Through the excellent diaries of SusanHu in particular, Kossians have read about the in-house treatment of ex-Guantanamo detainee Mamdou Habib, and since his release, his disgusting treatment by Australian Authorities.
Australia's acquiescence and active support of the USA's policies and treatment of suspected terrorists is in many ways, simply a shallow reflection of much deeper and insidious breakdowns in civil society, promulgated by our respective governments - although more often than not now, I feel I should say `regime' instead of government.
Which brings me to the subject of this diary. The USA and Australia's actively cultivated decline in adherence to basic human rights law, and the distortion of language to not just justify, but institutionalise such practices bear all the hall-marks of progressive moves towards fascism in both countries.
more below
In Australia, outside of recent deplorable foreign policy decisions, it is the treatment of those who reach our shores without a visa, seeking asylum, that most highlights the moral decline and apathy of Australian civil society, abetted by the Howard government.
If you are desperate enough to save what money you have in a war-torn nation such as Afghanistan, and flee to Australia, risking your life and your family, and paying all your money to human traffickers, your `reward' will be to be labelled an "illegal" and a "queue jumper", and locked up indefinitely. And that includes if you are a child. Protest, and you will be punished with solitary confinement. Many go mad - Australia has witnessed young detainees sowing their mouths up, hunger strikes, and too many suicide attempts to mention.
All this, and yet under our and international law it is not illegal to arrive on Australian shores without a visa, and request asylum. I do not have words for the shame this brings me.
But there are people fighting here to end it. One of the shining lights fighting publicly and vocally against this despicable policy is human rights lawyer and activist, Julian Burnside. Another is Dr Louise Newman, a respected psychiatrist who has had rare opportunities to enter our main detention centre (Baxter) and has repeatedly spoken out against the appalling and illegal conditions in which innocent people are being held.
Below are transcripts from recent talks given by Burnside & Newman on the use of language, treatment of asylum seekers in Australia, the role of the government, and the inexorable signs that Australia's immigration system denotes a society turning towards fascism. These talks were given as part of the perspective series on Radio National ( www.abc.net.au/rn ), our still-excellent NPR equivalent [highly recommended as a source of news and in-depth commentary].
I feel these talks and what is happening with Immigration in Australia echoes so much of our foreign policy, and trends in the USA that it was worth posting here at Kos, to inform and I hope provoke discussion.
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JULIAN BURNSIDE: DOUBLE SPEAK
Outside the realm of high art, language is intended to convey meaning. Ideally, it should do so accurately. Some writers and speakers betray this ideal, and use language as a sham to mask an intellectual void; or worse, as a stalking horse for quite different ideas they dare not acknowledge.
The world is awash with examples of the first sort - empty rhetoric dressed up in false finery, or vacuous new-Age gush, or the yawning post-modern fashion of abstraction piled on abstraction - all devoid of real content. These are the empty calories, the fast food of modern discourse. They are the staple of cheap magazines, talk-back radio and bad art criticism.
More interesting is the second sort: speech which serves to disguise the thing being discussed. Depending on circumstances, it may be called tact, or diplomacy or doublespeak or lying. The proper description depends on the speaker's purpose.
Tact sets out to avoid giving offence. It suppresses or disguises an unhappy truth to spare the feelings of another. It is falsehood in the service of kindness; a down-payment on future favour. When tact is lifted from the personal to the national scale, it is called diplomacy.
Euphemism does not directly suppress the truth, but disguises it by substituting gentle words for harsher ones. Its intention is benign, if somewhat fey. Its excesses of delicacy inspired Dr Bowdler to strip Shakespeare of any questionable content, removing, as he said, its `blemishes'. Euphemism is especially needed where body parts and body functions are the subject: a cheap frock for recognised facts.
Tact is kind; diplomacy is useful; euphemism is harmless and sometimes entertaining. By contrast, doublespeak is dishonest and dangerous.
In his closing address at Nuremberg, US prosecutor Robert Jackson said:
"Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. [the Defendants] all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary. In the Nazi dictionary of sardonic euphemisms "final solution" of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination; "special treatment" of prisoners of war meant killing; "protective custody" meant concentration camp; "duty labor" meant slave labor; and an order to "take a firm attitude" or "take positive measures" meant to act with unrestrained savagery."
When Soviet tanks invaded Prague in 1968, the manoeuvre was described as "fraternal internationalist assistance to the Czechoslovak people".
The war in Vietnam produced such doublespeak expressions as:
Collateral damage- meaning killing innocent civilians
Energetic disassembly- meaning nuclear explosion
Incontinent ordnance - meaning bombs which hit schools and hospitals by mistake
Active defence - meaning invasion.
Doublespeak uses language to smuggle uncomfortable ideas into comfortable minds. The Nazi regime were masters at it. Many governments today are enthusiastic imitators.
The victims of incontinent ordnance, or active defence, or fraternal internationalist assistance often flee for safety. A small number of them arrive in Australia asking for help. They commit no offence under Australian or international law by arriving here without an invitation, in order to seek protection. Nonetheless the Australian Government refers to them as "illegals". This is done for a purpose: these people are immediately locked up without trial. No doubt it seems less offensive to lock up "illegals" than to lock up the innocent, traumatised human beings that they are.
They are also disparaged as "queue jumpers": a neat device which falsely suggests two things. First that there is a queue, and second that it is in some way appropriate to stand in line when your life is at risk.
When the "illegals/queue jumpers" arrive, they are "detained" This means that they are locked up without trial, for an indefinite period - typically months or years. If necessary, they can be detained for the rest of their lives.
Baxter detention centre is surrounded by a 9000 volt electric fence. But in the doublespeak of the Department of Immigration, this is an "energised courtesy fence".
Solitary confinement, which is regularly used, is called `separation detention' or `the management unit'.
If detainees are driven to the desperate extreme of suicide or self-harm, this is disparaged as "inappropriate behaviour" designed to "manipulate the Government". By that doublespeak, the victim becomes the offender.
In 1946, George Orwell wrote Politics and Language, in which he exposed the deceits and devices of doublespeak. He might have thought that it would lose its power once its workings were revealed. But he would be disappointed. Language is as powerful now as in 1933: it can hide shocking truth, it can deceive a nation. If we value the truth, we need to mind our language.
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LOUISE NEWMAN: THE RAU SCANDAL
[Cornelia Rau is a mentally ill Australian resident who was `mistakenly' held in Immigration detention for 10 months, including solitary confinement, and has suffered severely as a result, but brought public debate back to our treatment of asylum seekers].
The tragic case of Cornelia Rau has triggered a resurgence of concern about both the treatment of the mentally ill and the treatment of asylum seekers in immigration detention. Both are vulnerable groups and both experience misunderstanding, stigma maltreatment and human rights abuses. Their fate tells us much about our community's capacity to deny the obvious suffering of others and also about Governments callous disregard for individual rights in the face of perceived political benefit.
As a person experiencing schizophrenia, Cornelia Rau appears to have had a delusion that she was someone else - in this case a so-called illegal immigrant of some sort. This was taken at face value, and she found herself in a system far harsher than the psychiatric hospital and one where she continued to be seen as guilty in some way and held first in prison and then in Baxter Detention Centre.
Her illness was unrecognized, she had no appropriate treatment and her disturbed behaviour was interpreted by the untrained guards as purposeful and disruptive. She then found herself in the now notorious "Red One" behavioural management unit and periods of virtual solitary confinement. It is hard to imagine the impact of this experience on someone already experiencing delusions and paranoia.
Many details of this sequence of events remain unknown but there are some fundamental questions to be asked about the failure of several systems of case to recognize and treat severe mental illness.
As a psychiatrist, I visited Baxter detention centre in late December 2004 and assessed several long-term detainees on request of their lawyers. I was told about Cornelia Rau's disturbing condition and the detainees had correctly diagnosed her condition. I assessed a man, also in the Red One Unit, who was suffering a psychotic disorder and needed an immediate transfer to hospital. He was similarly undiagnosed and receiving no treatment.
What are we to make of these cases? Whilst the community has maybe responded with alarm as we have an example of an Australian resident being poorly treated, it is clear that others are subjected to a regime that can only be seen as punitive, despite Government statements to the contrary.
We as Australians do not like to see ourselves as condoning arbitrary punishments yet it has taken a shocking example to make us relook at the detention system. The system of behavioural management and solitary confinement currently under scrutiny is one that clearly violates international human rights conventions and is not sanctioned for the treatment of detainees or prisoners of war - yet it happens here.
The Australian government is clearly made uncomfortable by community concerns. We have heard statements that "Red One" is an appropriately supervised treatment programme and that psychological experts are available at all times - which begs the questions as to how Cornelia Rau and others have been kept for so long and not been recognised as unwell. The Government has engaged in a dispute with researchers who have found high rates of mental disorders amongst detainees, and that the experience of prolonged detention itself is a significant causal factor.
Our research group has argued that the policy of mandatory detention itself needs rethinking. It is not surprising that human beings cannot tolerate indefinite periods of isolation, uncertainty and harsh treatment. What is surprising is that Government appear to want to disguise and minimise the degree of human suffering and even more perversely to argue that it is irrelevant.
The detention centres operate as closed and total institutions according to an internally defined logic and penal model. In this Kafkaesque environment, the innocent are guilty of unspecified crimes, madness equals badness, and any questioning of the system is intolerable. Inmates have few avenues of protest and extremes of behaviour emerge as a last resort. Death becomes for some the only possibility of escape, as for a young man I spoke to who dug his own grave in the dessert sand and attempted to bury himself.
Something is fundamentally rotten in this system. Only a truly independent judicial review has any hope of unraveling the truth and degree of dysfunction. Only legislative reform and dismantling of indefinite mandatory detention will prevent further abuses. It is time for all those in detention with mental illness to be released into psychiatric care and for an end to inhumane treatment.