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Tall ships need taller humanity on boat people

By Joseph Wakim - posted Wednesday, 9 October 2013


The spectacle of the white sails in the sun in Sydney Harbour was majestic. But the only indigenous Australians I saw were busking with their didgeridoo in Circular Quay.

It begged the question: what does this spectacle mean for the original Australians?

Was it an apocalyptic reminder of the First Fleet which offloaded white convicts then declared this their colony? Does the spectacle trigger an inherited phobia of white sails?

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As boat after boat arrived on their shores, perhaps their elders saw the disruption, diseases and destruction to their ancient civilisation. Perhaps they dreamt that they could stop these boats and turn them back. Perhaps they contemplated their equivalent to Operation Sovereign Borders. Indeed, a cartoonist could have a field day depicting two tribal elders watching the white sails as one nudges the other declaring: time to activate operation sovereign borders as they dispatch their fleet of canoes.

Perhaps their descendants today shake their heads at our inability to see the irony of the latest wave of boat people phobia: the descendants of the white boat people who trespassed the original sovereign borders are now threatening to tow back any trespassing boats.

But there is another irony with the boat people phobia. Prior to the First Fleet, other boats had trespassed sovereign borders yet they were more welcome. The Makassan boats carried fishermen who sought trepan (sea cucumber) in trade exchanges. Like the current boat people, most came in fishing boats from the Indonesian Archipelago. And many introduced Islam to Australia. There is no evidence that the indigenous people were ever phobic of the spectacle of these Makassan boats.

It is this underlying phobia that is tainting the Coalition government's Operation Sovereign Borders.

In his first briefing, the rationale declared by Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison was that that this "military-led border security operation" was his government's "response to stopping the flow of illegal boat arrivals to Australia". He evoked the relevant numbers that this cost Australia under the previous government: 50,000 people arrived illegally by boat on 800 vessels costing Australian taxpayers more than $9 billion and "sadly led to more than 1100 deaths at sea".

It is the last conservative statistic that receives the least attention in the Minister's ensuing "tougher approach". The policy reeks of aerosol like an insect repellent. The rhetoric reduces the asylum seekers to tax-payer irritants that need a "broad chain of measures …to deter, to disrupt, to prevent".

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The problem is they are people, not insects.

Now imagine the same policy with greater emphasis on the last fatal statistic rather than on tax dollars. Imagine Minister Morrison declared a more humane rationale:

"Australians are proud of their warm hearted nature. We are proud of our hospitable rather than hostile nature. We remember that many of our ancestors took long sea voyages to settle into this great nation without regard to the sovereignty of the original people.

"Our primary concern is not the financial cost to our pockets, but the tragic cost of human lives lost. It is this statistic that must drive our resolve to prevention. Humans who drowned in vain, without names, without faces, without stories, without burials. Together, we must stop the causes of boat people, and stop the lies that predators peddle which give false hope to the desperate and vulnerable."

His core message should not be that "those coming by boats will not be getting what they came for" but that boarding these fishing boats is suicidal for you and the children who you love more than anything in the world.

This more humane rationale protects Australia's reputation while challenging the rationale of many asylum seekers who are driven by the love of their children who they desperately wish to save. We know that these families do not throw their children overboard, but the survivor testimonials of those whose children drowned at sea need to be amplified: boarding these boats may be akin to throwing your children overboard.

Ironically, voices of these grieving survivors could be the most powerful deterrent because they appeal to this universal love of their children.

As the white sails eclipse the Sydney Opera House which inspired its design, the navy ships dwarf the surrounding fishing boats. The juxtapositions create a memorable spectacle: our most powerful battle ships which were intended to deter and protect our borders are now being used to wage war on the weakest boats in the world.

It is only when our megaphone message changes to 'stop the boats because we do care for you and your children' that our humanity rises higher than the tall ships.

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About the Author

Joseph Wakim founded the Australian Arabic Council and is a former multicultural affairs commissioner.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Joseph Wakim

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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