While Australians and the politicians hum and ah over the deaths of hundreds of asylum seeking boatpeople and then argue among themselves as to whether the Nauru solution is better than the Malaysia solution, why aren’t Australians discussing the most obvious solution? It’s a solution which avoids all the deaths and misery of indefinite incarceration. Let’s call it the Australian solution – which is to bring them direct to Australia by the safest means possible which is flying them here. If they can pay people smugglers thousands of dollars then they can surely afford the $450 fare on an airline ticket to get here.
These people want to come to Australia. The vast majority of them will end up here eventually anyway - regardless of where they are sent to - so why do we need to send them to Malaysia or Nauru or anywhere else first?
The answer is blindingly obvious.
The reality is, frightened as most Australians are to admit it, some Australians are racists. Politicians and commentators on the right do not want Islamic or non-Europeans in Australia, it’s as simple as that. They’ll deny that they are racists until the cows come home, but that’s what they are - racist. And when I say politicians on the right, I’m not just talking about Liberals; I’m also talking about some in the Labor ranks as well. And of those politicians that aren’t racist, there are many that, for the sake of politics, will bow to public opinion or, at least, to the loudest or most influential of commentators in the media that are also blatant racists and who are currently pushing public opinion against boatpeople.
Despite the denials of the racist right, Australia has a long history of racism. Not only do Australia’s racists don’t want non-white boatpeople in Australia, they never really wanted the non-white people that were already here when their antecedents first arrived here a little over a couple of hundred years ago. And white Australians have been kicking up a fuss every time a non-white group arrived on our shores ever since.
The racist attitudes of some Australians haven’t changed with the arrivals of the latest groups of people wanting to come to Australia – boatpeople who are mostly from places we were involved in invading but, more importantly, mostly Islamic.
It’s time Australians got to grip with themselves and faced the reality that it is complacent majority of Australians who allow the minority of racists among us to dominate the policies that lead to the deaths of the boatpeople.
Enough is enough. Those Australians that call for a halt to boatpeople arriving in Australia should be called out for what they really are – racists every single one of them!
Raise the refugee intake quota and fly them in!
