The Refuge of Democracy Is The Australian Solution

 

This poem below is reposted given the Australian Federal Government debate on refugees and the recent deaths of 90 refugees where help didn’t come in time. I heard on the news the distress signals were received before the accident. It seems to have weighed heavily on the conscience of some politicians. I wondered at the point raised that the Indonesians didn’t help and the Australian’s too late. Why? would be my question.

In my view you cannot stop the boats, you have to open the door to your humanity, that is my vote. But do it in a way that doesn’t profit smugglers, make it easier for them to migrate to Australia on humanitarian grounds.

This is dedicated to all the refugees seeking desperately to find a safe haven.  It is a call for them to forgive the ignorance and heavy handed attitudes of authorities in a range of countries who see them as less than human. Note that is how they see themselves, as in truth we are all equal. The veneer of their power disappears when a tragedy befalls them. If they were in your shoes they would be crying also. So please forgive them for they know not what they do.  If you can communicate your story do so, to raise understanding and empathy so more people seeking refuge are given a safe place to stay. You have more power than you know and if you are here in Australia do not think you have no right to speak, all people do regardless of ethnicity.

For it is when we can see ourselves in each other that the solution becomes to give refuge, naturally. It matters not if authorities are Australian, New Zealand, Indonesian, Thai, US, Canadian whoever… it is a message to all countries who block those seeking asylum and invite those with the money. As self interest makes that decision. The Refugee Convention is humanitarian it is not about economics it is simply to help those who need it. It is the very basics of human nature, if you can’t do that then you have deeply lost your connection to what is real in life. That is the real issue.

This poem was inspired by an excellent ABC 4 Corners program highlighting refugee issues. Thankfully people are waking up.

 

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 armour 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 their 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,

Couched in mantras – 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?

The dismantling of 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 keepers,

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”