Firstly...
The Asylum Solution
I promised this some time ago, but as life always has other plans for my time - "damn you, Barrowman!" - I've not been able to update for a while. Of course, I know the readership of this blog is about 0 +2, but the venting certainly helps. What it helps is yet to be discovered, but that will come with time I'm sure. If I had a therapist he/she/it would probably tell me this is some sort of catharsis.
Anyway. With the recent added tragedy just off the coast of Java, I figured it was about time I had my little rant about the Asylum issue and possible solutions. Why does Asylum get a capital? Because I feel it's a word we often read/hear but don't take in. The word Asylum has a certain connotation; of safe passage and a haven away from danger. What we are providing and indeed advocating on all fronts however, is the 'solution' portion.
We're looking for a Solution to the Asylum Issue.
Why is that? Why has Asylum become a dirty word? With both sides of politics looking to 'solve' the Asylum situation (I.E. Not have one), the voters have been largely led to believe that yes, it's a problem that people come to seek Asylum, and something needs to be done so they don't come to seek Asylum. Forgetting of course that the whole point is to guarantee people Asylum (to a reasonable degree).
Having now lost the right-wing portion of my audience (goodbye +2, hello +1), I will say this: I'm not in favour of onshore processing by and large.
Hello +0 readership.
Now of course the problem is that by being somewhat centrist in my stance on this issue, I've just made two enemies that will proceed to ignore everything I have to say. And here is where conflict doesn't drive advancement. You'd hope as humans we would have outgrown that process of conflict, violence, war and finally reconciliation, but we have not, so we need 'solutions'.
Here is what I propose.
Offshore Humane Processing.
That is, the goal of the offshore processing is to provide Asylum from prosecution for possible refugees while they await resettlement.Onshore processing is not going to be a workable solution for Australia unless we arrange fleets to take refugees from their initial point of departure, thus bypassing the point where people smugglers make money as well as removing much of the danger of that cross-sea voyage.
This is obviously not going to be possible.
One, we'd be infringing on the sovereign rights of another nation by basically supporting a mass exodus of their citizens. It would be impossible to check the background, affiliation and reasons for all of the people involved, and it would cause for more problems down the track.
Two, it would be expensive. Australia would not have the resources to performa many of these humanitarian missions, and it would take funding out of resettlement and assessment, thus slowing the process drastically for those in need of it.
Three, it would be political suicide and thus unattractive to any political party.
To ensure the Offshore processing is as humane as possible, we must guarantee points of safe passage. The long-term solution would involve giving governments in 'destination/stopover' nations incentives to start communities of refugees. Business incentives, supporting trade and perhaps even starting a ferry service between islands to help local citizens, schools set up to educate both refugee children and local children alike, hospitals with modern facilities and translation services, internet/phone hubs and such initiatives that would provide a thriving community around the processing centre.
People should be encouraged to take offshore jobs and pay local taxes, becoming integrated in the community as useful members of the local workforce.
While many would propose at this point they must be given citizenship to better protect their rights, what I propose is that local work laws (minimum wage, maximum hours worked etc) for migrant workers apply. Local criminal laws should at this point also apply, as there is no guarantee a refugee will be a better person than the average Joe.
Hello -1 readership.
By building a community around the processing centre and making sure there is local involvement, people would be much more likely to see refugees as 'people' before a tragedy hits and numbers on a boat suddenly become more than a headache statistic.
Locals would likely enjoy the benefits the processing centre brings (clean water, better healthcare, better communication devices, better schools) and be less likely to see the refugees as 'alien' invaders on their soil.
At the same time, Australia and participating nations can discuss a quota of refugee intake as part of their immigration policy. Setting up colleges and even an internet-based vocations-strong university would massively increase the 'value' of these refugees as immigrants. This may seem rather harsh and cold, but it is one of those pragmatic approaches that will be needed to improve the efficacy of the plan and its take-up.
By making sure governments are aware of quotas (to meet, not to fall under as much as possible) will mean there is certainty and processing times will probably be faster. Quotas should be set as a per month guide rather than an yearly quota to give a bit more flexibility.
Criteria needed to pass the assessments should be clearly stated and listed in countries of origin to dissuade those that do not meet the criteria from making the trip, further eliminating the need for smugglers. The unfortunate part of this of course, is that local governments of countries of origin would receive a local pre-processing centre rather badly (or exploit it).
The problem here of course, is that an efficient system might incentivise more refugees to flood to these places. There is no solution for that, refugees will continue to flood out, and whether we treat them humanely or fall entirely towards practicality and numbers will decide what kind of people we are as a nation. What is needed of course is stability in origin countries, and that is something both difficult and far away.
Earth to Venus
Venus, such a beautiful word, such a beautiful goddess, such a beautiful planet. Wonderful place really, surface temperature enough to boil your eyeballs (followed quickly by the rest of you), pressure enough to make people pancakes (and spaceship pancakes), with enough volcanoes to also cook whatever is left. Oh, and a thick-ass cloud of acid.
Venus was actually not so different from Earth about only a billion years ago. It had water (apparently), it had life (probably), it was imagined as a prehistoric paradise (by TV scientists in the 70s). Something happened though, and all the water disappeared, the temperature rose, and the chemical make up of the entire atmosphere changed.
This sounds like a replay of a bad environmental protection melodrama. Yet it has happened once, and it might well happen again.
Where's all the other life in the universe? Well... maybe other life preceded us in turning planets into inhospitable Hell-holes before we managed to split the atom (taking us on the road to the same result). It seems ludicrous to suggest that other life doesn't exist anywhere in the universe, that humans are a special snowflake of sentience in the flurry of space trash that makes up existence, but it certainly doesn't stop us from assuming this is so.
While we look for habitable planets (in case our own blows up, we're looking, but we're also denying we're blowing ourselves up), we forget that if we find one that is possible as a human haven when the world turns into Venus, there may already be life there. The human solution of course will be to declare the planet ready for colonisation short of a few 'space squids' or 'alien cows'.
Perhaps it is better if we kill ourselves before our technology allows for space travel.
When the consciousness of man is elevated enough to realise that space and time are all just trappings of our own making (and in that case be able to travel instantaneously anyway), we might also realise that the differences between us is what will drive us to our doom as we forget the brilliance, the similarities, and the possibility that even our differences are what makes us the same.
We can turn Earth to Venus by continuing our 'growth' without regard for the fact we are on a world with finite life and resource, we can continue to turn our water, our life, our air, our time into money while the world becomes Hell. Or, we can use the collective intelligence of a wonderful, fantastic species and instead travel from Earth to Venus, to explore our future, to deny it, and to change it.
We can get there. Earth to Venus, one way or the other, we will get there.
