Why have there been no interviews of the survivors of the sinking a week ago? Why are there no camera crews on Christmas Island getting the stories up close and intimate?
A hundred years ago, after the Titanic, there were interviews.
What is the difference?
Name:
Out of sight! Out of mind…
Deliberately so?
or merely negligently.
Perhaps we are a just a bunch of bastards, a country that has been seduced and undermined by its own luck. Perhaps we believe our own publicity. We are not Simpson, we are Simpson’s donkey.
Speaking as someone who has lived here for 20 years, but is not an Australian, I don’t know that the bunch of bastards hypothesis gets us very far.
A more fruitful line of enquiry might be to investigate why Australians are so fearful. I have some thoughts about this.
However, not being Australian, I’m not sure…
I don’t consider myself an Australian, born elsewhere, lived elsewhere, circumstances,luck, fate call it what you will I have ended up back here, but for how long who knows?
Let’s get something out of the way to begin with, it is a nonsense to believe that our politicians are concerned with stopping the drowning of asylum seekers. That is a misdirection to take away the racist, lack of humanity taint, distaste, what you will of the argument. The greatest disincentive to being a boat user is drowning, as Ellis points out that doesn’t seem to be working.
It’s not about space, here in Victoria, Ted has opened up another green wedge for ca.60K homes, and in and around docklands, looks like a go ahead for a development for 20K people.
I am not saying we are the only bastards on the planet, we are not. There is no regional solution, this is the way of the world now, it will only grow, the quicker we get our head around this, the quicker we can work out our fears and learn to make the necessary changes to accommodate the movement of people across this planet and the social dislocations that this will cause.
I am sure we will make accommodation for all of the young, educated (not at our expense) Greeks, Spanish and Italians, as their countries fall apart, we shall gladly take the future heart and soul out of Europe just watch and see.
I like Bob, I admire him, he is a practical thinker, I am a terrible cynic.
You can have a go Polybius, a lot of us have spent the last few days shoving up Sweden, none of us seem to be Swedish.
allthumbs,as you might know I’m from Finland, but I also regard Sweden almost as another homeland. Finland is a bi-lingual country, the first foreign language at high school is Swedish, which I later studied at Uni and taught…
I often worked in Sweden during school and uni breaks so the country is very dear to me, also my mum had some Swedish ancestors…So if I’m a bit of a ‘Swedophile’ it is for those reasons
Helvi, I was trying to make the point to Polybius even if he had been here 20 minutes instead of 20 years, I wouldn’t be offended at his critique. Poirot walks into a case, looks at the suspects and makes up his mind quicksticks, the evidence is just for his own enjoyment.
Give me men to match my mountains
Give me men to match my plains
Men with freedom in their vision
And creation in their brains. (Sam Walter Foss)
[Recited by Whitlam Minister Rex Connor, who was then sold out to the Liberal Party by financier, Khemlani for an undisclosed sum. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?]
When we say that we want to keep the boats from arriving, we are really saying that we do not want asylum seekers in this country…
I does not matter where we process those poor people, the boats will keep arriving here, or in many cases, sinking at seas,and so will the people, if not all, many…
Helvi,
We’re probably not saying that we don’t want asylum seekers, or not saying just that! And not all of us.
That may seem conflicted to you and I know that it is because I know in some ways that we send mixed messages about this. It all starts when we ignore the illegal entrants coming through our airports, or maybe before that when we forget the waves of immigrants we once called New Australians and now call friend or neighbour.
It seems to me that in the best of all possible scenarios. The one I most want to emerge. We’ll take about 10,000 and perhaps up the quota to 20,000 refugees. But under those arrangements they’ll probably be processed at source and be flown in.
Hopefully the numbers will dwindle and once more the issue will subside. Then one day in ten or twenty years when something else pushes large numbers of people across the distances between us a boat will arrive, and what breaks my heart more than anything is that we’ll probably still be in an uproarious state over people coming unbidden to our shores.
Until such time as we’ve strong leadership away from the xenophobic bigotry that our darling Julia doesn’t like having called racism, then Australians will probably continue to see themselves as a white enclave surrounded by inferior and jealous neighbours. The first step I think is one I know that Bob and I will probably disagree about, but I think we need by as minimal means as possible to get rid of the Monarchy.
It’s called suppression of free press, ALP appears to be going even further down this route, next we will have to praise Chairwoman Gillard.
PS Off Topic but so worth it.
http://www.news.com.au/national/midwinter-brawl-why-i-called-him-a-complete-fwit/story-e6frfkw9-1226412557759
Malcom Farr on why he tweeted that Gerard Henderson was a fuckwit.
Enjoy Bob
How about they are all still in quarantine? Honestly, is it necessary to look for a tiger behind every bush?
On 9/11 people were interviewed instantly, no matter what condition (trauma, bereavement, lung-dusting) they were in.
What are you talking about?
That the survivors are in quarantine!
What do the media have to say about this? What are their reasons for not sending journalists to Christmas Island?
When I lived in China, whenever there were disasters like the earthquakes in Sichuan, floods that killed hundreds, or similar, the media would give these incidents blanket coverage.
And yes, it’s government media, not private. But I think the intention was clear, with a message of ‘our country, our people, our responsibility’.
You have to wonder.
We have this narrative in play in Australia, and those who listen will hear it, day by day. You’ll hear words like ‘opportunity’, ‘wealth’, standards of living’, affordability’, riches’, ‘fortunate’, ‘responsible’, ‘safe’, progressive’, and so on.
The ongoing local snafu that characterises our management of the asylum seekers is out of synch with what we imagine our society to be. Coupled with the ‘otherness’ of those involved, and we find ourselves in the position of Sigourney Weaver in a Ridley Scott movie.
It’s a piss-poor excuse, but I wonder if the media are exhibiting some kind of ‘refugee tragedy reporting fatigue’?