http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4U6NtwPLet_Epk4qWrn9XsPUp8w

The Australian PM and immigration minister has come out and stated that Australia will not be taking any refugees from Africa for over a year.

The reasons given for the government stance include poor integration from african refugees including large cases of crimes from african gangs.

This decision has come under considerable critiscm because

1)It is seen as lacking compassion and understanding towards people who have experienced civil war

2)It is deemed as racist and further alienates the african community in Australia

3)It is seen as political opportunism, given that an election is coming up shortly. The prime ministers approval ratings have improved historically whenever he has taken a harsh stand against refugees or asylum seekers.


With this issue, I can speak from a bit of personal experience as when I lived in Melbourne, I lived 10 minutes away from one of the largest Sudanese(where australia predominantly gets its refugees from) community in Australia.

Personally, I never had any problems with them. Actually the sudanese I came in contact with were friendly. They used to sing to themselves, when they worked(manual labour). I used to go to the supermarket and they would be collecting trolleys singing to themselves. I used to think that was nice.

To be fair though, they did have a high crime rate. It was mainly drink driving, some thefts, some gang related crime, some assualts etc. It wasn't pleasant.

I did and do feel sorry for them in some way. You have to put yourself in their position. They live in Sudan in a civil war, where their family are murdered. They live from day to day, drinking, driving at an early age, with total anarchy in their lives. They come from that to a country,with an orderly society and full of rules, driving laws etc. It is hard to acclimatise from two opposites.

I am not sure what to think about the latest decision. Like I said before, I feel sorry for them. And it does smack of political opportunism. And the other point is, what are going to be the replacement refugees? How do we know that they will be better behaved than the Sudanese?

Needless to say, refugee help groups in this country have gone off their heads at the government over this decision.

COS, I read your link. To be honest I hadn't heard of it before. And that was the only link I could google, so it was hard to get information on it.

I am not sure why someone would do something as insensitive as that. I was trying to ascertain who it was which put those stickers on the bottle.

The only thing I can think of, and I am only guessing at this, is that a serbian put those guys faces on the wine bottle, and the sellers and the distributors let it through because they didn't know who the two guys were. I could imagine that happening, as being a long way away from everyone, many australians are fairly ignorant of global affairs.

Anyway, I will follow the story and see if any more news comes to hand on it.

where ethics and realism collide. There should be a general principle in dealing with refugees. If you accept all who manage to reach your shores, you encourages many more to attempt. Let's be frank, there are billions, not millions but billions, people who would like to permanently move into a Western country. Out of 6.6 billion of the world population, possibly 2 billion are somehow content with their living conditions.

I know many, really many refugees in Canada, I spend much time with them, soccer, parties. Not one single of them came from a war-torn country; in that, they mostly originate in such countries but had been living for years in neighboring peaceful countries. If it's a Liberian, I bet you any money he came either from Ghana or from Ivory Coast or Guinea. If it's a Somalian, he's come after years in Kenya or Djibouti. And so forth. They all had rather miserable living conditions, but, guess what, not very different from that of the locals; and they most certainly are not war refugees. Though some might of those who sail on boats might actually be. I have a special tenderness for these people, but realistically, the number of those willing to relocate is beyond any absorption capacity of all wealthy countries combined.