Showing posts with label Rohingya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rohingya. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Escape from Manus - Australia's Shame

 


Find this book: Escape from Manus by Jaivet Ealom. Read it. Then ask yourself if you are happy for Australia to behave like this in your name. In our name. Appalling. Disgusting. Every Australian Prime Minister from Howard to Morrison – all of them – should be charged with crimes against humanity. How could we stoop so low?

Like most Australians I am aware of the offshore detention policy applied to refugees who attempt to come here by boat. I have always totally opposed it and it is in stark contrast to what happened in the 70’s when Australia accepted thousands of boat people from SE Asia. But what I was not aware of was the calculated and meticulous torture Australia has designed to break the spirit of these people who merely sought refuge on our shores from tyranny elsewhere.

If you have ever wondered whether Australians could behave as people in Nazi Germany did, well here’s your answer. The answer is a very scary YES. The Nazis would be proud of what Australia has accomplished in our offshore detention centres. After reading Jaivet Ealom’s account of the hell he was subjected to by the Australian authorities there is no doubt in my mind that Australia embarked on a deliberate policy of psychological torture of our most recent boat peoples. While the goal was to discourage people smugglers operating out of Indonesia and Malaysia Australia embarked on an inhumane policy of punishing the victims to achieve this goal. From the moment Jaivet arrives in Christmas Island and is given his tag with a number – he becomes EML109 - he becomes a nameless, stateless nobody to be tortured to breaking point. He could just as well have had the Star of David sewn to his sleeve.

I have never been so ashamed of my country. Somewhere deep down within our collective psyche we have lost our humanity; we have lost our soul. I repeat - find this book: Escape from Manus by Jaivet Ealom. Read it. Then ask yourself if you are happy for Australia to behave like this in your name. Whatever the goals may have been, nothing excuses the deplorable and planned humiliation of people who simply wanted our help. Nothing.

Paulina Lenoir: Puella Eterna

  Paulina Lenoir: Puella Eterna The Yurt at the Courtyard of Curiosities at the Migration Museum, Tue 12 Mar Paulina Lenoir was busy preenin...