En Passant

Remember the freedom fighters of the right getting hot in their underpants about the heinous Labor Government taking away their freedom to be racist, sexist and homophobic?

The Andrew Bolt cheer squad at The Australian for example lined up to condemn a consolidation of our Human Rights laws that would have made it unlawful to discriminate against someone.

Under clause 19(2) discrimination includes harassment. So far so good.

Proposed paragraph 19(2)(b) added that discrimination could include “other conduct that offends, insults or intimidates” another person because they have a particular status e.g. race, sexual orientation and the like.

Now these sort of provisions already exist in the current law. They are aimed at preventing hate speech.

Rupert and the other billionaire ruling class propagandists were concerned that the changes might catch some of their more rabid commentators, or given that The Australian is the fruitcake faction of capital, even its ‘moderate’ ones.

But that is just a small part of the story. Hate speech is an important part of the armoury of control of the ruling class.

Youth unemployment might be 50% in inner Western Sydney suburbs but all is well because we can vilify refugees. In fact it isn’t but the externalisation of hate diverts inchoate anger with the system towards the most powerless in society, people such as refugees.

The irony, if that is the word, is that the revised clause and the consolidated law more generally might have occasionally been used against the rabid right, but their real target in practice would have been the revolutionary left and social activists.

For example it is possible Zionism could have mounted a case using the proposed laws against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in its struggle for justice for Palestinians.

Both major parties are in a race to the 9th circle of the refugee inferno, trying to outbid each other in their hate speech against refugees.

Respectable hate is Labor’s face mask. The Liberals today dropped any pretence at respectable racism.

The Coalition will end reviews of ASIO ‘terrorist’ decisions. People found to be refugees but whom ASIO decides are terrorists will rot in Australia’s concentration camps here or in Nauru or Manus Island indefinitely unless a third country will accept them. With an adverse ASIO assessment, that is extremely unlikely.

The Liberals have also announced that they will turn back boots from Sri Lanka before they reach Australia’s territorial waters. They will send people back to be dealt with by the criminals in charge of Sri Lanka. Their blood will be on the hands of Tony Abbot and Scott Morrison.

Ranjini is a Tamil woman who was living with a new husband in Melbourne. She was found to be a refugee. However ASIO determined she was a terrorist.

Tamil equals terrorist in ASIO’s world view, informed by the criminal government running Sri Lanka. The current government there is such an abuser of human rights that the conservative Canadian Prime Minister has vowed not to attend the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo unless the butchers in charge clean up their act.

The current rulers of Sri Lanka are the people who indiscriminately bombed Tamil schools and hospitals and refugee camps, killing tens of thousands of innocent people.

Journalists and activists disappear. The government recently sacked the Chief Justice because her decisions were interfering with their unfettered right to rule and kill people.

It is this monstrous government that ASIO relies on for its view that someone from Sri Lanka is a terrorist. Of course in ASIO’s view I am a terrorist for writing about workers winning the battle for democracy.

Ranjini was taken to Villawood detention centre where she will spend the rest of her days. Her son, Paartheepan (Paari), was born there. Chris Bowen, at the time Immigration Minister, decided not to release Ranjini and her newborn son, and Ranjini’s 2 other children, into the community.

Ranjini and Paari went from hospital back to Villawood concentration camp.

No crime, no charges, no trial, but indefinite detention all on the say so of that right wing cabal, ASIO.

Welcome to justice in Australia where the rich and powerful abuse their wealth and power for their own ends and the poor and powerless are locked up as part of the hate regime to channel the inchoate anger people feel against the system into safe racist harbours.

All on ASIO’s say so, relying on the word of the genocidal rulers of Sri Lanka. Justice would demand that the current rulers of Sri Lanka, mass murderers be in prison and Ranjini and be free. We do not live in a just society.

I am waiting for the freedom fighters of the right to condemn the indefinite imprisonment of legitimate refugees on ASIO’s say so. Their silence condemns them.

When it comes to freedom we should be clear. It is freedom for capital, not for those whom capital can vilify to divert attention way from the real problems of capitalist society.

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