7 Replies to “Refugee Mythbusting Animation”

  1. Dave

    thanks for this video. I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly.

    Life must be pretty awful when spending my life savings and risking the lives of my family in a leaky boat is the best option available.

    The auction to stop the boats should be offensive to all Christians.

    Lets hope more people see this.

    Love the blog by the way.

    Cheers
    Chris

  2. Sorry Dave, I love most of what you write, but this animation bothers me… it leaves out a lot of facts that are important.

    The problem is the boat people aren’t coming from the countries which people are being persecuted in eg Iran, Burma etc. They are coming from south east asia where asylum seekers generally live in refugee camps while their claims are assessed before moving on to other countries that will take them in eg Australia, USA, etc.

    They might be living in poverty, yes, their lives are very tough, yes, but their lives aren’t in danger in refugee camps and life is tough but livable.

    The problem I have with boat people is they are queue jumpers who use money to get around the system.

    Australia only accepts a limited number of refugees per year. For every boat person who cheats the system, there is another refugee who hasn’t jumped the queue who may have been waiting a decade or more, some of whom are children who have spent all of what they can remember of their life living in a crummy refugee camp.

    Not to mention that boat people with kids are selfishly putting their kids’ lives at risks… if you gave me the choice for my child to live in poverty in a refugee camp for 5-10 years, or to put them on a leaky boat, knowing full well they have a high chance of that boat sinking in the middle of the ocean – or of starving to death on the journey or any one of a hundred things that could go wrong leading to their death – I would choose the refugee camp in an instant. It’s not worth putting a child’s life at risk when you know waiting a few years will lead to them entering a country as a legal refugee, safely and ALIVE.

    I find it offensive the idea that Christians should be for encouraging illegal boatpeople. That’s like saying we should encourage rewards being given to child abusers.

    Yes, most Australians are bigotted against refugees and their attitude towards refugees is disgusting, but as Christians we should NOT be supporting those who endanger their lives and especially those who endanger the lives of their children when there are so many refugees (many of them in far worse situations) who wait patiently in refugee camps, only to watch the few places Australia offers to refugees being taken by queue jumpers in boats.

    @Chris … the problem is that endangering the lives of their families in a leaky boat is NOT the best option. The BEST option is to live a few years in a refugee camp in south east asia until a country like Australia takes them in the legal way. But some people don’t like waiting. They are selfish and don’t want to wait and are happy to risk their kids’ lives on a gamble.

    If we don’t take a strong stance on illegal boatpeople, it will just encourage other selfish people to endanger the lives of their children and to basically steal the chance of refugees who have waited patiently in refugee camps to come to Australia.

    My church helps refugees – missions to the refugee camps, helping the refugees once they have been granted asylum and get into Australia, and then long term to help them lead full and productive lives as Australians. Hence the reason it’s so heartbreaking when they have to wait years for their parents/childrens/siblings/spouses/partners to get out of the refugee camps and to join them in Australia because some queue jumping boat person got one of the few visas for asylum seekers.

    The solution is definitely NOT to take a softer stance on boatpeople. The solution is for Australia to greatly increase the number of asylum seekers allowed in from refugee camps – and to not let illegal boat people take away places that otherwise would have gone to asylum seekers from refugee camps.

    That way, those who wait patiently will not miss out because of the selfish impatient acts of those with money, AND if the selfish impatient ones see that it’s quick and easy to get into Australia by doing it the safe way rather than taking short cuts and endangering the lives of their children, then the temptation to get on a leaky boat will be dramatically decreased.

    Sorry but I think anyone who is against stopping boatpeople are totally unaware of the real situation with asylum seekers – they have their hearts in the right place, but are going about things the wrong way.

    Increase the number of refugee visas but stay tough on boat people.

  3. PS… in my original post when I say they aren’t coming from places like Iran etc, what I meant is they aren’t coming DIRECTLY from those places.

    The people are originally from places like Iran and Burma etc, but they have got out of those places and are now in refugee camps in places like south east asia while they await countries like Australia to take them in.

  4. I haven’t seen the video yet, but completely agree Dave that both parties fell down on this. I was disappointed in Julia, but frankly Tony Abbott went even further than her in having his appalling “Stop the Boats” slogan. I could not vote for a party that has that as one of its top 4 policies and encourages xenophobia and racism in the process.

    J, I appreciate the issues you have put forward. I agree hopping on a boat and endangering your life is not ideal and it is an issue that needs to be dealt with. I don’t think anyone who is critical of the major parties on this issue is suggesting that hopping on a boat should be encouraged. Let’s as a nation have a sensible conversation about how to deal with it (and I like your suggestion about increasing refugee numbers generally as one solution).

    However, the problem with this election campaign was that the subtleties you have pointed out were not the issues that the parties, and particularly the Liberals, were playing up to. Tony Abbott’s slogan “Stop the Boats” was nothing less than an appeal to people’s irrational and unfounded fears. It wasn’t just the slogan – it was the advertising that suggested we were on the verge of an invasion.

    None of this was based on a compassionate desire to avoid people endangering their lives as you have rightly outlined, but on a selfish approach of protecting our own backyards. It pandered to the racist disease that has always inflicted this country. The comments I read from people on the streets, particularly in marginal seats, who were quoted in the papers included stuff like “I hate the f***** refugees” or “they come and get stuff for free in this country” etc etc. I’m not suggesting Tony or Julia would make comments as extreme as those, but they certainly didn’t actively discourage them – they couldn’t afford to lose the votes of rednecks who say things like that.

    People on the streets even confused the boat people issue for the issue of refugees more generally and indeed our whole immigration programme. By talking about stopping boat people and then in the next breath talking about “sustainable population” etc, the issues became confused. All it served to do was encourage people to think that these “boat people” were crowding out “us Aussies” and causing our population to explode in an unsustainable way, when the real problem there was the failure of state governments to look into the future and properly plan our cities and build infrustructure. We do not have an immigration problem – we have an infrastructure problem and pathetic state governments.

    What we need is a leader who will stand up and actively encourage this country to be compassionate and generous and not pander to irrational fears. Sure, work out how to deal with the issue, work out how to best process asylum seeker claims, work out how to discourage the appalling sin of people smuggling, but don’t couch it in populist language that appeals to the lowest common denominator in our society and only serves to inflame racism and xenophobia.

    In many ways, my main issue with this campaign was not so much the actual asylum seeker policies themselves (although I do take issue with them to some extent) but the language and imagery used, and the complete failure to give people a reality check, put it in perspective and encourage their compassion rather than their fears.

    The “Stop the Boats” slogan and the way it has come very close to delivering power to Tony Abbott (and may yet prove to do so depending on how the next days/weeks pan out) will go down in history as one of our darkest chapters.

    Here endeth the rant …. (and yes, I’ve used emotional language because I’m so fired up about it …)

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