More 'problematic' use of language...

I'm guessing Scott Morrison hasn't read my last post 'Our Problematic Use of Language'!

The Coalition immigration spokesperson has issued a media release reiterating the false claim that asylum seekers are 'illegal', using the pejorative term 'boat arrival' in favour of 'asylum seeker', calling for a suspension of community release bridging visas and calling for the institution of 'behaviour protocols' for asylum seekers. Morrison's media release was made in response to the news that charges of indecent assault had been made against a Sri Lankan man who is currently seeking asylum in Australia.

Reading through the media release I was immediately struck by the tone of condemnation and the presumption of criminality Morrison is willing to heap on all asylum seekers. In calling for police and community notification, 'behaviour protocols', mandatory reporting and the protection of 'vulnerable' populations the Coalition's policy deliberately invokes the language surrounding the release from imprisonment of dangerous criminals and pedophiles. The implication we are supposed to draw from this is that all asylum seekers are in fact amongst the worst class of criminal and therefore not wanted in our communities. Using this language is the worst kind of political manipulation and must be rejected by an informed community.

Morrison's central conceit is in lumping all asylum seekers in the same 'boat' and condemning them for an as yet unproven crime. He attempts to strengthen this notion of guilt by prefacing his argument with the lie that seeking asylum is somehow 'illegal'.

Let's be absolutely clear, only one man has been charged with any crime not an entire group of ethnically and culturally diverse people that we conveniently lump together based on their claim for asylum. This one man may be guilty of a crime, then again he may not. In Australia we have a Criminal Law and a court system set up to decide these matters. There is no need for a separate set of 'behaviour protocols' with 'clear negative sanctions' to manage this case. Such a set of de-facto laws would be nothing more than racist provisions of the type we are currently trying to stamp out.*

Interestingly while Scott Morrison seeks to have all asylum seekers treated as criminals he makes no mention of how government and Coalition policy confines these people to a bureaucratic limbo that intensifies negative psychological outcomes. In a week that has also seen discussion of asylum seekers in detention attempting self-harm and suicide, Morrison offers no comment on the crimes being perpetrated under a system his party would like to see toughened.

Scott Morrison's media release is a cynical attempt to take advantage of a tragic event and should be seen as such by all Australian's. A young woman has suffered through a horrific event and the matter should be dealt with by the legal system not a kangaroo court established by the Coalition to enforce 'behaviour protocols'. That the young man charged is an asylum seeker does not make him guilty, nor does it mean all asylum seekers are criminals.

This whole episode is an abuse by Morrison of his public profile and a tawdry manipulation of language to tell lies that serve his political ends.

__________

* See my post on the issue of Indigenous Recognition in the Australian Constitution and the racist provisions of Section 25 and Section 51(xxvi)
** Just a quick shout out; the amazing graphic above, talking about the misconceptions about asylum seekers and refugees is from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

Recognition...

Yesterday I flew in to Sydney with that fantastic feeling of returning home after eight months. Now as any returning Australian, or visitor knows that feeling is significantly mitigated by the cramps and insomnia of more than thirty hours of flights and transfers. Trying to write last night I was overcome with langour and that strange displaced feeling of being somewhere both so familiar and a little foreign...

Catching up later on the news I'd missed that fantastic feeling returned while reading of the passage of the 'Act of Recognition' through the federal Parliament. The Act commits Parliament to working towards the inclusion and recognition of Australia's Indigenous people in the national constitution. It is significant that this process has begun just as it is shameful that it has taken so long.

See names are important and if that sounds familiar it's because in my last post I talked quite a bit about names; the way they can be used to convey power and status, or attempt to remove it by belittling someone. Names are the way we recognise who someone is and if we don't give them to ourselves someone else will find one for us. How much more difficult then to not have a name?

Indigenous Australians were recognised as citizens and given the vote in 1967; essentially acknowledging that them as members of Australian society. As important as this act was it reads more like a 'welcome to Australia' for a people whose existence on this continent predates European settlement by thousands of years. Compare this relationship with that of the Maori and the British in New Zealand.

The Treaty of Waitangi signed between the Crown and Maori leaders in 1840 began a collaborative, albeit uneven at times, relationship between indigenous New Zealanders and those who would wish to be their sovereigns. No such treaty exists in Australia and collaboration between indigenous leaders and the Federal Government seems bereft of direction. Indigenous Australians have been denied their identity just as surely as they were denied their lands. Colonial policies of integration threatened to wipe out language and cultures tracing thousands of years of history and this continues to happen when we denigrate these memories as 'black armband history'.

While traveling through Europe I was constantly amazed by the depth of history that permeates the land. I was also shocked that this jarred so starkly with my perception of Australian history. My shock was not because we are a 'young' country as is often repeated, but because we are old and this history is not well known. As former NSW senator Aden Ridgeway acknowledges in his recent editorial, constitutional recognition expand our national history from a few hundred years to many thousands of years. It enriches us as a nation and paves the way for a more complete understanding of our history; hopefully, one day I'll have kids who will grow up with a broader knowledge of all Australian people.

Constitutional recognition also offers us the opportunity to remove a stain from the constitution in the form of the so-called 'race powers'. Section 25 and section 51(xxvi) are provisions for both state and federal governments to make race specific laws. These do not exclusively refer to Indigenous Australians, but may do so. The implications of such provisions are frightening, even if they sit unused, and the presence of such provisions is a blot on the most powerful document of a supposedly multicultural country.

The Act of Recognition is only the beginning of the story. If nothing else it means that we can expect a referendum on constitutional change to occur after two years. The 1967 referendum on indigenous suffrage garnered overwhelming support and was passed. This should and must happen again, but it can't be guaranteed unless all Australians get behind it.

If you're reading this then you have some of the story; check out the guys at 'Recognise', from whom I got a lot of background information, and who offer you the opportunity to sign up for the cause of Recognition. Let's make this story our national story...