She can't comprehend the government's current policy (and it's got nothing to do with her comprehension!) She made a sign and experienced her first protest march yesterday (actually...she's been to other protest marches in a baby sling, but this is her first on foot and by her choice).
A couple of weeks ago we joined a group of families in our area to stand together for a photo to contribute to the #letthemstay social media movement. We made some new friends and Gaia learnt about refugees. Afterwards she said "next time, can we make a sign?" I was pleasantly surprised she had already decided there would be a next time she stood up for asylum seekers.
We have so much in Australia, we could share it. The reality is that asylum seeking families are being used by our government as political pawns, and not just by our current governemnt. For well over a decade now, the political party in power has used refugees and emigration to divide the nation and incite fear. By keeping us divided and afraid they are free to rule as they please and sell it to us as keeping us safe: "protecting our borders", "turning back the boats" as if we're under attack. We are not being invaded, we are being asked to find our compassion and open our doors to people who have lost everything and risked the rest (including their lives) in search of basic human rights (food, shelter, water, safety from bombs).
At the Palm Sunday gathering speakers from Jews For Refugees, a Christian minister and a Muslim gentleman stood together and each told of how their religion teaches that the Australian Government's treatment of refugees is immoral. The woman from JFR said many of the people alive in Australia today owe their lives to people smugglers of the 1930s and 40s in Europe. This is not to suggest that people smugglers are honest people doing this work out of the goodness of their hearts, we know that high prices are paid to smugglers for entry into abominable conditions on the high seas, just for a shot at a safer life (or a life at all!). And when they reach our shores they're turned away to camps on surrounding islands where they spend years waiting to "be processed".
A man who had lived in one of these camps in the late 1990s shared some of his experiences at the Palm Sunday rally. He said there were no real doctors, and when you were ill you were told "drink more water." In recent years we've learned that many asylum seekers have been sexually abused by their captors, including children. The Australian Government has worked hard to cover up these autrocities and have threatened imprisonment to any doctors who go to the camps and make public what they witness. But teachers and doctors have listened to their consciences over their fears and spoken up.
Australia has a long history of hypocrisy and subjugating any group that is not of white-Western-European descent. Sometimes our schools teach students how abhorrent our past is...and yet no connection is made between the horrors of the past and horrors of the present (or at least they weren't when I was in school, I'm sure some schools do so today, including the one's represented at the rally on Palm Sunday). I'm fed up with my Government apologising for "mistakes" they were very committed to in our history. Saying sorry means you will do everything in your power not to repeat your mistake (is what we teach our children), but our Government continues to do the wrong thing and try to convince us it is for our own good.
The solution is simple and would cost The Government less than the current inhumane policy.
Let them stay.
For more on refugees and Australia:
Asylum seekers can be managed with cheaper and more humane options
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Australia: Damning evidence of officals' involvement in transnational crimes
Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children
Illegal Maritime Arrivals - Australian Government Department of Immigration and Boarder Protection
Julian Burnside - human rights lawyer
Manus Island: What will it take to shock us?
Mums 4 Refugees
Naru detention centre not safe for children, says Senate committee calling for full audit into abuse claims
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