Lucky country and its toxic mix

S P SETH

Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck, so said Donald Horne, a journalist/academic in his book of the same name. This adage has come to define Australia in a broad sense. Not that many people have heard of or read Horne’s book, but in this age of instant images flashed all over the world through television and internet, many people have an impression that Australia is a rich and fun loving country with love of sports and sun bathing on the beaches. It would appear that at times even this could become a bit mundane for the locals and hence the need for some distraction, at least on the part of its politicians, to be doing something ‘real’ like in other countries where there are so many real problems requiring urgent solutions. And this is what Australia’s conservative government, led by Tony Abbot, is doing these days. For instance, believe it or not, it has brought back the British system of honours to make some top people knights and dames. Tony Abbott loves everything British, particularly the monarchy, to bring Australia even closer to the old home country. And the revival of the honours system is an example of this. This was sensibly abandoned in mid-eighties, replaced with Australia’s own independent honours system for its distinguished citizens.

As it is, it is embarrassing to be sharing the British monarch when Australia claims to be an independent country. An earlier conservative government in a referendum torpedoed the prospects of Australia becoming a republic any time soon by framing the question in a way to divide the republican vote. And now we are back to the ‘good old days’ when a royal edict making someone ‘sir’ or ‘dame’ was such a satisfying moment. Such mundane and anachronistic acts would simply show how much out of touch the Australian government and many Australians are with rest of the world, still seeking comfort and security in a non-resident monarch who lives and functions in a far-off land. And, incidentally, it seems to validate Horne’s observation, quoted above, as quite apt.

Another odd, but potentially harmful, move by the Abbot Government, particularly for the country’s racial minorities, is to draft legislation for amending the Racial Discrimination Act in the name of free speech. It arises from a case where a powerful conservative media commentator, Andrew Bolt, found himself on the wrong side of the law for casting aspersions on the identity of Aboriginals (native Australians) of fairer skin. In the relevant case, the judge found that the columnist’s articles did not qualify for free speech protection as they “contained erroneous facts, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language…” And that it “…was reasonably likely to have an intimidatory effect on some fair-skinned Aboriginal people and in particular young Aboriginal persons or others with vulnerability in relation to their identity.”

Ever since the white settlement of this vast continent more than two centuries ago, resulting in the massacre of Aborigines and dispossession of their land, they remain the country’s most marginal racial minority. Some relevant statistics speak for themselves. It is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald that, “Aborigines make up 2.5 per cent of the Australian adult population but account for 26 per cent of all adult Australian prisoners.” To put it another way, “Our [Australian] rate of indigenous imprisonment is 18 times that for the rest of us.” Now that the Racial Discrimination Act is about to be amended they, like other minorities, will lack even basic protection from racial abuse and humiliation. This protection, available under the Act for nearly 20 years, will be further watered down in the name of free speech to abuse and/or humiliate racial minorities, just because one powerful conservative commentator wasn’t happy as it ‘restricted’ his right to say things about the Aborigines without any basis in facts.

For a long time Australia was seen as a racist country for whites only. Around the seventies, this policy was relaxed, under a strictly controlled and monitored system, to let in some Asian immigrants. Though the country is still predominantly white, you can now come across a range of people of different ethnicities and cultures, particularly in the main cities. Which has added some welcome ‘colour’ to the country’s bland image. But, predictably, some Australians aren’t happy about it. They want to go back to the ‘good old days’ of being able to use offensive language to insult and humiliate minorities.  And they want this ‘freedom’ in the name of free speech. Believe it or not, the country’s highest law officer, Attorney General, George Brandis, has virtually endorsed this right. According to Brandis, “ [Australian] people have the right to be bigots.” What a bright future for the country where bigotry will be celebrated, like when the white Australia policy was!

With such way of thinking, it is not surprising that Australia has virtually declared war on the desperate people fleeing murder and mayhem in their countries to reach Australia by leaky boats in the hope of seeking asylum, simply because they are not ‘like us’. Australia’s clarion call and policy of Operation Sovereign Borders is designed to prevent any of these people to reach Australia. The country’s customs and naval resources are policing the approaches to Australia, and towing back the rickety boats back to Indonesia, the country of transit for most of these refugees. In the process, they have encroached into Indonesian waters quite a few times, claiming to have done it unintentionally. And in the case of boats that are leaky and might sink with their human cargo, Australia is sending them back to Indonesia in floating lifeboats, like cattle.

There are stories of some refugees suffering burns from being forced to touch the boat’s engine, when towed back to Indonesia. The country’s state-funded television station has been virtually accused by Prime Minister Tony Abbot of lack/absence of patriotism for running such a story. In any case, Australia has set up its refugee ‘gulags’ (some calling them Australia’s own Guantanamo Bay for refugees) in impoverished neighbour states of Papua New Guinea and the tiny state of Nauru. These and some other poor counties, like Cambodia, are being asked to settle these refugees in their respective areas, with Australia rewarding/bribing them suitably with financial incentives. Imagine a rich country like Australia professing to be caring and freedom loving seeking to force these desperate people on countries that can hardly even look after their own people!

This cocktail of bigotry, racism and declaring war on asylum seekers led a young woman on a TV panel discussion to call it a toxic mix.

Note: this article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Ukraine: stakes are high

S P SETH

Even as the US secretary of state and Russian foreign minister start talks for a possible resolution of the Ukrainian crisis, the fate of Crimea is truly sealed. The recent overwhelming vote in Crimea in favor of Russia has clinched the issue as far as Moscow is concerned, notwithstanding its rejection by the US and Europe. Earlier, a UN Security Council resolution to declare the planned referendum illegal was vetoed by Russia, exercising its right as one of the five permanent members. Interestingly China, that has been voting with Russia on the Syrian question, another contested issue, abstained on the matter. It is not difficult to see China’s sensitivity on matters of territorial integrity, with Tibet and Taiwan always under the microscope of the US and its European allies. But Beijing did make the point earlier about western interference in Ukraine making it a complex issue.

The US and Europe have separately imposed sanctions on certain high officials and advisers, believed to have been involved in the Putin regime’s Crimea policy. The sanctions might be tightened and expanded if Moscow were to interfere in the Russian majority eastern Ukraine. So far, it is only Crimea that Russia wanted. But Moscow remains committed to protect ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, if necessary. The US and Europe are now more concerned about possible incursions into eastern Ukraine.

In his address to the Russian parliament on Crimea’s referendum and Moscow’s acceptance of it, President Putin played to the gallery and received rapturous applause when he said that Crimea had always been an inalienable part of Russia. Broadly speaking, it is historically true. It was only in the fifties that the then Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Crimea under Ukraine’s charge. At that time, it was more like administrative reorganization because nobody imagined that the Soviet Union would collapse in 1991, resulting in the creation of new independent states, like Ukraine and others. Since it also housed Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol, Russia was granted a lease by the newly independent Ukraine to continue operating it.

With the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych regime in February amid much rejoicing in Kiev, and Russia calling it a coup, the seeds of a split in the country between its western and eastern regions (majority ethnic Russian) were sown. Although Putin has assured that Moscow is not looking to split Ukraine, he has also said, repeated by his foreign minister only the other day, that Russia would protect ethnic Russians, if necessary.

Putin made some important points in his parliamentary address. First, he accused the west of hypocrisy citing their endorsement of Kosovo’s referendum for independence from Serbia while denying the same right of self-determination to Crimea. Second, he said that the west had “crossed the line” over Ukraine and behaved “irresponsibly”. He was apparently referring to the overthrow of President Yanukovych regime with western encouragement, and its replacement by an interim government that included “neo-Nazis” and anti-Russian radicals. Though Moscow might be exaggerating this, but the Right-wing parties/groups and their militias played a prominent role in creating an environment of ethnic Ukrainian nationalism even to the point of wanting to remove Russian as one of the country’s two languages, though saner heads prevailed and it was dropped.

Recognizing Russia’s concerns, Ukraine’s interim prime minister recently sought to assure Moscow on two points. First that Kiev was not seeking to join NATO and, two, that the Ukrainian government would disarm nationalist militias. In a way, this vindicated Russia’s position that radical nationalists might have hijacked the new order in Ukraine. Indeed, the interim government has four cabinet ministers from the extreme right party, Svoboda (Freedom), a successor to Socio-National Party of Ukraine, a neo-Nazi outfit. Interestingly, some of the radical nationalist militias seem to be now turning on the interim government.

The point here is: has the west overplayed its cards? It would seem so, even though there is so much talk of punishing Russia through sanctions and international isolation. As pointed out earlier, the overthrow of Yanukovych from the country’s Russian-majority eastern region, however corrupt and politically inept he was, reduced Ukraine to a nationalist project with ethnic Russians feeling unsafe. For instance, only in 2010, Yanukovych was elected president of the country with a vote across all the regions, indicating that only four years ago the country was pretty much a functioning democracy with both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians largely committed to a united Ukraine. But then came the protests and violence, with western encouragement, for union with EU that would, most likely, lead to membership of the NATO military club at some point. It is not entirely surprising that after the experience of NATO’s eastward expansion to encircle Russia, Moscow decided to take a stand in Ukraine when it sought to join EU.

With things already messed up in Ukraine, now the tiny state of Moldova and Georgia also want to integrate with European Union. Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region is keen to integrate with Russia. As it is surrounded by Ukraine blocking supplies and utilities, this is another flashpoint. Russia is not going to take lightly the entry of Moldova and Georgia into EU, with prospects of its further encirclement. And if one looks at significant Russian minority in Estonia feeling discriminated, the whole EU and NATO expansion eastward is going to be a constant point of friction and, possible, conflict. As for Georgia, Russian forces already rebuffed it in 2008 when it sought to occupy its separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Because of the Crimea developments, the Baltic countries, formerly part of the Soviet Union, and Poland, a former Soviet satellite and Warsaw Pact member, are feeling nervous and vulnerable from their Russian neighbour. This led the US Vice President, Joe Biden, to pay them a visit to assure them of US support. Washington has also sent some fighter planes to fly over their air space as a gesture of support, as well as promising other military measures. As a counterpoint, Russia too dispatched a few warplanes to patrol the sky over its ally, Belarus.

At the same time, the US and EU are continuing to slap a string of sanctions. There are also indications that they might target Putin, within Russia, as receiving pots of money from oil interests owned and controlled by his cronies. In other words, things are likely to get hotter as time goes by. One strongly hopes that it will not escalate into some kind of military brinkmanship on either side, and that the new talks between the US and Russia will shift it to a diplomatic course.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au