The Refuge of Democracy is the Australian Solution to Refugees

My mother rang me tonight in tears about a 4 Corners ABC documentary on mandatory detention of refugees in Australia. The story was focussing on the humanitarian aspect of refugee detention and the mental illness that is arising from being incarcerated and not heard. They are held in jails and it is not surprising to me the private companies that run them, run them as jails, given that is their expertise. The documentary side stepped the politics which was a welcome change and focussed on what really matters how we treat people and our own values. It was well done and a good mirror. My mother was crying which showed me it touched her.

I’ve never personally approved of locking up people seeking refugee status here and I was unable to understand why the Government went to so much trouble to place refugees on Nairu or to find off shore solutions. I couldn’t see why we couldn’t have community detention until they are processed, afterall they are not criminals. It seemed cruel to me to lock them up in maximum security jails.

I’ve clowned in a refugee detention centre and let me tell you the prison was maximum security and there were children there when I clowned. I managed to massage a few, juggle for them, blow bubbles and smile to bring some happiness. This was at Christmas time. I also had a huge christmas card where I had people in Swanston Street Melbourne put little notes of compassion and welcome. I had the card covered in these notes. It was actually funny how we clowns got into a prison, I simply rang up one of the detention centres and asked how to spell the name. The person I spoke to asked why and who I was, I told her a clown. She said they were having a christmas party the next week on the exact day I wanted to come. All three of us were invited in and we had the chance to be with the people. I even found a stray American in there who I thought was with the Red Cross to find she had overstayed her visa. The majority were Iraqi and Afghans and their children were there. At the end we had the guards join in a group hug. What was really lovely about this experience was to have the detainees see the humanity in the faces of the guards and the guards to see the common humanity of the refugees. I think when people are incarcerated they can become dehumanised and they are controlled. The very nature of this removes rights – to leave, to speak, to protest. They, like prisoners, have no rights which I have always found disturbing in both cases.

People are vulnerable when they become imprisoned. I actually went to a prison once as I had to take notes for Corrective Services. I remember the security door shutting locked behind me and feeling insecure in that moment. I, for the first time, wondered about the reality of being behind bars, not a happy freeing thought. The idea of losing one’s freedom is a punishment and would be emotionally isolating from the normal things in life taken for granted. Taking a persons freedom is taking what is naturally given by life, freedom of movement and all the opportunities of life. Interesting thought.

Many refugees in Australia awaiting protection visas are Iraqi and Afghani, I am not lost on the fact our Government is at war with these countries and the flows are caused by our involvement in war. This of course is the pink elephant in the room no-one really acknowledges, not so politically correct I suspect. Instead we focus on fear and make refugees illegal, which the opposition party orchestrated under the former Howard Government.

However the inhumanity we witness here is across the world and other countries are also creating political issues over refugees or offering worse treatment, yet in our democracy we should know better. So it becomes interesting when we don’t. I await a future when we see each other as one. When we recognise what we do to others we do to ourselves, we change ourselves through our behaviour and beliefs. The big questions are what do we believe in? who are we? and what future do we want for children?

I am not an expert on refugee issues, it is my heart that leads me to write this poem. My hope is that we can come together and solve our problems and live democracy and freedoms across the world.

The democracy I understand is freedom of individual speech and inclusivity in democracy where all people can speak to each other and government, this is the only way we can ensure we are represented. It is important to be heard. The wisdom of the majority I feel does find balance, only when we are informed truthfully about all sides of issues, so we can make informed decisions.

Sadly in the media we often find there are newspapers adopting political views rather than being neutral third parties providing all sides. I would love to see the Media similar to conflict resolvers where they map out the problem interview the parties involved and encourage democratic responses or solutions to issues. Moreover, politics is all about being ‘seen to be’ and it is hard to know what they really think as they tow the party line or they are making sure the opposition doesn’t get an opportunity to diminish their reputation.

What we need are Parliaments that are conflict resolving and solutions generating rather than oppositional for the sake of opposing rather than contrasts which lead us to truth. To move away from adversarial politics where the whole objective is to dehumanise or discredit the Government, I don’t think this is an efficient use of taxpayers money. We need systems that are proactive and encourage working together with healthy disagreement.

Anyway, I seem to be on the podium tonight. Have to laugh. Here is my poem, back on the podium again… I sent this to ABC 4 Corners journalists.

THE REFUGE OF DEMOCRACY IS THE AUSTRALIAN SOLUTION

From the Four Corners of the world,
The people are rising up,
A gainst oppression,
B ecause of power and control,
C reating a renewable World Charter of human rights to life,
Where human rights are no longer castaways in search of hope,
Shipwrecked on islands where there is no Christmas spirit,
As the right to be human finds self harm the only solution,
Bound and gagged in red tape and silence,
On a massive scale,
As we politicize desperation for political gain,
As lip service as many lips are sewn,
To silence the lambs,
For they know they have no voice or human rights,
Stateless cries are ignored outback,
Out of sight and out of mind,
As applications in asylums are rejected forcing some to quietly return,
For torture and assassination is the only authority they have known,
Taking away their choice of freedom from fear,
For they came to the wrong place at the wrong time,
Detained in limbo is the torture all refugees endure,
Stonewalls and stone hearts drafted in policies of election.

Refugees are fleeing persecution to arrive in jails of house arrest,
Unbalanced scales of human rights abuse in suspension,
Australia calls this mandatory detention,
Is this pre-tension?,
A civilized response?
Or the misuse of the refugee convention?
Detaining innocence until proven guilty in jails,
As a mandatory detention,
Silently punishing arrivals for seeking freedom
when they are un-shore,
Daring to risk their lives on leaky boats,
To find another solution off shore,
On waves of hopelessness,
As death becomes freedom,
From insanity.

How to stem these refugee flows?
From the bleeding heart of our humanity,
Begs the question – have you ever been targeted by the war machine?
That is not friendly fire or a war movie on digital television,
Did you know cluster bombs fall as yellow toys?
Children pick them up and lose their limbs,
As childhood is in limbo,
But no-one is dancing,
Have you ever seen deadly military jets that are not showcasing
exciting air shows at Amberley?
Did you know ground to air missiles are heat seeking?
Depleted uranium is armor piercing?
It is made from yellow cake?
Spreading the cancer of death to civilians and soldiers,
Australia enriching itself by uranium is not a medical isotope
couched in hope,
What of the wealth and toil of free trade,
When exchanged for refugees?
Are we Advancing Australia Fair?

Did you know hospitals are targeted to weaken the enemy’s recovery?
Infrastructure destroyed to disable civilian populations?
No power, no water, no sewerage is the solution from these thoughtless tanks,
Spreading dis-ease of death to more civilians,
Weakens the enemy’s immunity,
For it is hard to find the enemy as they hide in houses,
Could be a father, a mother or a child,
Echoes of Vietnam haunting the ghosts of these times,
They all look the same,
As we are in a war game of strategy and stealth,
Where the Geneva Convention is no longer an option,
As violent video games are played out by man-less drones,
Technology is the veil crossing man’s inhumanity,
For he is blind to see 90% of fatalities are civilians
seeking food and shelter as life is helter skelter,
In endless wars of destruction without solutions,
For war crimes are never tried
Calling the real perpetrators to account,
For behind closed doors they count the spoils,
Such is the media war that justifies terror,
In the name of gambling the winning hand
is worth the risks of business self interest.

Did you know wars are armed by the Industrial Military Complex
for profit?
Power plays for oil and gas pipelines sever lifelines?
As the war on terror was an illegal war of aggression,
A mission impossible,
A game of battleship,
Where Australian troops were ordered to remain loyal,
For they joined the Coalition of the Willing without question,
Participating in illegal wars that bank rolled the world economy,
Yet we focus on illegal refugees,
And that is the real crime
against humanity.

There have been many refugees,
And we have heard the stories …

…Many in your family have died,
Your mother urges you to live,
For she cannot live if you die,
She sold everything to find money for you to leave,
On behalf of your family you must find salvation,
A safe haven entrusted by god,
For one must survive the slaughter,
The pain of poverty scrounging for food,
Is this the new world order?
The misery of endless wars?
For no good reason,
Do we end war?

A Christmas island solution excised truth from the mainland,
A Pacific solution rendered international obligations off shore,
A Malaysian solution reduced the number of arrivals,
For the public will go overboard as more boat people survive,
For they believe they are illegal and taking our jobs,
They are coming through the back door,
A revolving door of Muslim terrorists finding flaws in our Constitutional clause,
As they challenge our border security with impunity,
As fortress Australia builds a legislative wall plugging loop holes of insecurity
to keep others out,
For we will decide who comes to this country and who does not,
No matter the letter and spirit of 1951 Refugee Convention,
It was never learned after a Second World War,
That fortress Europe has to find cross subsidization
in lifting neighbouring nations out of poverty,
By banking reparations,
As insecurity for profit divides and collapses world affairs,
For peace is only realized in shared security,
Of all nation states living in wellbeing.

So friends as I stand in my cyber Agora,
No longer silenced by Question Time,

I ask: Imagine – what if you are seeking refuge?

…Can you imagine yourselves as climate refugees?
Survivors from earthquakes and tsunamis?
Homeless from flooding across Australia?

…Can you imagine the reality of a global collapse?
No money in banks?
Where there is no gold standard when money is fools gold?

Perhaps that is the moment of realization for us all,

Shaken from false security of fortified comfort zones,
To find life is in control,
As we free fall to find our true reality,
Is shared.

…Can you imagine a united nations of a renewable earth community,
Sharing a vision of a global charter inspiring the right to be human?
That sees shared interests as interdependent like a self organising ecosystem?
For what we do to others we do to ourselves.

…Can you imagine a world that sees wealth in the health of nations?
Feeding the hungry as your own family?
Then dismantling systems of greed?
Transforming economy into a global commons?
Balancing needs with deep ecology seeds that germinate?
Resurrecting peace treaties that resolve conflict decoupled from trade?
For it is the economic wars that further corruption,
As the real illegals,
That we accept without question time,
Excessive executive salaries when profits are falling,
The world is calling out,
For change.

Did you know insecurity cultivates the culture of fear?
And this is the endless ice rink spiraling down in certain circles,
That is melting the ice caps as real core samples,
For we are in times of Realpolitik change,
And to ‘be the change’ we must re-surface truth,
As we return to the community of inclusive democratic dialogue,
An Agora of community insights,
Where detention is dismantled for good,
And replaced by the mantle of human rights and justice,
A re-new-able democracy of civil liberties,
As the bedrock upon which our Parliament was elected,
On a rock of truth from where we carve the Philosophers Stone,
Representing the truth of a free and democratic society,
Of equality, tolerance and justice for all,
No matter their status,
That no longer silences freedom of speech,
By calling divisions as a diversion,
To inflame e-motions,
Against required change,
For this is the motion put forth these days,
By the majority of people.

…I can see a Vision that we are indeed our brothers and sisters keeper,
Compassion is the real currency of an advanced civilization,
That sees the world as ONE,
As earth changes have no national boundaries,
Or conundrum of ‘them and us’,
Only seas that join all continents together
as a blue print of a saner blue planet,
Supporting an ocean of unique life,
A global community that can ‘see change’ on the horizon,
As ONE that is illuminated,
And that is the light on the hill we can see afar,
Leading the way for future generations,
Towards the unity of peace on earth,

And this my friends is the outcome of wisdom,
That seeks to know,
And knows to seek,
The truth,
The whole truth and nothing but the truth,
And it is the truth that sets us all free,
To see a world of possibilities,
Where there are no refugees,
Only friends coming to a new home girt by sea,
And this is the freedoms in the Australian anthem which sings…

“To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands,
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair”