Julie Bishop, the Australian Foreign Minister, is right to be “deeply concerned” about atrocities carried out in Myanmar on Rohingya Muslims and expects a “thorough, credible and impartial investigation” into what is happening in that country. Institutionalised discrimination against Rohingya people in Myanmar is a decades old problem. Gang rapes, disappearances and killings have been a hallmark of Myanmar’s military response to any resistance by Rohingya people to the treatment that is regularly meted out to them. About one million Rohingya people have lived in Rakhine, Myanmar, for generations. Although they have lived in Myanmar for hundreds of years they are denied citizenship and freedom of movement. A situation that is all too familiar to older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. They were denied Australian citizenship until 1967 although they had lived here for over 40,000 years. Under the old state based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Acts, every aspect of indigenous people’s lives was regulated including their right to travel.
The issue for Australia goes far beyond condemnation of the Myanmar government’s actions, it goes to the very heart of Australia’s refugee policies. Under any criteria Rohingya people have good reasons to flee Myanmar. They are refugees fleeing from what can only be described as ethnic cleansing. I wonder how many readers of this thought bubble remember the pictures of the overcrowded Rohingya refugee boats last year that were denied entry to Thailand and Malaysia although those on board were clearly refugees fleeing persecution. They resembled the boats full of Jewish refugees that were fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 and 1939 that were denied entry to ports all around the world.
Pointing the finger is not enough, we are a relatively rich country compared to many of our Asian neighbours. Australia’s problems with homelessness, housing affordability and poverty are issues that could be solved overnight if our governments had the will to make those with the greatest wealth pay their fair share of taxation. Australians who refuse to take in more refugees because “we should take care of our own first” are blaming the wrong people for our woes. Refugees fleeing persecution make good citizens because they are thankful they are now living in a relatively safe and secure environment.
Our inability to look after our own has nothing to do with refugees and everything to do with us tolerating a political system that refuses to pass legislation to make those who have benefited from the deregulation, privatisation, corporatisation and globalisation revolution pay their fair share of tax so we can look after our own.
I wonder if the Foreign Minister will be raising the question in cabinet about whether Australia will settle Rohingya refugees in this country to ease the Rohingya burden – I doubt it, they’re boat people.
Our refugee policy towards boat people is very clear. If by some miracle the Rohingya people turn up in our waters on a boat, they will be turned back. So much for the Foreign Minister’s condemnation.
Dr. Joseph Toscano