CULTURE WARS: Sorry, Malcolm, but multicultural Australia is not ‘united, strong, successful’

And guess whose fault that is?

And so, on Harmony Day, our erstwhile PM launched a document entitled Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful. And what a colourful, sexy document it is: full of the smiling faces of people from different backgrounds and of all ages, all sharing their own or ancestral stories of struggle — full of wonderful talk about values, visions and all that jazz.

So is the document’s title correct? Upon reading the title of this 16-page document, I couldn’t help but say to myself: “Yep, minus the bigotry of many News Corp columnists and the strength of One Nation, etc, etc, and the emphasis placed on repealing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (a provision that hasn’t stopped the earlier nasty stuff, and whose effect is largely overcome by section 18D) and the paranoia about terrorism that has led to some 65 pieces of legislation since 2005 creating a parallel system of criminal law … minus all that, yes we are a multicultural Australia, which is probably more united, strong and successful than any other Western nation, except perhaps Canada.”

OK, I didn’t literally say all that to myself.

The statement really is a nifty document, short on specifics and high on restating values we already know but rarely see from the Coalition and their friends (at least at election time) in One Nation. The document spoke about the “glue that holds us together is mutual respect — a deep recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity”. Indeed. And, in the words of our Attorney-General, the same “right to be bigots”.

Under the subheading “Shared vision for the future”, we read about the government continuing to promote “the principle of mutual respect and denouncing racial hatred and discrimination as incompatible with Australian society”. Then on page 19 we read: “… racism and discrimination undermine our society. We condemn people who incite racial hatred.” Unless, of course, if they are supported by the Institute of Public Affairs, the editorial bosses at News Corp, Coalition backbenchers, anti-halal/kosher certification freaks and/or the tiny number of people who read Quadrant. In this case, we will bend over backwards and change the law to suit their need to be as bigoted as they already can be under the law we are hell-bent on changing.

Of course, some of Australia’s neighbours don’t exactly have sterling records in this area. Malaysia’s special treatment for bumiputera (indigenous Malays) over everyone else (including non-Malay Muslims) is appalling. The campaign for the governor of Jakarta has involved overt racial and religious prejudice of a rather un-Islamic kind by influential Muslim preachers targeting a Chinese Christian candidate who is an ally to the current Indonesian President. I doubt it was that bad for Western Sydney Labor MP Ed Husic when anonymous flyers were circulated through the electorate of Greenway in the 2004 election.

Getting back to multiculturalism, I think it’s a bit much to say that it is all about values and vision. Historically, multiculturalism was a policy introduced to help persons with little English to access government services. Interestingly, most of these people were part of the post-War wave of European migration and had lived in Australia for decades, working their elbows to the bone in factories and infrastructure projects and not having the time to learn the local lingo.

Oh, and guess what: multicultural policies in Australia have always been regarded as a means to an end, not as an end in themselves. And what is that end?

Integration.

In a Commonwealth parliamentary research paper published in 2010, Elsa Koleth notes:

James Jupp points out that Australian multicultural policies have always been premised on the supremacy of existing institutions and values and the primacy of the English language, while placing less emphasis on cultural maintenance beyond the immigrant generation ...

As the report notes on page 7, our population comes from over three hundred ancestries, including indigenous peoples with over two hundred and fifty different language groups. We’ve been multicultural for at least 50,000 years. So why tag all this national identity stuff onto what is essentially Australia’s multicultural reality and status quo? Is it the role of multiculturalism to save us from nasty terrorists and even nastier boat people?

And what’s the point of preaching multiculturalism and anti-racism and all that stuff (while you demonise desperate asylum seekers), when you change the law just to please powerful reactionary pseudo-conservatives, and when you take steps to marginalise and alienate young people you think are prone to “radicalisation”?​

First published in Crikey on 23 March 2017.

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS: Why George Christensen might make a great immigration minister

Barnaby Joyce reckons George Christensen needs to be given a portfolio. Would Immigration be a good fit? Have you head the rumour? Apparently National Party leader Barnaby Joyce is training up George Christensen for a ministerial gig. At least, I think it’s a rumour. At least I hope it’s a rumour, both for Malcolm Turnbull’s sake and possibly for the sake of the public servants whose jobs come within any portfolio handed to Christensen. And Fairfax says it’s

... time to take George Christensen seriously.

All this raises a few questions:

1. Which portfolio would be suitable for someone with Christensen’s set of interests and skills? 
2. If no such portfolio exists, could a new portfolio be created from Christensen? 
3. By George, what on earth is Barnaby Joyce thinking? It may be true that Christensen is “authentic”, “well-read” and “intelligent”, but what is the broader political strategy here? Is the aim to cash in on a possible Trump factor? Is it to steal votes from One Nation? 

Or perhaps I am being a bit too cynical. Maybe Joyce wasn’t just throwing some praise in Christensen’s general direction to add to a juicy Fairfax Good Weekend profile. Perhaps I should go study Christensen’s colourful parliamentary history for clues.

Let’s start with Christensen’s views on immigration. The guiding principle of any immigration policy, according to Christensen, is that we should not allow (or at least we should heavily restrict) immigration from countries that don’t share our values. Or to put it another way,

... ending immigration from countries with a high level of violent extremism.

To make this policy work, we need to define what our values are. How do we manifest our values and how have they emerged from our history?

These are huge questions that I hope Christensen, for all his wide reading, can answer. Former PM John Howard once defined Australian values in a generic fashion — things like mateship and equality for women. As if people in, say, Afghanistan, don’t have ideas of mateship and friendship. And if broader European attitudes toward sexual assault (yes, 27% of Europeans think rape is acceptable in certain circumstances) are any indication, maybe we don’t need more European migrants.

I’d hate to see Christensen’s version of Australian values emerge from some of the history in his own electorate. Many Australians don’t know this, but slavery was practised in certain parts of the colonies. Most worked on sugar plantations in northern Queensland, where Christensen’s electorate is located. When the Commonwealth of Australia was established in 1901, one of the first pieces of legislation was The Pacific Islander Labourers Act ordering the deportation of all South Sea Islanders to their home islands by 1906:

These Islanders had originally been brought to Australia as sugar slaves. At this time 9324 South Sea Islanders lived in Queensland … They also included those who had lived in Queensland since before 1 September 1879 … Some had married and had families in Queensland. Others had lived here for a very long time and grown old. It would have been difficult or even impossible for Islanders to return to their home islands. Records and knowledge of precise origin were often scant as a result of the questionable recruitment processes and decades making lives in a new country.

To his credit, Christensen acknowledged the cruelty of this slavery policy and the extreme discriminatory legislation that affected them. He even called for a national apology to the Australian South Sea Islander community in 2013.

Just as we’ve had an apology on behalf of Aboriginal Australians who were a part of the stolen generation, we’ve had an apology for those who were forcibly adopted, that in this instance it’s only right that we have a national apology to the South Sea islanders for the treatment they were given.

This is a side of Christensen that is rarely reported. It is also a side he needs to articulate more in relation to those fleeing slavery-like conditions to our shores. Slavery was being practised in Islamic Sate-held territories in Iraq and Syria. This included sexual slavery of women from all denominations and ethnic groups. ISIS is not the first group or state to use sexual slavery as a weapon of war. 

Perhaps we can appeal to Christensen’s better angels. You never know. He may turn out to be a compassionate immigration minister one day.

First published in Crikey on 5 December 2016.

POLITICS: Refugee rhetoric that makes no sense

I really would hate to be John Nguyen. This young professional is the Liberal candidate for the Victorian seat of Chisholm. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Heck, it's a badge of honour to put your hand up for public office. And Nguyen isn't new to federal elections or to the area, having been candidate in the 2010 election.

But imagine what it is like to be candidate in a party whose major slogan would, if implemented during the late 1970's, would have seen you, your siblings and your grandparents locked up indefinitely in a detention centre and made to feel like "illegals". Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison keep screaming "stop the boats". Well guess what. The Liberal Candidate for Chisholm arrived in Australia in 1979. He fled Vietnam on a boat. He escaped communist persecution on a boat. One wonders whether Mr Abbott would have wanted to stop John Nguyen's boat from arriving. Fairfax Media reports Abbott visiting Nguyen at the Mulgrave Country Club. Abbott is quoted as follows:

''This is what modern Australia is all about,'' a beaming Abbott told the morning tea in Wheelers Hill. 

''This is today's Australia: a country that makes people from the four corners of the earth welcome because they have come here, not to change our way of life, but to join our way of life. They have come here not to detract from our country, but to add to it.''

Putting aside the issue of Abbott's policy on stopping persons fleeing persecution from arriving on boats (even if this is the only feasible method for them to get here), his logic sounds rather warped. On the one hand, he says that migrants do not wish to change our way of life. On the other hand, he says migrants have come to add to our way of life. How on earth does that work? How does adding to our way of life not involve a necessary change? Yet again we see how all this divisive bullsh*t rhetoric makes no sense.

Somehow I get the feeling that the Leader of the Opposition, a Rhodes scholar, doesn't believe alot of this crap.

COMMENT: Jeremy Sammut tries to be a smartie on M&M's

Jeremy Sammut is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. He has a PhD in Australian social and political history from Monash University. He has written about child protection laws and health policy.

And now he is writing about what he describes as the 'M&M' debate. M&M equals "multiculturalism and Muslims". His article appearing on the CIS website has been reprinted on the opinion page of The Australian.

Sammut writes about the “multicultural industry” which seeks to stifle “a legitimate debate about the success or otherwise of Muslim integration”.

Sammut's evidence is one part of Sydney he describes as "Lakemba and its surrounds" which he argues

... remain ghettofied.


The usual pattern of dispersal by first-generation children of immigrants has not occurred to the same extent and the area is plagued with poor educational achievement, high unemployment and crime.


The community concerns that exist in western Sydney about Muslims and multiculturalism are based on these jarring realities on the disintegration of some parts of Sydney from the mainstream, and the failure to repeat the successful patterns of integration of other ethnic groups.

All this raises a few issues. Well, actually more than a few. I'll list some:

[01] Was Jeremy Sammut around when many used to refer to Cabramatta as 'Vietnamatta'? Was he aware of the large number of media reports and conservative commentators talking about 'Asian crime gangs' and the difficulties 'Asians' faced integrating?

[02] Is Sammut talking about Muslims as a race?

[03] Is Sammut asking us to believe that a certain ethnic group of Muslims in Lakemba is reflective of all Muslims across the country?

[04] Sammut argues that ...

It is because most Australians believe in the immigration and integration of all comers that what is going on in southwest Sydney is of concern.


Perceptive politicians have picked up on this.

Could he name some of these perceptive politicians? Does he agree with their perceptions and statements?

I might ask him these questions direct.

OPINION: The Gift of Right Wing Humour

The following article was first published in NewMatilda on 30 April 2009.

_______________________

Political satirist PJ O'Rourke was warmly welcomed by conservatives on his recent visit to Australia. That is, until he cracked that joke about how we should open our borders to asylum seekers.

The problem with the Right is not that it is at odds with progressives or Democrats. The problem with the Right is that it is at odds with reality. It is at odds with facts, with evidence, with science. And that’s why it has been so dangerous. And that’s why it has been so discredited.

That assessment of the Right by former Republican Party partner (and now new-media matriarch) Arianna Huffington before the last US presidential election might easily be applied to Australian conservatives, be they political parties, publications or even think-tanks.

But Australian conservatism has a different kind of parochialism to its American equivalent. Our conservatives aren’t just pro-life and pro-war simultaneously, nor are they uniformly anti-science and obsessed with the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools. Our conservatives manifest their parochialism somewhat differently.

When they’re not beating their chests about religious and cultural issues, some conservatives prefer to pretend they’re radical by challenging what they see as the new orthodoxy of a nebulous group known as "the Left". The editorial writers for The Australian, that elite bastion of anti-elitism, heralded the arrival of American humorist PJ O’Rourke in an editorial published on 25 April. They claimed that "much of what [O’Rourke] said this week would have upset supporters of the accepted wisdom" in relation to the free market and the role of governments in helping us out of the recession. Unlike Kevin Rudd, and like New Zealand’s PM John Key, O’Rourke understands that "economics is about the way the world is, not the way we want it to be".

Janet Albrechtsen, leaping at the opportunity to talk about how clever and witty the Right can be, gleefully cajoled "the hard left of politics" (as in one Margot Saville) to "laugh with us". PJ’s visit is perhaps the first time she’s had a good laugh since her "man of steel" lost the federal election and his own seat, and since US voters elected a man whom Janet’s side of politics doesn’t exactly like.

Still, why should I be surprised? I mean, who better than the employees of an American-owned newspaper to toast a visiting American? I myself am not an American, nor am I employed by Americans. Indeed, the only passport I’ve ever held is an Australian one, and I’m not about to give it up even for the pleasure of owning a few US media assets. But as a long-time fan of PJ O’Rourke, I also wish to join in the chorus of those having a good chuckle at his gags.

However, my aim isn’t to laugh with Janet Albrechtsen and her buddies. Rather, I want to laugh at them. Janet has been among those leading the charge against nasty Afghan, Iraqi and Sri Lankan asylum seekers jumping the invisible (and indeed fictitious) queue and paying people smugglers to transport them to our shores.

PJ happily challenged supporters of the accepted conservative wisdom on asylum seekers and miscellaneous dark-skinned riff-raff when he appeared on ABC TV’s Q&A program last Thursday. In what was a very wise and very funny performance, O’Rourke’s analysis on the show about how we should deal with asylum seekers outshone even David Marr’s.

So what does PJ say about asylum seekers? What does he say about how conservatives in America deal with the issue? While fellow panellist Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop was frothing at the mouth that "since last August there has been an increase in the number of people arriving by boat" and how "the people smugglers are back in business", PJ had this to say:

You know, we in the States have much, much more experience with being all wrong about immigration than you do. I mean 36,000 you said in Italy? … We laugh. That’s a day in the United States. And we are so wrong about it. I mean, build a fence on the border with Mexico, give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry, you know […] the thing is when somebody gets on an exploding boat to come over here - they’re willing to do that to get to Australia - you’re missing out on some really good Australians if you don’t let that person in.

With righteous indignation, Julie Bishop made some indistinct noises about smugglers. To which PJ responded:

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You know, if you open your borders, you don’t have people smugglers.

Then PJ did something that will probably put him in the bad books of many in Australia’s conservative establishment. He actually suggested Indigenous people might have something to say about all this.

I’m not seeing any Aborigines on the panel here. I am not a Comanche or a Sioux. You know, my people came over to the United States in a completely disorganised way. Doubtless by way of people smugglers […] I really believe in immigration … Let them in. Let them in. These people are assets. [O]ne or two of them might not be, but you can sort them out later … Oh, I think conservatives are getting this wrong all over the world, I really do.

And when Bishop finally pleaded for an "orderly migration system", O’Rourke wondered whether such a system would have turned back his ancestors.

O’Rourke’s commonsense approach may be the kind of feel-good pinko-lefty elitist inner-city nonsense one would expect of the Fairfax/ABC cabal. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why, when the Australian had so much else to say in support of PJ’s take on the world, that paper didn’t even canvass, let alone champion, PJ’s views on asylum seekers. Weren’t the jokes funny enough? Or is PJ just one of those "moralising elites"? Do Janet and her colleagues lack a sense of humour? Or (to use Huffington’s analysis), are they simply at odds with facts, with evidence and with reality?



Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Ayaan Hirsi Magaan and the Enlightenment

Ayaan Hirsi Magaan, the Dutch-Somali evangelical athiest and neo-conservative, has just published a second instalment of her memoirs entitled Nomad. She has some interesting things to say about her ancestral culture and faith. She also has some interesting things to say about her new faith which she calls the "Enlightenment".

Pankaj Mishra, writing in the New Yorker, has some interesting things to say about all this.

The book opens with an account of her visit to her father’s deathbed, in Whitechapel, in London’s East End, in 2008. Her father, a highly respected political opponent of Somalia’s Soviet-backed military dictator, became more religious during exile and old age. Father and daughter hadn’t spoken since 2004, when Hirsi Ali and van Gogh made the film “Submission,” about the oppression of Muslim women, and she learned that he was fatally ill only a few weeks before his death. She didn’t want to visit him at his home, since it was in “a mostly immigrant area and overwhelmingly Muslim,” ...

Yep, migrants are such a blight on society. If only her late father could have been more white for his daughter's sake.

The Muslims in Whitechapel “had brought their web of values with them,” values of a culture that she has left behind. She deplores her “conflicted” half sister Sahra, who is interested in studying psychology in London while remaining a devout Muslim, and who has an annoying habit of saying “Inshallah” after every phrase. “How long will Western societies . . . continue to tolerate the spread of Sahra’s way of life?” Hirsi Ali asks.

Clearly, the only real option for the West is intolerance.

“The only difference between my relatives and me is that I opened my mind,” Hirsi Ali writes.

Opened her mind to what? Well, obviously to Voltaire and the Enlightenment.

In denouncing Islam unreservedly, she has claimed a precedent in Voltaire—though the eighteenth-century scourge of the Catholic Church might have been perplexed by her proposal that Muslims embrace the “Christianity of love and tolerance.” In another respect, however, the invocation of Voltaire is more apt than Hirsi Ali seems to realize.

Voltaire despised the faith and identity of Europe’s religious minority: the Jews, who, he declared, “are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts,” who had “surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct and in barbarism,” and who “deserve to be punished.” Voltaire’s denunciations remind us that the Enlightenment was a much more complex and multifaceted phenomenon than the dawn of reason and freedom that Hirsi Ali evokes. Many followed Voltaire in viewing the Jews as backward, an Oriental abscess in the heart of Europe. Hirsi Ali, recording her horror of ghettoized Muslim life in Whitechapel, seems unaware of the similarly contemptuous accounts of Jewish refugees who made the East End of London their home after fleeing the pogroms.

The rhetoric is the same. The hatred is the same. Will the outcome be the same? Do Hirsi Magaan and her supporters want to see forced conversions of European Muslims to Catholicism as Jews were once foribly converted? Is their "enlightenment" incapable of accepting religious and cultural minorities? Does the European Right want a chance to shoot and gas 6 million European Muslims before they accept minorities as part of their community?

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Refugee Hysteria Suggests Aussies Have Forgotten Their Own Ancestors

YOU can always tell when Australia has entered election mode. Suddenly the really big issues come to the fore - issues that affect the economy, national security, indeed Australia's very survival. Issues like the occasional arrival of a handful of desperate boat people from Afghanistan, Iraq or Sri Lanka via Indonesia.

On Sunday, March 28, Rupert Murdoch's tabloids across Australia ran the front-page story of a mass invasion of asylum seekers. In Brisbane, the headline was THEY'RE HERE.

And who were they? The paper reported that 2000 asylum seekers had made it to Christmas Island, while 425 people were being housed on the mainland. But the real nightmare was seven adults and three children going shopping in Brisbane. They spent an hour and a quarter in a shopping centre, the paper howled.

The group returned with two shopping trolleys loaded with grocery bags. Their purchases included Home Brand Hawaiian pizza, Smith's potato chips and cartons of Coca-Cola.

How selfish of seven adults to share pizza, chips and soft drink. And to think these people claim to be desperate refugees!

Anyway, back to the world of sanity. Readers with even a basic knowledge of Australian history will find the current immigration hysteria ironic. For some reason, non-European illegal immigrants seem to bring out the worst indignation in white Australia. It's as if Aussies have forgotten their own ancestors came here from mother England on boats. And many were here as a result of being sentenced for the kinds of offences for which our migration laws today would bar them from leaving Sydney airport.

Australians are all too quick to forget the key historical role people from Afghanistan played during the mid-19th century. For 60 years, these men and their camels were the only transportation available through the centre of Australia, servicing distant mines and sheep stations as well as being involved in Australia's first overland telegraph line.

With troops fighting in Afghanistan, Australia has an obligation under international law to restore order. Australia and its coalition and Nato partners have singularly failed to do this. Hence, when it comes to accepting Afghan refugees, Australia has a major responsibility. Sadly it is the conservatives, self-declared protectors of Australia's Christian heritage, who show the least Christian attitude towards refugees.

The prejudice in Australia's popular media toward anyone deemed a Middle Eastern migrant is so endemic that one can only hope God in his good sense doesn't send the Son of Man to Australia for the Second Coming.

IN AUGUST last year, on an ABC television chat show, Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop reminded viewers of the perils posed to Australia by an increase in the number of people arriving by boat.

She shared the panel with conservative American humorist P J O'Rourke. He found all this hysteria about boat people in Australia and some parts of the EU rather amusing.

You know, we in the States have much, much more experience with being all wrong about immigration than you do. I mean, 36,000 you said in Italy? We laugh. That's a day in the United States. And we are so wrong about it. I mean, build a fence on the border with Mexico, give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry, you know ...

Ms Bishop tried to rescue her conservative credentials after being showed up by O'Rourke. She recited the usual Liberal Party mantra about people smugglers.

O'Rourke's response?

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You know, if you open your borders, you don't have people smugglers ...

These people are assets. One or two of them might not be, but you can sort them out later. Oh, I think conservatives are getting this wrong all over the world, I really do.

The Rudd Labor Government is not much better. Australia's immigration minister recently announced that the processing of new asylum applications from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan would be suspended. The government says circumstances have changed in both countries such that it is now safe enough for asylum applicants to return.

That being the case, one can expect Australian troops in Afghanistan to prepare for their imminent return. Yet the reality is that the US is getting ready to send 17,000 more troops into the country and has requested its allies (including Australia) to increase their troop presence. Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay has told Nato and other allies that the military alliance cannot take its foot off the gas in Afghanistan, simply because the US is about to send 17,000 more troops.

And so we have all this fuss over 4500 boat people. Meanwhile, there is little fuss over 50,000 illegal immigrants from Britain and the US.

In the Australian psyche, illegal immigrants must necessarily be non-European and non-white. Either that or some illegal immigrants are more illegal than others.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and writer. This article was first published in the Dominion-Post in Wellington, New Zealand.

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OPINION: Rising trend of fearmongering on refugees and passports ...

Coalition rhetoric now appears to slipping back to the worst practices of the Howard era, IRFAN YUSUF writes ...

Tony Abbott wasn’t exactly born into the Liberal establishment. His political mentor was none other than Bob Santamaria, the ultraconservative Catholic activist who founded the National Civic Council and who was more concerned with ridding trade unions of communism than supporting what he described as Menzies’ "party of capital".

In his book Battlelines, published shortly before his accession to the Liberal leadership, Abbott affectionately refers to his mentor as "Santa". He admits that Santamaria (who died in 1998) had some concerns about the young Abbott joining the Liberals. Santamaria apparently had a

... prejudice that serious Catholics couldn’t advance in the Liberal Party.

In recent times, followers of other non-Protestant faiths must be wondering whether the same applies to them. Recent comments about asylum seekers, burqas and passport forgeries must surely make us wonder whether the Australian electorate would be ready for "Captain Catholic" to rule over a country where Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are the fastest growing faiths.

Many wondered during the mid-1990s whether John Howard, the man who suggested that Asian migrants may not make a neat cultural fit, could one day become prime minister of a country located closer to Kuala Lumpur than London.

Coalition rhetoric on these issues today seems a mere continuation of the worst of the Howard era. Former Liberal prime minister (and now former party member) Malcolm Fraser described the party as being more about"fear and reaction".

The recent "real action" advertisement shows the origin of illegal immigrants to Australia. Five red arrows are shown emerging from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia respectively. The words "Stop illegals now" are shown in the top left corner of the screen.



No red arrow was shown emerging from Britain, even though it provides one of the largest proportions of illegal immigrants in Australia, certainly larger than any of the five Asian and Middle Eastern nations shown in the Liberal advertisement.

Presumably the Coalition strategists regard white-skinned English-speaking Brits as less scary than dark-skinned English-speaking Tamils or olive-complexioned Iraqi Christians.

The Coalition has also announced a return to some form of Pacific solution. This will involve the offshore processing of any asylum seekers arriving “illegally”. We will also see a return to Temporary Protection Visas under a future Coalition government. Yet, as Bernard Keane notes in Crikey, there was "a 50 per cent surge in asylum seekers coming by boat after TPVs were introduced in 1999" by the Howard government.

Furthermore, most TPV holders were eventually granted refugee status. The TPV regime is hardly incentive for “illegals” to avoid boats altogether. Hence the Liberals could once again become the people smugglers’ best friends.

Yet the irony is that so much of the fear-mongering runs directly contrary to Australia’s best interests, let alone liberal and/or conservative fundamentals and common sense. At times, the Howard government showed a complete disdain for Australian citizenship, all the while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising campaigns encouraging permanent residents to take up citizenship.

The complete disdain Howard and his ministers showed to Australian citizens David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, unlawfully detained by the United States, was just one example of how fear-mongering was used to evade the government’s responsibilities to its own citizens.

Recent comments by Julie Bishop show an even greater disdain for the rights of Australian citizens whose passports have been fraudulently used to carry out a terrorist act. Some may baulk at the suggestion that the murder of a Hamas leader could be deemed a terrorist act given that the deceased was himself responsible for acts of terror. Hamas, they will say, was a murderous organisation with a history of bloody retaliation.

And now Hamas will have a large number of Australian passport holders on their retaliation list.

To make matters worse, Bishop indicated (and hastily retracted) that Australian governments had forged other countries’ passports for use by our intelligence services.

One wonders whether Bishop was part of such a government and privy to such a decision, or, if such forgeries existed, whether they were used in assassinations or other forms of terrorism.

Indeed, can Abbott promise that a future Coalition government will not forge overseas passports, including those of permanent residents and citizens? Will he be prepared to put this in writing?

The Coalition has again been caught out placing the interests of foreign countries (albeit allies) above the safety and security of Australian citizens. In government they allowed two Australian citizens to languish in an illegal US prison camp in Cuba at the insistence of the US. Now, in Opposition, the Coalition is showing effective disdain to the security of Australian citizens to protect the sentiments of a nuclear-powered Middle Eastern government that used Australian passports to carry out an assassination.

And to think Bishop was accusing her opponents of appeasing an overseas lobby.

■ Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer, a former federal Liberal candidate and author of Once Were Radicals. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on Friday 28 May 2010.

UPDATE I: Neil James of the self-styled Australian Defence Association wrote this delightful letter to the newspaper.

In what again seems to skate closely to an apologia for Islamist terrorism, and among other polemical claims too numerous to refute, Irfan Yusuf ("Rising trend of fear-mongering on refugees and passports," May 28, p13) incorrectly claims that David Hicks was "unlawfully detained by the United States'' in an "illegal prison camp".

Under the Geneva Convention, as a Taliban combatant captured by the opposite side in a war he chose to fight in, David Hicks was not detained illegally for a single minute at least, perhaps, until his later separate criminal trial and prison sentence by US Military Commission. He was only detained by the US for so long because the war continued, and our then inadequate treachery laws meant he could not be released on prison of war-type parole for criminal trial in Australia (as the US was willing to do).

Fortunately this long-standing and disgraceful legal loophole has been closed so a future Wilfred Burchett or David Hicks can have his day in court. Rightly, since the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act, 2002, an Australian citizen anywhere in the world now commits treason if he or she (among other things):

*intentionally assists, by any means whatsoever, an enemy, at war with the Commonwealth;

*intentionally assists, by ''any means whatsoever'', another country or organisation that is engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force; or

*forms an intention to do any of the above acts and manifests that intention by an overt act.

In a liberal democracy ruled by law we owe no less to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force. Irfan Yusuf should be prepared to acknowledge this.

Neil James, executive director, Australia Defence Association

What can I say? Unlike you, Mr James, I don't consider myself an expert in public international law. But I find your suggestion that our men and women overseas are fighting and dying so that our liberties can be curtailed by draconian laws you and the small minority of similar mind boast of to be utterly ridiculous and an insult to our armed forces.

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AFGHANISTAN: Rudd government celebrates the changed circumstances ...

Australia's Immigration Minister has unilaterally announced that the situation in Afghanistan is changing for the better. Wonderful. No doubt his staff would have checked news reports and found the following signs of peace and harmony ...

[01] The situation on the ground has certainly improved. Five Afghan civilians were killed by a roadside bomb today. Some 13 were injured.

[02] Canada has announced that its forces will stay in Afghanistan beyond 2011. Here's what the Ottawa Citizen reported:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay warned Canada’s NATO allies Friday the military alliance cannot take its “foot off the gas” in Afghanistan, simply because the United States is about to send 17,000 more troops to the country.

[03] The Yanks are sending in a further 17,000 troops into the country.

[04] Relations between the United States and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are at an all-time low.

[05] Democracy is working so well that the Parliament has had to issue ultimatum to Karzai to fill 11 Cabinet posts within 10 days.

[06] The Taliban is so much on the run that even Hamid Karzai wants to join them.

[07] Far from fighting drugs, the Afghan President might be too busy using them himself! Here's what a former deputy UN envoy to Kabul, Peter Galbraith, has to say:

He's prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively," Mr Galbraith said. "In fact some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports.

Yep, this is a country fast changing for the better. Hence we have every reason to bring our troops home. Speaking of troops ...

COMMENT: Tony Abbott on immigration ...

Apparently Tony Abbott is playing the race card. Or is he?

AN IMMIGRATION speech by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has been criticised as divisive, hurtful and deliberately crafted to push buttons and play the race card before Australia Day ...

"I don't think you can run away from problems that some people have with the immigration program," he said. "I was reminding people of the national interest reasons for the immigration program but reminding migrants that their migration has to be in the national interest, too … It has to be possible to have an intelligent discussion about this."

Mr Abbott repeated his claim that some groups of migrants had failed to respect democratic values and cited followers of the former mufti of Australia Sheikh Taj el-Din al Hilaly.

So followers of Sheik Hilaly fail to respect democratic values. Does that mean all followers, past, present and future? And exactly how does one become a follower of Hilaly? Does attendance at the Imam Ali ben Abi Taleb mosque in Lakemba for a Friday prayer service make one a follower? Does recognition of Hilaly's scholarly credentials make one a follower? Does being Arab and/or Muslim make one a follower?

Please explain, Mr Abbott.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf


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FILM: Amreeka

STOP PRESS!!: THIS MOVIE IS SCREENING FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER 2009 AT THE PALESTINIAN FILM FESTIVAL IN SYDNEY. FOR OTHER SESSIONS IN MELBOURNE AND ADELAIDE, VISIT THE PFF WEBSITE HERE.

This film looks like a real gem. Hopefully it will be coming to cinemas down under also.



And here are some interviews with Cherien Dabis, the director of the film. Also included are profiles of some of the cast.










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GREECE: Immigration crisis ...

Though some far-Right bloggers treat recent Greek riots as the result of certain groups behaving badly, the situation is far more complex.

The following clip from AlJazeera English illustrates that the violence is a two-way street, and that much of it is incited by those having views as ugly as the blogger hyperlinked above.

The text accompanying this video is reproduced below.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

Greece's illegal immigrants represent a part of Europe's black economy, often exploited and living in extreme poverty. In Athens, the capital, many say they have no where else to go.

While Greece has been seeking help from the European Union to strengthen its borders, tensions between Greeks and immigrants remain high.

Al Jazeera's Nicole Itano has more.

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COMMENT: Border Insecurity ...

The letters section of the Daily Telegraph of Friday 24 April 2009 has two typical examples of uninformed hysteria concerning the issue of "border security" and asylum seekers. I'm in no way suggesting the Tele shouldn'y be publishing these letters. Everyone's voice should be heard, and it's useful to know just what some people are thinking about such sensitive issues.

The first letter is from one P Cummins. It starts like this ...

The reason we now have a swag of boat people trying to get into Australia is because the Rudd Government last year loosened our border security laws ...

This might possibly be true in the case of Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers, but the fact is that the conflict in Sri Lanka has only recently escalated to the extent that many Tamil civilians are fleeing directly from Sri Lanka as opposed to via Indonesia.

They need to be tightened for the protection of the citizens of this country, an obligation the Government has to its people.

So Australian citizens need to be protected from weak malnourished asylum seekers fleeing persecution. And what will these poor people bring with them? WMD? Nuclear weapons?

One has to ask why all of these asylum seekers come down to Australia? There are dozens of Muslim countries near Iraq and Afghanistan that are wealthy and not at war, where other Muslims and their families would fit right in and be comfortable.

There are hundreds of thousands of Iraqis living in Syria, which is struggling to accommodate them. Syria is itself not a terribly wealthy nation. Hazara Afghans fleeing the Taliban would hardly want to stick around in Pakistan where elements of the same Taliban have taken over large areas of the country. And using your reasoning, I'm not sure which Muslim-majority country Tamil Sri Lankans will go to given that they're a mixture of Hindu and Christian. In any event, it isn't just about religion. People's identities are not limited to religion. If our identity was solely determined by religion, we should have seen Kevin Rudd and/or Malcolm Turnbull and not John Safran being nailed to a cross in the Philippines. After all, the Philippines is a Catholic country, and both Rudd and Turnbull are Catholic.

So why come many thousands of miles down to Australia, a basically British culture and a Christian country? These are the questions we should be asking.

In that case, I'm sure quite a few of these people would happily convert to Christianity if it meant they and their families would be safe. After all, quite a few asylum seekers such as Kashmiri Peter Qasim converted to Christianity. However, that didn't stop him from being kept in detention by the Howard government even though it drove him into severe depression. And I guess we shouldn't have any problem accepting Tamil Christian asylum seekers. As for being British, I don't think indogenous Aussies were eating with knives and forks 40,000 years ago. Then again, neither were the Poms for that matter.

But why should we be asking such questions? After all, our immigration system does not discriminate on the basis of religion. And anyway, how can we really tell what religion a person subscribes to? Or is it someone we determine based on their racial background? So we assume that an Iraqi must be Muslim because he is Iraqi and has an Arabic-sounding name, even if he could well be a Chaldean or Yazidi or Assyrian Orthodox?

Then there is a letter from one Lynne Cole whose arguments make a similar degree of (non)sense.

The recent boatload of asylum seekers were all male, presumably some of them are or were married, perhaps with children. So they left family behind to cope with the Taliban on their own.

Your point being? That these men just callously left their families behind and left without so much as a goodbye? That their families had no say in the matter? That their family members don't wish to see even one person flee to safety? Or are you saying that their families are all in Afghanistan or Pakistan and not in Indonesia? That the Taliban have made it to Jakarta?

How will the families of the five dead survive?

Are you suggesting you're really concerned about their welfare and would support their migrating to Australia?

Why aren't these brave men standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our young soldiers who are in Afghanistan trying to improve the lot of the Afghan people?

Maybe for the same reason the vast majority of young Australian men and women aren't there - they're not professional soldiers. And maybe because it isn't nice staying in a place where you could be kicked out of your property and/or be murdered at anytime and where you've already seen family members slaughtered. And from a strategic perspective, the last thing Coalition forces and the Afghan National Army needs is severely traumatised people fighting on their side.

Our young men are killed or injured while these people choose to try for an easy life in Australia.

It's so easy being away from one's family and only hearing their voices on the other end of a phone (presuming you can even contact them). It's a piece of cake surviving in a new country where you aren't allowed to work and cannot access any social security and are forced to rely on charity to make some kind of a living. And on top of that, having to deal with the trauma of having just survived life in a warzone and mourning alone over your dead relatives, presuming that you even know that they are dead.

Those we have already admitted no doubt tell those back home that what a soft touch we are.

Pfft. Are you suggesting, Lynne, that we start behaving like al-Qaeda and Taliban and LTTE and the Sri Lankan Army just so that you feel protected from nasty dark-skinned refugees? I'm glad we are a soft touch. If you want to experience a not-so-soft touch, feel free to go join our brave men and women fighting in Afghanistan.

CRIKEY: Mafia scandal should make O'Farrell and Turnbull very nervous ...

Well it’s been a bad few weeks for the Federal Parliamentary Liberal Party.

Brendan Nelson decided to POQ, his parting message to many of his more senior colleagues to join him. Julie Bishop was effectively demoted. Former leader John Hewson wrote op-eds in Fairfax papers telling Costello to also POQ. Joe Hockey reckons Costello’s refusal to POQ makes him resemble Prince Charles waiting for Queen Lizzy to kick the bucket or abdicate. Both Phillip Ruddock and Bronwyn Bishop are facing pressure from their branches to POQ. And just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, it now seems the Federal Police have been investigating links between the Liberal Party organisation and a local franchise of the Calabrian mafia.

The Party has seen better days. Who could forget that famous scene when John Howard told a packed hall of Liberal Party faithful on the eve of the 2001 federal election: "We will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come". If allegations raised in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today are anything to go by, it seems the Howard government had decided who (persons with links to organised crime) would entered and remained in Australia and the circumstances (political donations) in which they would come.

It shamelessly lied in accusing asylum seekers of throwing their children overboard. John Howard and Phillip Ruddock, in the name of "border protection", happily took a cue from Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld by locking up in detention centres ordinary Iraqis and Afghans (including children) fleeing persecution, all the while boasting of a "war on terror" designed to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet the Liberal Party Division in both John Howard’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s home state was happy to accept donations from people allegedly close to the Calabrian mafia. Liberal MP’s happily lobbied to keep a man accused of having mafia links in Australia and happily received donations of up to $150,000 from his buddies.

Vanstone denies donations affected her decision to intervene, which she claimed was made on humanitarian grounds. Vanstone had evidence of the person’s links to organised crime. She overruled her Department’s recommendation and exercised her discretion to allow the individual to remain in Australia, overturning the decision of her predecessor. Fairfax also reports that the man was subsequently arrested in relation to his alleged involvement in the world’s largest importation of the illegal drug ecstasy.

This was supposed to be the government which prided itself on its national security credentials. This is the party which wants to form the next State Government in New South Wales. Barry O’Farrell should be more than a little nervous And Malcolm Turnbull must be on the verge of a cardiac arrest.

First published in Crikey on Monday 23 February 2009.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Nick Griffin: to visa or not to visa ...

It’s hard to know how best to approach hate-mongers seeking to grace our shores. For years, genuine free speech (as opposed to hate-speech) advocates and anti-anti-Semites agonised over how best to respond to visa applications by Holocaust-denier David Irving. Should they lobby for Irving’s visa to be denied? Or should they allow him in and hope good sense will prevail and people listen to him and realise just how loopy he really is?

No doubt similar concerns will be relevant should the likes of Raphael Israeli plan a further visit to Australia. The Howard government’s attitude to foreign hate-speech was somewhat inconsistent, refusing visas to some thick-Sheiks whilst funding Mark Steyn to lecture us all on how dirty smelly Mozzlems are turning Europe into Eurabia (a decision even Andrew Bolt opposed). Even the illustrious folk at Quadrant have hosted a Eurabia lecture by a man who continues to insist Barack Obama is telling lies about his religious heritage.

And now I’m wondering if it’s a good idea to write about Nick Griffin, leader of the far-Right British National Party (formerly known as the British National Front), accepting an invitation to visit Australia. Am I giving him attention he simply doesn’t deserve? Am I giving his tour some much-needed free advertising?

Far-right fruitcakes like Griffin no longer sound like fruitcakes. Whilst previously extremely racist and anti-Semitic, Griffin’s party has shown a greater degree of political sophistication in its rhetoric. In the lead-up to the last UK Council elections, the BNP almost overnight transformed itself into a pro-Israel party, with one British Jewish leader quoted as saying the BNP’s website is one of the most Zionist of any British political party. Griffin has jumped on the same sophisticated smear casting bandwagon as the dozen pundits recently exposed by a US-based media watchdog.

(Of course, that didn’t stop the BNP website from writing this eulogy of the late Austrian neo-Nazi leader Jorg Haider.)

Racial and sectarian hatred is becoming a booming political industry. Mainstream conservative parties and their pollsters-cum-advisers are happy to engage in minority-bashing. Far-Right parties are taking advantage of this conservative posturing. The articulate likes of Griffin need to be watched. But how do we combat the fires of hatred without adding oxygen or turning them into free-speech martyrs? And how should the Immigration Minister exercise his discretion in relation to Griffin’s visa application?

First published in the Crikey daily alert on Monday 13 October 2008.

UPDATE I: A reader known as "steve martin" writes in response:

Let's face it the World Trade Center, the London bombings and the Bali bombings have allowed the loonies to come out of the closet, indeed even giving their views a veneer of respectability.

When I was at school many years ago one course that was given related to logic. It appears not to be taught these days.

COMMENT: Andrew Bolt accuses Jews and Vietnamese of living in ghettos ...

Herald-Sun blogger Andrew Bolt has claimed that ...

... Australia risks becoming not “home” but a host community.

Under a blog post entitled City of ghettoes, Bolt cites a report in the Sydney Morning Herald with an emphasis on three ethno-religious groupings in Sydney ...

They show that up to 40 per cent of Auburn and Lakemba identify as Muslim. There are also large Muslim populations in Greenacre (30.7 per cent), Silverwater (27 per cent), Roselands (22.1 per cent), Arncliffe and Turrella (21.7 per cent), and Bankstown (21.6 per cent). 

Ethnic and religious forces converge in Cabramatta, where more than 40 per cent of the population identify themselves as Buddhist and Vietnamese.
Sydney’s Jewish population is the most concentrated in Rose Bay, Vaucluse and Watsons Bay, where up to 30 per cent identity with the Jewish faith...

Bolt's emphasis is on what he sees as a Muslim "ghetto" in various south-west Sydney suburbs. Yet Vietnamese, Buddhist and Jewish communities aren't excluded from his slur.

Still, Bolt has done his readers a favour by showing that when it comes to discrimination, he prefers not to discriminate.

CRIKEY: Vanstone's underworld ministerial discretion ...

Well, there's ministerial discretion. And then there's ministerial discretion.

Discretion was used by former Immigration Minister in the Howard government, Kevin Andrews, to cancel Dr Haneef's visa after he was granted bail in relation to terrorism charges that were eventually dropped and are now the subject of a Federal Inquiry costing millions of dollars. Almost as much as the original bungled Haneef investigation and prosecution cost.

Andrews justified his actions on national security grounds. But in the end, not even Haneef's UK SIM card was a vehicle for terrorism.

Another suspect was the subject of more generous ministerial discretion exercised by Andrews' predecessor, Amanda Vanstone. The Age reports today that Vanstone exercised her discretion to allow Francesco Madareffi into the country, arguing it was "in the interest of Australia as a humane and generous society".

Madareffi "claimed to suffer serious mental health problems and had been involuntarily admitted to a mental institution during his fight to remain in Australia". Hence Vanstone granted him a permanent spouse visa "as a discretionary and humanitarian act to an individual with a genuine ongoing need".

And a friend in need is a friend indeed. Especially if he and members of his family show financial generosity and humanity to Liberal Party coffers and have the support of at least four Liberal MPs. I mean, who cares if the guy was deported by Vanstone's predecessor in 2000 "because of his alleged involvement in serious crimes in Italy in the 1980s, and because he had overstayed his visa and was in Australia as an illegal immigrant"?

Let's be sensible about this. Surely a terror suspect not accused of any violence but merely of giving his cousin a SIM card is a greater potential threat to our security than a suspected mafioso. And a name like Francesco sounds far less threatening than Mohammed.

On the other hand, as Peter Reith pointed out on the eve of the 2001 Federal Election, those Afghan and Iraqi people on them leaky boats travelling from Indonesia might well be terrorists. The fact that they're escaping terrorism and are victims of governments our armed forces helped overthrow is irrelevant. Clearly their mental health issues weren't serious enough for the Howard government to release them.

So there we have it, folks. More double standards of the Howard government on national security exposed. Clearly what Dr Haneef should have done is change his name to Francesco, convert to Catholicism and have his wealthy father-in-law donate truckloads of cash to the Liberal Party. As should impoverished Iraqis, Afghans and others (including children) who rotted away under our policy of mandatory detention. In the Howard government, money always spoke the loudest.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Tuesday 23 September 2008.

CRIKEY: Kevin Andrews' immigration crusade

Since the end of the White Australia Policy, there has been bipartisan support for a non-discriminatory immigration policy. But with the Howard government so intent on sucking up to sectarian groups, it was only a matter of time before someone discovered evidence of it trying to co-opt Fred Nile’s agenda before the last election in much the same way as it did Pauline Hanson’s before the 2001 poll.

Richard Kerbaj reported in The Weekend Australian of a proposal by former Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews to increase Christian migration from the Middle East.

FORMER immigration minister Kevin Andrews instructed his department to lift the intake of Christian refugees from the Middle East in response to what he saw as a pro-Muslim bias created by corrupt local case officers.

Mr Andrews was so concerned about the extent of corruption in Middle Eastern posts - despite the allegations being investigated and dismissed by his own department - that he wrote to then prime minister John Howard advocating a $200 million plan to replace local employees with Australian staff in 10 "sensitive" countries, including Jordan, Iran and Egypt ...

A Department of Immigration spokesman said there were no substantiated cases of anti-Christian discrimination in Australian embassies and no plans to replace "Islamic locally engaged staff" with Australian officials.

An investigation by The Weekend Australian has discovered Mr Andrews was petitioned by the Australian Christian Lobby to address alleged religious discrimination against Iraqis. Before losing office in the November 2007 election, he ordered the number of Christian Iraqi refugees to be increased by 1400 for 2007-08, almost doubling the previous year's Iraqi total of 1639.

"Put it this way, it was made very clear to the immigration department that more Christian refugees were wanted," a Howard government source said ...

In his letter to Mr Howard in August last year, Mr Andrews, a devout Catholic, proposed significant changes to the refugee selection process.

In the letter, seen by The Weekend Australian, Mr Andrews accused the case workers in Australian embassies of fraud and bribery when processing migration applications.Such posts are predominantly staffed by local workers.

He said this raised "considerable security risks".

"The other significant reason for changing the staffing composition of overseas posts is to prevent discrimination at the 'front office' of the posts," Mr Andrews wrote.

"Since becoming Minister, I have received a large number of representations from people alleging systematic and co-ordinated discrimination against particular persons based on race and religion at certain sensitive posts. In particular, this allegedly involves the active blocking and impediment of the lodgement of applications at the front office.

"At worst, potential applicants are simply being told not to lodge an application. The majority of such claims have been made in respect to posts in the Middle East and Central Asia. For these reasons, I think it would be timely to revise the staffing arrangements for immigration posts that can be classified as 'sensitive' and to staff these posts exclusively with Australian departmental
officers."

Mr Andrews names 10 countries - Pakistan, India, United Arab Emirates, China, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya, Russia and Egypt - in which the posts should be staffed exclusively with Australian departmental officers ...

There is no provision within Australian immigration laws to select refugees on the basis of religion. A former Howard government source said Mr Andrews wanted to save Christian Iraqis from persecution by Shia and Sunni Muslims throughout the Middle East.

"With the intake from the Middle East the department was told that we want to focus on Iraqi Christians," the source said. "The department basically said they couldn't do that because that would be discriminating on race and religion."

The official explanation given last August by Mr Andrews for boosting Iraqi refugees numbers was that the altered intake was in response to an international conference run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees four months earlier seeking to help Iraqis forced out of their country.

The Howard government was at the forefront of extending humanitarian support for African (mostly Christian) refugees. But in response to the senseless murder of 18-year-old Sudanese man Liep Gony, Kevin Andrews declared Africans were just not integrating and committing too much crime.

But if The Oz report is correct, Muslims working in the immigration sections of some Australian embassies are behaving corruptly, giving Muslim applicants special treatment. Andrews was lobbied by the Australian Christian Lobby about discrimination against Christians in Iraq. The Oz doesn’t mention whether the ACL representatives' claims alleging nasty pro-Muslim conspirators were responsible for reducing the number of refugee places awarded to Iraqi Christians.

DIAC-heads had already investigated and dismissed these allegations, but Andrews still wrote to Howard suggesting $200 million of taxpayers’ funds be used to send Aussies to our overseas posts to make sure discrimination against Christian applicants is replaced by discrimination against Muslim ones. Or something like that.

There’s no doubt Iraqi Christians face a perilous situation in Iraq. Many are considered too close to Saddam’s aggressively secular regime. Chaldean Christians are particularly vulnerable given Saddam’s number 2, Tariq Aziz, was Chaldean Catholic. It hasn’t helped that Baghdad’s Chaldean Christian Patriarch called for Aziz’s release from prison last Christmas. The Patriarch's remarks were clearly designed not to inflame sectarian agendas but rather as a humanitarian gesture, though many of Saddam's victims will not see it that way.

Saddam was the master of sectarian wedge politics, playing one congregation off against another. His murderous legacy continues even after his death, with angry Sunni Arab community members attacking Shias and Kurds while angry Shias and Kurds attack Arab Sunnis and Chaldean Christians. Entire groups are being held responsible for the actions of powerful individual group members like Aziz.

However, Middle Eastern Christian migrants shouldn’t take Andrews’ support for granted. If any of their sons are fatally bashed during the term of a future Coalition government, there’s some chance the Immigration Minister will claim it’s their fault for not integrating properly.

A version of this piece was first published in the Crikey daily alert for Monday 21 July 2008.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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