Search Results: African migrants
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 December 2016
7 Comments
This year International Migrants Day has called for children to be released from detention. It is appropriate that an event held in the shadow of Christmas should advocate for children. For they lie at the heart of Christmas. The insistence in the Gospel stories on the obligation to respect and nurture children is not exclusive to Christians. It is echoed in the attention to children and concern for their growth into responsible adults shared by other religions and cultures.
READ MORE
-
- Frank Brennan
- 01 September 2015
1 Comment
If you want to form government in Australia and if you want to lead the Australian people to be more generous, making more places available for refugees to resettle permanently in Australia, you first have to stop the boats. If you want to restore some equity to the means of choosing only some tens of thousands of refugees per annum for permanent residence in Australia from the tens of millions of people displaced in the world, you need to secure the borders. The untrendy truth is that not all asylum seekers have the right to enter Australia but that those who are in direct flight from persecution whether that be in Sri Lanka or Indonesia do, and that it is possible fairly readily (and even on the high seas) to draw a distinction between those in direct flight and those engaged in secondary movement understandably dissatisfied with the level of protection and the transparency of processing in transit countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. The popular evil is that political
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 29 May 2015
13 Comments
There have been no violent usurpations. No coup. No acts of massive violence. But data retention laws have been passed. National security legislation protecting ASIO from all operations short of murder while punishing the disclosure of material on secret intelligence operations has been enacted. The stripping of citizenship of dual nationals is on the books. And more.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- David Holdcroft
- 20 May 2015
3 Comments
South Africa has again experienced the ravages of xenophobic violence. The official response reflects a fearful government that needs to resort populist scapegoating that stigmatises migrants. It has found itself incapable of creating the inclusive narrative that was evident 18 months ago when the country came together to mourn Nelson Mandela.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Catherine Marshall
- 08 May 2015
1 Comment
Roger Blanco Morciego is a young Cuban man with an English name, who grew up in a communist country ostracised from the rest of the world. 'In my neighbourhood we have seven Rogers. I think we were named after Roger Moore'. I have my own theory about this: people who are shut out will do anything to explore and understand the realm they've been excluded from.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Ellena Savage
- 24 April 2015
13 Comments
Australian references to 'boat people' is simplistic and offensive. 'Queue jumper' inaccurate and moralising. Even the term 'asylum seeker' has become politically complicit. European coverage of this week's Mediterranean boat tragedy describes the victims and survivors simply as 'migrants', which is an open description of a person on a boat crossing borders.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 20 April 2015
65 Comments
Since John Howard promoted the memory of 25 April 2015 in the years after 9/11, it has become entrenched in the public imagination as the definitive Australian moment. I look upon it from a distance, in awe, and as the deification of the white male soldier continues apace, with a deeper sense of alienation. As a non-white Australian who migrated to this country from the Philippines, I did try to make it relevant for myself for a while.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Nikolas Feith Tan
- 03 December 2014
9 Comments
Israel is one of the world's developed countries that is attempting to deter asylum seekers from accessing the protection that international refugee law entitles them to. Yet Israel is a state with refugeehood in its roots. Israeli refugee advocates have encouraged a change of policy on the basis of Jewish exile in Egypt as recorded in the Torah.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 March 2014
7 Comments
The South African experience suggests racial discrimination begins with the appropriation of wealth and power by one racial group and its consequent suppression of other groups in order to extend its wealth and power. If we are to address racial prejudice and discrimination we need to examine the way in which wealth and power are distributed and protected in society. In Australia, they are being concentrated increasingly in fewer hands.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 23 January 2014
20 Comments
This week began with Australia Day and ends with the Chinese New Year. The juxtaposition suggests pertinent questions about Australian identity, especially the ways in which Australians have alternately included and excluded those seen as outsiders. This is most evident in the relationship between Australian settlers' attitudes to Indigenous Australians, but it is also seen in Australian attitudes to Chinese and other Asian peoples.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- Irfan Yusuf
- 09 January 2014
1 Comment
Ramadan is supposed to fine tune your soul, weaken the ties binding you to your physical appetites and test your religiosity. This month unites Muslims around the globe in an envelope of piety and mercy. At least that's the theory. In reality, for most of us Muslims Ramadan is the month of massive weight gain.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Kerry Murphy
- 15 October 2013
14 Comments
Italians are not necessarily more ethical than Australians, but the attitude of their government and local officials to asylum seekers who arrive by boat is in stark contrast with our own. The Pope called it vergogna — shameful, or a disgrace — that so many asylum seekers trying to get to Italy by boat have drowned. Australia's vergogna lies in its official attitudes of punishment and demonisation.
READ MORE