Dear reader, an update from ‘Paddy-O’, on where were going, the ‘Shape of things to come’ and more in the great traditon of “Kleiner Mann – was nun”?… and Noddy. (subtext) ‘The infantiilisation of Australia’.
‘In 1870 the Australian Journal began publication of a series called ‘His natural life’ by Marcus Clarke. Researched and written while he was supposed to be working as sub-Librarian at the Melbourne Public Library, the story drew on the recent and bloody history of convict settlement in Tasmania and Norfolk Island. Improbable in its plot, melodramatic and gothic in its themes, the serial became a best-selling book by its better-known title ‘For the Term of His Natural Life’. Its success relied on the fact that it was based in history, a recent past that many would have preferred to forget as a new society took shape.
‘Mike, Foxtrot,Delta,Oscar’; Names of first four merde class submarines to be built by the French Government for Australia. Secret submarine bunkers to be poitioned on Manaus Island as forward defense network. Disguised in its current use as a detention centre. (Concentration camp)
Second rate accommodation to be closed on Manaus Island.
Clarke was writing at a time of optimism, where gold and a new democracy was allowing hope for a better world – the past he was evoking seemed very far away. Sadly the dehumanising, brutal, isolating world of the convict system is very much still with us, only now we call it Border Protection. The decision by the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea to declare the Manus Island Detention Centre unconstitutional has left Border Protection, 850 detainees and the bi-partisan stop-the-boats policy in a hideous limbo. The declaration by the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton that under a Memorandum of Understanding the fate of the detainees is in the hands of Papua New Guinea is in fact a veiled threat to the significant (but inadequate) aid provided by Australia. The people of Manus don’t want the 400 or so detainees who have been declared refugees, and only a handful of them have tried to live in the community with one even attempting to break back in to the compound to seek safety. At the same time the Manus community has become dependent on the economic stimulus provided by the detention centre, which is allegedly owned by the PNG Government but wholly paid for by Australia.
Second rate accommodation to be closed on Nauru
New Zealand has renewed its offer to take 300 refugees, only to be refused by Australia with the insulting declaration by Dutton that this would be a back door to Australia. And in a depressing coda to the drama, one desperate refugee in Nauru self-immolated to try to bring attention to his plight and the plight of many. Airlifted to Australia he died. This much we know, much we do not know. The draconian Australian laws preventing independent reporting of the conditions at Manus or on Nauru are reinforced by the PNG and Nauruan governments’ own regulations. The activities of the navy in the waters between Australian territories and Indonesia are kept secret. We are denied any real information on how our taxes are being spent in enforcing this policy of border protection. Recent reports of two women airlifted from Nauru to PNG for abortions – a procedure illegal in PNG – only emphasises the extremities that we have reached. In a final indignity, the poor man who died from the burns he suffered from his act of desperation has been denied an identity. We don’t even know his full name, with newspapers only reporting that his first name may have been Omid.
Traditional Australian working family suffering under impact of new terrorist and border security adverts on telly
We are in an election campaign. Yes the visit to Yarralumla has yet to happen but we are definitely on that trajectory. Faced with the PNG Supreme Court decision, the Prime Minister declared unequivocally that none of the detainees at Manus would return to Australia or even to Christmas Island. He made his statement in Tasmania. He was there to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the massacre at Port Arthur. The irony of the purpose of his visit and the location of the commemoration was lost on him. He told us we should not become misty eyed. The opposition leader chimed in, only criticising the government for not anticipating the PNG court ruling.
New accommodation for illegal asylum seekers to be built somewhere in the Pacific. The installation, a product of the ” Ideas Boom” is to be called the ” Brough” and incorporate all the principles refined by the intervention. Moving forward.
The message is clear. Instead of being misty eyed we need to be fearful, and brutal, and disrespectful. In the few days left before caretaker mode we are being assaulted by government advertising including anti terrorist messages to report unusual occurrences. The cattle business S. Kidman and Co cannot be sold to the Chinese because it is not in the national interest while coal leases granted for some of our most fertile land are. We are being told that $50 billion for twelve submarines that will create more jobs in France than will appear in Adelaide is a good deal. We are being urged to be proud of our neo-colonial, isolationist, militarist, racist identity, and to vote for development at all costs. We are being invited to an atavistic nationalism, wrapped in the flag, deaf to morality or international law. This used to be the message of dog whistlers – now we hear it from loud speakers.
But on a brighter note. WAR IS CUTE and remember the sacrifice made to ensure that this nation is TIMELESS in its insecurity.
And there’s more to come’.