Would dehumanising the dehumanisers be
a useful practice? Cos I really want to point out just how far of a
failed human being that Scott Morrison is. I want to say that if I
bumped into him in person I'd likely vomit at his feet involuntarily
from being in the presence of the stench filled meatbag. But the
cliches our parents imprinted us with that 'two wrongs don't make a
right' squeezes it's way through the seething anger in my mind and I
have to check myself. This man has thoughts and feelings, he has a
family, maybe a dog or a cat or a hamster called little johnny. He
has dreams and desires. He has needs. Like the need's of safety, of
belonging, of being seen, of contributing and being productive, even
of being loved. He has a right to that - but apparently not all
people are created equal.
Today it was revealed that Scott Morrison has issued a directive to his party and to those in the field that work with asylum seekers that they are to be referred to as illegal arrivals from now on and that no longer will asylum seekers being moved to or kept in detention centres be referred to as clients, they are transferees and detainees.
Scott Morrison's leaked directive from the Sydney Morning Herald
As is pointed out in the article by a psychiatrist it is important what language we use and this directive from Scott Morrison dehumanises these people. I would go so far as to say that it is a deliberate act on his part to do so and is reprehensible. Why would any decent human being want other human beings dehumanised? Well, it serves his political purpose that we as the voting public come to see these people as less than human so we will not care what happens to them. There was even a report recently that one detention centre was referring to it's clients by numbers rather than names and that included children.
What happens to a person who is being systematically dehumanised? Psychiatrists say that dehumanisation ignores the person's individuality, their ability to be creative and make choices and ignores them as being part of a network of people who care for eachother – a community. A person denied their individuality and sense of belonging to a community often reults in them no longer showing compassion and other normal moral responses which can then lead them on a road to becoming violent or accepting violence upon themselves. Are we trying to mentally injure people towards responding with violence so we can dehumanise them even more?
And Scott Morrison is not only wanting to dehumanise asylum seekers but he wants everything that we do to them to be done in secret. He doesn't want the government to have to tell the public when asylum seekers are arriving on our shores, he doesn't want to tell us what happens to them after they do and he doesn't want to tell us of problems arising in the camps.
Scott Morrison on secrecy from The Guardian Australia
He doesn't want to tell us because he says it fuels the people smugglers and asylum seekers with information they can use to their advantage. Yet whilst in opposition he was the man announcing from the rooftops through his righteous spittle every day to anyone who would listen whenever an asylum seeker issue raised its head.
So I can't trust the hypocritical
bugger because every decision he makes with these people's lives in
his hands seems to be to exploit the issue for political gain.
Today's news just imprints in concrete for me like little doggie
footprints that this is his pattern. If truth is beauty then the
works of Scott Morrison are filthy rags.
I don't want to be alarmist and I hate slippery slope arguments but dehumanising others puts in place an atmosphere where further human rights abuses can take place.
I wont make the absurdist leap to Hitler or Nazi's that others do when the idealism of a group conflicts with their own (The Daily Telegraph for one) but I do want to stress that the UNHCR was set up in the first place after what Hitler did to the Jews because the world decided that never again would we let people be so dehumanised and turned away from borders when fleeing persecution and death. Rightly we ratified that treaty. Have we forgotten what happened in the past? Have we forgotten what we agreed to do?
Our last report card from the UN gave us an F for our treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. As the richest nation in the world per capita we should be deeply ashamed. But this is what happens when we dehumanise others and become insular and selfish...it just breeds more selfishness and insular thinking till we can't see the forest for the trees. What did we fight for all those years ago? freedom for just the entitled or freedom and human rights for all? Lest we forget.
I am a Christian but I never thought I'd be rocked and swayed by the way a Catholic Pope dealt with the same issues on the same day in another part of the world. It was a fantastic speech and I urge you to read it The Pope in Lampedusa on the globalisation of indifference To summarise it though he felt he needed to hold a Mass on Lampedusa, a small island in Italy that a boatload of refugees was attempting to reach because it has an immigrant reception centre (note the difference in terminology) but the boat was lost at sea and over 300 asylum seekers perished.
The Pope spoke out about the globalisation of indifference to the plight of these people that has been spread in part by those that wish to dehumanise them. He said (and whether you believe in the story or not it is still a powerful metaphor) that at the dawn of humanity God asks Cain regarding Abel “Where is your brother? The voice of his blood cries even to me.” And he goes on to say that this question is being asked of all of us even now. “Where is your brother?”
The Pope went on to pray at the conclusion "we ask forgiveness for the indifference towards so many brothers and sisters, we ask for forgiveness for those who are pleased with themselves, who are closed in their own well-being in a way that leads to the anaesthesia of the heart, we ask you, Father, for forgiveness for those who with their decisions at the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies. Forgive us, Lord!
I would've thought that any response akin to 'Am I my brother's keeper?' should be for the Christian at least answered with a resounding YES! Yet it seems like many Christians want to wash their hands of the problem like a Judean Prefect. It doesn't mark them as evil but for the Christian it is not what God calls you to do. I'm encouraged that this new Pope is not one of those Christians.
When we dehumanise others, others ultimately will begin to dehumanise us. It is like there is a natural law at work, like a law of social physics. I once heard a quote from a historian (I cannot find the source unforunately) “Nations rise and fall depending on how they reflect the Kingdom of God” (I am sorry if I am delving too much into God stuff, for the non believer you may read God or the Kingdom of God as the Kindom of the values that we share in justice, mercy and compassion).
That quote has the ring of truth to me – a seed of truth rooted in the earth and growing to a towering tree with branches that reach out and shade all that reside under it. Call it karma or call it Isaiah 60:12 “For the nation that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste” And I don't see that as an interventionist God reaching in and exacting revenge. I see that through the perspective of that if you live by the sword, so you die by the sword. The social law at work – if your nation is defined by greed in that greed gives it it's power then greed is what will kill it one bleeding cut at a time. Hate begets hate, greed begets greed, sefishness begets selfishness, violence begets violence and dehumanisation will lead to more and more dehumanisation. The reaping of the environment will see the environment turn on us. I'm not personifying the environment for example and this isn't some weirdo new age idea, this is basically the science of cause and effect. For every action there is a consequence be it a social action or a physical one.
The sins of the father are visited upon the son is not a curse, it is a consequence. When you beat or neglect your son that will leave scars that carry over into the next generation. When we dehumanise others on any basis be it wealth, race, religion, culture or sexuality then we are all poorer as a result going forward. We need to acknowledge what we have done and do all that is in our power to treat others how we would wish to be treated if we want a better world and a better future.
Because genorosity begets generosity and love begets love. It is in our interest to have the others interest at heart. Should we not, by turning our backs on others in need we will find that they have turned their backs on us in our need.
So to my brother Scott Morrison I ask 'where are you? And what are you doing?' Are you attending another wedding on the public purse and escaping scrutiny for it though your party has brought down others in parliament for similar infringements? Are you reliving your private boy's school days in Abbott's boy's club of a cabinate and looking down with contempt on the kids from the public school around the corner? Are you continuing to send heavily pregnant women and children to offshore detention centres where whole generations will be dehumanised before they've had a chance to form an identity? Are you telling asylum seekers they should join an ordely queue (that the UNHCR says is 117 years long at current resttlement rates-how patient are you?)
Will you please make a decision that pulls the brakes on this spiral into dehumanisation and systematically begin to humanise people for the benefit of all. Will you please afford people the same human rights that you feel entitled to. Or when asked 'where is your brother?' will you just smugly shrug and say 'you'll need to fight tooth and nail for a freedom of information clause to get my answer'?
Today it was revealed that Scott Morrison has issued a directive to his party and to those in the field that work with asylum seekers that they are to be referred to as illegal arrivals from now on and that no longer will asylum seekers being moved to or kept in detention centres be referred to as clients, they are transferees and detainees.
Scott Morrison's leaked directive from the Sydney Morning Herald
As is pointed out in the article by a psychiatrist it is important what language we use and this directive from Scott Morrison dehumanises these people. I would go so far as to say that it is a deliberate act on his part to do so and is reprehensible. Why would any decent human being want other human beings dehumanised? Well, it serves his political purpose that we as the voting public come to see these people as less than human so we will not care what happens to them. There was even a report recently that one detention centre was referring to it's clients by numbers rather than names and that included children.
What happens to a person who is being systematically dehumanised? Psychiatrists say that dehumanisation ignores the person's individuality, their ability to be creative and make choices and ignores them as being part of a network of people who care for eachother – a community. A person denied their individuality and sense of belonging to a community often reults in them no longer showing compassion and other normal moral responses which can then lead them on a road to becoming violent or accepting violence upon themselves. Are we trying to mentally injure people towards responding with violence so we can dehumanise them even more?
And Scott Morrison is not only wanting to dehumanise asylum seekers but he wants everything that we do to them to be done in secret. He doesn't want the government to have to tell the public when asylum seekers are arriving on our shores, he doesn't want to tell us what happens to them after they do and he doesn't want to tell us of problems arising in the camps.
Scott Morrison on secrecy from The Guardian Australia
He doesn't want to tell us because he says it fuels the people smugglers and asylum seekers with information they can use to their advantage. Yet whilst in opposition he was the man announcing from the rooftops through his righteous spittle every day to anyone who would listen whenever an asylum seeker issue raised its head.
I don't want to be alarmist and I hate slippery slope arguments but dehumanising others puts in place an atmosphere where further human rights abuses can take place.
I wont make the absurdist leap to Hitler or Nazi's that others do when the idealism of a group conflicts with their own (The Daily Telegraph for one) but I do want to stress that the UNHCR was set up in the first place after what Hitler did to the Jews because the world decided that never again would we let people be so dehumanised and turned away from borders when fleeing persecution and death. Rightly we ratified that treaty. Have we forgotten what happened in the past? Have we forgotten what we agreed to do?
Our last report card from the UN gave us an F for our treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. As the richest nation in the world per capita we should be deeply ashamed. But this is what happens when we dehumanise others and become insular and selfish...it just breeds more selfishness and insular thinking till we can't see the forest for the trees. What did we fight for all those years ago? freedom for just the entitled or freedom and human rights for all? Lest we forget.
I am a Christian but I never thought I'd be rocked and swayed by the way a Catholic Pope dealt with the same issues on the same day in another part of the world. It was a fantastic speech and I urge you to read it The Pope in Lampedusa on the globalisation of indifference To summarise it though he felt he needed to hold a Mass on Lampedusa, a small island in Italy that a boatload of refugees was attempting to reach because it has an immigrant reception centre (note the difference in terminology) but the boat was lost at sea and over 300 asylum seekers perished.
The Pope spoke out about the globalisation of indifference to the plight of these people that has been spread in part by those that wish to dehumanise them. He said (and whether you believe in the story or not it is still a powerful metaphor) that at the dawn of humanity God asks Cain regarding Abel “Where is your brother? The voice of his blood cries even to me.” And he goes on to say that this question is being asked of all of us even now. “Where is your brother?”
The Pope went on to pray at the conclusion "we ask forgiveness for the indifference towards so many brothers and sisters, we ask for forgiveness for those who are pleased with themselves, who are closed in their own well-being in a way that leads to the anaesthesia of the heart, we ask you, Father, for forgiveness for those who with their decisions at the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies. Forgive us, Lord!
I would've thought that any response akin to 'Am I my brother's keeper?' should be for the Christian at least answered with a resounding YES! Yet it seems like many Christians want to wash their hands of the problem like a Judean Prefect. It doesn't mark them as evil but for the Christian it is not what God calls you to do. I'm encouraged that this new Pope is not one of those Christians.
When we dehumanise others, others ultimately will begin to dehumanise us. It is like there is a natural law at work, like a law of social physics. I once heard a quote from a historian (I cannot find the source unforunately) “Nations rise and fall depending on how they reflect the Kingdom of God” (I am sorry if I am delving too much into God stuff, for the non believer you may read God or the Kingdom of God as the Kindom of the values that we share in justice, mercy and compassion).
That quote has the ring of truth to me – a seed of truth rooted in the earth and growing to a towering tree with branches that reach out and shade all that reside under it. Call it karma or call it Isaiah 60:12 “For the nation that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste” And I don't see that as an interventionist God reaching in and exacting revenge. I see that through the perspective of that if you live by the sword, so you die by the sword. The social law at work – if your nation is defined by greed in that greed gives it it's power then greed is what will kill it one bleeding cut at a time. Hate begets hate, greed begets greed, sefishness begets selfishness, violence begets violence and dehumanisation will lead to more and more dehumanisation. The reaping of the environment will see the environment turn on us. I'm not personifying the environment for example and this isn't some weirdo new age idea, this is basically the science of cause and effect. For every action there is a consequence be it a social action or a physical one.
The sins of the father are visited upon the son is not a curse, it is a consequence. When you beat or neglect your son that will leave scars that carry over into the next generation. When we dehumanise others on any basis be it wealth, race, religion, culture or sexuality then we are all poorer as a result going forward. We need to acknowledge what we have done and do all that is in our power to treat others how we would wish to be treated if we want a better world and a better future.
Because genorosity begets generosity and love begets love. It is in our interest to have the others interest at heart. Should we not, by turning our backs on others in need we will find that they have turned their backs on us in our need.
So to my brother Scott Morrison I ask 'where are you? And what are you doing?' Are you attending another wedding on the public purse and escaping scrutiny for it though your party has brought down others in parliament for similar infringements? Are you reliving your private boy's school days in Abbott's boy's club of a cabinate and looking down with contempt on the kids from the public school around the corner? Are you continuing to send heavily pregnant women and children to offshore detention centres where whole generations will be dehumanised before they've had a chance to form an identity? Are you telling asylum seekers they should join an ordely queue (that the UNHCR says is 117 years long at current resttlement rates-how patient are you?)
Will you please make a decision that pulls the brakes on this spiral into dehumanisation and systematically begin to humanise people for the benefit of all. Will you please afford people the same human rights that you feel entitled to. Or when asked 'where is your brother?' will you just smugly shrug and say 'you'll need to fight tooth and nail for a freedom of information clause to get my answer'?
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