Shout, shout, let it all out*...

One vote every three years and then shake your head in disgust at the antics of government. This was and still is the model of participation for too many Australians.

Regular viewers will remember my last post, a discussion of Tony Abbott's interview on '60 minutes' detailing his regret over past, negative comments about gay people. I followed up this post with a copy of the email I sent Mr Abbott addressing this issue.

Yesterday I received a reply to my email.

My letter contained one simple challenge: for the Coalition to address it's policy on marriage equality. The reply I received from Tony Abbott was written "on his behalf", by whom I don't know. It did not address, or even mention the issue of marriage equality. What I received was thanks, twice, for taking the time to write. I also received a link to read 'Our Plan - Real Solutions for all Australians', which I gather is policy-lite in lieu of actually taking a real position on issues. Tony's response is not the worst offender though.

I'm really not having much luck engaging with politicians lately. Two letters to former Immigration Minister Chris Bowen on asylum seekers; unanswered. One to Brendan O'Connor when he took the Immigration job; unanswered. One letter to the Immigration Minister Pretend Scott Morrison over you know what; unanswered. Tanya Plibersek is currently my hero just for responding to emails, even when she doesn't address the issue.

Engaging with politicians is not an easy task it would seem. Many people I know, passionate people who care about the current state of Australia, express trepidation over writing a letter to a politician. Perhaps they worry they shouldn't bother them, or perhaps that they don't have the letter writing skill? Perhaps they fear their dissenting opinion will be viciously attacked as they see politicians attack each other daily on the news. Political discussion in this country seems in a deplorable state these days and it is alienating everyday Australians.

I like organisations such as GetUp! Australia for the service they provide making both issues and action accessible to everyday Australians. GetUp! describe themselves as "an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation which aims to build a more progressive Australia". They run campaigns to promote awareness, fundraise and take action on a range of community issues. Current campaigns include marriage equality, saving the Tarkine and asylum seeker rights.

GetUp! are also frequently criticised over issues such as being extreme, lacking transparency and for trying to 'subvert' the democratic process. As an organisation that is relatively new on the national scene** these are all criticisms that GetUp! have and will continue to address as part of their fight for the inclusion of everyday Australian's views.

What all these criticisms seem to miss though is the philosophy of participation that GetUp! fosters. By harnessing social media and digital culture tools GetUp! effectively engages their member base in a way political parties do not. Most fundamentally they offer an access point to issues by providing information. They then provide a means to take action thropugh their online petitions. Action is scalable though and people wishing to be more involved may write their own letters, donate financially to a campaign or even volunteer their time with GetUp! Finally GetUp! puts control of campaigns into the hands of it's members through CommunityRun, where members can setup and run campaigns important to their own area.

GetUp! is not the only organisation engaging people in accessible, online campaigning. I recently signed a petition run by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia aimed at saving digital community radio broadcasts. Greenpeace is also running an online campaign aimed at introducing a 10c refundable deposit scheme on a similar online model. Without a social media based strategy I might never had heard of these issues!

Social media engagement may not be the perfect model for activism. It should never replace more traditional models such a letter writing, peaceful protest and debate. But social media activism is a model that facilitates participation by huge numbers of people. Such participation has potential to grow beyond any one group into an engaged population.

So next time you write, if politicians refuse to respond to letters or address issues, remember we just have to ask more questions, make more noise...

"What started as a whisper, slowly turned into a scream..."

Ben Harper

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* The post title is of course a reference to Tears for Fears' song 'Shout!' - who says the eighties have nothing to offer!
** GetUp! was founded and became active in 2005
*** I've included links to contact details of the MPs I've mentioned. Check them out and drop them a line about issues you care about.

Our 'problematic' use of language

There is a conspiracy of misinformation at work in our daily lives. We are all guilty of this sometimes and we all fall victim when the truth is obscured from our sight. Misinformation occurs when the truth is glossed over with convenient catch-phrases, half truths or blatant omissions. Our politician's use these techniques to cloud their political reality and we suffer a lack of transparency about the society we live in. Those who suffer most however are those with the least ability to speak out and consequently to be heard.

I read an article in Monday's Sydney Morning Herald reporting Department of Immigration communiques describing suicidal and self-harming asylum seekers as 'Problematic'. The report goes on to detail other instances of obfuscation such as 'voluntary starvation'. This gem of a phrase details asylum seekers efforts to protest their conditions. Presumably by emphasizing the 'voluntary' aspect of the protest mitigates any blame for those responsible for the conditions being protested.

Every year people throughout the world flee their homes and their homelands because of civil war, internal strife and ethnic differences. When these people flee they travel, sometimes great distances to seek safe haven in countries and claim asylum under international law. They have the right to make this claim and be assessed in a timely manner. One of the countries that extends this right is Australia.

Within Australia the arrival of asylum seekers is not greeted with general approbation, you might say we can be hostile. I think one of the reasons is the way we talk about, and consequently understand who these people are...

Let's start with the names we give to asylum seekers; the one I found frequently repeated in the article above is 'client'. The term 'client' is used by both politicians and those working in detention centers. It sounds rather benign, perhaps even safe to the average reader who is frequently a client of various services. The term 'client' connotes someone who is accessing a service, and straight away we have fallen into the widespread use of doublespeak that distracts clear thought. For asylum seekers and refugees are not 'clients' accessing 'services' they are people fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands. All the name 'client' does is desensitize us when the government tries out the phrase 'access denied'.

George Orwell claimed the purpose of such political speech and writing was "the defense of the indefensible". He felt that some truths were "too brutal for most people to face"*, but more importantly that these truths couldn't be spoken by politicians who wanted to keep their jobs. Hence the use of fancy terms until asylum seekers and refugees become better known in popular vernacular as 'boat people' and 'queue jumpers'. The use of pejorative terms makes it much easier for everyone to look away when people are being locked up, or towed back out to sea on leaky boats.

The use of this sort of doublespeak is not limited to simply classifying a group of people. Half truths and loose terminology is used in describing all aspects of Australia's immigration detention program. In a short survey of Sydney Morning Herald articles dealing with asylum seekers for the month of February I found politicians and government officials quoted on the following:

• accommodation found wanting by United Nations officials was described by the Department of Immigration as "in line with living standards for local PNG residents"                                       (no description of how these local residents live was provided)
• in response to claims that children in detention were legitimate refugees the government maintained it was "prudent" to conduct its own checks
• in responding to reports of hunger strikes, suicide attempts and cutting with razors by asylum seekers, the Department of Immigration described a "significant decrease in self harm incidents" (no baseline or comparison data is offered)

The picture the government is attempting to create is one where they are working toward a solution to a 'problem' and making some progress. What this picture ignores is the significant harm, both physical and psychological, that occurs while inadequate action is taken. Oh and if you think the alternative is better, the opposition repeatedly promise that the government is too soft and that they would 'tow the boats back'.

I am not stating absolutely that all asylum seekers arriving by boat are mistreated and deserve more from Australia. I think many are. What I am telling you is that it is difficult to get a true impression of their treatment through the media.

Before making up your own mind on this issue, or any issue in the upcoming election, it is imperative that we all examine the evidence we are offered and demand more if it is inadequate.** Tomorrow the Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will move amendments to the Migration Act that would allow media into offshore detention centers. Such scrutiny should at least provide some context for the message we've already received on asylum seeker's conditions.

It is important to support these efforts towards transparency and to question anyone who attempts to hide the truth. We are the keepers of our democracy so best we keep these politicians, our public servants, accountable...

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* George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

** Orwell himself was wary of being guilty of "the very faults I am protesting against". If you find me so guilty, or have any other fault with my arguments please drop me a line. This is not the sort of discussion that ever ends, or where we ever stop learning... 

Who's really to blame?

It's never nice to feel guilt, or have to take responsibility. Instinct tells us this, so from childhood it's always the cat or the wind that broke the vase. We shift the blame but avoidance only anesthetizes us to the pain of guilt it doesn't solve anything.

Heaven help you then if you're a celebrity these days; 'a', 'b', 'c' even the 'd' grade celebs have more cameras pointed at them than a British high-street. So when Chrissie Swan snuck a cigarette the other day she was happy snapped by an obliging paparazzo. The really story wasn't Swan or the cigarette, it was her pregnant body that apparently belongs to the world at large to probe, prod and criticise.

Smoking while pregnant is bad (just in case you weren't aware). A quick Google search or even a vox pop of those around you reveals shocked indignation and horror scenarios. Swan wasn't ignorant of this, and we learned as much when she was all but forced to make a public mea culpa on her battle to bag the fag.

What did the public hope to gain by taking to Twitter to shame Chrissie Swan? If helping her was the aim, then the vitriol seems counter productive. Perhaps this was a public awareness campaign against smoking; but then why did it had to wait for a celebrity to get caught in the act? I think Chrissie Swan has been made into the cat that broke the vase, taking the hit for all our little health indiscretions. We need these celebrity mistakes, they're the 'bad influence' that we blame when our own willpower gets weak.

It's not just weak willed people that need to shift the blame though. Three weeks ago I wrote about Jonathan Moylan, the stock crashing, hoaxer living in the bush. Moylan's protest against the proliferation of new mines in Australia exposed (yet again) vulnerabilities in the Australian Stock Exchange. Basically a bunch of people reacted to an unverified news report and sold their shares at a loss. Now instead of blaming the media insiders that allowed the report without verifying it, or even the individuals that panic traded their shares, Moylan is being held solely culpable.

When we shift responsibility we create the illusion that the world's problems might never exist but for the 'bogeyman' being blamed. Private, public and political we have 'bogeymen' surrounding us; disempowering us as we become increasing reliant on a saviour to purge our demons.

We have developed a culture of scapegoating to avoid taking personal responsibility for our actions, as if blame somehow mitigates the damage. This is disturbing at the level of the individual because it perpetuates the cycle; blame fast food and you don't have to look at your personal habits or diet, blame the addictive nature of the pokies and you don't have to consider what drove you to them in the first place. Blame and scapegoating passes responsibility, but there is no one waiting to pick it up.

At the institutional level this culture of 'blame and run' hurts more than just individuals as the moral torpor marginalizes those who stand outside the majority. This is never worse than in the area of political compromise. The most common scenario seems to be a distorted Catch-22, as the humanitarian treatment of asylum seekers becomes equated with soft border protection, and refugees become the scapegoats. Or the question of equal marriage rights for gay people is made synonymous with a disintegration of values and gay men and women are the scapegoats.

The woes of the world have successfully been transferred. There's no need confess or face the truth and this is really bad for us, because the focus is on the problem not on the solution. As we move toward an election this year will we also be interested in blame?

Listen to your local candidates as they campaign for your vote; are they telling you what the other guy is doing wrong, or what they plan to do right? When they tell you someone is to blame they are playing a negative political game and want you to believe that eliminating the problem is the same as a solution. But locking up asylum seekers does not stop more arriving because it does address why they seek refuge in the first place. Preventing gay people from marrying does not strengthen family ties it just prevents good people from making them. Demonizing a tax does not mean there are no meaningful ways for the polis to address climate change.

We must therefore move to address change with a view to judging our flaws meaningfully, not shifting them onto somebody else...

Chomsky vs. Twitter

Last time I wrote I threw in a quote by Noam Chomsky regarding the de-facto mental slavery we are subject to when powerful interests are allowed to dictate the narratives, the advertising, the media we consume. If you haven't come across Chomsky before I'm going to let you Google him, but suffice to say that I've heard him described as the most influential intellectual of the last fifty years (more than once). Chomsky writes passionately about the individual in the face of larger corporate, political and media influences. He is an advocate of individual action and thought free from coercion. 

I'm a fan of Noam, but in my reading for the last post I also came across some comments he made about social media and Twitter. It seemed he was not a fan of the brevity or relative flippancy of tweets and their limited character. He has also described in interviews a view that communication via devices tends towards the "superficial, shallow, evanescent" while Twitter perhaps "draw(s) people away from real serious communication". 

Let's face it, he has a point and in Noam's defense these comments were made around the same time Charlie Sheen was lighting up Twitter with a very dim bulb. At it's worst social media is people you've never met telling you they're hungry and then posting a picture of what they're eating (before anyone says anything I do realise that the worst is more like racism, sexism, trolls and attitudes best left in the middle ages). Beyond the shallow though Twitter et al. is also a democratizing force as it allows the audience to decide which voices are heard through comments, critiques and simply by ignoring the undesirable.

If we accept the premise that Twitter is often heavy with trivia and ephemera, this does not exclude the possibility for meaning within 140 characters. Brevity seems to be a particular bugbear for Chomsky as he feels it negates or sidelines controversial, non-mainstream discussion. But 140 characters is merely a window to another world that people may choose to explore at the cost of a mere click. Personally I am drawn back to tweeters who lead to me to more interesting information through links.

As a gateway social media has as many doors to Narnia as it does to last seasons Kardashian closet. The mere presence of crap does not negate it's power to distribute voices however. Just as the printing press gave us newspapers it also helped fill them with comics and personals. We have the opportunity to control the content as it evolves and part of that evolution is engaging, discussing and aggregating voices towards social causes. Daily people create their own content and distribute it via the interweb and social media is a resource they utilise to get word out.

Is there anything to say though?

Embedded in the technology is the mechanism that (hopefully) will see us guide this evolution towards a positive channeling of public voices; Twitter and other microblogging sites are equipped with functions to retweet, comment or simply stop following. While publishing may be free and easy, editing happens at the hands of the public at large. This means that the network of users vote with their 140 characters on whether an opinion expressed is viable. I wrote recently of my first experience with a truly abhorrent Twitter post and how at the hands of the 'Twitterverse' the poster was duly chastened. 

In one of the interviews mentioned above Chomsky describes a 'good public citizen' as one "who participates in the management of public affairs". Amongst the idle thoughts and tummy rumblings social media offers a platform for participation that is open and uncensored as yet. Entry criteria for participation is the possession of an online device, and this can be a steep price in some markets, as I've discussed in a previous post. This is changing though and with access comes a proliferation of new voices. For those that can afford it, this is cheap compared to running for office in a developed western democracy.

These technologies offer both shallow, narcissistic interactions and the potential to engage in the public sphere like never before. It requires a little creativity to straddle the line and becomes a daily commitment if you really intend to engage, but I've found it worth the effort. In a future where this technology will become second nature I wonder if our questioning it's validity at length (longer than the aforementioned 140) will seem quaint. Till then I choose to embrace the voice it affords me.

Election 2013

So, we're going to the polls...

September 14th is the date I hear and most of the country is all a'twitter and the rest are on Facebook. We knew it was coming this year but now we have a time frame and we know that there are going to be almost eight months of campaigning to win our hearts and minds in the lead up. What this means is anyone's guess but we can assume a certain level of vitriol between the main players.

A shrewd observer on Twitter asked not long after the announcement how we could tell the difference between campaigning now and the political rhetoric we've been made to suffer the last few years? Personality and personal attacks have become the bread and butter of Australian politics. I can't remember exactly when we moved towards an American, presidential style tete-a-tete, but I do know that Labour vs. Liberal feels more like Julia vs.Tony at the moment.

The presidential campaigning started straight out of the blocks as Tony Abbott framed the whole campaign as being based around trust. His comments of course refer to Julia Gillards backdown on statements made about the implementation of a carbon tax/emissions trading scheme. The issue of trust was later compounded by Labour's brazen statements about a budget surplus.

So Abbott says don't trust Gillard, coz she lies. Gillard says don't trust Abbott, coz he won't to commit to anything (lie or truth). They both make points in their own twisted ways but neither really mentions too much about their vision for the country beyond 2013 (except for the bit where we all go to hell if the other gets voted in).

Forgive me for thinking that policies and issues might be the important thing here. I believe there are plenty of things to be talking about in Australia in 2013...

What about our deplorable human rights record for compulsory, indefinite detention of asylum seeker arrivals? There's the state of our welfare safety net for the most vulnerable Australians and as the Sydney Mardi Gras enters it's 35th year we still have huge steps to take for gay rights and equality.

These are fringe issue to many Australians who are more concerned with making ends meet and providing for their families. Maybe the election could say something about the national broadband network; a resource for extending services and information to all of Australia. Or healthcare and education which affects us beyond the standard three year cycle. Everyone has their passion and everyone should participate in election 2013 with all the information to go on.

These are the issues that are important to me. There are many more that make up the larger picture of Australian politics this year and into the future. I'd like to explore them as we approach September and try to create some small perspective on what this election is all about. Please write me the things that matter to you, that you would like to see discussed in the lead up and heading into the future of our country...

Representation?!

A tale of indifference from your elected representatives...

I've now written twice on the story of Ranjini and her brand new son Paari; locked up in Australian immigration detention during her pregnancy, then returned only days after Paari's birth. My plan is to continue writing in the hope that rallying support around this issue might see sense prevail and result in an outcome that sees a weeks old baby released from jail.

This outcome seems less and less likely when our elected representatives refuse to engage on the issue in a meaningful way, preferring to stonewall opposition to the official policy. I am not the only person writing on this issue, far from it. I first read about Ranjini's story through GetUp! and 'Letters for Ranjini'. Both of these organisations have been actively campaigning to see Ranjini and Paari allowed to reunite with their family. As a result of this campaigning a lot of letters have been written to a lot of local members requesting action.

Unfortunately the responses received by 'Letter's for Ranjini' were less than inspirational on the part of the government. While you might hope for a resounding success or fear an outright rejection, the replies from Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson reflect the worst of bureaucratic obfuscation designed to do nothing more than placate the reader. Both letters read as virtual carbon copies of each other. They are clearly form letters designed to deflect community concern over the issue of what they like to call 'irregular maritime arrivals' (asylum seekers in the regular parlance). These replies refer to Ranjini's case only in the final paragraph and speak nothing of addressing the urgent concern of having a newborn child locked up.

On their website 'Letter's for Ranjini' call these replies a complete disregard for democracy, but I would go a step further. These politicians attempt to use stock standard letters to placate their constituents because they have no regard for the intelligence and sincerity of collective community action. They feel they are safe within the 'democracy' because they sit in safe seats of regard Ranjini's story a fringe political issue.  

This is not an acceptable response from Australia's political representatives, no matter their political persuasion. Politicians govern at the will of the people and they must be reminded of the voices behind their power, that they may use it to some good end. Consider this and write to your local member; you can get most of them on Twitter if you don't have time for an email. Go to 'Letters For Ranjini's' - Facebook page and give them a 'like' so that they can continue this struggle. Most importantly though is to take back your voice and refuse to accept a stock reply from a politician; ask why, ask for more information and make them justify their position. Remember you gave them their job...  

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More on Ranjini's story:

Here are some sites you might like to check out for more information about Ranjini's story and the issue of the detention of children in immigration detention facilities in Australia...

Rightzblock - Life Imprisonment? 

My first post detailing Ranjini's plight before Paari's birth.

Rightzblock - Followup to Ranjini's Story 

Detailing the shameful act of imprisoning Paari days after his birth.

Letters for Ranjini 

Campaigning for justice on behalf of Ranjini; write a letter of support!

Chilout 

Fantastic organisation campaigning on behalf of children in immigration detention.

Chris Bowen - Minister for Immigration 

Drop the minister a line; email, twitter or call to express your concerns 

over the issue of children being locked up!