Fear. Fear of the Unknown, to be precise. It is what pervades humanity. It is what drives the battered wife to stay with her abusive husband. Better the devil she knows than all the ones she doesn’t know, out there. It’s what makes people living in Australia (not just ‘white’ Aussies, but the whole lot of us. Including the brownies like me. Especially the brownies.) automatically distrustful of anyone of Muslim faith. It’s what makes a Muslim who’s never been out of the Cape Flats – a descendant of Malay slaves – hate Jewish Israel with a passion.
The fear of the unknown. The bogeyman. The object of hatred. The scapegoat.
Perth has its scapegoat, too. Its bogeyman. The object of fear and hatred.
Or should that be in the plural – bogeymen. Scapegoats.
They’re called Asylum Seekers. The Boatpeople. The Queue Jumpers.
The claims of those who arrive on the northern shores of Australia – or on one of its island territories like Christmas Island – may be legitimate, or they may not be. That is not the point that exercises the local people at all. In fact, it’s hard to decipher what exactly irks people. Is it the fact that Australia, as a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, is duty-bound to treat such arrivals humanely and provide for their needs while their claims are assessed? Is it the fact that some of the geriatric citizens of this country go without certain necessities that are provided to refugee claimants? Or is it the fact that those who arrive in this manner are dark-skinned? Is it the assumption that the ‘Asian’ hordes are overwhelming the country, as a certain Pauline Hanson shrilly proclaimed a number of years ago? Or is it the blind belief that accident of birth entitles one to claim a place on earth as his/her own? Is it the mistrust of Muslims, as many appear to be of Afghan Muslim origin?
I truly do not know. It is possible that each of these reasons might be true for some people at least some of the time, if not all of the time.
At any rate, whatever the reasons, it seems so much more convenient to most people to not treat refugee claimants as individuals. Oh no, that makes it much more inconvenient. To be forced to think of an individual on one of those rickety boats forces us to take cognisance of his individual circumstances, and consider our own capacity to withstand what he he gone through. It would force us to understand, and be more understanding. God forbid, we might actually have to acknowledge the legitimacy of his actions from a human perspective. That would make it so much more difficult to hate people, people who we have never met. It is so much easier to lump everyone into one category and hate them en masse. It makes it all that more difficult to have to consider each person, and their claims, individually and separate the genuine from the fraudsters. Such a tax on our frail psyches.
Don’t mind me. There are days when I sit and think about things and human nature simply fills me with disgust.
Anyway, here’s to a brighter tomorrow. For me, as much for everyone else.
