AS I was reading about the experience of the Tasmanian people in their recent horrific fire ordeal, I was struck by the similarity of their experience and that of refugees.
Both have to flee their homes for fear of death.
For the bushfire victims this is hopefully a one-off event, but for refugees it is often a repeated experience where they lose members of their families to unspeakably deliberate torture and violence.
Like fire, these rogue political powers are a law unto themselves and cannot be stopped or held accountable for what they do.
Fire victims may be lucky enough to gather their important papers before they run to escape.
Refugees are often too poor to have any important papers, needed for relocation.
Fire victims run for their lives and aren’t expected to wait in any “queue” or take their turn.
They just run and are accepted and welcomed and comforted.
Refugees are castigated because they failed to stand stalwartly in some mythical “queue” while their children face starvation, disease and continued threats of death from the original aggressors or the people of the region to which they have fled.
Fire victims face the impersonal wrath of a force of nature.
Refugees face the cunning, malicious, evil face of human hatred.
Why do we welcome the one and deny the other?
Does it all really just boil down to racism?
We don’t accept them because they’re different to us … but how similar they are, too.
They cry, they bleed, they suffer, they laugh and are grateful.
BERENADETTE DUFFY
Currumbin Waters, Qld
