Asylum seekers are many things, but they are not “illegals”.
They are mothers, father, sons, daughters, brothers,
sisters, aunties, uncles, friends and people, just like you and me.
They are people with families, friends, hopes and dreams and
just like you and me, they laugh, they cry, they feel pain and they bleed.
Our government has attempted to demonize the relatively few
people, on world terms, who have sought asylum in Australia by constantly
referring to them as “illegals”, but it is critical to distil fact from fiction
and remind ourselves that they are not are not breaking the law.
It legally legitimate to seek asylum in another country no
matter how you get there, and it makes no difference whether you arrive with a
first class flight ticket or you simply breast-stroke up to the beach.
Our rejection of asylum seekers – and we can’t seek refuge
in espousing personal beliefs of not objecting to refugees, for they are being
treated harshly by the Australian Government and it is “our” government –
questions our decency and humanity.
The people who seek refuge here have done nothing illegal
rather, what is illegal, or certainly bordering on it, is the manner in which
we detain these effectively innocent people, lock them up and in doing so deny
them access to the wonderful egalitarian values that we trumpet with glee as
being a symbol of Australia.
Everything about how we treat asylum seekers throws into
question the values that have made this country great.
My shoulders droop as I hear the latest in the sad saga in
our treatment of asylum seekers and felt especially emotionally injured when
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said no one who arrives by boat will be settled in
Australia.
We are witness to a strange and almost unconscious extension
of our White Australia Policy that officially ended in 1973 and whether or not
we realise it, we are still uncomfortable and nervous about “the other” and so
our rejection of the asylum seeker is the de-facto continuation of that
offensive idea.
True, many generations of Australians have worked
enthusiastically and hard to reach our present level of comfort, but genuine
success will always elude us until we learn about and understand that personal
richness is to be found in sharing.
So rather than slam the door shut in the face of anyone
seeking asylum, we (and that means the government and by inferences that is you
and me) need to stop private enterprise profiting from the desperation of
others; check their credentials quickly, not years as is currently the case;
send back the few who have blemished records; and quickly allow the remainder,
many of which are highly skilled and valuable people, to join our communities.
