Australian governments, both Liberal and Labor, have had a policy of treating refugees as enemies for at least 20 years. Probably the most infamous occasion was the Coalition’s November 2001 federal election victory, where the major parties adopted a joint policy of turning back 438 refugees who had been saved from drowning by the Norwegian freighter the MV Tampa.
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A performance of Caryl Churchill’s play Seven Jewish Children was to be held at Fremantle’s multicultural centre Kulcha in November but was scrapped due to pressure from the Jewish Community Council of Western Australia (JCC). Churchill wrote the play in response to Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza in December and January.
On the face of it, 2009 is drawing to an end with a new outbreak of political madness.
In February 2008 — at the first session of parliament after he won government — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a moving apology to the Stolen Generations, the Aboriginal children abducted from their families last century as part of a policy of social engineering to extinguish the Aboriginal identity.
December 5 — “It feels like we're going to war”, I overheard one teenager say to his friend. Such was the atmosphere of serious, creative resistance to government inaction on climate change that marked the London’s December 5 Wave demonstration.
“Today Bolivia has once again shown its democracy, and that change is possible”, Bolivian President Evo Morales said on December 6, after he was re-elected that day with more than 63% of the vote, the December 7 Granma said.
On November 26, after four months of negotiations, workers at industrial air conditioning manufacturer Buffalo Trident walked off the job indefinitely.
The workers are fighting to have income protection and wage increases of 4% in the first year and 5% in the second year included in their enterprise bargaining agreement. Management at Buffalo Trident is ferociously anti-union. Evidence of this is that there have been no new union members at the plant since the introduction of Work Choices.
A recent study by Foundation for Young Australians has shown that racism permeates Australian schools. Eighty percent of students from a non-Anglo background said they have been the subjected to racial prejudice. Even white Australians feel they have been subject to racism when at schools.
In all, more than two-thirds of young people in Australia feel they are the victims of racism while at school.
What a disgrace! We should all feel disgusted and ashamed that racism is still an issue we are yet to overcome. It truly is a sad reflection on the world we live in.
To read the November-December edition of The Flame, an Arabic-language supplement in Green Left Weekly, please click here.
Preparations for the December 7-18 Copenhagen climate summit, where world leaders will discuss the greatest threat facing the planet, are going as expected — including a rare sighting of the African elites’ stiffened spines.
The Swiss, known for cheese, Alps, watches, chocolate, and secret bank accounts, at least two of which are full of holes, have now added a sixth important product: intolerance.
“I’m gon’ die for the People. ’Cause I live for the people. ’Cause I love the People. Power to the People!” — Fred Hampton.
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