Selective mourning diminishes our humanity
October 12 is a date that Australians will mark as a day of tragedy for years to come. But last week also marked the anniversary of another tragedy: it was a year since the sinking of an Indonesian fishing boat, SIEV-X, overcrowded with terrified Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers who had been forced to board a tiny, unseaworthy boat by Indonesian police; 353 people perished at sea, the majority of them women and children.The sinking of SIEV-X was also an Australian tragedy. The boat sank in international waters, well within the search and rescue zone of Australian naval ships and planes taking part in Operation Relex. The navy did not act on advice it received that lives were in danger. The Howard government has yet to be called to account for its role in this enormous loss of life.
At the time of the SIEV-X sinking, Prime Minister John Howard remarked that while it was a tragedy, it was not Australia's responsibility.
With such massive loss of life so close to Australia's borders, why was there no government-led remembrance of those who died in the SIEV-X sinking? They, too, were innocent victims. They, too, died horrible deaths.
Why did we not get to hear more about the stories of those who lost their families, like Ali Madhi Sobie, an Iraqi refugee living in Australia, who lost his wife and three small daughters? Sobie is on a temporary protection visa which bars family reunion.
Why did we not hear of the woman who gave birth while struggling to stay afloat in the raging ocean, gulping in sea water and leaking fuel. The baby's umbilical cord remained attached to her as they both died.
Why did the daily papers not give names to the survivors and their stories of heroism? Like 13-year-old Zaynab who was one of only four of the 146 children to survive for 22 hours in the water before being rescued?
There were no sprigs of wattle for the victims of the SIEV-X sinking, neither at the time it happened, nor on the first anniversary.
Are Iraqi and Afghan lives really less important than Australian lives? We can only conclude that this is what Howard and his government want us to believe. In response to the Bali bombing, Howard told parliament on October 14: No cause however explained, advocated, twisted or spun can justify the indiscriminate, unprovoked slaughter of innocent people.
Perhaps what Howard meant was innocent Australians, because he certainly didn't shed a tear at the unprovoked slaughter of innocent Afghans, more than 3000 of whom died during the recent war. What's more, he seems comfortable with the prospect of the unprovoked slaughter of innocent Iraqis, many thousands of whom will be killed in any war on Iraq.
It is the height of hypocrisy to condemn Saddam Hussein for terrorising his own people, using it as one of many arguments for a launching a war on Iraq, yet when those same people escape the his regime and flee to Australia, the government turns its back on them.
While Australians made up the majority of those killed and injured in the Bali bombings, people from 25 countries were caught in the explosion, a great many of them Indonesians. Yet the Australian media continued for days after the event to refer almost exclusively to Australians killed or injured in the explosions, as if the fate of the other people was of no consequence.
The lack of concern and compassion for victims of terrorism who are not Australian, encouraged by the government and the corporate media, diminishes our collective humanity.
From Green Left Weekly, October 23, 2002.
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