A friend
of mine in Australia, recently informed me how much the Asylum issue will play in
the contentious Australian Elections due in September, but over which the two main
parties Labor and Liberal will prey on the electorate’s innate sense of fear.
It
is the Labor Govt. of Julia Gilard that is in power, and the polls give the opposition
Liberals the edge. The Liberals are playing the race card, and immigrants card,
namely that additional immigration, especially the asylum seekers are bad for the
Country as evidenced in the recent crime committed by an asylum seeker.
They
seek to show that Labor is soft on asylum seekers despite the reports in the Australian
Press on the HRW report on allegations against the security forces in Sri Lanka.
See
Link: http://www.theage.com.au/world/sri-lanka-accused-of-human-rights-abuses-20130226-2f4de.html
It
is as well for us in Sri Lanka to understand that what happens here can and does
play a part in the election campaigns in foreign lands, and therefore the stance
taken by those governments are often more for domestic political reasons as it is
for international and humanitarian reasons.
It
is easy to see how one party seeks to attack the policies of the present government
as being biased towards asylum seekers who should be sent back, despite the claims
of torture if they return. So both articles in the links above are arguments put
forth by either side in this campaign, and depending on what the populace accept
as being a more reasonable approach, can alter the outcome of an election.
I often,
painted this Government governs by fear, rather than love for the people and a sense
of doing justice to all who live here. If all fails, play the fear of race card to win the hearts of a substantial section easily frightened into believing lies.
Similarly too in Australia, using fear of
a country overrun by criminal foreigners is an election gimmick used to fool the
electorate there, and the bogey men always is the hapless SL refugee or the hapless
SL Govt. is fair game in ‘fair dinkum’ land in a game of poker for power!!
2 comments:
Right on Ranjit - that's exactly what's happening here in Oz and the thought of this fear campaign escalating over the next 6 months to the September election horrifies me.
Cheers, Frank
More links in the Australian Press:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/the-demonisation-continues-20130227-2f6eh.html
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/libs-push-for-asylum-crackdown-20130227-2f6er.html
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