Gosh, I got up this morning to find many interesting comments from around the world, so it was hard to decide which one I wanted to post as a ‘comment worth noting.’ Below is Anne from Australia, but so as not to leave anyone out, you might want to see Nicholas here, Abdi and Dave here, or Joyce here.
One thing that struck me about this comment from Australia is that it makes me wonder if there are no avenues to disseminate Anne’s message in Australia. Do any of our regular Australian readers know if you have the equivalent of Refugee Resettlement Watch in your country?
Anne (hopefully not her real name) posted a comment to our most recent post about asylum seekers trying to get to Australia in the wake of changes in asylum policy which makes it easier to get into Australia.
It was widely known in the Afghan community (Adelaide) in the last huge wave of boat arrivals that the Pakistani Afghans were granted permanent visas well before the true Afghan refugees received theirs. The proportion of true Afghan refugees was only about 10%. They spoke of Immigration actually telling them it is sometimes better if they don’t tell the truth. Those who did tended to be left until the last. This was the cause of many fights and arguments at the time. It is always harder to prove your case than to pay someone in Pakistan to give you false papers.
I have met many who claimed to be a 13-17 years old and in fact were either in their mid twenties or thirties. They were visibly older than they claimed but Immigration easily provided them with visas. Many of the so called orphan boys were actually married men with large families – 6 in Perth in one instance. My former partner was an Afghan refugee. I gave up working with refugees before the birth of our son. Now began the really scary time. I was to learn much about what was really going on but always under threat of losing my child if I spoke out the truth to authorities even now I am under a threat of retribution should I approach authorities.
I believe it is essential that the government is really careful when it determines who is to stay here or not. Some are genuine and some are not. Their concept of truth is so different to ours. Justice under our law and revenge under theirs. Woman – how sadly they are treated. The men that come here must be made to learn values of our society and accept the consequences when they break our laws rather than see it as a permission to take revenge on the victim.
To Abdi, this is what I mean by Muslims not assimilating. It has nothing to do with paying taxes and working hard, but has everything to do with the advancement the Judeo-Christian ethic has given women in the West. Islam is not there yet and likely never will be if you and others like you are not working to ‘assimilate’ in Australia or the US.