A year ago, when the refugee debate was last peaking and there were a bunch of asylum seekers refusing to get off a boat in Indonesia, my dad and I had a brief argument about who should be let into the country and who shouldn’t. He rightly argued we need to be super-careful about who we let in. I rightly argued we should do unto others as we’d have them do unto us. Dad and I debate things all the time, it usually ends in each of us sending a few links we’ve found on the interwebs to support our argument and we then agree to disagree. I didn’t want to let this one go though, I felt the asylum seeker debate was too important, I thought he needed to be reminded that refugees are refugees for a reason, and that given a twist of fate, he could have been in their shoes. I wrote a letter to him, sent it off and, as an afterthought, posted it on my blog.
A few people read it, a couple of friends made some nice comments and it sat there in my archive of posts nestled between random musings on food poisoning and noisy neighbours. I’d almost forgotten about it, but then a week ago a boat full of asylum seekers smashed tragically into the rocks on Christmas Island and, sure as Summer follows Spring, the national debate sparked up again. I knew people would feel compassion for the poor souls who lost their lives, but I also knew the tragedy would be a soapbox for those who want Australia to remain a cultural cul-de-sac.
I decided to re-work the letter I’d sent to my Dad, re-post it on my blog and send it to the ABC’s The Drum. I figured if I could help a few see the plight of refugees in a different light, we might have a few less shouting ‘f*** off we’re full’. Since then, around 35,000 people have read that letter. What surprised me the most is the amount of discussion the piece has generated. I knew a few people would leave comments on my blog and on the ABC website, but I didn’t think I’d be measuring replies in the hundreds. Whenever a friend would post a link to the article on their Facebook page, a mini-debate would instantly spring up. The link to my article on social bookmarking site Reddit.com generated 136 comments. People feel passionately about this issue.
Some people understood what I was trying to say – that when we’re making refugee policies we need to understand why a person becomes a refugee in the first place; that people who end up here on boats are generally pretty desperate, and that we’ve got a moral obligation of ‘doing unto others as we’d have them do unto us’, which must be carefully weighed against the security and sustainability of our nation. I didn’t put it exactly like that of course, because that would be a boring read.
The problem was, by getting a little poetic, so many thousands of people completely missed the point. The most common criticism was (and I’m paraphrasing): ‘this is badly written, you’re a stupid young hippie idiot who hasn’t thought this through, we can’t just let everyone in, and especially not the queue-jumpers, go back to writing about possums’.
The question most people wanted an answer for was exactly where I drew the line. Exactly how many asylum seekers should we let in each year? How do we create a refugee policy that is fair to those waiting in refugee camps, discourages people from getting on boats, maintains a level of humanitarian compassion befitting of a 21st century society, doesn’t further depredate the natural resources of our dry-as-bones continent, fosters the good bits of multi-culturalism and ensures anyone who doesn’t ‘fit in’ isn’t let in?
Guess what?
We can’t. It’s the Superman dilemma. No solution will be perfect. No one will ever agree on everything. We can’t save everyone.
But just because we can’t save everyone does that mean we save no one?
Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
In reply Jesus said: “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’
Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”
He said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Jesus didn’t set a neighbourly quota.
But, Jesus was a philosopher, not a politician. It wasn’t his job to create rules for asylum seekers in 2011. He left that bit up to us. Whether you’re a Christian or not, I think few would argue his guidelines were unwise.
I’m certainly not advocating we let every refugee in the world into Australia tomorrow. What I am saying is that with a ‘love thy neighbour’ approach, some careful long-term planning and an understanding that Australian culture is a magnificent, delicious, simmering stew, we can create better policies than the ones we have now. Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is one good example of pro-active long-term planning which should lead to less refugees in the first place. Creating a National Broadband Network so we’re not as reliant on big cities for commerce is an equally good idea – it means more people can live in rural Australia in places where there’s food and water. Helping Australians understand that refugees are generally intelligent people, just like them, who get on boats because they’re fleeing persecution is another. That’s why I wrote the article.
If you feel the same, go and do your version of likewise. If you disagree, go back to where you came from and leave this country to the indigenous Australians. Because, really, they got here first.
