REFUGEES
On Monday night the refugee group I am a member of got word that a man was about to be deported "home" to Bangladesh, even though he had lived in Australia for 13 years. Recently there have been other 300 acts of violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh (not that we here about it in the news; hey these people are dark-skinned, there lives aren’t worth as much as a white peoples) who want Sharia law introduced. As someone opposed to this fundamentalism the man did not want go back to such a situation. Our government didn’t care and wanted to deport him.
Thus some of us went out to the airport. We knew we wouldn’t be able to directly stop his deportation as he wouldn’t be going through the main lounge and we weren’t too sure what flight he was on. However we hoped to let people who would be on his flight know about this so that they would protest, refuse to get seated and thus stop the flight from taking off until he was removed from the plane (this had happened before). Thus we went to the departure gate and held up signs, my one saying "Is someone handcuffed and guarded on your flight? Protest and don’t let it take of!".
Surprisingly the federal police and airport security didn’t kick us out like they have previously because we were just standing there silently, though they did monitor us very heavily. When one of our group approached people to talk about it she was warned that is she continued this she would be kicked out. Most people read our signs silently, some made derogatory comments, some made positive comments. From what we understand the man was deported. At times like these I am so ashamed to be Australian and despise the absolute majority of my fellow Australians who vote for parties that support such policies. There is a part of me that almost wishes that there were terrorist (whatever that means) attacks on Australian soil so that people would understand the sort of terror refugees are fleeing from.
This Saturday at UTS in Sydney there is a refugee rights conference on "Where to now for the refugee Movement". As some of our more qualified speakers (people with PHDs) have had to pull out for a number of reasons, I have agreed to be on the "History of Australian response to immigrants and refugees" panel. Even though I know a fair bit about this, I have a bit of reading to do in the next few days so I don’t make an ass of myself. Well so I at least don’t make a major ass of myself. It’s difficult for me not make at least a bit of an ass of myself generally
I’m really hoping that the Slavic girl with the gorgeous eyes I talked to on the issue at the Ashfield Carnival of Cultures turns up. It will brighten up what has been a very depressing week since Monday night.
posted by Aleks - Anarcho-Syndicalist at 6:27 pm
9 Comments:
..as long as gorgeous eyes doesn't make you nervous and the talk goes pear shaped :)
But back to the real matter - the inhumanity of our fellow country men makes me want to weep.
8:21 pm
Good work on the protest - just think how many people may talk about what they saw at the airport - at dinner tables, family gatherings, watercoolers, maybe they might even form an opinion. Perhaps the thought that they themselves could assist in grounding a deportation enters into their daily thoughts now and then.. It makes a difference.
8:55 pm
aleks, what were their reasons for deporting someone after 13 years do you know?
what happened on monday night?
you'll go great with the talk, you've said before you can do it well
slavic girl, is this the one you (obviously) decided not to call using her phone number from the sign up list/petition? i hope she is there, and is impressed by you, and comes up afterwards and asks YOU out! you were right not to call her from the list. that would have been unethical, and if there is anything i have learnt about you, you are ethics and morals personified.
9:09 pm
The U.S. aggressivly deported a specific age and gender group (young men) from 38 supposedly 'Islamic' countries int he aftermath of 9/11. It was legal but immoral and arbitrary: something like 30,000 people were singled out on the basis of demographics, often seperated from families and surprised that they werne't 'legally' immigrated. Meanwhile, millions of Mexicans needed to keep our Southwest economy functional are ignored by INS as long as they're picking crops and not bothering the powerful.
The depressing thing is, the Australian government is relatively impotent. It has no military might to speak of, no undue influence at all that I've noticed beyond an accent that has erotic power over Americans. But if you can't control the Australian government, what hope is there against the regime I need to change?
3:41 pm
AOF - the only point at which things usually go pear-shaped when I'm talking is when I am about to utter words something like "Would you like to go out sometime?"
Larry - I hope so. I really do, because the state of this country gets worse each day.
MG - Monday night was the deportation of the Bangladeshi man. The reason he was here for 13 years was because he was initially here as a student. For obvious reasons he didn't want to go back to a country where Islamic fundamentalism is becoming more and more powerful. Thus he tried to get permanent residency in Australia, which was rejected, and as such he spent a number of years appealing against the decision.
Chixi - Unfortunately the Australian Government thinks it is a superpower, and the US humors it by pretending it is. What hope is there for you or me changing our governments? Probably very little, but we have to try or else we will never know.
6:49 pm
I just made a lengthy reply to your reply of my blog entry. But since you have no contact info, the best I could do to let you know was to make an absurd reply (this) to your latest post.
I notice you list Slavic literature as an interest. I fought my way through Cecil Parrot's translation of 'The Good Soldier Svejk' last year and while the overall book was lacking, there were some true gems in the mix. I also adore Kafka the Prophet. But I think of Hasek and Kafka as Bohemian writers, not really Slavic writers. Who am I missing out on?
1:44 pm
Its disgusting. I'm ashamed too.
So ironic that our government targets these people in 'high statistical risk groups' of overstaying, being terrorists and so forth.. same time runs a smear campaign against the states they come from... as if those who come to Australia seek to re-establish what they are running from in their former countries HERE! HELLO, Mr PM???!!!
Aleks, John... same names as Mr Downer and Mr Howard. Ain't nothing in a name.
10:30 pm
you have been tagged in return.
ps also disgusted and also hope that slavic girl turns up.
1:11 pm
Unrelated to 'the girl' - but - maybe you can forward this on to interested people:
The Contemporary Europe Research Centre
Invites you to a CERC Seminar Series public seminar co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science:
'The Concept of Political Culture and its application to the Russian Case'
Presented by
Professor Archie Brown
(St Antonys College Oxford University)
Monday October 31 2005, 1.00-2.00pm
Room 421, Level 4, 234 Queensberry Street, The University of
Melbourne
Professor Archie Brown is credited with having - almost
single-handedly - introduced the concept of political culture to
communist studies, having co-edited (with Jack Gray) and
contributed to the seminal work in the field, Political Culture and
Political Change in Communist States (1977). Professor Brown's
major contribution in this field was to devise ways of analysing
political culture in countries in which surveys could not be
conducted by outsiders, and in which election results told us next
to nothing. The 1977 book generated a great deal of controversy,
and in 1984 a follow-up collection - edited by Professor Brown
alone, and to which he contributed (Political Culture and Communist
Studies) - deepened and widened the debate. Now, some two decades
later, Oxford University's just retired Professor of Russian
politics will revisit this topic, and relate it to what has
happened and what is happening in Russia.
Professor Archie Brown is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford
University and Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He
retired from his Chair in the Department of Politics and
International Relations in September this year after 34 years in
Oxford, preceded by 7 years as Lecturer in Politics at Glasgow
University. He has also been a Visiting Professor of Political
Science at a number of American universities, including Yale,
Columbia and the University of Texas at Austin. He has made more
than forty visits to the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia,
including the academic year, 1967-68, spent as a British Council
exchange scholar in Moscow State University.
Professor Brown has published sixteen books as author
or editor/co-author, including The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford
University Press, 1996) which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize of the
Political Studies Association of the UK as the best Politics book
of the year. He is currently completing a book for Oxford
University Press called Seven Years that Changed the World:
Perestroika in Perspective. His retirement was marked by the
publication of a book edited by Alex Pravda, Leading Russia: Putin
in Perspective. Essays in Honour of Archie Brown (Oxford University
Press, 2005).
Among his writings on political culture have been his
contributions to Archie Brown and Jack Gray (eds), Political
Culture and Political Change in Communist States (Macmillan,
London, 1977) and Archie Brown (ed.), Political Culture and
Communist Studies (Macmillan, London, 1964). Professor Brown is
author of the entry on political culture in Adam and Jessica Kuper,
The Social Science Encyclopedia (Routledge, London, ed., 1996) and
of forthcoming chapters in Lawrence A. Harrison and Peter Berger
(eds), Developing Cultures: Case Studies (Routledge, New York,
2005) and in Stephen Whitefield (ed.), Political Culture and
Post-Communism (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2005).
Archie Brown has been a Fellow of the British Academy
since 1991 and was selected in 1999 to be one of the founding
Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences in Britain. He was in
2003 the only foreign scholar to be elected a Foreign Honorary
Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from its
Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy
section. In June 2005 he was awarded a CMG in the Queen's Birthday
Honours List 'for services to UK-Russian relations and the study of
political science and international affairs'.
2:50 pm
Post a Comment
<< Home