Arguing in support of refugees in Australia

Authors Avatar by anniewang94 (student)

‘Conflict occurs between the powerful and the powerless.’                        Annie Wang

Plight of Refugees: A David and Goliath Story

With conflict around the world rising exponentially, more and more people are fleeing torture and persecution, sacrificing their identity, in the hope of living a new and safe life in Australia. The Migration Act 1958 requires people who are not citizens and are unlawfully in Australia to be detained. This legislation ensures that asylum seekers arriving in Australia can be detained for unspecific and prolonged periods of time. No one wants to be a refugee: they just want to live a normal life like everyone else but they are powerless to change the situation in their country, to change their circumstances.

This all began with an imbalance of equality, two sides fighting for supremacy and eventually fight for purification. This has been the case across history with instances such as the genocide in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis, the dominance of the Nazis over the Jews and most recently the fight for religious supremacy and purification in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Hazara. Within this particular conflict, there was little regard for the safety of the people, resulting in multitudes of deaths, the rising sense of fear and insecurity prompting many to flee or seek asylum. This was especially the case for the Hazara, who make up the majority of Afghani boat arrivals and are the powerless ones amidst the conflict, targeted because of an unresolved, century old religious and ethnic animosity. What our Labour government calls 'particular hardships' are in fact a process of attempted genocide, effected through a litany of unimaginable atrocities in which men, women and children have been slaughtered, raped, and homes destroyed.

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Refugees have to gamble their lives if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom. They have no protection from their own state - in fact, it is often their own government that is threatening to persecute them. Countries such as Afghanistan have had a long standing history of bitter and violent armed conflict with little regard for the local people robbing of their security. However, it is in the detention centres where asylum seekers, such as the Afghani Najaf Mazari, who was recently granted a visa, faced and still face the harshest consequences of powerlessness where they ...

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