brains + heart = humanity
I’m still stewing over the Liberal Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison who exhibited the sum of his human qualities with his comments about asylum seekers this week. The Sydney Morning Herald reported Senator Eric Abetz jumping with unseemly haste onto the bandwagon of prejudice and misinformation.
Senior Liberal senator Eric Abetz on Thursday backed calls from his party’s immigration spokesman that communities be notified when asylum seekers are released from detention.
Whenever I attempt to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard to express my horror, I feel lost for words. As a human being (one of billions on this planet) I just do not get the deliberate inciting of prejudice by so-called community leaders and representatives. I do not understand the uninformed acceptance of media grabs, devoid of facts and ignoring the complexity of issues, designed to ramp up people’s fears. I find the peddling of racism and homophobia and any other ignorance-driven behaviours very difficult to understand.
I want to ask my fellow human beings who feel empathy with these remarks:
what is it that you feel you have personally lost/are missing out on/is different in your life because of asylum seekers in our communities?
how does it make you feel to put other human beings in categories (criminals, queue jumpers, foreigners) that make you rationalise your hatred of people you’ve never met?
So I’m grateful for people like Nancy Cato, for being so erudite in her response.
I’m grateful that Margo Kingston is back in the game with her Citizen Journalism project.
I’m grateful that Barry Cassidy pointed out the following to Scott Morrison this morning on The Insiders. HT @KieraGorden on Twitter.
Barrie Cassidy to Morrison: “Are u aware that in the last 3 years, more politicians have been charged with offences than asylum seekers?”
3/03/13 9:20 AM
We’re better than letting ourselves be sucked into a vortex of hatred by politicians only interested in shifting our vote to keep them in positions of power and influence. Let’s use our brains and our hearts a lot more. Put them together and see what possibilities caring and giving might deliver us.
sentio 
Yes, but Gillard and the ALP are no better. They let Ranjini and her kids rot in prison without charge or trial, Gillard is now and still playing the race card as she always has.
It is Gillard who said in her stupid Lowy speech that we want worthy migrants like her parents, not those evil creatures who dare to pay for transport to be safe.
Yes and it’s not a good place to be as a voter. In any election I would rather be choosing between the best of the best rather than trying to decide the lesser of two evils.