Tag: Borders

Syria: who wants what and why?
May 7, 2018 2:46 pm Comments Off on Syria: who wants what and why?
As you may have heard over the past few weeks, coordinated tripartite attacks from the US, France and Britain have taken place in the outskirts of Damascus. In this tired seven year war, it’s often quite easy to lose track of who is fighting who and whom supports whom in the quagmire of rhetoric, accusations and generalisations. In this piece, I will be examining this war from a sectarian point of view, so buckle in for some rhetoric, accusations and generalisations..
It’s important to first know who is in the fight and why they are fighting. Put simply, it is the current regime vying to defend its existence against a plethora of rebel groups, some of whom like or dislike each other more than the regime. The current regime is the Syrian branch of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, which claims to follow the tradition of Ba’athism (Arabic for ‘Renaissance’), however, it is often argued that it is a corruption of the ideology and many have begun to label the regime as neo-Ba’athist. Simply put, the main tenets of political Ba’athism are Arab unification, Arab nationalism, Social and Economic progressiveness, one-party rule and secularism. It is the latter two tenets that have fueled the fire of rebellion and led to the current conflict we see in the Middle East.
It is the forced secularisation and the unwillingness to accept political pluralism established by the current regime that rebel groups use as their justification. They accuse their secular minded government of being the enemy of Allah, and of punishing devout citizens. Those who are seen as being too religiously minded are put on watchlists, as sheikhs and imams are under strict government surveillance, and wearing the hijab is frowned upon in the public sector. Islamist rebellions have been happening in Syria since the ‘70s ever since Bashar’s own father Hafez Al Assad implemented a constitution which omitted the requirement that the president of Syria must be a muslim. Many see this action as a response to the fact that Assad family are of Alawite origins, a little known about sect whom many mainstream sunnis do not consider to be muslim.
Ultimately, what once began as hopeful protests that reached every segment of society inspiring hope for a more pluralistic future has degenerated into a matter of pure sectarianism. Here’s a basic break down of the many parties involved:

Sunni Muslims: Generally support the rebellion. View Assad as having oppressed Sunni Islamist movements and view his secularisation of Syria as being forced and specifically targeting them. View his rule as disenfranchising, the majority Sunni population generally favour democratic reforms as they are the vast majority of the population and thus are set to benefit from them the most. There is great diversity in the groups they support, with the most radical supporting ISIS, Islamists supporting the various Islamic rebel groups such as Jaysh Al-Islam (Arabic for ‘the army of Islam’), and non-sectarian moderates supporting what is left of the Free Syrian Army.
Christians: Have been an oppressed minority in the region for centuries and this has been recently exacerbated with the emergence of ISIS and other jihadist organisations. They have often had to rely on rulers for protection. Support Assad for his perceived role as the bulwark against political Islam. Their position is viewed as begrudgingly supporting the government for its secular protections.
Alawites and Shiites: Despite not being considered a denomination of Islam by mainstream Sunnis, Alawites, the sect that the ruling Assad family hails from, has developed a strong affiliation with the Shia power of Iran and it’s Shia proxy in nearby Lebanon. Like the Christians, they fear retaliation by the Sunni majority if Assad loses power. They are traditionally the bulk of Assad’s support base and see Iran and Russia as their allies.
The Kurds: A distinct ethno-linguistic group that have traditionally been victims of campaigns of forced Arabisation and cultural genocide. Seek to establish cultural autonomy at the very least, are anti-Assad and also do not get along with many of the other rebel groups as their rebellion is mostly ethnic based, as opposed to religiously or politically motivated.

It is important to remember this is by no means a comprehensive guide of the war. No article of this word count could accomplish that. It is also important to note that many other actors and stakeholders have been left out, such as the Druze and Assyrian minorities, and mentions of external actors have been kept to a minimum. However, hopefully this informs you just enough to begin to make up your own views on the war.

Woroni Comment
The Right to Translation
March 24, 2018 1:24 pm Comments Off on The Right to Translation
Looking back, the evolutionary path of democracy is remarkable; the ancient Greek practice of old white men meeting on a hill to discuss pressing issues is barely recognisable as the precursor to modern Western democracies. This path has been carved out by an eternal struggle to uphold two fundamental tenets of democracy; equal franchise and free speech. We value free speech so highly that it was the First Amendment to the US Constitution, it is Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is often cited as the impenetrable argument in issues regarding media, education, art, and in some cases, cake decoration.
Our preferred tongue for free speech in Australia and the US is English; government, courts and public discourse are conducted almost exclusively in it. We see highly polished and sophisticated English in newspapers and journals, and a colloquial, snappy vernacular online. However, a quick glance at these nations’ demographics reveals that English is not an ideal language for all its people to digest, discuss, and present thoughts and opinions in.
Data from the Australian government shows that as of 2016, 49 per cent of Australians were born overseas, or had at least one parent born overseas. 21 per cent of Australians spoke a language other than English at home. The US is similar. Though we rarely see these individuals’ opinions in mainstream public discourse, they are avid participants in free speech; niche language media has bloomed. The Epoch Times, the largest Chinese language newspaper in Australia, prints 1.6 million newspapers per week and boasts an impressive 200 million pageviews per month. Monolingual free speech sufficed in bygone eras where globalisation had not yet taken hold and proudly multicultural nations like Australia and the USA espoused racist policies and demanded cultural assimilation. At the time, an acceptable portion of the public could participate in free speech as was conducive to good democracy. Today, however, linguistic diversity poses a threat to free speech.
We have now reached the climax of this chapter in the history of democracy. Is globalisation deemed to be repugnant to free speech, or will society find a way to mediate the two?
To continue down the path of globalisation, we must introduce a universal right to translation. It will act to remove the linguistic barrier to fair, representative democracy. Furthermore, it will initiate a global culture of free speech and truly unlock the communicative and cooperative potential of the Internet.
Such a right already exists to some degree; in US Federal courts, the accused possesses a right to an interpreter where appropriate. Also, services like Google Translate allow for reasonably accurate translations between many languages. However, they cannot capture the subtleties of language such as its connotations, diction, and tone, which are paramount in public discourse.
The torch of democracy has been passed onto us to continue free speech. It is now time to create a universal right to translation to achieve this and show our commitment to equality, diversity, and acceptance.

Noah Yim
NGA Tom Roberts Exhibition: An Experience
April 6, 2016 11:31 am Comments Off on NGA Tom Roberts Exhibition: An Experience
If you haven’t noticed from the plethora of advertising all over our beloved Capital and Action buses, the Tom Roberts exhibition is on now at the National Gallery of Australia.
When I first heard about this, I was offended that our national gallery would show this artist’s first solo exhibition whilst the National Gallery of Victoria celebrated the monumental careers of Ai Wei Wei and Andy Warhol and the Art Gallery of New South Wales decorated its walls with works ranging from Da Vinci to Dégas.
Therefore, I went into the Tom Roberts exhibition with major reservations. I felt as though the NGA was serving us the most basic Australian art to please the oldies and bring in some tourists. But this random Australian artist brought in the goods for the NGA. There was a line to enter to the gallery the morning of the exhibition – keep in mind this was a Tuesday – and hordes of old people were lining out the door to collect tickets.
Issue 1: I have never seen a bigger or more elaborate exhibition shop in my whole life. It was like a tacky typo store mixed with Country Road complete with “period” façade, oh and it was painted a dark blue – literally the most eye catching part of the whole exhibition.
Issue 2: The layout was so boring, the walls were white. The rooms were chronological (original); there was one feature room which held the huge painting we all would have seen in high school at some point depicting the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Issue 3: The gift shop sold men’s hygiene products, why? The members café was also “high tea” themed for the duration of the exhibition, because Shearing the rams definitely screams ‘high tea’.
Anyway, aside from the NGA’s obsession with commercialism, the celebration of the work and life of Tom Roberts could just be found under the thick layers of marketing and high priced shaving cream. Tom Roberts really was a brilliant member of the early Australian art world, and the NGA did do justice in describing his contribution. The art was of high quality and the collection was complete which gave one and expansive view at his oeuvre.
The question one is faced when visiting such an exhibition is what the role of the NGA is. Should the public institution appeal to the masses with this basic, but immensely popular, exhibition or should it aim to provide a platform for art to be explored and developed? Being a public institution it obviously should appeal to the masses, which sucks, because the masses don’t understand art and they have boring tastes which fuels theses commercialized exhibitions exploring an old Australian artist whose need for a solo exhibition is not really founded in my (very humble) opinion. In a perfect world the NGA would have enough funding to celebrate these amazing Australian artists of the past whilst being included in the international art conversation.

Rory Caddis
The Sinister Secret Behind Shangri-La’s Hazy Facade
11:29 am Comments Off on The Sinister Secret Behind Shangri-La’s Hazy Facade
Soft wisps of silvery mist unfurl across the lush peaks of Yunnan (South-Western Chinese province), Laos and Myanmar obscuring the vast expanses of emerald rice paddies. Yet cleverly disguised in these mosaic fields, a thriving industry for drugs continues to bloom. According to UNODC (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime) it is estimated that 3000 tonnes of marijuana has been grown and sold during the past 20 years in this Golden Triangle.

South East Asia has been crowned the lost ‘Shangri-La’, a rediscovered Utopia for tourists that appears an Eden of the past. Untainted by the rapid industrialisation of World’s Eastern Special Economic Zones, Yunnan, Laos and Myanmar are the last places in Asia where the sapphire sky remains visible to the naked eye. For the province “this was both a blessing and curse” as according to anthropologists who work in the region “to keep up with its reputation and sustain tourism, the curse of Shangri-La leaves Yunnan in limbo”.

The local municipal governments have prohibited any mass industrial activity in this ‘protected region’. To the untrained eye, this is a land of simple life, but behind the façade of heaven on earth, are a people driven desperate by poverty, with a severe lack of infrastructural development. The Golden Triangle has a total population of almost 1 million, but has less than 50 high schools.

The “Golden Triangle” region has a vast amount of heroin processing factories, mostly located deep in mountains and rainforests. “Southeast Asian heroin”, or SEAHEROIN as it has come to be known, is a highly refined version of the drug that is sold around the world.

Due to the low socio-economic status of South East Asia, Miao, Yao and Lisu farmers who dwell at the Golden Triangle area from generation to generations specialise in poppy cultivation. Majority of them are uneducated middle-aged women in decorated, pleated dazzling skirts with sophisticated patterns, batik apron and embroidery shoe. These women, due to the lack of an advanced government welfare and subsidy system, would be unable to fund basic survival without the poppy-growing industry as a source of economic income, and for some, a shortcut to fortune. More and more Hill-Tribe farmers participate in poppy cultivation, resulting in a fast growing illicit drug production industry. According to The Economist: “Laos was long regarded as one side of the Golden Triangle, which was responsible for producing over half of the world’s opium as recently as the 2000s.

After frequent government helicopters scan the fields, setting alight fields of suspected hemp crops. Villages had to find other ways to survive. Hemp crops behind hidden amidst wheat, potatoes and rows of corn.

The government cannot control the situation due to heavy corruption. As one of the largest opium production countries in Golden Triangle area, Myanmar lived mainly the national minority people for generations by poppy cultivation for livelihoods. In order to fight against the government to protect their opium farming, local farmers armed themselves. In these armed, the largest is the former Burma-Thai border Kun Sa (Khun Sa) group. They formed a powerful, armed force military of nearly 3,000 people in army uniform, with well-equipped weapons and actual combat experiences.

Though South East Asian governments have offered no way of alternatives for Golden Triangle population to thrive other than the tourism industry which allows for the young and literate population to develop a worldwide vision. it offers no solution for the Hill-Tribe farmers to make a living. I strongly suggest the government along the Golden Triangle border to work together to enhance their agricultural production other than opium poppy cultivation, stop corruption, building more public infrastructures, hospitals and schools with UN aid.
“Partridges Are Their Own Worst Enemy”: Kurdish Divisions And The Dream Of A Homeland
11:26 am Comments Off on “Partridges Are Their Own Worst Enemy”: Kurdish Divisions And The Dream Of A Homeland
Ignored, maligned and suppressed, the Kurds suffered greatly in the twentieth century. Undoubtedly losers in the carving up of the Middle East that followed the First World War, the Kurds have spent a century struggling to maintain common identity in spite of the state borders that now divide them.

The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group within the Middle East, and can claim to be the world’s largest stateless nation. There are over thirty million Kurds, occupying swathes of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. Kurdish nationalists have for decades employed terminology that seeks to transcend the countries they inhabit, speaking instead of Greater Kurdistan as an entity that unites all Kurds. Such rhetoric, however, disregards the cultural, linguistic and political divergences that have repeatedly divided the Kurdish people. In addition to the physical borders that split their traditional homeland, the Kurds face growing internal divisions that threaten to erect further barriers to statehood.

The Kurds are currently experiencing a period of renewed attention on the global stage not accorded to them since the brutality of the genocidal Al-Anfal Campaign waged against them in Iraq in the 1980s. They are at the forefront of the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and are seen as a potential beneficiary of the conflict. They are experiencing increased legitimacy internationally as they are armed and aided by a number of foreign governments, strengthening their claims for autonomous statehood. Additionally, however, many Kurds have been displaced and are emigrating from their traditional homelands in the Middle East.

In the midst of this current upheaval, many Kurds are questioning what it means to be Kurdish and whether international borders will ever reflect their notion of Greater Kurdistan. A well-known Kurdish proverb attests that “the Kurds have no friends but the mountains,” and the Kurds have repeatedly found truth in this. Especially in the wake of oppression by host governments, Kurds have been forced to become self-reliant. This has not proved enough to unite the Kurds, and internal divisions are rife.

During the mid 1990s, Iraqi Kurdistan (an autonomous region since 1993 under the protection of an American no-fly zone) experienced a brutal civil war that exposed the deep fissures that divide Kurdish society. Political dispute between the two major parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) erupted into deadly violence, drawing in Kurdish factions from Iran and Turkey. Within living memory for most, this brutal period has resonated with Kurds, deepening and solidifying political divisions. Memory itself is a barrier to unity, and in Iraqi Kurdistan a repetitive narrative appears to be emerging. Some have suggested that Iraqi Kurdistan is once again near the point of irrevocable fracturing. Widespread strikes and sometimes violent protests marred the second half of 2015, with much of the public dissatisfied with delays in the payment of public servant salaries, a dire economic situation and a lack of infrastructure development. Serious political maneuvering is necessary to avert an internal crisis as wider Iraq struggles to contain the threat of the Islamic State.

The geography of the Kurdish homelands has also manifested itself in cultural and linguistic divisions. Much of the Kurdish homeland is mountainous. This has proved both a blessing and a curse to the Kurdish people; at times of extreme suffering, Kurds have fled to the mountains for sanctuary, and yet equally their immovable topography has, over the centuries, resulted in ethnically homogenous Kurds who are otherwise very different. The mountains that protect them also form a barrier to communication and collaboration. The most striking example of this is their language: Kurdish encompasses three main dialects – Kurmanji, Sorani and Pehlewani – which are all distinct and not always mutually intelligible. People from different regions who identify as Kurdish speaking may not always understand each other, which in turn reinforces cultural differences. Kurds from different areas maintain varying traditions of food, handicrafts and folklore, and in some cases struggle to find commonality.

Barriers have also been placed in the way of Kurdish social advancement. For many decades in Turkey, learning, speaking and publishing in Kurdish was outlawed, and official policy sought to deny the Kurds their distinct sense of ethnic identity by terming them “Mountain Turks.” In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime tried to completely eradicate the Kurds through a genocidal campaign that drew the condemnation of the global community. In Iran, the Kurds continue to be denied political agency, and are regularly harassed by state security services. The Kurds share a common narrative of oppression and discrimination, and yet nation building cannot be founded upon this alone.

There is a proverb in Kurdish that reads “dinya hemi neyare kewi ye kew ji neyare xwe ye.” Its English translation does not echo the poetic nature of its original language, but the sentiment remains the same, addressing the problem of disunity among the Kurds: “the world is the enemy of the partridge, but partridges are their own worst enemy.” In order to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of Kurdish nationhood, the Kurds must themselves seek unity and cohesion, lest they become their own worst enemy.
GULP
11:24 am Comments Off on GULP
A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to be one of 11 students from ANU to be involved in the pilot year of the Global Undergraduate Leaders Program (and if there’s ever been a less appealing acronym than ‘GULP’, I haven’t heard it). This program, a collaboration between ANU and the University of Minnesota (UMN), is an initiative which seeks to develop student leadership skills and foster an understanding of sustainable development, culminating in a two week trip to the small African country of Malawi. The trip to Malawi is the first time all 22 students meet, having conducted all previous meetings via Skype. While in Malawi, the students conduct a community support and development project; in 2015, we ran 3 hour sessions in various high schools on the importance of gender equality for development, while in 2016, the group ran a three day leadership camp for high school students.

Now, given the theme of this issue, it’d be reasonable for you to be thinking that I’m going to write about the experience of visiting the remote far-Northern reaches of a tiny African country.

In actual fact, the cross-cultural difference that was most prominent was between ANU and UMN, or the ‘Australians’ and the ‘Americans’, as we soon came to refer to ourselves.
For cultures that appear to be similar in so many ways, the differences between us became apparent very early. The most obvious of these was in our different approaches to, and appreciation of, the personality assessments we had to complete as part of the program. These were the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment and the Intercultural Development Inventory. The Strengths assessment provides a good starting point for understanding the differences between ANU and UMN: upon being given our five key strengths, we spent the majority of our 3-hour drive to the ANU Kioloa campus discussing how little we cared about the strengths we’d been told we had, while some of the students from UMN identified so much with their strengths that they referred to themselves by them (“Well, because I’m an Inputer®, I think that…”).

At this point, I think both sides just thought the other was a little bit weird and different. It was with the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) that uh, tensions started running a bit higher.

In hindsight, just the name of the assessment should have been somewhat of an indication…
The IDI is an assessment of intercultural competence, which is conceptualised as the ability to change perspective across cultures and adapt behaviour to the cultural context. It’s a 50-item questionnaire that asks participants to answer questions while thinking about a culture they’re a part of and one with to which they’ve had a substantial amount of exposure. The results put you on a continuum somewhere along a line of five different stages. The continuum is shown as an arrow, angled upward, from ‘denial’ at the lower end to ‘adaptation’ at the higher, pointed end of the arrow. They also give you a score for where you think you are, compared to where you ‘actually’ are, so that’s just great.

They assure you, in the IDI, that there’s no ‘right’ place to be – there’s no good or bad. Or maybe they just assure the people who aren’t very far along to continuum. Either way, the Australians received a LOT of assurances. I’m still not entirely sure how they think they can try and convince people that there’s no good or bad place to be though, when it’s called a ‘development inventory’; I guess we weren’t bad, just ‘undeveloped’…

We all got given our results individually, and then we received our group results at our next meeting. The UMN students got their results at the same meeting. The Australians, true to form, were decidedly less ‘interculturally developed’ than the Americans. After getting our group
results, we had the opportunity to discuss both our results, and the measure itself.

Perhaps it was our bad less developed result. Perhaps it was our charming Australian cynicism. Either way, we were not generous in our feedback on the IDI. Most of us were rather dismissive of the whole thing, while some of us were particularly direct in their opinion about this measure and others of its ilk. All this to the UMN group, who would frequently described themselves in terms of their results on such measures.

For the ANU students, we saw the results as pretty much meaningless – perhaps useful in a specific context, but not really representative of us, and probably implicitly reflecting a degree of the patented Australian “fit in or fuck off” mentality. This last, I should say, entirely unintentionally, as the people in that group are some of the most accepting and loving people I have ever met. It was probably more an outcome of the types of questions asked in the IDI (we said defensively).

Our dismissiveness was contrasted with the wholehearted acceptance of the IDI by some at the UMN. To them, these measures – not assessments or tests, we were told – seemed to show them more about who they were, and to provide a useful lens through which to understand themselves. So now, on the one hand, we have a group who are slightly defensive because of their results, but also see measures of these kinds as the sort of thing where, if it’s useful, use it – but if not, don’t worry about it mate. On the other, we have a group who seem to see themselves only, at the time, through the perspective of the assessment, and felt, it seemed, somewhat threatened by our utter disregard for it. After our mostly, although not exclusively, civil discussion, both sides disconnected from Skype and spent the remaining 10-15 minutes of the meeting expressing, in no uncertain terms, how completely insufferable the behaviour of the other group was.

It was a challenge that came up quite a few times, in different manifestations, throughout the year and the two weeks in Malawi (one time quite spectacularly – you can ask me about that personally). We were all as prepared, I think, as a group of university students from developed countries could be for the cultural surprises that a trip to one of the poorest countries in Africa could bring.

More accurately, we were all prepared for being completely unprepared. In the process of this, I think we made the mistake of assuming, as I think many people do, that there wouldn’t be any cross-cultural obstacles between the Australians and the Americans. In fact, I don’t even think we got as far as making that assumption: it wasn’t even a consideration to make assumptions about. Both groups were comprised of university undergraduate students from developed, Western, English-speaking countries, so really, how different could they be?

In the end though, those cross-cultural experiences were some of the most challenging for the whole experience on both sides, I believe. Finding these firm cultural sticking points, between groups who seem on the surface to share so many common characteristics, was surprising and showed us all that when dealing with any culture other than our own, there’s going to be challenges. Especially when the Americans are so obviously wrong!
Hello From the Other Side (Of The Wall)
11:18 am Comments Off on Hello From the Other Side (Of The Wall)
As John Oliver puts it, Donald Trump is now the biggest mole growing on America’s back, which may have “seemed harmless a year ago, but now that it’s got frighteningly bigger, it is no longer wise to ignore it”.

Cancerous Trump is somehow “trumping” through the election with the support of a despondent demographic, and his policy proposals on immigration has factored into his unsettling popularity. Specifically, his signature bid on building a huge concrete wall across the border where the U.S. and Mexico meet, has stirred up controversial debate over illegal immigration policies.

This contentious debate unsurprisingly revolves around whether or not this will prevent the entry of Mexican illegal migrants, but the true questions that need to be delved into centre around the implications of the actual physical divide.

Essentially, a border already exists between the two sovereign nations – so what does taking something from a concept or an invisible line in the ground, and turning it into a physical barrier do to the mindset of those being kept out, and those being kept in?

The idea of creating a fenced border at the frontiers of U.S. and Mexico may seem absurd but it’s not a new idea – the U.S. has already spent billions on fencing one third of the South-Western border.

Throughout human history, many societies have built and erected numerous walls and fences to create borders to keep certain people both in and out of territories. In essence, they worked as means of circumscribing movements of people.

Think back to the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall that was later demolished, and the Israeli West Bank Barrier that divides Israel from the Palestinians. The human practice of wall building is an ingrained trait of modern states.

The many examples show that walls in the past have generally been more than infrastructures, but manifestations of cultural and psychological ideologies; they exist not only as concrete walls but also within the mind. The 1961 Berlin Wall is a classic example borne out of state fear, which embodied conflicts of ideology and politics.

For most of the time, creation of physical barriers between people legitimises ethnic exclusion and domestic discriminatory customs. Where a border is defined by taking physical form, the perception of difference and exclusion becomes more intense but also tangible at the same time.

This creates limits to both the people wanting to enter, but also for the people who are on the other side of the wall. Potentially, the wall’s manifestations of exclusion may bolster feelings of belonging and prejudice. While feelings of resentment grow on one side, feelings of superiority and self-righteousness grow on the other – both spurred on by the symbol of inequality and exclusion which has been erected in-between them.

America’s concerns about immigration practices and movement of people reach back to the very beginning of U.S. history. At particular points in its history, immigration movements of the Irish, Chinese and Italians were once considered immigrant threats to the American image and are not capable of integrating into the American society. This is obviously untrue today, but now, the concerns have shifted onto Mexicans, Latin Americans and Muslims.

Trump’s wall would be a physical barrier, it would produce an international stigma about the value and status of Mexicans, it would divide the world in opinion, and would be a step backwards in history.

Somehow, in Trump’s vision, building a 1954-mile concrete wall is no big sweat: “[it’s] easy, and it can be done inexpensively… It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing” says the Republican dark horse.

Well Trump, all I can say is that U.S. Customs and Border Protection put forward an estimate of more than $22.4 billion dollars just to build the damn wall along the entire Mexican border (where two-thirds of it is along rivers) – good luck with that).

This doesn’t include the additional on-going costs on maintenance, operational monitoring, and border security, and not to mention the unpleasant job of expropriating private land from unhappy citizens.

Inexpensive, hey? Let’s just get Mexico to pay for it (says he).

For Trump, this probably seems so simple. Perhaps, for him, it doesn’t take much to ostracize an entire group of people when you are contending for the spot at the top of the Western world’s hierarchy.

Let us not so much focus on the mascot but on the man himself. What will make America great again will not be Trump’s logo, but a reinvigoration of America’s foundational principles of freedom and acceptance.

Even if we come to see the day the concrete wall is built, it will only be a wall that represents America’s ethnic discrimination with a very costly price tag
Syrian Refugees: Who Cares?
11:17 am Comments Off on Syrian Refugees: Who Cares?
Europe is full of borders, borders that can no longer be assumed to be open indefinitely. Whilst Europe is arguing about these borders, they are struggling with their worst migration crisis since World War II, Richard Flanagan tells us the stories of the people behind the 5 million Syrians fleeing their home country, and it is my reading of Flanagan’s ‘Notes on the Syrian exodus’ from which this article was inspired.

This week I’ve heard that I might go to Greece for next year’s fieldwork. It would be a part of my honours year in London, and I am very happy as I’m intrigued by the geology of the Mediterranean. I only had to look at the Guardian today, however, to realise that the Mediterranean has entered into a dark chapter in its history. I’d heard about the refugee crisis, as anyone who follows the news will have, and I’ve known for a while that masses of refugees flood into Europe (more than 1.3 million in 2015 according to Eurostat).

I’ve known too, that smuggler boats sinking in the Mediterranean have been killing hundreds of the passengers on board seeking safety (over 1,200 in April 2015 according to the International Organization for Migration) and that these desperate attempts are the result of mercilessly patrolled, fenced borders in Bulgaria, and a Europe that aids war, but doesn’t want to host the refugees that follow from it.

So what? Donald Trump is campaigning in the US, the National Rugby league is on, and I’ve got to study…

On 5th March Richard Flanagan, Australian novelist and 2014 Man Booker Prize winner, published his notes on the refugees he visited in Lebanon, Greece and Syria, and they blew me away.

Flanagan paints a picture of people in camps, people who dream of their lives back home in a once peaceful Syria where they grew peaches, studied fashion and lived in safety in their own homes. Their nightmares are the sound of planes flying over, the bombings that turn their worlds black and red, Daesh severing heads in their towns, the cold sea taking away children. The inclusion of both these people’s stories, and of Flanagan’s own thoughts and feelings, with a lot of dialogue, will give you an insight into this crisis as no regular news article can. Flanagan says, these are stories of people, “… not like you and me. They are you and me.”

It was a big eye-opener for me and I invite you to read this article in the Guardian. I can’t help wondering though, why did it take his notes to make me care? I’m European, and know what’s been happening. I have been following the events as they unfold and hold an opinion. But this is not the same as caring. To talk , all you need is knowledge and an opinion, but to take action, you need to care. Does the rest of Europe care? Do politicians care about refugees as people, or as issues and policies? Can we blame them?

It is in an article in the journal ‘Science’ that Custers and Aarts review psychological discoveries on unconscious will. These challenge the human experience of making conscious decisions to take action, summarizing some compelling evidence that the unconscious prepares for these decisions moments before the conscious does.

In that light, I don’t think it is at all surprising that the statistics and reports published by a media culture, which is increasingly dependent on press releases, fails to convince us to take action against human sufferings, often alienated by differing nationalities, language and culture.

Now that Germany is taking the lead in hosting, it is clear that Europe seems unable to cope with the turbulent vast flow of refugees. Most causes of this inability are socio-economic, domicile political pressures, combined with a failure of a common European asylum policy.

The EU is about to allocate 300 million euros to a European aid plan and 6 billion for Turkey to host refugees, but is this enough? Is this too late? For some it will be undoubtedly too late and Greece certainly seems to need more, asking 500 million as their already dwindling economy struggles to cope with the nearly one million refugees it hosts. Turkey too claims that providing for refugees already cost them ten billion. We can make an honest attempt at solving this problem though, as some acts of kindness show.

Here, I give the example of Maria Androulaki, inhabitant of the Greek island Lesbos, who risks arrest and persecution by driving people from the remote beaches to town for registration, or the Austrian convoy of volunteers that last year crossed into Hungary to help in refugee camps.

These are the kind of actions we need: only empathy from us can forcibly drive politics higher up.

But to obtain that kind of social perception, to humanize the ‘migrant crisis’ you can’t describe it in two words, nor in numbers, policies or money. You have to read novels, journalist’s notes on dialogues. You have to listen to people’s stories and feel the human connection. That’s why I believe more novelists should work for newspapers and more people should read novels. Will you?
Syria and the Facade of Partition
11:11 am Comments Off on Syria and the Facade of Partition
General Issam Zahreddine is something of a legend in Syria. He commands the Syrian army outpost in the city of Deir Ez-Zor on the Euphrates River – a city besieged by the so-called Islamic State since 2013. Syrian opposition forces have put a US$200,000 price on Zahreddine’s head: he is their second most wanted man after President Bashar Al-Assad.

Zahreddine is a member of Syria’s tiny Druze religious minority. Yet he is in charge of a mostly Sunni garrison among a Sunni civilian population that has remained loyal to the government.

Deir Ez-Zor’s story illustrates the resilience of Syria’s religious diversity; it is one of many examples that challenge the prevailing sectarian narrative that characterises the war as a conflict between a Sunni majority and minorities such as ‘Alawites, Christians, Druze and others. Deir Ez-Zor also points to the folly of proposals by some Western politicians to partition Syria along ethno-religious lines.

Partition is their ‘Plan B’ if armed rebellion fails to bring about regime change.

Armed groups fighting to overthrow the government have recently taken a battering from the Syrian army with Russian and Iranian support. This has helped bring about a conditional ‘ceasefire’, offering the country’s long-suffering population a glimmer of hope after five years of war.

The deal – brokered by Russia and the United States and endorsed by the UN Security Council– includes all parties except the most extreme Islamist groups: the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat An-Nusra (Al-Qaeda in Syria). So far the agreement has seen a dramatic drop in casualties despite alleged breaches by both sides. However, many are sceptical of its long-term prospects.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly apprehensive about the ceasefire – technically, a “cessation of hostilities” – implemented on February 27. He seemed to anticipate its failure by again floating ‘Plan B’ – “It may be too late to keep it a whole Syria if we wait much longer,” Kerry said. The same idea gained brief exposure when Prime Minister Turnbull raised it during his visit to Washington earlier this year.

Kerry’s statement was partly a conciliatory nod to Washington’s agitated allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia – whose proxy forces in Syria have faltered since late 2015. Yet ‘Plan B’ has broader aims than simply placating Washington’s allies. Incapacitating the Syrian state – the original goal of foreign regime-change advocates – would benefit every major power in the region except Iran which, despite the nuclear deal with the West, is seen as a disruptive force in global hydrocarbon politics and a barrier to Western regional dominance.

The goal of regime change – accomplished with disastrous results in Iraq and Libya – is partly driven by the heated competition for ‘leadership’ of the broader Middle East, particularly in the cultural and ideological realms.

With Egypt weak and Syria now set back 40 years, post-conflict Syria offers fertile ground for rolling out profound cultural and ideological changes in the region. Saudi Arabia, which seeks leadership of the Arab world, is best positioned to fill the void. It has shrugged off its parvenu status to eclipse Egypt as the most influential Sunni Arab state.

If regime change via proxies cannot succeed then partitioning Syria is the next best option for the powers opposed to Syria’s regional role. Dividing the country among factions vying for power would create weak entities reliant on foreign sponsors.

In Australia, Syria’s partition has been backed by former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, whose record on Syria includes suggesting assassination as a necessary step towards peace.

However in a surprising rejoinder from the usually ill-informed ALP, deputy Labour leader Tanya Plibersek correctly pointed to the coherent national identity many Syrians hold dear:

“There are generations of people who have grown up with an identity as a Syrian or an Iraqi … Recent polls confirm many people feel a sense of national identity and feel the conflict is soluble’’, she stated.

There are other reasons why partitioning Syria is a reckless option.

Partition along sectarian lines – because that is likely all that the Islamist opposition will accept – plays into ISIS and al-Qaeda’s hands. They would love a Sunni state that reinforces sectarian divisions. Sunnis who do not agree with their vision would then have little choice but to abandon the pluralist values many still support.

Partition would represent surrender to the extremist belief that different communities cannot co-exist in a tolerant pluralist framework – as Syrians largely have for centuries. This pluralism is reflected in the composition of the Syrian leadership – civilian and military. While Assad is an Alawite, his Prime Minister and Ministers for Defence, Interior and Foreign Affairs are all Sunni.

There is no reason why partition would be any more ‘accurate’ at drawing ethno-religious boundaries than the Sykes-Picot agreement that carved modern Syria out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1.

While broad sections of the country can be identified as predominantly Sunni, ‘Alawite, Armenian, Kurd or Druze etc, nearly all of these areas are dotted with other groupings. Inter-religious marriage has also been relatively common. Any attempt to redraw Syria’s boundaries is likely to be based on territory now controlled by various militia rather than its pre-war demography.

Even Syrian Kurds – who would likely benefit the most from partition – are not sold on the idea. Many see it as too great a risk given Turkish hostility and would prefer federalism with a degree of self-government.

It is telling that partition is not being suggested as a solution to Iraq’s conflict, which features significant Sunni resentment of the central government. While partitioning Iraq would likely worsen its conflict, Iraq has far clearer ethno-religious divisions, with Kurdish separatism further developed and distinct Sunni and Shi’a provinces. But partition of Iraq is not currently on the agenda of western powers – for whatever reason.

Regime change in Syria and the advantages it promises for its proponents – Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the US and other NATO allies – remains the main game despite the ‘ceasefire’. Under the pretence of ending an unwinnable conflict, ‘Plan B’ is another route to that end.
Why You Should Care About Refugees
10:45 am Comments Off on Why You Should Care About Refugees
My parents migrated to Australia from India in 1992, a year before I was born. Our family identifies as Sikh, a minority religion in India that was founded in the 15th century, and is based on the spiritual teachings of Guru Nanak. By no means does this make me special. By 2013, Australia became home to 369,000 ‘Indian Australians’, and we now form 2.13% of the Australian population. Originating from the farming state of Punjab, Sikh men first became known for filling the demand for labour on Australian cane fields and as shepherds on sheep stations. 900 Sikh regiments fought alongside Australian soldiers in World War Two.

Indian Australians, and Sikh Australians are not a new part of Australian society.

My cultural heritage is important to me. I speak Hindi, I celebrate Diwali, I can make aloo gobi and (relatively) round roti’s like Jess in ‘Bend it like Beckham’, and my dad wears a turban like hers too. There is permanently a CD of Bollywood music in my car. When I land in Delhi airport to visit my extended family, it feels familiar, like home. But, I was born in Dandenong, English was my first language, I drink beer, I love beef, I love being outdoors and going to the beach, I listen to Triple J – I have even used the phrase “Fucking Oath Cunt” on occasion. When I land in Sydney airport after a trip overseas, I feel an even stronger sense of familiarity and relief.

Most of my closest friends are white, and many of them would not know that I experience racism on a regular basis. Most of the time I brush it off, “really, it’s not a big deal, I’m not easily offended”. Most of it IS harmless, I have amazing friends who show a genuine interest in my cultural heritage and whom I love sharing it with. But why is it that in as early as primary school I realised that I would make more friends if I ditched my Indian accent? That when I went on my first high school camp, I got locked in a portaloo and got called a ‘curry puff’? Or that a few years later at civic pool I got told to “go back to my own country”?

But what does this have to do with refugees?

Well, I believe that if you think that I deserve a fair go in Australia, then you should care about refugees too.

There seems to exist this dichotomy between people’s perceptions of migrants and refugees. A skilled migrant comes to Australia legitimately and contributes to the economy, and a poor refugee comes to Australia to feed off the welfare system. It’s simply not true. The only common difference between the two is that one comes on an assessment of their humanitarian grounds, and once on an assessment of their skills. Doctors, lawyers and engineers are amongst the hundreds of thousands who flee conflict in Iraq and Syria, and many of the migrants who drive you home in a cab after a night out in civic have come to Australia on skilled or student visas. I believe that every migrant and refugee contributes something valuable to our multicultural society.

My parents came to Australia as skilled migrants, but lived in a one bedroom flat in Dandenong for three years using cardboard boxes as bedside tables. Between them, they have contributed more than 40 years of their lives to the Australian Public Service, were selected for postings overseas, made smart financial decisions, and worked hard to make sacrifices so that my sister and I could enjoy lives they came to Australia looking for. Personally, I have experience volunteering with Indigenous communities on the South Coast, with victims of domestic violence in Canberra, working on community and youth engagement, all to make Australia a better place. I volunteer with the Australian Red Cross, because that is the nationality that I identify with.

When people talk about the need for social integration of refugees, they don’t know that as migrants, my parents faced the same cultural challenges. My mum watched neighbours every night to try and understand Australian culture. When she was invited to her first potluck dinner, she actually ‘brought a plate’ because she thought they were short. When she was sitting at a train station and got asked ‘How you going?’ she replied “…By train”.

My grandparents fled their home of Punjab during the bloody partition between India and Pakistan in the 1960’s. But I don’t even have to go that far back to find that my family has experienced persecution, as it is understood under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Statutory Definition. In the 1980’s there was mass political persecution of Sikhs in New Delhi. Both my parents saw, first hand, members of their community be looted, set on fire, raped and killed in front of them.

My parents could have come to Australia as refugees. Not because they were poor, or uneducated, but because they had the right to flee persecution. They were chosen to come to Australia based on their merit as skilled migrants. Regardless of how they arrived in Australia, they saw a beautiful country where everybody was given the opportunity to succeed and where people’s rights and dignity was protected. Regardless of how they would have arrived in Australia, they worked hard to build themselves a life and to give back to the country we call home, and my sister and I do the same. So next time you direct a harmless joke at somebody for being a ‘curry puff’ or for wearing a turban, you should think of what you are actually saying – “You’re not like us” and “You don’t belong here” – because these statements, are not just hurtful, but are in fact, wrong.