Orang_utan
Orang-utans and boat people.
Does anyone see the irony of the complaints by Malaysians about Australia’s treatment of Orang-utans at Melbourne zoo and the habit of caning people in Malaysia, or even more relevant, the treatment of our boat people in detention?
The latest news tells that a representative of a Malaysian Palm oil counsel had made complaints about the Orang-utans’ treatment at a Melbourne zoo. They were horrified about the Orang-utans being somewhat cold. They had heard sounds of sad crying and signals of distress from the animals. The Orang-utans were shivering and a picture was even shown of one of them carrying a coat. Melbourne Zoo retaliated and stated that the outside and inside temperature in their environments was kept at a cosy constant 20celsius. “They are the happiest Orang-utans in the world,” they replied. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-01/orang-utans/2819534
At the same time, we are all being reassured that the latest boat arrivals to Australia that will be sent back to Malaysia will not be caned. We also are now being told on the news that those unwilling to board the plane back to Malaysia might be forced to do so with full authority given to the Federal Police to use whatever they can muster for the boat people to comply. There are lawyers busy on a formal protest about the possible use of force on people already traumatised.
Are we getting care for Orang-utans and people somewhat mixed up or confused? If the Orang-utans are the ‘happiest’ in the world, I wonder about the level of ‘happiness’ of boat people being returned to Malaysia.
The federal police have been given ‘carte blanche’ by our PM Julia Gillard to ensure the boatpeople would board the plane back to Malaysia. This, we were assured might involve whatever the federal police have at their disposal. This, it was suggested, could well include the use of ‘potential lethal force’ with no ‘blanket exemptions’ even for unaccompanied children. This lethal force has been used on Christmas Island already. We are not shy from using lethal force when it comes to boat people. Bean bag bullets fired from shotguns, batons, tear gas, capsicum spray, handcuffs, the whole arsenal at the Feds disposal has been used to force compliance on more than just one occasions. So far our treatment of boatpeople and refugees is not showing the world much about our compassion towards the less fortunate.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-01/gillard-asylum-seekers-malaysia/2819786
While we don’t cane people in Australia, we are not far from it, edging inexorably closer. Not the cane, instead the possible use of electric Tasers or cattle prods instead. It could be debated whether being stunned by a Taser or bean bag bullet is better or worse than a caning. The concern by the Malaysians about treatment of Orang-utans in Melbourne could perhaps be best answered by giving a Malaysian delegation a grand tour of our own Australian refugee camps in isolated Australia’s outback and on Christmas Island. Let’s show them how we do it so much better, so much more humane!
I am not sure about the percentage of self harm by our zoo inhabitants including the alleged shivering Orang-utans but I bet it is a lot less that amongst our own boat people locked up for long periods, living in uncertainty, in isolation, behind gates, fences and barbed wire. The ombudsman had all the figures, mind numbing it was.
Was it fifty a day, twenty or was it a hundred a month or just a couple of real or attempted hangings daily? Did it include lip sewing, roof jumping, wrists slashings and hunger strikes? Razors for shaving are taken away after the shower. Just in case. All points of possible hanging are removed. Suicide has been made harder as well. It has not only become mind bogglingly numbing, it is now heart numbing as well. We just let it go on and we shut our hearts and prefer to focus on royal weddings or the passing of a bill in the US.
It’s getting harder and harder to push away images of the Holocaust whereby people were also traumatised and pushed onto transport by the use of force. Most countries are coping with refugees in the tens of thousands, some in the millions. Even overcrowded Malaysia is coping with over eighty thousand refugees registered with the UNHCR. We seem unable to just treat people like we do with the Orang-utans at Melbourne zoo. We are using the same Jack Boots methods that were so popular in dealing with another traumatised and defenceless people some seventy years ago.
One can just imagine within the next day or so, footage of boat people being herded by force into the plane. Journalists will have their cameras focussed and the world will again learn about us.
When did we lose our hearts?
Tags: boatpeople, caning, detention, Federal Police., Malaysia, Orang-Utan, refugees, Tase, UNHCR
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Don’t know why so many get worked up by so few arriving here by boat, but think nothing of those trying to do the same by plane in vastly larger numbers. Yet Italy has something like 30000 asylum seekers arriving per month on their shores and has done so for years. Greece has about 300000 I believe. The USA has 1000000 trying to enter each year. There are 42000000 displaced people in the world.
We’re a wealthy country, were’s our compassion.
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Good question Algernon.
We are a very friendly and rather good natured people but our dormant fear of ‘the foreign’ has been egged on for years by politicians trying to exploit this for easy votes. We are traditionally far more ‘against something than ‘for’ something, especially change. We hate change as opposed to some other countries that are looking to change and make things better.
Compassion doesn’t thrive on fear but instead needs courage and letting go of pre conceived negative notions of things that are different from our own.
Have you noticed that in Norway none of the left or right are taking advantage of that terrible event, instead theywalk together to not allow the massacre to be hi-jacked for political advantage.
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In Norway I’ve noticed but not outside it. The left and right media in other European countries seemed to be and that’s unfortunate.
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Oh, come now, Gerard! I’m sure Australia has the happiest boat-people in the world! And anyway, it’s not as if they’re real people now, is it? I mean to say… they’re (gasp!) FOREIGNERS!
😉
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SOunds like poo plonkers to me!
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Wrong spot again!
I might as well shoot darts at the pub!
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I blame Tony Abbott – constant repetition of Stop the Boats and Morrison who has spent a lot of time saying Stop the Boats and of course, just pick up the phone to Nauru. Their party cheer squad has kept it up, long and loud. Labor responded – the wrong way. I’m not happy.
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“I blame Tony Abbott ”
Of course who else. That dastardly lip sower.
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Actually Clint, Abbott has become a true worry about national business confidence the way he just bad mouths everything
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He’s not in the government. He can say what he likes. He’s not making policy–and doesn’t have to set any policy. not yet
I bet that you’ve heard of David Cameron & Barak Obama, but not their opposition.
It is only the government that you should talk about. They are the ones that make the rules; govern the country; set foreign policy and spend that savings. The opposition doesn’t do anything and they have no power.
They are just there to yell out when something’s wrong.
Unfortunately, EVERYTHING is!
Stop blaming other people. Ring your favourite Labor MP, and complain to him. Tell him how dissatisfied The Aussie citizens are with Labor. It’s got NOTHING to do with the Liberals.
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Crap
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WHaaaaat???
You don’t belive that is how to spell Barak??
My, you are argumentative today. just as well that you nailed your point so succinctly. Otherwise no one would understand a word of what you wrote…or indeed, what you wrote about.
But it doesn’t really matter.
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Clinton – have you forgotten the nearly 12 years of Howard’s Government. He and his Ministers spent most of their time telling us what Labor was or wasn’t going to do and at the same time demanding policies. And if anything wasn’t so good it was Keating’s fault. So I and others will say as often as we like that it is Abbott’s fault or that he is to blame. So there.
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Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
…and a wanker…
and a punched out Judy…
and a loser…
and a… makes me think of a stand up comedian who’s only got the one one-liner…
and a… makes me think of a stand up comedian who thinks the booing from the floor is applause…
and a… idiot who’s looking desperately for a village coz he was thrown out of the last one…
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
Abbott is a bastard!
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ato, you left out wanking bastard
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Clinton – I hear Cameron’s opposition often (Milliband) but Obama actually has no direct equivalent so I assume you refer to all the Republicans and more specifically the Speaker chap (name begins with H but can’t remember how to spell it) – see him and others frequently. Hot topic recently has been lifting the debt ceiling. Hear a lot about the Tea Party too.
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Crap.
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No shit
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Bastard of a wanker that Abbott!
I think his amygdala are excoriated out of existence with all his bike riding!
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Clinton wouldn’t be Vectis Lad perchance.
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The ‘hell of a ride’ refers to a huge fall of the Dow Jones last night. Despite the bill being passed. (or because of it) The economic decline of the US seems unstoppable now, worse than Greece. Did I not tell you to go short on the Greenback! (Sell Greenbacks with a deferred delivery date when their value have dropped and pocket the difference)
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Gore Vidal predicted this about five years ago. Thanks to JWH we have a ‘free trade agreement’ with the US and will be sucked down the pan with them!
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This government has painted itself into a corner of crap over this issue. It’s what happens when your eye in on the polls and not on the issue. Power, security, muscle, batons, canes, german shepherds, give a government good polls. Compassion, intelligence, imagination, striving for justice give you bad ones.
I remember years ago, when I was a member of the ALP i was part of a debating team that argued that the ALP is NOT a party of pragmatists. I believed it then so I argued so. Almost the next day I began to change my mind. Pragmatism: The means justify the end. WIn at all costs and bugger the issues.
Why is such a measly number of refugees an issue? Why does this govn’t lack the pride and dignity to stand up and treat these few ravages of shitty regimes and western-boiled wars with some care and accommodation? Why is it we are spending all these millions on idiotic schemes that make us look like poo-hearted losers?
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That’s the ticket Ato. Spot on. You’ve put it very well.
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Agreed!
😉
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93 posts to go. best of luck with this one. I’m off.
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“our own boat people “?
Who are they?
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I lurrv Malaysia. I have been 12 times in the last 6 years.
It is a vibrant friendly place–blessed with an equatorial climate–a climate that one can luxuriate in, and an abundance of exotic food.
I imagine that anyone who has come from a decimated family, where children have been tortured, starved an abused, anyone who has come from poor families where the parents and grandchildren have had their eyes gouged out and anyone who has escaped without their papers. Which of course given the aforesaid circumstances they wouldn’t have. And anyone who manages to get to these shores should be looked after and immediately transported to Paradise (Malaysia). A country that tolerates all religions, creeds and colours.
Of course the fly in the ointment is that none of those that I have described ever get here. they don’t have any money and are just rotting at the back of the queue. Their places taken by the rich mariners. Some of whom have paid FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to get here. Isn’t it amazing. I mean FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS is more than a nurse or student teacher earns in a year in Queensland. Where do they get it? (A Thai stewardess working for Qantas, only earns $280 pm.)
Well of course the answer is, as has been exposed in countless documentaries, they are wealthy looking for a slice of the action. And they don’t come into the category that I described above.
Have you seen the children in Somalia? Flies crawling over their faces; extended bellies; trachoma and scabies. Sleeping on dirt?: Let them in. Not the frauds.
Of course the mariners circumstance will be well and truly documented . I imagine that we will see many a doco soon.
Now conversely, if WE sent the boats, I wouldn’t mind. We could send state of the art boats to Malaysia, or Indonesia and pick up the refugees that the UNHCR recommend. After all they would, or should know?
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Ah, na,na,na.. … You would even put a price on their self-harm. They are so rich, they come on leaky boats and luxuriate in the hold of a boat where yesterday, near Italy’s island of Lampedusa 25 died out of sheer luxury and having so much money…
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Just letting you know that Lampedusa is in the Mediterranean Sea, gerard, so no, they weren’t sailing to Australia. Europe bears that responsibility.
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Italy’s that country that looks a bit like a boot. Not far from Greece.
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I was born in Malaysia, VL… (Well… Singapore, anyway!) And I suppose I must be some kind of ‘boat person’ myself, ’cause my Dad was in the Royal Navy… which is why I was born there. But I left at the age of six weeks and have never been back except for an hour and a half spend in the transit lounge of Changi airport. One of these days I’d like to see it, in spite of its reputation as a totalitarian state…
Don’t fancy Somalia much at all though…
😉
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Vectis,
All these times to Malaysia (your paradise) you have seen the paradise side of the story. There is the hell side that you (Australians) won’t see unless you put yourself as someone from one of those poor countries. Open your eyes !
You are talking on the economic perspective of the story. Not everyone coming to Australia is poor and coming there to make money or to have a better life (they need protection). Again, open your eyes and see other sides of the story. As an Afghan working for a Australian company in Afghanistan, I can probably make more money than alot of people in Australia. But the same cooperation with an international organization and the same money has put me in the list of Taliban as a target. Can you guess what Taliban (yes Taliban are Afghans too, but who made them TAAAAAAAAALIBAN and so cruel?) would do with me if they caputure me? Can you imagine what beheading (visit youtube to see some) is like and what if feels like? Do you know that more Afghans are beheaded, shot or tortured for working and cooperating with international forces in Afghanistan? what are all these for? because of international presence in Afghanistan. Did we (people of Afghanistan not the fucking governement) ask you to come to Afghanistan? No, it is all because of you (people of Australia and the world) to live in peace so the fucking ARABS (Al-Qaida) can’t reach and harm you. Now, if I come to Australia or go to the US or elsewhere in a boat, is it for your money or for my life? international forces took something from us and must pay something back. A few hundred Afghans arrived in Australia by boat for whatever reason, you must welcome them.
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I dunno, those TASERS are pretty harmless, unless you’re old, or young, or have some,as yet, undiagnosed cardiac arrhythmia. Oh, hang on, that accounts for a fair proportion of them. I’ll revise that, TASERS are pretty harmless for some people.
I don’t know when us Australians became dispassionate towards others. It seems so easy to re-label them as ‘queue jumpers’ (although detention for two years seems harsh for ‘queue jumping, I mean, last time someone queue-jumped in front of me, I told him to f$%^ off, not be incarcerated for two years!), or worse, ‘terrorists’ ( not exactly sure how many eventually disclose their potential for terror!), or, much worse Muslims (Aghhhh!).
It seems such expensive options, Christmas Island, or, now Malaysia, especially when there are charitable organisations who are happy to provide support and assistance for FREE!
Good read, Gez, pity it’ll only be us silly buggers who read it, then again, perhaps you should take another tilt at The Drum?
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Nice reply Big Heart, big M. I did take it to the Drum, but…?
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Too bloody controversial, you know, being nice to people you don’t even know, queue jumpers ‘n’ Muslims and all them others, no not good Anglo-Saxons with good Jesus based religions…
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Oh, shit, morphed into Merv, you know night shift, tired, I’m orff to punch out a few zeds.
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Good luck sister
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Ta, brosky!
It’s sleep, Jim, but not as we know it!
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“It seems so easy to re-label them as ‘queue jumpers…. or worse, ‘terrorists’…. or, much worse Muslims (Aghhhh!).”
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Big M… Once we stick a label on someone, whether that label is ‘terrorist’ or ‘queue jumpers’ or ‘Muslims’… or anything else… all people ever see is the label; the actual human being, in all their complexity and with all their problems, is conveniently forgotten, because, after all, it’s the label that’s important isn’t it?
😉
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I agree totally. Australia is governed by a brutal, inhumane regime, and it’s up to us caring citizens to ensure that refugees are allowed to escape to Malaysia as soon as possible, not forced them to stay in orangutan cages at Melbourne Zoo.
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Voice:
Now what did Lady Hamilton tell you just a day ago? No good sniping from the ‘trottoir’. Be brave, give us generously from your extensive repertoire of opposing views. Go on, just do it.
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gerard, I’ve got an Eiffel tower going cheap. I bought it of the mayor of Paris. Lost the papers though, but I have faith. I think that you will buy it anyway 😉
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Careful, gerard, remember what happened last time you thought of Lady Hamilton. Try to keep it off-line this time at least!
I agreed with you! What more do you want?
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Voice,
Yes, but like the true blue Aussie that I am, I prefer to look at the maps of Tasmania.. There are so many attractive ones.
All better hold on to our seats today. It’s going to be a hell of a ride!
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Gez you’re frightening me. Why the “hell of a ride?”
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