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No Place for Integrity on the Team

6/3/2015

2 Comments

 
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Perhaps it’s the sign of the times but it seems to me governments, whether they are religion based, like the Catholic Church, or Westminster based like the current federal government, have found an effective way to deal with their crimes. Simply ignore them. They have banked, and it seems, correctly, on the public’s apathy. They have invested millions in misinformation and spin and the public have swallowed it without thought of the terrible digestion problems which are to come.

You can’t swallow corruption and remain healthy.

Today there is news of a child on Nauru who has been carrying the pain of a broken arm for a month. Doctors on the impoverished island have begged for specialist help which should be forthcoming from a country of such wealth, such as Australia. But today we hear the child will be spirited away to India. Ten thousand kilometres accross the sea. Not because he will receive the best possible care. Not because Australia takes its responsibilities of Duty of Care seriously. Not because he is a terrorist, or a criminal, or a threat to our security. But because he is a genuine refugee. And we all know, in this lucky country, that to be found genuine and true, and honest and honourable, well, those appear to be crimes. Children especially! You just can’t risk caring for children. Or mothers of children. Or fathers of children. Because to have a child when you are poor is the equivalent of premeditated blackmail. At least according to Team Australia.

"Erfan could've been brought to Australia yesterday ... He should've been brought two weeks ago when it became evident that the bones were not properly set, were misaligned.

"But because he is a refugee and not an asylum seeker, the Government refused to take responsibility."

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said if the claims were true, it was incomprehensible.

"If this is the case, the Government really needs to clarify," Senator Hanson-Young said.

"You couldn't make this stuff up, what on earth is going on?

"This is a family who are found to be refugees, they are genuine refugees, they've been dumped on Nauru by this Government, the boy needs medical assistance, just bring him to Australia and let him be relieved from the suffering of a broken arm."

Senator Hanson-Young said Australian taxpayers would be left to foot the bill if the transfer went ahead.

"If it's true, it's just total madness," she said.         ABC News 4th June 2015

 

So well done Australia! Onya Tony! What a happy and safe place you’re making this world!

Your policies lead directly to those mass graves on the Thai border. And graves like them. You and people smugglers – working together to ensure the very worst of human behaviour. You both prey on asylum seekers. You both show no compassion. Smugglers dig the graves and you push the women and children in. Ask yourself this, what would a smuggler do with a hundred asylum seekers when Australia has shut its doors? Did it not occur to you these people could be killed before ever stepping into a boat?

When Australia closes its doors people will die. It’s that simple. It was that simple for the Jews in World War Two – the lesson to the whole world of what will happen when you take away a person’s right to flee – or worse, hand them back into the hands of their oppressors.

Australia is the new Germany – or perhaps the new Austria (notice how similar they are in spelling!) since that country gave birth to Hitler. And his policies are alive and well in our treatment of the worlds’ most helpless.

Any country which accepts a man as the Minister for Women really isn’t interested in truth and integrity.

But I’m praying, I am praying so hard, that the Australian people will prove me wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Comments
Colleen Keating
6/4/2015 10:08:30 am

Thanks Siobhan for these powerful words raging 'against the dying of the light'. Many of us fear the silence and the secrecy for our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. i think Martin Luther king said that . i just borrowed it.

We must keep raging, shouting and lets believe we are not crying in a wilderness of apathy. I believe in hope. The people of Australia are generous in spirit, it is just we have lost our way , caught in a web of terror. Look how the people of Australia railed against the thought of the executions in Indonesia. Why? Because we knew names and faces and stories and they were two human beings, two young loveable men, even though they had done wrong the majority of Australians felt strongly for them and candles were lit and many tears shed . Not knowing names and stories is the problem and that is the power of silence. Now and again, glimpses that we can glean touch a few hearts like the story of the little boy with the broken arm and the ones gone to Cambodia in a lead encased curtained van so no Australian will know they are human being !!! we need to have an imagination well we all have an imagination but we need to use it to realise what our country is doing . Yes i agree we are becoming more like the Austria of the 1940's. A great worry. The poem I gave you speaks of the need to imagine, the need for empathy. With empathy there will be no crying in the wilderness . . .we will shout from the Mountain tops and as Dylan Thomas says we will rage rage against the dying of the light and allow fellow human beings fleeing darkness to share our table and even if we have to share our food so that we don't have as much to eat, we will be happier for it and the fear and terror could even dissipate for how much of this terror is in our minds. I do not believe it is in our hearts. our hearts are like the coin one side love and the flip side fear. Yes we need leaders that bring out the love side for as i said at the beginning human beings have hearts of love and a wonderful generosity of spirit. I will enclose my poem if there is enough room for I have edited it since I gave it to you and i think it adds to this blog.


empathy

blood spills from the pen
briny seas bleach words
wordless

at dinner TV images
toughen hearts exhaust spirits desensitise
ads brighten us up
relief comes with the all ords and the dow up or down
who cares
as long as there are no names or clear faces
just humanity ragged emaciated

the screen divides us and them
our fears our terror cannot be sated
while humanity on our fragile
fragile globe
believes we can be saved without empathy

imagine how they feel

how would I feel fleeing my homeland
at sea in the blackness of night
would the sign of the southern cross give hope
that someone cares and some opens their hearts

when i fluff my pillow and pull up my doona
will i be haunted by others cold and wet
will i dare to imagine
the muscle of empathy flexing
to build a new way forward


Colleen Keating

Reply
siobhan link
6/5/2015 10:28:25 am

You put into words, so succinctly, what I struggle to say.
We need to wake the nation up to what is done in its name.

Beautiful!
Thank you Colleen.

Reply



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    siobhan colman

    Shining a light in the darkness.

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    www.siobhancolman.com



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