterday he was “not going so well”.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/the-heroes-of-rocky-point-christmas-island/story-e6freuy9-1225972434300
Doyle,
The Australian Military has a totaly different culture compared to that of the US (Gun-Ho)Military and to say that we “gleefully” assisted in the killing of Iraqi civilians is totaly absurd and rediculous!
Australian troops were not stationed in the High Risk Areas like Baghdad and Fallujah. Surely you would have heard of the Seige of Fallujah? Australian troops had no part in that god-awful massacre of civilians.
100,000 civilians dead is a modest estimate to what I have come across, but at the same token throwing the blood and guilt back onto Australia is total B.S.
Doyle, you are diverting from the topic of dicussion here that you yourself brought up….this is not about whether we should accept refugees or not, this is about whether we should accept “these” CASHED UP ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!!!!!!
Whats the difference? REAL REFUGEES leave on foot with nothing on their backs to the neighbouring countries for safety. These unfortunate victims in this boat tradgedy/drowning PAYED THEIR WAY TO INDONESIA, do you get that…they had cash!!!!!!! They can afford the luxury of time to wait in Indonesia whilst Austrralia processes their VISA applications.
Let me ask you this…..why during the Balkan Wars did we not see boat after boats of Serb, Croat and Bosnian refugees coming to our shores from Indonesia in leaky pieces of crap? WHY?
I’ll tell you why….because they were “Real Refugees”….they had 5 minutes to leave their homes or be killed so they left on foot with the clothes on their backs and headed for UN Refugee camps in neighbouring countries to be processed. They didnt jump on a plane and fly to Indonesia.
Family and friends in Australia lodged applications for them to come to Australia to live, and many were granted and so these “real refugees” came to Australia, payed for by their family members, not tax-payers THROUGH THE FRONT FUCKEN DOOR!
Henington,
Your hypothetical scenario is only a few small geo-political changes away from becoming a possiblity….but thats another topic for dicsussion another day.
Yes, if Australia was invaded in your scenario there would be many deaths, and yes, Australians would form a resistance and take to Guerilla fighting tactics against the invaders….We are not arguing the point here on whether what the Iraqi Resistance (labelled Al_Qaeda by the yanks) is doing is morally right or wrong, we are not argueing here whether we are synpathetic to their cause, so please, both of you, stop trying to derail the point of discussion here….which is THESE UNFORTUNATE VICTIMS IN THIS BOATING TRADGEDY WERE CASHED UP “REFUGEES” THAT FLEW TO INDONESIA and tried to sneak in the BACK DOOR OF AUSTRALIA. This is the main reasons every news poll yesterday was over whelmingly against the victims staying in Australia. Clean up the survivors, put them on a plane and send them back to Indonesia unfortunately care of the tax-payers of this fine country.
And seriously, WTF has Oprah got to do with this arguement…..”Hey lets throw them a PRADA handbag so they can float!”
They shouldnt be allowed into our country
fuck them muslims will never respet australians thy come to australia for the money thy get fro us the tax payers what about the pensioners
stay in malaysia or idonesia dont come to australia for the free hand out