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Mateship does not apply only to Australians; we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they are. We are one human family; loving our neighbour has global dimensions in an interdependent world.
Bishop
William Morris presented this rationale in urging Australia to receive the asylum seekers on the Tampa.
The only relief from the shameful buckpassing of the Indonesian and Australian governments in this
melancholy affair has been the Samaritanlike action of Captain Arne Rinnan and his crew, who have treated this rescue as the human problem it is. Australia has made it into an issue of national security by bringing
in soldiers. Indonesia, like the priest and the Levite in the parable, has simply passed by on the other side, treating the problem as a trifle light as air – none of its business.
Why haven’t recent
governments in our region faced up to the worldwide changes since the 1951 Refugee Convention, now so clearly obsolete, and met to work out a coordinated policy? The dilemma would have been easier to manage if the
neighbouring countries had been talking with one another effectively, especially if they had come to an understanding. The movements of people around the world are so massive and obvious that surely our leaders are
alive to them. They should have responded constructively – or, if not, then responded at least with compassion. Such meeting and coordination are still essential. The dilemma is only a symptom. The policy of
so-called deterrence is not working; it must be replaced with solutions hammered out with our neighbours.
The biggest obstacle to any rethinking on this question is the upcoming election. The Government and
Opposition scan polls obsessively, and, if they think Australians are in favour of the present actions, we may be sure they are right. But, as The Australian’s Paul Kelly asks, is it right to do what is being done,
no matter what most Australians think? The Prime Minister thinks he’s on a winner, and Kim Beazley, until recently was on a “me-too” trip with him.
It would be easier to rise above our xenophobia, our fear
of foreigners, if we had some inspirational leadership, but at both Federal and State levels xenophobia is in the ascendant. If there is to be justice for asylum seekers, the people will have to lead the leaders.
This means entering the real world, not trying to shut it out. That is impossible as well as inhuman. It is a deep-seated phobia, fear, in all peoples, and in us it is as old as the White Australia policy. In fact,
it is the ghost of the White Australia policy. Let us beat it.
How can the baptised claim to welcome Christ if they close the door to the foreigner who comes knocking? - Pope John Paul II
STEVE BIKO, DONALD WOODS
Steve Biko was a black leader in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Next Wednesday is the anniversary of his brutal death in detention, a death which
provoked an international outcry.
Biko became a political radical after the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. In 1968 at the University of Natal he formed the South African Students’ Organisation, to protest at
the exclusion of blacks from the campus students’ organisation. The organisation was based on ‘black consciousness’, which promoted political self-reliance among blacks. By 1976, and the Soweto uprising, the black
consciousness movement had spread beyond campuses to communities all through the country. After Soweto, black consciousness organisations were banned and, in the riots that followed, more than 600 blacks were killed.
Steve Biko’s story becomes entwined now with that of Donald Woods, editor of the Daily Dispatch. The paper was committed to an anti-apartheid crusade which tried to apportion blame equally. Woods accepted an
angry challenge from Dr Ramphele to meet Biko and discover the truth for himself. He was slowly convinced, and employed two of Biko’s associates, Tenjy and Mapetla, as journalists. Mapetla was killed while in police
detention.
In a court appearance, Biko made it clear that his movement was “confrontationist, but non-violent”. When the prosecutor claimed that was a contradiction, Biko pointed out: “You and I are in
confrontation, but I see no violence.”
He was arrested; 24 days later, a doctor called to Walmer Police Station in Port Elizabeth, found him lying naked, manacled to a cement floor, his face beaten to pulp.
He died 700 miles away in Pretoria next day, September 12, 1977.
The rest of the story, with its documentation is related in Woods’ book, Biko, and Richard Attenborough’s film Cry Freedom. The latter gives
the story of Woods’ escape with his family and the book. (Woods died last month, aged 67.)
In 1997, security officers confessed Steve Biko’s murder to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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