More disordered thoughts on “Leaky Boat” and the Q&A

Posted on by

Continued from Disordered reflections on the special QandA on Leaky Boat.

The last post concluded with some stats and graphics. Here’s another:

afghan

Click that for more 2011 UNHCR data.

You can see again in that one how small our “problem” continues to be. If you go back to the last graphic on the previous entry which compares 2008 boat arrivals in Oz with the pool of actually recognised refugees I guess all you can say about now is that we may have coloured in one more tiny square. But we continue to panic. Or some do.

However, there is no doubt that enforced migration, displacement, asylum seeking and so on is a major world issue. It’s not likely to get much better, especially if you factor in over the rest of this century such matters as climate change. And one thing I found myself thinking is that there does have to be a fairer process. Just about everyone agrees with that. Knowing what it is – that’s another matter. I even agreed with Scott Morrison when he used the phrase “Hobson’s Choice”. It is that.

One of the more interesting panellists on the Q&A was Raye:

raye

RAYE COLBEY: Because it’s making the system unfair because all the places that you take and our limit is 13,700 whatever. That is taking away places for the African people that have got no opportunity.
NAJEEBA WAZEFADOST: But how about a country that don’t have those camps. We constantly talk about Africa, that has those camps. Country like Afghanistan…
RAYE COLBEY: But have you ever been into those camps? Those camps…
NAJEEBA WAZEFADOST: I have been in a country in Afghanistan which has been maybe worse. I’m not saying – I totally agree with you that every asylum seeker, every refugee should have the right to seek that refugee in Australia.
RAYE COLBEY: No, but it’s got to be a fair system. It can’t be…
NAJEEBA WAZEFADOST: There is a country in Afghanistan that does not have UNHCR, that does not have those camps, just because…
RAYE COLBEY: The boat people are not the most needy.
NAJEEBA WAZEFADOST: So this is what you are stating?
RAYE COLBEY: I am saying that the boat people are not the most needy.

She had been briefly an object of derision courtesy of SBS:

raye2

But by the end of that social experiment she was a changed woman with a particular burden for Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Hers is a great story of heart and experience annihilating xenophobia and prejudice.

And that’s where I will leave these disordered thoughts.

As this tweet says: “#qanda Majority of Australians are happy to take refugees. Majority just want better a solution & policy!! tamzy888” Let’s stop the political gamesmanship and get really serious about a bipartisan and fair solution that maximises our contribution to this major world issue!

14 thoughts on “More disordered thoughts on “Leaky Boat” and the Q&A”

  1. Good Lord. You’re still going on about how refugees from the Religion of Murder aren’t a big deal? Give it a rest. That horse is long dead. You’re basically arguing that Australia can accept a small number of criminals into its midst without causing too much disruption. No one’s buying it. I secretly suspect that even YOU, a die-hard “progressive”, know this.

    Anyway, I was just stopping by to congratulate your country. We watched ‘The Librarians’ over the past couple of weeks. It’s hilarious! Kudos, Australia.

  2. No comment on an idiotic comment, Kevin. But note:

    According to this you took around 265.000 refugees while we took around 22,000 in the latest available year stats. I’m told this year the US is taking 80,000 Muslim refugees.

    The sky hasn’t fallen in and it won’t.

  4. What have you guys made that is better than The Librarians? On the funny side, I mean. We’d like to watch it. We don’t have a useful way of determining what shows from Australia are good.

    “The sky hasn’t fallen in and it won’t.”
    I believe that’s what the Indians in America said. So did the Indians in India, the Aboriginees in Australia, and the original purple people of New Zealand, who are now extinct. I may have that last part wrong though.

  5. Love the way The Librarians represents Australian multiculturalism and Muslim Australians — without political correctness but with genuine understanding and affection. Perhaps there’s a lesson there?

    Kath and Kim was funnier — but I believe the US networks wrecked it.

    • Yes! “Our country, our rules, mkay?” I don’t understand why that woman doesn’t rub you, a hardcore hater of all things good, the wrong way, but I’m quite ecstatic about it. Hurray that Neil has finally, in his old age, seen the light!

      Yay Neil! [insert fireworks here]

  6. “No comment on an idiotic comment, Kevin. But note:”
    Neil, when you ‘note’ a comment, you actually ARE commenting on i… eh, whatever. I’ve long realized (that’s with a z, Aussies) that Neil is not your greatest ambassador. Despite that, he’s a very nice person. Even ‘wordly’, if Oz can be considered a ‘world’. I think it can be. We’ve never been, so I can’t be sure. Still, I’m comfortable with my claim.

    That’s all assuming that Neil furnishes us a list of humorous Australian sit-coms that don’t include Paul Hogan. 🙂

  7. Love the way The Librarians represents Australian multiculturalism and Muslim Australians — without political correctness but with genuine understanding and affection. Perhaps there’s a lesson there?

    Which comment are you talking about? When she says, “Our country, our rules” repeatedly, or when she she makes the muslim leave his backpack at the front, because, “Oh, I think you know why”.

    I love the way The Librarians skewers political correctness. Again, I find myself wondering why you’d like it, being so painfully politically correct yourself (Neil, you’re not even capable of saying that islam is bad, even though you know it is).

    • We’re meant to think she’s a total galah (Aussie for idiot or doofus) when she says those things. Is it really true that Americans don’t understand irony? The whole premise of the show, according to its makers, is this: “What happens when you put a Catholic bigot with a panic disorder in charge of a library?” We’re meant to laugh at her, not agree with her!

      There’s more on the show here:

      …According to Butler, the writing process has become easier because she can now create stories and lines for the characters based on the actors’ interpretation, and expand on what the audience already knows about the Middleton librarians.

      “We’re trying to explain Frances and why she is the way she is. We’re showing her as a mother in a more realised way than we’d seen her before, and we’re making her more vulnerable,” explained Butler. “It was a natural place to go. Who made Frances, what stock is she from? We go into her world and show this rather horrible mother figure and present her as the root of all the evil.”

      Although a mother from hell might sound dark, the creatives have actually tried to make the show “funnier”.
      “This series is joke-heavy, and that was a real emphasis. We realised we had a very strong audience, a big fan base that really like our work. I don’t think it’s a change of tone; it’s just really pushing forward in an area. A lot of comedies aren’t as joke-based, and we decided we wanted to tell jokes, and we can do that now that we have very strong characters,” explained Butler. “Frances finally made a good joke in episode six. It is quite a big scene; she made a good joke and got hit by a rock.”

      “Yeah, that went badly,” Hope joked.

      BIG IN MONGOLIA
      The show was been sold to a number of European territories, with a particularly outstanding performance in Ireland that saw the broadcaster requesting the “making of” documentary from the DVD to put it to air. It has also aired in Mongolia…

      She’s such a galah!

      • “I think you know why.”

        Haha! How long will it take for you to realize (z, aussies.. Deal with it. Learn a new letter, you cretins.) that she’s dealing with REAL problems?

        Muslims suck. She knows it. I know it.Perhaps even someone befuddled by age such as yourself can realize it. Can you?

Comments are closed.