Politics

My Little Eye

[ 4 Oct 02] This tense thriller by a relatively new director returns us to the finest horror tradition of the past. A group trapped in a rambling old property in the middle of nowhere wait out the days in the hope of winning a valuable prize. Cameras follow their every move and transmit them to the world. Their goal appears to be within reach, until startling events jolt them out of their complacency.

As the tension mounts, one player fears they're being stalked by a menacing figure from the past. The others attempt to keep them calm, but in this paranoid atmosphere—masterfully conveyed by distorted visual and sound effects—that becomes increasingly difficult. Then, just as hidden agendas behind the game emerge, the killing begins. The original goal is soon forgotten as the players fight for their lives.

Comparisons with Big Brother are inevitable, but the situation portrayed here bears only a superficial resemblance to it. This clever blend of reality TV and the Internet dramatizes the risks of ignoring dissent in the pursuit of immediate gain, and will definitely keep the audience lying awake at night.

My Little Eye-raq, starring G. W. Bush. On general release.

link
·····

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

[10 Sep 02] William Greider was one of the better reasons to read Rolling Stone, and his article on the financial reckoning that could spell the End of American Empire is a good reminder of why.

(We apologise for this break in our break in our transmission, and return you to our scheduled lack of programming.)

link
·····

An Expatriate Moment

[23 Jul 02] You bloody beauty.

link
·····

In the Zone

[12 Jun 02] The Howard government announced on Friday that it was redefining Australia's 'migration zone' to exclude its outlying northern islands. That's the ticket; if inconvenient treaties insist that you assess the refugee claims of all who land on your shores, just redefine 'shore' as 'any stretch of coastline more than a thousand kilometres long'. And if their boats make it all the way to the Australian mainland, just redefine 'land' as 'ten kilometres above the high tide mark'. And if that doesn't work, just paint a big target on Woomera and tell them to aim for that.

This is what's known in international law as 'having your cake and eating it too'. "These outlying islands are part of Australia for the purposes of staking out our territorial waters and claiming valuable oil fields, but not for the purposes of dealing with inconvenient human beings."

Phillip Ruddock apparently even entertained the possibility that Tasmania may be included in this category. Never mind that Australia, the constitutional entity, is not the same thing as Australia, the continental land-mass: Tasmania is clearly too tempting a target for people-smugglers—it sounds too much like 'Taliban'.

But why stop there? It'd be so much easier just to redefine the migration zone as the arrivals hall at Kingsford Smith Airport.

link
·····

[ 9 Jun 02] The Guardian weekend magazine is again covering refugee issues (and here), this time looking at parallel British attitudes to asylum seekers in the 1930s and today:

Mr Herbert Metcalfe, the Old Street magistrate, yesterday referred to the number of aliens entering the country through the 'back door'—a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed.

[Quote from the Daily Mail, 20 August 1938; the aliens were 'stateless Jews from Germany'.]

link
·····

Queue Two

[30 May 02] Had a comment today from a reader, who was happy for me to quote it, and after writing a long email in reply I think I will:

I think your views on the refugee crisis are quite narrow. I am all for assisting people who are less fortunate than ourselves by sharing our great country, but these guys have paid big money and jumped the queue to get here. What about the poor families that are still waiting in line, staying within the law to try and become citizens of Australia. Do we push them further and further down the line to make way for these queue jumpers? I think not. I understand that these people are desperate but that does not excuse their behaviour.

I assume this is in response to my post below, which isn't the full extent of my public comments or private views on the subject. There's more here and here. As for the popular Australian view that refugees are 'queue jumpers', it begs the question of whether there is a queue for refugees to jump.

Who creates a queue? Is it just the people in the queue? No: when there's a long queue in a bank and only one teller serving it, we feel annoyed with the bank itself for not putting more tellers on. Ordinary immigrants to Australia similarly might feel annoyed with the Australian government for not putting more people in place to process their applications more quickly. Deciding how many public servants to assign to that task is a political decision, and the decisions taken by the Howard government have the effect (and perhaps the intention) of discouraging all but the most patient of potential immigrants.

But that's just ordinary immigrants—the people waiting in line. Refugees are not ordinary immigrants. They didn't wake up one day and just decide they'd like to live somewhere else. They have been motivated by "a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or political opinion" (1951 Refugee Convention) to leave their home country. Other countries have obligations defined by international law to take in refugees. Those obligations don't come with caveats about putting them at the end of the bureaucratically-dictated queue for regular immigrants, and they don't justify locking them up for months or years while processing their claims. See William Maley's article in this keynote [via Greg Restall]:

The notion of a 'queue' is unrelated to refugee protection: instead, it reflects the wish of governments to be able to 'pick and choose' which refugees to help (the educated rather than the unskilled, the healthy rather than the disabled, the quiescent rather than the 'troublesome'). The 1951 Refugee Convention is drafted as it is precisely to prevent such unscrupulous discrimination. As John Menadue, former Secretary of the Australian Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs recently observed, the idea of the queue 'was invented by bureaucrats in Canberra'. [Emphasis in original.]

'Big' money has nothing to do with it. If you're in fear for your safety, you'll do whatever it takes to get yourself somewhere safe. That's not the same as someone trying to use money and influence to distort the ordinary immigration system (although Australia encourages just that: bring a hefty slab of cash for 'investment' and you too can go to the front of the line; so much for the poor families).

The Howard government has done everything it can to redefine these people as 'illegals', 'queue jumpers' and whatever the hell else, all to divert attention from the fact that the vast majority of them are refugees and have rights by virtue of that fact under international conventions to which Australia is a signatory. They mostly come from Afghanistan, for God's sake, and if we can't recognise in 2002 that people have legitimate reasons to get the hell out of there by any means possible, then we should just admit that we have no intention whatsoever of treating refugees humanely and get used to the flushing sound as our international reputation goes down the toilet. Treating refugees humanely does not mean locking them up for a year in the middle of the desert and then grudgingly giving them a temporary visa that effectively forces them to live in poverty after their release.

But I'm well aware that 70% of Australians don't agree with me.

link
·····

The Ugly Australia: Queue Jumpers

[26 May 02] The Guardian's weekend magazine has just run a major piece on Australia's treatment of refugees. Readers of Britain's highest-selling broadsheet have learned of detainees who "want to go back to Iran because at least there we will get tortured and imprisoned by people who speak our own language." A wonderful advertisement for the Australian sense of tolerance and fair-play. And such a bargain: at only several thousand dollars a head for a few thousand desperate people, you too can undo thirty years of putting the White Australia policy behind us.

And after you've taken an average of eight months to process their claims and grudgingly granted them refugee status, why not do your best to ensure that their new life is as difficult as possible?

Most employers won't take people on [temporary protection visas], so, despite an engineering degree and good English, Ali survives on A$182 a week benefit. He is renting a sparse flat in Cabramatta, infamous for being Australia's heroin distribution depot. Ali has not met many Australians yet. With the drug-related violence in his neighbourhood, he dares not go out after 8pm. Nor has he seen the sea in Australia. He can't afford the train fare to the beach for his family.

The article ends on a less damning but ultimately frustrating note:

As an inmate, Kerrim was told in Woomera that "the Australian people don't like you, they don't need any more refugees, they say you are criminals and terrorists". This was "rubbish", he says. "When we got released we met the nice Australian people. The majority of Australian people are friendly and feel sorry for us."

Fifty years of wave upon wave of refugees who faced initial hostility only to become accepted and valued members of Australian society, and we're still swayed by the scaremongers.

link
·····

The Ugly Australia: Dole Bludgers

[26 May 02] The Australian reported a few days back that the Howard Government is "planning a crackdown on dole bludgers after research found 16 per cent of dole recipients enjoyed the welfare lifestyle and had no intention of genuinely seeking work":

Employment Services Minister Mal Brough said research by his department ... showed up to one in six registered job seekers were not really looking for work. "These people are content to seek a benefit from the Australian taxpayer and feel that work would have a negative impact on their quality of life and free time," he said.

It would be fascinating to see the responses to a survey of working Australians—or even government MPs—asking whether they were 'content' to seek a benefit from tax revenue, and whether they feel that work has a 'negative impact on their quality of life and free time'. Who knows, we might even find that the working population is riddled with covert 'cruisers' just waiting for the opportunity to soak the taxpayer to the tune of A$184.50 a week (less than the median rent in Melbourne).

"There was always anecdotal evidence about the existence of these cruisers, but this is the first genuine research that I am aware of that confirms the existence of a substantial body of non-performers in Australia."

Ah yes, that 'substantial body' of dole bludgers, whose existence justifies making life miserable for anyone unfortunate enough to be unemployed. The latest Bureau of Statistics figures show an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent and a workforce participation rate of 63.7 percent. So according to Brough, 16 percent of 6.3 percent of 63.7 percent of all adult Australians are non-performing cruisers. That's... let's see... 0.6 percent.

Six in a thousand adult Australians "did not want full-time work and supplemented their income with part-time or casual work"! Clearly a fine excuse to express smug disapproval and provoke general suspicion and vilification of welfare recipients.

link
·····

Feeling Comfortable and Relaxed Yet?

[13 May 02] Typical crowd of I'm-not-a-racists pull off remarkably life-like impression of same [via Matt]:

Ten months ago a group of 89 Afghan boat people, who had fled racial persecution and death in their homeland, found sanctuary in the heart of rural NSW.... Now, a movement has started to hound the men out of town.

"The men are all gentle and polite who fit in well with our workforce," [their employer] said. "They certainly aren't taking away any jobs from locals. We couldn't find enough people to work here."

Course not. They're clearly far too busy signing petitions, hurling paint, and not being racists.

link
·····

[12 May 02] Two old papers on Papua New Guinea politics, freshly liberated from the bottom drawer.

link
·····

Engagement

[10 May 02] Had a telling exchange the other night with an academic from China, who was trying to remember the name of the Australian prime minister. 'John Howard,' I said, only to be met with a blank look. 'Paul Keating?' I tried again. 'Ah, yes,' came the response, 'Paul Keating!'

link
·····

[12 Apr 02] I've moved the Madagascar entries out of the politics category and into a category of their own.

link
·····

[27 Mar 02] An excellent piece on copyright by Jerry Kindall, which gets better as it goes on:

Artists, screenwriters, and directors ... turn their copyrights over to a record company or a movie studio ... because they want the fame that only a major distributor can give them. How badly do they want it? Tautologically: badly enough to sign over all their rights.

Copy-protected CD? Pah ... At some point the signal must be made manifest in the real world, in order for humans to see it, and at that point [it] becomes vulnerable. ... In order to completely defeat the "cracking" of digital content, you basically have to ban computers.

[Later thoughts:] Jerry argues that corporations should continue to be allowed to hold copyrights, so that we don't end up in the same situation that exists with patents, where only individuals can hold them but corporations end up controlling them through exclusive contracts. But I'm not sure that such a model would be so bad when it comes to copyrights. It might get a little unwieldy for works created by teams (but no worse than listing copyright holders on the back of an Avalanches album), but at least the contract is explicit. And, importantly, there would be some end to copyright when the creators of a work all die (or at death plus twenty years, or whatever), at which point the world would get to decide what to do with the work, not the corporation.

It's bizarre that we've reached a point where not owning copyright on a work more than, say, twenty or thirty years old can be portrayed as a fundamental threat to the continuing existence of an entertainment company—or any company, come to that. The passing of a fifty-year-old software manual into the public domain isn't going to break Adobe or Microsoft. But let Steamboat Willie into the public domain and suddenly Disney is doomed—never mind that the thought of the modern Mickey Mouse being usurped by public-domain reproductions of his googly-eyed 1920s counterpart is utterly ridiculous. We have to wait another couple of decades before anyone other than Penguin gets to publish George Orwell (for example) all because Walt and a few long-dead colleagues once made a cute animated talkie. And what's the bet that Disney will come up with another argument to extend copyright in 2017? If their 'ownership' of the copyright on Steamboat Willie was simply a licensing arrangement with its actual creators, there would at least be an end in sight. (None of which need prevent them from seeking protection for Mickey Mouse et al. as trademarks, which would be far more appropriate.)

link
·····

Don't Mention the War

[26 Mar 02] Somewhere along the line I stopped talking here about the most significant thing to happen in our lifetimes since, well, the last most-significant-thing.* At first it was a conscious decision, as those who were reading last year will remember: after saying all that I could bear to say when it was all too painfully new, I stopped writing altogether.

Those words already seem like a time-capsule from another age, caught up in the dread of that awful moment, but I'm glad I wrote them, and don't feel any particular need to resile from them now. They don't anticipate all of my evolving views of recent events, but those are about as important as any other randomly sampled armchair opinion.

Not that crushing insignificance has stopped me or any other weblogger from writing before. No, to be honest, a full and nuanced discussion of the subject is more than I can afford to write—not because I don't have the time, but because I wouldn't have the time to write anything else. It would turn the site into a warblog, and there are more than enough of those. Besides, now that the number of warblogs has eclipsed the tonnage of high explosives dropped on Kabul, plain ol' blah-blogs are bound to become next season's hot fashion item.

It's hard, though. Every now and then I feel a terrible urge to scream in big all-caps letters surrounded by <blink> tags at the latest example of belligerent arrogant black-and-white jingoistic imperialistic self-righteous nonsense to parade past our collective eyeballs, and have to remind myself that it would be utterly pointless: in their eyes I would be, not a fellow Westerner, not a concerned citizen of the world, not even someone who studied politics for too bloody long, but Not American, and therefore of no consequence.

This is one of the more frustrating aspects of the current online debate. Some of those who in September angrily rejected the notion that any of the world's peoples had any cause to resent American society or foreign policy are now suggesting that any Europeans (or other non-American allies, one assumes) who dare to suggest any form of restraint on America's part should go fuck themselves. This is, presumably, creating no resentment of American society or foreign policy whatsoever. The word in big all-caps letters surrounded by <blink> tags is, as all too often, 'irony'.

So I won't mention the war, or question its escalation; I won't wonder what pressures a Gulf War II would create in Iraq's neighbouring societies, particularly the one that most of the September 11 hijackers came from. No, that might suggest the need for some form of restraint on America's part, and that way lies hermaphrodism.

*It's probably sacrilege to suggest that 9-11 and all that has followed is not the most significant thing to happen in all of our lives ever, and indeed in all of recorded history up to that point and projecting forwards until the colonisation of Pluto, but I'm in a sacrilegious mood. Apollo 11, Cambodia's Year Zero, Chernobyl, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Rwandan massacres: all of them matched 9-11 in the scope of their horror or grandeur, although not all of them were concentrated into one unforgettable day.

link
·····

[18 Feb 02] "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"—it's just a shame they couldn't foresee computerised tracking of reading habits (via The Bitter Shack of Resentment).

link
·····

[13 Feb 02] Australian SF author Greg Egan on refugees [via VM]:

In the end, we've been asked to pay almost nothing, sacrifice almost nothing, to make a few thousand desperate people feel safe and welcome. Instead, we just keep paying more and more, sacrificing more and more, to make them feel as wretched and persecuted as possible.... It takes a lot of effort to poison a calm, civilised, prosperous democracy to the point where people would rather eat grass or live under a dictatorship than attempt to come here, but if we keep it up, we'll get there.

link
·····

[29 Jan 02] Unfortunate Juxtaposition of Web Ad and Main Story No. 349 (part of an occasional series). Seen at The Age.

link
·····

[29 Jan 02] A wonderful article on censorship in Britain, full of quoteworthy gems [via the 'Filter]:

The entire British press is now running scared of a body that receives just one complaint per million people per year. ... One in a million is also the risk of dying in an air crash, and anyone who takes that seriously is considered phobic. ... We have exchanged censorship by elected government for censorship by random nutter.

link
·····

[28 Jan 02] Release the hounds! [via VM]:

These images of children being taken away now, presided over by a stoney-faced Philip Ruddock—looking more and more like an evil Mr Burns from The Simpsons by the day—just turn the stomach. He has warned that the next in line will be children allegedly in danger from their own parents. How tragically familiar.

link
·····

[18 Jan 02] Hmm. The Australian refugee 'crisis' rant I've had in me since the Tampa affair has finally made its way to the surface (mirrored here). We Aussies may be laconic, we may be wry, we may even be egalitarian, but when it comes to refugees a lot of us have the empathy of a spud.

link
·····

Front · Past · Detail · Found · Rory Central · Textuary · Walking West · Grinding Noises · Cartoon Lounge · The Stand-Up · The Twisted Bell · Pacific Islands Politics
©2002 Rory Ewins · Powered by Movable Type speedysnail