Australia’s detention horror
As an Australian, it pained me immeasurably to read the headline of the Guardian Weekly (19 August): Australia’s detention horror. As a committed global citizen, I had informed myself of the horrors of Australia’s detention of those most vulnerable, of our government’s rejection of humanitarian law and principles, and of the consistent denial by government ministers of the ongoing abuses perpetrated by the policies of our government.
It is a tragedy for our nation and for those who continue to suffer.
As an Australian, it brought me great pride to read the Weekly Review in the same edition, outlining the tireless work of Dr Bronwyn King, who works against the tobacco giants to reduce the continuing havoc wreaked by the industry on vulnerable communities. It is an honour to call King one of our own.
As an Australian, I was deeply moved by the archive piece of 19 August 1940, 480 children leave for Australia, and the description of the atmosphere the emigrants faced as “very kindly, with hopes for a good voyage, happy times and a glimpse into the future”.
Australians remain as yet removed from the realities of war and horrors abroad. We are also brave, courageous and intelligent, capable of taking on the giants who wage war against those most vulnerable. And some of us are those children, seeking a kinder world, with hopes of peaceful lives – that can be shared with those who seek safety and security and peace.
The Australian people are not always represented by government policies. We will not be defeated. But we must continue to act for the sake of our common humanity.
Christine Kerr
Marrickville, NSW, Australia
• Thank you for batting “Fair Australia” right out of the ball park. Since 2001, the cruel trajectory of what was done to the Tampa refugees and others who followed in the so-called Pacific Solution has trashed Australia’s reputation for decency and fairness. Outsourcing the care and protection of vulnerable men, women and children who legally crossed Australia’s borders to claim protection, and outsourcing it to the mendicant, failing neighbouring states of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, was never going to comply with Australia’s obligations under international law.
Volunteers like me have supported refugees who set foot on Australian soil after years of suffering on Nauru, and accompanied them in their life in limbo on a temporary visa before family reunion and permanent settlement happened.
Charities, community groups and individuals struggle to counter the debilitating despair among the “boat people”, and flail at the politicians and Rupert Murdoch’s media for perpetuating the untruths and myths about asylum seekers, who are not to be confused with illegal immigrants threatening our borders.
A majority of Australians have a poor comprehension of refugee persecution. Nor do they understand refugee law – the human right to seek protection from persecution.
Frederika E Steen
Chapel Hill, Queensland, Australia
• Regarding your cover story about the appalling level of abuse at the Nauru detention centre: a humane government would surely send an independent task force immediately. It would oversee the care of asylum seekers, and establish new processes and practices to ensure the abuse will cease until an internationally acceptable alternative to offshore detention is agreed. Bickering about setting up a ponderous inquiry is unacceptable. Asylum seekers can’t wait.
Hannah Morrow
Cambridge, UK
• Australia’s offshore refugee gulags, with their potent appeal to xenophobic populism, but minus the public backlash, are exactly what the politicians intended.
Despite their reverence for fiscal rectitude, our leaders are untroubled by the huge cost of imprisoning fewer than 1,800 innocent detainees. They also seem determined to defy the UN Refugee Convention. In this they are blessed by Australia’s luck in being a democracy unfettered by either a bill or charter of rights. In the right’s hands, this is priceless.
John Hayward
Weegena, Tasmania, Australia
• Are Indigenous Australians wishing they had been able to take all arrivals from Britain and expel them to Nauru? After all, the British settlers, whether convicts or free men, decided to take over all the fertile land. They did not seek acceptance by the aboriginal population, who were victimised either at the point of a gun, by the poisoning of water wells or the diseases to which they had no resistance.
Marika Sherwood
London, UK
Terror and social media
In his piece French media’s blackout on terrorists’ photos (5 August), Jason Burke makes a valid observation on the decline in importance of the print media in the context of the terrorists’ interests in glorifying so-called martyrs through violence. The desire for publicity ranks very high in these strategies, and however well-intentioned the decision of Le Monde and other leading French newspapers not to publish photos of those who carry out terrorist attacks may be, the attackers have a much bigger reach through social media than through print.
The issue, as Burke sees it, is that those with an interest in these new martyrs do not look for them in the well-established print media, but have ready access to so much social media that the martyrs have also gained considerable promotion through the print media itself.
What is needed is a deep study on how democracy in practice, in keeping with its values, can keep a watchful eye on the influence of social media through the “extraordinary freedom and power of the digital revolution”.
Burke’s analysis of the situation is a reminder of the reality of the media today, and what needs to be done. It certainly is a tough call.
Lucien Rajakarunanayake
Dehiwela, Sri Lanka
Reading builds empathy
Florence Rosier’s article How reading helps us empathise with others (19 August) offers proof of the belief since ancient times that books about other people, either in scroll form or bound between covers, are “medicine for the soul”. She describes how 21st-century “functional magnetic resonance” shows that certain areas of our brain “light up” and “overlap” when we are reading fiction, “activating” our apparently inherent ability to understand other people.
This further reinforces the advice offered to parents of autistic children and those with Asperger’s syndrome that reading stories can help them acquire the social skills to empathise with other people’s thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Wrong about New Zealand
In purporting to provide another side to the New Zealand immigration fantasy, Eleanor Ainge Roy fails (8 August). Sadly, she has discouraged no one. Her self-congratulatory tone shines through, and echoes that of the new middle-class New Zealanders who have cast aside their egalitarian roots as they look smugly out over their sea and mountain views, endlessly repeating how beautiful they are. Meanwhile, the swelling ranks of have-not New Zealanders drown in the misery of no longer being able to afford to buy a house.
Her “strongly held belief” that New Zealand is underpopulated misses the point of its empty spaces. She reminds me of the sad fellow who created an app listing all the free camping spots, thereby fast-tracking their demise.
If her experience leads to exciting insights, by all means she should share them, but tell her to please stop talking about New Zealand.
Trevor Dagg
Christchurch, New Zealand
Briefly
• Recent issues have contained terms somewhat mystifying to North Americans: “facer”, meaning a sudden difficulty, and “punt”, a speculation. But the Weekly Review’s phrase, the “existential power in getting trollied” (12 August) took the cake. Did this mean a moving experience when travelling on hillside transport in San Francisco? Or perhaps the angst of being wheeled on a stretcher by paramedics into the hospital emergency department? No – the mental state of being drunk out of one’s mind. Is it time for the GW to come with a glossary of British colloquialisms, or am I simply superannuated?
Anthony Walter
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
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