This morning I went to the World Refugee Day breakfast hosted by the UNHCR. The theme of World Refugee Day is:
“One family torn apart by war is one family too many”.
It’s a clean sentence. Simplistic, consisting of 11 words and it rolls off the tongue easily.
But think about its implication. What if that hypothetical ‘one family’ were my family or yours? It certainly would be one family too many. If my brother was killed by a suicide bomber, or my mum went missing, a suspected kidnapping because of her political affiliation, the reality of the theme would be anything but a compilation of marketing words.
There is an important question we should be asking the decision makers of Australia so vehemently dehumanise asylum seekers for political advantage:
“If you had to flee your country, how would you like the rest of the world to treat you?”
Instead of harping on about the threat to our borders, or the deaths at sea, it’s time, as a nation, we step back and adopt a new perspective. Asylum seekers are human beings just like us. The only difference is, they were unlucky enough to be born into a precarious situation. Forces outside of their control – famine, war and global climate change – push people out of their homes and into a world where empathy is quickly overwhelmed by power.
Today, Australia sent troops back to Iraq. They also plan to send rejected asylum seekers back there.
There are three things wrong with this.
One – if we want to stop the global movement of desperate people seeking asylum, we need to stop war. Before sending armed troops, we must consider peaceful diplomacy, a concept conspicuously missing from the current international Iraqi media coverage.
Two – if we are going to so rapidly deploy troops to Iraq to mitigate the threat of a terrorist war, then where are the troops in DRC, Central Africa, South Sudan and Syria? Aren’t all of these places facing the same fearful reality? What does Iraq have that these countries do not? (Yes that is dripping in hypothetical sarcasm).
And finally – if Iraq is dangerous enough to permit the deployment of military, risking the lives of men and women, whilst expat workers are rapidly being evacuated, how is it safe enough to return ‘failed’ asylum seekers? Non-refoulement (a principle of international law) forbids the return of a person to a place where they are at risk of persecution.
I was brought up believing in justice and that the means should never justify the end. As Australians isn’t it time we wake up to ourselves and decide that our moral compass must be realigned?
No one is asking for a better life for themselves. They are asking for a better life for their children. Wouldn’t you do the same?
Dedicated to Leo Seemanpillai, the young Sri Lankan asylum seeker who died after setting himself on fire, and to his family, who were denied visas to attend their sons funeral.
Bethany Noble 