It was all a bit (stereotypical) teenagers squabbling in the schoolyard, as so much TV is, but ... in the sense that the xenophobe - who has been stirring up quite a bit of attention her small-minded self of late - meant, I also am a traitor to "Australia" - specifically, I am a traitor to her xenophobic Australia, an Australia that is so fearful, insecure and small-minded that it has no compassion, hospitality or caring for anyone else. Two of my ancestors were shipped out from Ireland in the early 1800s for "defending their mother's honour against some English soldiers" (i.e., stopping them from raping her), and they were renowned for their hospitality and welcoming of travellers and strangers (including indigenous people). In general, I suspect the Irish traditions of hospitality contributed to the Australians view of ourselves in the 1800s and early 1900s as a welcoming people (flawed though that was, with the notorious White Australia policy that, infamously, contributed to South Africa's apartheid policy), a view still surviving in the view of us as being "neighbourly" .. which is not, and often has not been, true.
The Australia I support is truly generous, welcoming and compassionate - truly "neighbourly", but in a sense that is not focused on the small, one that looks at all humanity (actually, all life) and has room in it's heart to say to the small numbers of refugees who reach us "I acknowledge and am touched by your suffering: let me heal you". The xenophobe is traitor to that Australia.
It all brought to mind a problem I've observed in this battle of late: those who are advocating for refugees know it is important - vital even, and it is: a battle for Australia's soul - but they do not have the eloquence and/or awareness to say that, or to talk of spiritual principles (sadly, those are often either confused for religious principles, or ridiculed). We have no Martin Luther Kings here - or even people who can overcome their emotion enough to come up with a riposte along the lines of the one I just wrote about.
The situation is, ironically, better in the case of the battle for LGBTIQ rights: there, advocates have known that we need to build support by educating people - which was a key part of the reforms I was part of in the late 1990s. There was no focus on marches and demonstrations and numbers, which is a flaw I find too many activists have: there had to be a focus on educating people. Now, both sides think it is a case of big numbers in public demonstrations, whereas it has to be more than that.
Numbers will demonstrate what people think, but that isn't necessarily right. The letter writing campaigns of Amnesty International, for example, are not based on "numbers in the street": they are based on issues, and what is right - and have been remarkably successful.
If numbers in the street were the sole issue, we would not have had anti-discrimination legislation passed in the 1970s.
In the case of recent demonstrations on this issue, as I wrote above, the behaviour has been deplorable, and both sides have been focusing on numbers to put pressure on politicians. The media has been publishing the comments of the xenophobes, but I haven't seen any cogent arguments against xenophobia in the media. I don't know whether that is because the media is choosing not to publish them, or such arguments are not being made, or a combination of those and perhaps other reasons.
In any case, most such arguments are based what is effective for the speaker, not the listener. Arguments about spiritual principles and human rights and human values such as compassion sway me, but they don't sway the xenophobes. If Australia is to become a better nation, arguments on this issue have to be addressed to the listener.
As an example, I know many blue collar xenophobes fear the loss of jobs. When that issue is raised, those advocating for refugees have often been quite glib - e.g., oh they only take jobs few people in Australia want to do anyway. Yes, and it those people who are feeling the threat of competition by people who are desperate enough to accept lesser work conditions. The issue is a valid concern, and needs to be addressed. How about pointing out that many refugees are actually quite educated people, and if Australia was less discriminatory towards such people they would be able to spread throughout the workforce and thus not get forced into competing for jobs that the poorly educated (and that is a reflection on the limited vision of our education system and the politician's who fund it, not the people themselves - for instance, get ridding of tech schools in Victoria was a mistake) find themselves having to compete for.
Then there is the fear over security - sovereignty. Well, leaving aside for the moment the issue of "which Australia?" that I raised above, and the sovereignty of humanity and of life, counter this with facts. Perhaps something along the lines of - with relation to fears around terrorism, for instance - the number of Australian born terrorists vs. the number that come here from overseas, the discrimination and abuse which forces those people into terrorism, the FACT that the majority of refugees are not terrorists, the facts that the majority of people illegally in Australia come in via airports (if that is true - I don't know what the current and recent numbers are), etc.
What about fears of changing the nature of Australian society? Well:
- change is inevitable - look at the changes brought about by the Internet and technology advances in recent decades: a better approach is to manage the change, not try to stop it;
- some changes are good - for instance, anti-sexism laws allowing women to keep working after they are married (and the better coffees - initially in Melbourne, but now spreading through the rest of Australia) as a result of the European influx to Australia after World War Part Two;
- some changes are bad, for sure - for instance, the change in Australia away from hospitality towards xenophobia.
- I'm still here, fighting the xenophobes;
- that view ignores the reality that people have ALWAYS been mobile - starting with the initial movement out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago, and continuing with the movement of Europeans to Australia over the last few hundred years;
- if I had kids, I also would want to get them out of conflict zones;
- the fact that people want to come here is an acknowledge of the economic advantages (there are depressingly few social advantages nowadays) of Australia, and has to be managed in a way that does not destroy those advantages - which the current xenophobia is doing, by destroying Australia's soul.
How about countering such arguments with the value of mostly young refugees on Australia's ageing population problem? Or even raise the issue directly of the sort of Australia we want?
I don't consider my arguments to be necessarily good in terms of trying to change xenophobes, but someone has to make an effort on this, so I'll start the ball rolling ... with my very small audience. * SIGH *
This is a battle which has been going on for the last couple of hundred years, beginning with the violent white invasion of Australia, going through the struggles against racism and for worker's rights, the social progressiveness and economic disaster of the Whitlam government in the early 1970s (which helped, as much as the social upheaval of the 1960s, in breaking us out of the "white picket fence" mentality of Australia in the 1950s), the gross materialism and greed of the 1980s, and the politics of fear introduced by the evil John Howard in the 1990s and continued by far too many politicians since then.
It is a battle which needs to be fought and won in every generation - after all, the fight against slavery has been going for several millennia, and against racism for centuries, and they are still going - partly because of the basic them of this post: that activists fail to aim their work at the audience, and also because of denial - thinking that once something has been done (such as the various instruments of anti-discrimination legislation), it does not need to be addressed again. (Mind you, given my utter exhaustion after having been involved in such work, I have sympathy for those who do make the latter mistake.)
It is, at its heart, a battle for spirituality.
I may post more on this topic over time ...
Here are a couple of other links which might be of interest:
- http://www.moirarayner.com.au/articles/02workpl/antidisc.pdf;
- http://www.equalitylaw.org.au/elrp-guest-blogs/reflections-on-reforming-discrimination-laws-in-australia.
[2] Please
see here, here and my post "The
Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons
I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2,
although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather
engagingly - to be the Earth edition of
"The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").
[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is
no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted
changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately
after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this
site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue
(see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me
for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are,
to meditate-clear for peace), and here
for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend
learning how to flame, ground
and shield, do alternate
nostril breathing, work
with colour, and see also here and be
flexible.
- Neither eloquence nor inarticulateness inherently indicates correctness, but, as words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
- Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
- I mourn the desecration of the term 'Light Worker' by commercial interests, and the warping of the word 'Light' away from 'Clear Light' by the "(Fluffy) White Lighters".
- Presuming that everyone has, or wants, a smartphone is discriminatory, unspiritual, and downright stupid.
- Obsessive love may be a cover up of guilt.
- Proxy embarrassment is both a form of control, and an internal barrier to truth, honesty and perspicacity.
- Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
- Notwithstanding the greatness of exploring the world and humanity, the greatest exploration is of mind, spirit and Soul.
- May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
- Life is not a struggle for status.
- Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
- Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
- The means shape the end.
- My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... and blogging has been described as graffiti with punctuation :)
Human dignity is
the inherently cumulative holistic
combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or
interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also
applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently
undignified.
Gnwmythr
The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not
the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to
evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in
order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is,
rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.
Gnwmythr
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent.
Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called
Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to
infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names
we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.
Jane Elliott
The only thing necessary for the triumph of
evil is for good [people] to do nothing.
(based on
writing by) Edmund Burke
We didn't inherit the Earth from our
ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children
Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
There are risks and costs to a program of
action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable
inaction.
John F. Kennedy
Tags:attitudes, change, discrimination, education, racism, refugees, society,
First published: Tysdagr, 28th July, 2015
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's
and other minor matters): Tuesday, 28th July, 2015
