24.2 C
Byron Shire
March 19, 2024

Thus Spake Mungo: Detention islands our shame

Latest News

Karate students win medals on the Gold Coast

Students of the Byron Bay JWK Karate dojo competed at the first AMAC Gold Coast tournament of the year on March 10 with medal-winning success.

Other News

Cannabis

I’m not sure Andrew Hall understands how politics works if he is blaming the Greens for cannabis not being...

Purple Day is coming, for epilepsy awareness

More than 250,000 Australians are living with epilepsy. Lennox Head's Katie Gatland sat down with the Echo to help everyone better understand what Purple Day and epilepsy awareness is all about.

Body found near Byron in search for missing man

A body believed to be that of a man reported missing last week has been found, police on the weekend said.

Action needed on affordable housing and land banking say regional city Mayors

Regional Cities NSW mayors have called on the state government to take action on the worsening housing crisis outside of Sydney as they call for affordable housing and a way to stop developers land banking.

Connection?

Is there any connection between a five-star resort that is about to build holiday apartments and houses a kilometre...

Two charged following alleged pursuit – Ballina

About 12.20am (Thursday 14 March 2024), police from Richmond PD Highway Patrol attempted to stop an allegedly stolen Ford Focus on the M1 Motorway at West Ballina.

By Mungo MacCallum

Those eminent jurists Malcolm Turnbull and George Brandis are normally very careful with the words they use; indeed, Brandis did his best to bore a senate committee rigid as he spent many minutes explaining exactly what he meant by the term ‘consult’.

But in spite of their learning and erudition, our latter day Perry Masons seem unable to distinguish between the difference between ‘refute’ (which is the one they constantly use) and ‘rebut’ (which what they presumably mean).

They were at it again last week when the regular denunciations of their policies on the detention centres of Nauru and Manus Island resurfaced, as the same, or similar, accusations of brutality, torment and torture against asylum seekers, and particularly children, were documented by Amnesty International and later by the ABC program Four Corners.

Our political masters said indignantly that the criticisms were refuted: that they had been proved to be false. They had not; the best that could be said was that they had been rebutted: that they had been denied, that there had been assertions that put them in some doubt.

And in the case of the Four Corners program, there was some evidence in the assertions; the material was second hand and in some instances clearly out of date. There were, of course, reasons for this: the puppet government of Nauru had refused, as it almost always does, to issue visas to allow first hand accounts to be shown. The essence of the whole exercise has been secrecy and deception so the only the reports Australians have available are the surreptitious and sometimes smuggled accounts of those desperate enough to try and break through the iron curtain.

But in the case of Amnesty, the barriers have had to be lifted, at least briefly and selectively: after all, it would not be politic to debar the world’s pre-eminent human rights warrior from the squalid reality from what the government still insists is a firm but fair regime of border control. So yet again Amnesty blew the whistle.

And there was nothing really new about it, which is the most shameful aspect of the whole appalling saga. For years now we have had credible accusations of cruelty, mistreatment and callous neglect of those to whom our government owes, at the very least, a duty of care.

Revelations have come not only from international sources such as Amnesty, the United Nations and others but from doctors, social workers and other carers appalled at the state of the centres. Even the guards of Border Security and the mercenaries hired to enforce the regime have become whistleblowers as they cannot stomach what hey have seen.

And of course the asylum seekers themselves, when they have been able, have demanded, begged, self-harmed and even suicided to draw attention to their plight. The evidence is overwhelming and the claim that it has always and forever been the inventions of partisan activists is simply silly.

The ritual denials of ministers such as Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, backed up by a fiercely partisan Immigration Department headed by Michael Pezzullo, an equally ruthless political warrior, can only be sustained by the right wing media, who slavishly follow the government’s lines about the desperate need to secure our borders, however the cost of human misery.

Their hypocrisy over previous deaths at sea, on which they have followed the politicians, is mind-blowing; at the time the line was that the boat people, those disease carrying, drug-smuggling, child-murdering terrorists, used to deserve whatever came to them: the cry was to blow them into the ocean.

But now, of course, it has been somewhat nuanced: the mantra repeated ad nauseam by Malcolm Turnbull is that Nauru and Manus are part of the package by which border security, continued immigration and even multiculturalism have become essential ingredients; if they fall, the entire structure will collapse.

This is not a rational proposition; it is more akin to the archaic superstitious ritual of the scapegoat – the idea that an innocent victim must be sacrificed to safeguard the welfare of the wider community. But as this mistaken belief has repeatedly shown, in its heart is a moral corruption that finally destroys the society it is designed to protect. The ancient Greeks knew it well and wrote many plays on the subject: more recently the writer Ursula Le Guin has described it in her searing parable The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

In fact it is by no means certain that if Nauru and Manus were closed the asylum seekers would return to attempt to reach our shores, and even if they did, that would become another question of morals as well as politics. But if it happened, and if it was determined that they had to be again repulsed, there are plenty of other ways of doing things. And if, in the end, offshore processing was considered the only solution, it could be refurbished in ways that were both humane and transparent.

Turnbull’s refutation, which is actually an unconvincing rebuttal, of the latest documentations of abuse, relies almost entirely on his government’s ability to conceal its alleged crimes. It is a reasonably safe bet that despite all the assiduous propaganda thrown at the asylum seekers by the government machine and its complaisant media, once the truth was known – once the individual stories could be told and the faces brought into the open, once it had to be acknowledged that these are real people like us, not just the sinister caricatures being portrayed by Dutton and Pezzullo, the fiction of desperate refugees constituting a threat to Australia could not be sustained.

We would be able to start reclaiming the once rational and generous country we once were, and can always be if we are given a chance. If Nauru and Manus could be finally expunged from our psyche, the long lies that have been perpetrated for more than 15 years would be exposed as the travesty they are. And that would be the real refutation.

 

 

 


Support The Echo

Keeping the community together and the community voice loud and clear is what The Echo is about. More than ever we need your help to keep this voice alive and thriving in the community.

Like all businesses we are struggling to keep food on the table of all our local and hard working journalists, artists, sales, delivery and drudges who keep the news coming out to you both in the newspaper and online. If you can spare a few dollars a week – or maybe more – we would appreciate all the support you are able to give to keep the voice of independent, local journalism alive.

5 COMMENTS

  1. You might be ashamed of offshore processing Mungo, but many of us are not. The only disappointment for me is that the process of resettlement/repatriation is taking so long

  2. have we Australians turned into a right wing snivelling parody of internalised racists/the Nauru, Manis Island situation is absolutely deplorable/the world, UN, Amnesty International and others who stand up for Humanity and freedom are shocked at the stand the Australian Government has taken/ I’m so angry and yelling at the Government through emails etc of my outrage at this continuing situation/ take a stand against the racism and be truthful about what is really happening here!!!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Interview with Ian Moss (Cold Chisel)

If you love Australian music, then you know Ian Moss – with nine Cold Chisel albums and eight solo albums under his belt, Moss is one of Australia’s iconic musicians, delivering an unforgettable sound – not only as a telling soloist on guitar but especially with his silken voice, ringing with clarity and resonating with pure soul. Seven caught up with Ian at home in Sydney to talk about his latest record and Bluesfest 2024.

Byron nippers excel at state championships

Byron Bay Surf Life Saving Club had its most successful NSW Age Championships from the last few years, with our nippers making many finals across the four day event held at Queenscliff, NSW, earlier this month.

Having dinner with the Artists

Next week you can join Art Byron curator, Laith McGregor and influential artists, Lara Merrett and Shaun Gladwell for an exclusive evening of conversation, food and wine at Newrybar Hall. The artists will be in conversation with Vault magazine editor, Alison Kubler, who will discuss their practice, connection to Byron Bay, and involvement in the 2024 iteration of Art Byron.

Oh My Goddess, Kylie Minogue is Coming To Splendour!

Oh yes she is! Global icon. Pop superstar. Kylie Minogue is set to take over the Splendour in the Grass Amphitheatre for the very first time! Taking to the Splendour stage, Kylie Minouge will be the opening night headline act when she makes a triumphant return home and stamps her name in the annals of Splendour lore. Splendour in the Grass (SITG), returns to Ngarindjin (North Byron Parklands) from Friday, 19 July to Sunday, 21 July for three days of camping, music, art and freedom.