Precisely because suffering is a goal and not merely a by-product of
government refugee policy, protests highlighting the sadistic realities of
internment are important, and can play a part in our efforts to place what
limits we can on the ability of the government to pursue such ends.
The demonstration in Maribyrnong on August 26 can be a good follow-up to
the recent actions taken by internees, whose courage in appalling
conditions deserves whatever support we can offer.
Immigration law is one area in which the federal government has made the
achievement of public policy objectives of far higher priority than any
concern for liberal concepts of human rights, of equality before the law,
of independence of judicial procedure from Cabinet, of formal legal
procedures intended to prevent abuse, ensure fair treatment, and allow
individuals recourse to legal institutions should their legal or human
rights be violated.
In fact, these public policy objectives are simply to treat refugees as
badly as the federal government feels that it can get away with, in essence
to send a message carved in the medium of organised human suffering: if you
need to flee your present country to stay alive or to live without fear or
degradation, try as hard as you can to end up somewhere else, because
Australia will probably send you back to suffer the attentions of those
from whom you are fleeing, to endure once more what should not have to be
endured, and in any case will treat you worse than, for example, very poor
citizens convicted of the kind of violence from which you may be fleeing.
That you have done nothing wrong makes no difference.
In the best of circumstances, you will be automatically gaoled and denied
the legal rights of citizens, in conditions often not very different from
those of refugee camps or prisons in the third world. The Minister will
justify your internment by reference to the threat you poise to national
security and in general posed by your apparently dirty, disease-ridden
bodies. Should you by some miracle be permitted to stay (ie., you are not
from one of the countries with whom Australia has a tacit agreement to
return all refugees, eg. China) and let out of gaol, you will be denied the
rights of the lowliest of citizens. Foreigners without money are not
welcome here.
This is not the place to end your ordeal: here, your ordeal continues.
Benjamin Doherty-Rosenzweig
Editor
Lumpenised
--
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