Secrecy in Search of Terror or Openness in Search of Truth?

Published Friday, 10th October, 2014 | By Susan AKA Peacefull

The argument for government surveillance is to protect a nation and its interests. Media generated fear will argue that a country must be vigilent as those seeking to create terror could be within its borders or may be coming as refugees or flying in. I can understand why a nation would want to protect people from harm and I would support that in the interests of peace. What I ponder is what is the true intent of intelligence agencies and whose interests do they serve in reality? I remember Andrew Wilkie who worked on the Iraq desk of the Office of National Assessment coming out and explaining that there was a low threat of terrorism in Australia. During those times I recall the Children Overboard Affair where the media inferred that refugees were throwing their children overboard and it was implied they didn’t care about their children. It was to demonise them as ‘not like us’. I recall former Prime Minster John Howard saying:

‘”We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” (2001)

My response to the above is to evoke The Work of Byron Katie. I feel to have a play with her questions. Let me introduce them. She promotes the questioning of unquestioned thoughts e.g. 1) Is it true? 2) Can you be absolutely know that it’s true? 3) How do you react what happens when you believe that thought? 4) Who would you be without the thought (how treat people and self) and then turnarounds. The turnarounds are to try on the judgement by turning it around and see how its sits. It is not saying the turnaround is true or that a person need drop their belief, it is simply to explore for truth. So the turnarounds are a) turn around to self b) other and c) opposite.

The full worksheet is below for a detailed questioning of a belief. We will just examine the 4 Questions at the bottom with the belief above.

See worksheet http://www.thework.com/downloads/worksheets/JudgeYourNeighbor_Worksheet.pdf

I wish to play with this as the belief, if believed as true, generates a security operation which costs a great deal of money and changes social attitudes if the media runs with it (I can hear myself saying – is it true? which is good I am questioning myself). The belief then turns into the idea that the people coming by boat to our shores are not the right people, they are scary, different and then they become illegal. This was a term used and then made real when islands [Christmas/Nauru/Manus etc where they landed] were excised from Australia (not Australia technically) and outside of the refugee convention. Wikipedia states: In an excised area, an unauthorised arrival has no right to apply for a visa. Asylum seekers who land in an excised area of Australian territory, may apply for refugee status with the UNHCR. However, Australia has no obligation to grant them a visa to settle permanently in Australia (as opposed to temporary protection) and they have no recourse to Australian courts.

It is turns into legal jargon which essentially treats people differently and rights change. So let’s go to questioning unquestioned thoughts for fun.

[critical thought] ‘”We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”

Please note: The words I type in here below are not my opinions I am just imagining I believe the above statement.

1) Is it true – Yes (our country)

2) Can you be absolutely know that it’s true – No (courts, refugee convention, circumstances [arriving by boat] out of our control)

3) (If I believe above thought) I feel that I am not deciding or able to control the circumstances in which they come (refugee or business class). I feel powerless. I feel fear as I feel they are not the right people. I feel they may take our jobs. I feel they may be terrorists. I fear they are poor and desperate (scary). I feel fear as they are not of our people, different cultures. I fear they will bludge and so on…. (this of course is not all Australian beliefs but those particularly scared).

4) Who would you be without the thought? (not asked to drop belief but imagine you can’t think it). I would not feel powerless. I would not feel fear. Happy for the people to be assessed (trust system). I would like to help those in need. Refugees seek refuge so we should help them. I would welcome them.

(the power in this questioning is to go under the belief and really get how a belief changes the underlying story. So if you don’t have the negative belief there is positivity, if you do then many frightening thoughts arise. Byron Katie asserts – who would you be without your story? Interesting thought). So let’s go on.

Turnarounds – these are tricky but interesting.

a) To the Self: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

Turn it around – I will come to this country and decide the circumstances in which I come.

*self determination, people are choosing for themselves.

b) To the Other:

Turnround – We don’t decide who comes to this country [they make that decision] and the circumstances in which they come. [the people make up their mind to come, we have no power over that, that is why they come. We can’t decide the circumstances in which they come as it is out of our control – they are in war zones fleeing persecution. They are desperate to get out of their countries and we cannot control those circumstances.

c) To the Opposite:

Turnaround – They will decide who comes to this country and they decide circumstances in which they come. [the refugees are making the decisions about which country they go to influenced by the traffickers and the circumstances are forcing them to leave quickly, therefore they demand boats so they can escape quickly.

Another turnaround – They do not decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. [this reveals traffickers and their powerlessness]

To control other people feels futile. As I explore the question I can feel the desperation of the people fleeing and that they don’t have choices. Where this leads me is how could we help them make better choices [boats sink], perhaps if love was the primary emotion we would look for ways to affect their safety and to understand what is causing the circumstances from which they fled. Certainly many of the refugees we had came from Afghanistan and Iraq and our country was involved in the war, which later become recognised as about oil not weapons of mass destruction. Wilkie and Scott Ritter made that clear in their disclosures. Then the question takes us to the source of the problem – conflict being created. So if that conflict wasn’t created in the first place then they would have no need to flee as when you ask people do they want to live in Australia – they mostly say no, they prefer their own country. So the people don’t want to come but feel they have no choice. So to expand their choices comes from this line of questioned thinking. I have reflected on this and noted that many of the countries they pass are not signatories to the 1955 Refugee Convention and if they were, would be obligated to take them in. So if our United Nations was united, that could be a decision made at that level that all countries take responsibility for all refugees fleeing countries. If they are poor, then richer countries can fund them to take them in so that refugees don’t make the long journey which is a risk to their lives. They then don’t endure the displeasure at their arrival (unwelcome). They are not looked at as terrorists as that was linked through believing thoughts that muslims were terrorists and on it goes.

So when we question our thoughts amazing discoveries can be made. Ultimately we have to explore our own truth we can’t impose it on anyone else. If truth becomes your greatest desire, then you will indeed find answers that become a win/win for all. If you are seeking agreement with a negative belief then you won’t do the work as truth is not what you are after, you are seeking to carry out another belief (agenda) on behalf of other interests as you may be paid to do not come from a problem solving perspective. So even this little sentence raises questions again.