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RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS

E-Newsletter
Vol.3 No.42
October 15, 2001


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Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is now available online at: http://www.rghr.net

Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is a weekly e-newsletter issued by Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic and Christian Groups on Human Rights, initiated by the Asian Human Rights Commission.

1) IN DANGER OF OURSELVES - REFLECTIONS BY NICK CHEESEMAN
2) BANGLADESH OCT 1 ELECTIONS
3) NORTH ARAKAN MASS CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY
4) CAMBODIA INVITED UN TO TRY KHMER ROUGE
5) IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR
6) ECUMENICAL ORGANIZATIONS RAISE VOICES TO RESPOND TO GLOBAL EVENTS
7) AHRC NEWS

1) IN DANGER OF OURSELVES - REFLECTIONS BY NICK CHEESEMAN

Early September in Perth, I listened as a group of Australian students in an upper high school class talked about the recent movement of asylum seekers towards this continent. A girl was loudly declaring, "I wish we had nuclear bombs because then we could bomb 'em all and that'd be the end of it. Serve 'em right. They should just all go to hell. I don't want them and their diseases and violence in our clean country."

Most students in the group were vocal in support. One who appeared to have some sympathy for the asylum seekers was abused, and ended up defending himself with recourse to, "Well don't get me wrong, it's not like I want the boat people or anything."

A month later I attended the opening of Refugee Week along with representatives of non-government organisations, elite bureaucrats and academics. There the loudest applause was reserved for those speakers opposing the anti-asylum seeker laws recently introduced by the current government.

Meanwhile, middle-class businesspeople and retirees have rallied downtown in support of the laws and in opposition to "illegal immigrants". Letter writers to newspaper editors declare a willingness to torpedo any boats coming, as "everyone HATES these boat people". The gap between popular opinion and that of the narrow intellectual class is nowhere more glaring than on television debates, where panels of experts cautiously choosing their words are met with vitriol and jingoism from "ordinary Australians".

What has gone wrong with Australian society? After years of talk about tolerance and multiculturalism, suddenly a highly disturbed people has revealed itself in a wave of xenophobia cutting across classrooms, streets and talk-back radio shows throughout the country. The extreme has become the mainstream; considered opinions are swallowed up by cries of "traitor"; the population that last year hosted the "best Olympics ever" has become mean and ugly. Thinking Australians are today fearful for our democracy, uneasy about the future and reflective about the past.

Like the majority of white people here, I am descended from "boat people". With the important exception of Aboriginal Australians, nobody's lineage in this continent extends beyond about two hundred years. Even our colloquial speech gives our origins away: "She'll be right mate", the echo of our ancestors on their long ocean voyages. Yet those people came not on a utopian quest for a new land nor seeking refuge from persecution. Australia in the nineteenth century was no beacon of democracy or city set on a hill: it was a scattering of remote colonies under the British Empire founded upon slave labour and martial law, bringing the indigenous population nothing but disease, crime and bloodshed.

By the mid-nineteenth century a white Australian identity was being forged explicitly in opposition to Asians. The majority of the white "Australians" objecting to the perceived Asian threat to the continent were themselves immigrants from Britain, Ireland and Scotland who may have had even less tenuous links with the colonies than their Asian counterparts. Notwithstanding, they began to nourish the fear that has run like a deep undercurrent throughout Australian society ever since: dark skinned foreigners could penetrate Australia's borders and pose a threat to the white man's version of civilisation.

As the current asylum seekers consist of many Afghans, it is ironic to note that Afghans played an important role in the building of Australia. In the first part of the nineteenth century the British colonists experimented with horse-drawn transport in the continent's interior, but found the animals struggled in the arid environment. Camels proved much better suited to the task, but the Europeans had difficulty managing them. When by the 1860s thousands of camels were being imported, Afghan drivers were brought alongside them. Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century transport across remote regions relied on these Afghans. Yet even while they were sought out for emigration to Australia, the cameleers were treated as outcastes, and particularly amid the growing anti-Asian sentiment of the 1880s and 90s became increasingly marginalised and unwelcome. When no longer needed, respect turned to hostility and rejection; later, rejection became law.

This year is being celebrated as the centenary of Federation. Congratulatory television advertisements and public events make no mention however that one of the first pieces of legislation enacted by the new parliament in 1901 was the Immigration Restriction Act, the first plank in what became known as the White Australia Policy. Under this odious regulation, anti-Asian sentiment was made official: non-whites would be kept out of the country. The Policy was heralded as a marvelous success and in 1919 Prime Minister Hughes said little for Australian society of the time by describing it as "the greatest thing we have achieved".

Since the 1970s the national discourse has grown shy of White Australia and has instead embraced multiculturalism. However the reality is that Australia today remains socially, psychologically and structurally a white Anglo society. To the majority of Australians, multiculturalism means Thai restaurants and Chinese New Year celebrations. Cultural demonstrations of difference are welcome, within reason, but white men remain unequivocally in control of the state, as they have been for over two hundred years. It is this latter-day White Australia that is responsible for the poisonous diatribes once more consuming our society. Again it is fearful for itself and the status quo, again it is questioning the right of others to be as legitimately Australian as its collective self.

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, with the economies of Asia booming and regional relations reaching new highs, successive Australian governments sought to convince our neighbours that Australia was at last geographically, economically and politically home in Asia. As the Asian economic crisis hit, enthusiasm for this rhetoric waned. The current surge of bigotry begs the question not only as to whether or not we deserve to see ourselves as a part of Asia, but even whether or not we deserve a place anywhere in the world community.

Or perhaps I just have it all wrong. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new era in both national and global consciousness, born of the recent anti-terror world order, and not some isolated backlash indicative of mere domestic sentiment. If that is the case then we have all the more to fear for our democracy. While Australia's leaders and public are quite rightly focussed, as those in other states, on the danger from outside, another very real danger lies within: we are in danger of ourselves, and the threat is much longer term and far more insidious.

2) BANGLADESH OCT 1 ELECTIONS

The BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) won the eighth parliamentary election in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Observer reported on October 11, 2001, BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia was sworn in as Prime Minister at a ceremony at Darbar Hall of Bangabhaban on Wednesday October 10. President Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed administered the oath of office to Kahaleda Zia and her 59 member Cabinet. AHRC intern, William Laursen was sent to be an election observer in the October 1 parliamentary election. An estimated 75 million voters chose 300 candidates to represent them during the next five years. The pre-election period violence in Bangladesh found 130 people dead and hundreds injured, while the day of the elections was relatively peaceful. William, observed the long lines of people anxious to vote.

3) NORTH ARAKAN MASS CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

Abdur Rashid, of The Arakan News Agency, reported on October 5 that over 300 Rakhine Buddhist men, women and children belonging to 65 families from newly established Pyin She Buddhist village under Buthidaung township in occupied Arakan State in southwest Burma have reportedly been converted to Christianity in the month of August. The converted individuals were given one month to reconsider their position by the Chairman of the Township Peace and Development Council. The converted individuals stated they would stick to the new faith until their death. According to reliable sources the mass conversion occurred following a bitter quarrel between two groups of Rakhines about the appointment of village Chairman and Secretary. The aggrieved party accused the Township Peace and Development Council of taking a huge bribe and siding with the minority group. Although a complaint was filed with the District Peace and Development Council no action has reportedly been taken. Disappointed and frustrated over the unjust behaviour of the government officials, all 65 households went to the recently built Christian church adjacent to Ywa Thit Ywa Muslim village west of Buthidaung town and voluntarily embraced Christianity.

4) CAMBODIA INVITED UN TO TRY KHMER ROUGE

According the Un wire (www.unwire.org) and Cambodia Daily, the UN received an invitation to try former Kmer Rouge regime members. It is estimated that most of the men who will be charged are now in their 70s. The Khmer Rouge ruled the country between 1975 and 1979 and killed nearly 2 million people before being ousted by a Vietnamese invasion. Cabinet Minister Sok An, who led government talks with the UN wrote to Hans Corell, a UN legal expert last week and it was confirmed by Cambodian officials that no serious obstacles remain on the conduct of a trial. Concern had been expressed earlier that the negotiations, which have at times been strained over financing and jurisdiction issues, would not produce a trial in time, given the advanced age and precarious health of potential defendants. U.S. Ambassador Kent Wiedmann said earlier this month, though, that the United Nations was ready to proceed, adding that the only thing required was "for Cambodia to send an invitation."

5) IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR

We condemn the killing of unarmed people in the suicide car bomb attack and the firing in the premises of the Legislative Assembly building in Srinagar on October 1, 2001. This is an act of terrorism. We call on the governments of India and Pakistan to immediately resume the official dialogue to resolve their longstanding dispute over the territory of Jammu and Kashmir. We also urge the governments to take immediate steps to demilitarise the embattled region of Jammu and Kashmir and allow the divided people to meet across the Line of Control, so that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are able to participate in a political dialogue to determine their political future in a non coercive atmosphere. We believe that without the participation of the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir, not lasting solution can be found. (HR Alert from South Asia Forum for Human Rights)

6) ECUMENICAL ORGANIZATIONS RAISE VOICES TO RESPOND TO GLOBAL EVENTS

In response to the global situation after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the World Council of Churches (WCC), Action by Churches Together (ACT) and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) have agreed to set up a short-term crisis response mechanism to share information with their broad church constituency. It is an effort to give visions of peace and voices of faith to be heard. Through an (English-only) electronic bulletin and a website, Behind the news: Visions for Peace - Voices of Faith, they will offer a selection of church statements and actions; information on the responses and actions of other religions and interreligious organizations; updates on humanitarian concerns, particularly on the situation of refugees; analysis and reflection; and study and worship resources to help churches to respond to the unfolding situation. (Information from World Council of Churches website: www.wcc-coe.org)

7) AHRC NEWS

1-Chue Cho Lin was in Malaysia attending an experts meeting on October 13 and 14 entitled "Democracy +Good Governance + Malaysia = The Way Forward"

2 - Philip Setunga and Basil Fernando are back from the Worksop on the UN Convention Against Torture in Indonesia.