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Opting for surveillance of migrants instead of rescue operations will result in death by drowning, or torture and possible deaths in Libya. For both scenarios, the EU has cultivated its own brand of impunity. Looking away has become politically acceptable, and the bloc can focus on funding the Libyan Coast Guard to do its dirty work.
If you're not burdened by a conscience, it's a perfect get-rich-quick scheme: offer 'garrison' services to governments reluctant to get their hands dirty. Ensure the vulnerable people you 'manage' are hidden, demonised by politicians and right-wing commentators. Hire cheap labour, minimise your tax, and make millions.
To what extent has society reacted to the deaths of these two children? Awareness stops with the available imagery. Drowned children on western shores are processed differently in our psyche to the children killed in drone attacks, their absence of identity compounded by statistics which dissociate humanity from numbers.
In Boochani's experience, Australians were homogenous and unreflective parts of a machine designed to dehumanise, cow and corrupt the people who sought protection. This report and the departmental response suggest that in on-shore detention the human destruction is not directly intended. It is seen simply as irrelevant.
It's long fascinated me that it tends to be the conservative side of politics that has delivered many of our Indigenous political firsts. Perhaps it's simply because Indigenous conservatives are, by virtue of their politics, no real threat to the status quo. Our Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt is a case in point.
Demands for the protection of fundamental rights are, of course, a good thing. But the media coverage of the AFP raids took a scattergun approach and, in some cases, contained oversight and inaccuracy. Here are some important details that were lost in the furore.
Almost two years have passed since the youth justice royal commission prompted by the abuses at Darwin's Don Dale youth detention facility. Yet many of its recommendations remain unrealised, largely due to a lack of federal funding support. In the meantime, youth justice has remained at the crossroads in many parts of Australia.
No Friend But the Mountains deservedly won an Australian prize but was considered ineligible for others because the writer was not Australian. The book itself mocks that exclusion. Boochani's years on Manus Island branded him as Australian in the same way African slaves became American by the brand American owners burned on to them.
A Faili Kurd, who fled Iran by boat aged 16 with his mother, Shalikhan has been detained since arriving on Christmas Island in August 2013. Suffering from a developmental disorder and mental health issues exacerbated by his father's death in Iran, he has in the past attempted suicide and displayed volatile behaviour.
If refugees drown in the Mediterranean, scrutiny is directed towards Europe. If the deaths happen in Libya, the EU is able to manipulate human rights rhetoric alongside the bloc's concerns. Meanwhile, it remains committed to its deals with the Libyan coastguard, which is fuelling its fair share of human trafficking and exploitation.
The pantomime serves a purpose. Politicians denouncing Anning for his explicit support of fascism distracts from years of slightly more democratic, somewhat less in-your-face ethnonationalism. Sieg heils in St Kilda are bad, offshore internment camps are necessary.
I cannot help but think about the level of cognitive dissonance required to believe you hold not only the rights to an entire holiday, but also the moral high ground, all while occupying buildings built on stolen lands. The migration of this celebration to this continent did not happen in isolation from the violence of invasion and colonisation.
37-48 out of 200 results.