Remember two weeks ago when there was outrage across the country because the Western Australia government decided to catch and shoot large sharks caught in drumlines along its shores?
6,000 people protested on Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia. Thousands protested on Manly Beach in Sydney in New South Wales. The outrage travelled all the way to Cape Town in South Africa where people protested the cull. Even Ricky Gervais got in on the act – tweeting his opposition to the cull to his 5.59 million followers.
While it was heartening to see people united with such passion to protect these marine animals, it did make me wonder why people couldn’t muster up the same passion for human beings? Which is why I tweeted:
There was an immediate response to the tweet. It got retweeted at least 112 times and I got many responses.
For a brief moment I found myself as the top trending topic in Australia. Clearly quite a few people agreed with the sentiment, but many people also disagreed. A few argued that you could be passionate about both asylum seekers and sharks.
Some shot back with the kind of rambling that in their mind justifies the shoddy way we treat asylum seekers.
While others argued that the issue of asylum-seekers was more complex than the shark cull.
While I agreed that you could be passionate about both asylum seekers and sharks, I just hadn’t seen that passion translated into real life action. I hadn’t seen thousands of people gathering across the country to mount their disgust with the way we are treating these human beings (and I need to outline that – they are human beings – not illegals, not criminals, just desperate people looking for escape, despite what the government might want you to think).
Yes, there have been small protests around the country but they have been missing the sheer number of people needed to demonstrate that what our government is doing is unacceptable. So while I agree, there are people who feel passionately about asylum seekers, sadly the ones of us who do are small in number.
As someone on Twitter also pointed out:
This statistic is sadly true. 60% of Australians do want boat arrivals to be treated more harshly - this is despite the fact that the vast majority of boat arrivals have legitimate claim to refugee status. Only 30% of Australians according to the poll don’t want boat arrivals to be treated more harshly.
So the Australian government is doing everything in its power to respect the electorate’s wishes. Aside from running horrific detention centres where conditions are so dire even children attempt suicide and buying lifeboats to tow back asylum-seeker boats to Indonesia the government has been found to be colluding in a bit of propaganda by distributing comics overseas to dissuade asylum seekers (specifically from Afghanistan) from getting on boats in the first place.
Refugees in Australia have reacted angrily to a graphic campaign by the federal government, aimed at deterring asylum seekers. An 18- page graphic novel being distributed abroad appears to specifically target Afghanistan.
In the comic they paint a picture of a man who kind of happens to not like where he’s living so he thinks he’ll jump on a boat and come to Australia for a better life. Except when he does he has to face the wrath of the Australian government and the harsh living conditions in a detention centre.
The concept is so ridiculous the @DeptofAustralia account which satirises the Abbott government, released its own version which from my perspective is vastly better because it elicits laughs rather than tears and disgust.
The comic is part of a larger “No Way” campaign being run by the Immigration department to dissuade asylum seekers from coming to this country. Elaine Pearson, the Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, said it best when she described the “No Way” campaign as “more of a rant geared to a domestic audience for political reasons to reinforce the government's hard line approach to deterring migration.”
That’s what it all comes down to – showing the populace that the government is doing something – whatever it can to dissuade helpless people running from death and destruction in their own country to find a safe haven here in Australia. Except that Australia is not the compassionate haven some poor souls overseas might mistake it to be.
So at the end of the day do we care more about sharks than asylum-seekers here in Australia?
Hell, yes. Australians as a whole pride themselves in how they respect and care for animals and their welfare. That is great and something we should be rightfully proud of - but when it comes to asylum seekers for some reason most Australians can’t extend the empathy they feel for animals towards these desperate people. Why? Perhaps because what the government is doing overseas is also happening on these shores. It’s reflected in the language the government uses in describing asylum seekers.
We can fight it of course, by being more vocal in our opposition to the treatment of asylum-seekers – just like we did for the sharks. I’m sure, no matter what the polls might say, there are a great many of us who are dismayed by the Australian government’s attitudes to ‘boat people’ and asylum-seekers - which is why it’s urgent for us to speak up.
We should remind ourselves that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Say it loud, say it proud - no way do we accept the government treating people worse than animals – because right now that’s exactly what we are doing.
Saman Shad is a storyteller and playwright.
