Racist White Australia Jails &
Deports US Peace ActivistBy Gideon Polya
17 September, 2005
Countercurrents.org
White Australia has had a violent, racist history involving invasion, genocide, dispossession, slavery, the anti-Asian White Australia policy and continuing participation in Anglo-American imperialist wars. Australia, like the UK and the US, is one of the World's oldest democracies but all three Allies continue to invade and occupy non-European countries. While their supporters justify this as "democratic imperialism", others use terminology such as "democratic Nazism", "democratic tyranny" and "state terrorism" (as distinct from "non-state terrorism").
Driven by racism, ignorance, hysteria over jihadist terrorism and blind loyalty to UK-US militarism, an extreme right-wing Australian Government (with substantial support from the cowardly Opposition Labor Party) has given itself immense social control powers. Immigration laws in recent years have permitted thousands of (largely Muslim) refugees (men, women and children) to be imprisoned without charge in concentration camps - indeed some children have been born in such camps and imprisoned for up to 3 years.
The anti-terror laws allow for detention of anyone over 16 without charge for 7 days followed by possible re-arrest; the victim faces long-term imprisonment if he fails to show that he does NOT have information the secret police want (a scientific absurdity); while allowed a security-vetted lawyer, the prisoner cannot contact anyone else; and any reportage of detention circumstances (e.g. by the prisoner, his lawyer, his family or by journalists) attracts imprisonment for 5 years. The right-wing Australian Government now wants to extend these powers - and no longer needs the support of the cowardly Labor Oppostion because it now controls both legislative Houses of the Australian Federal Parliament.
The fears of civil libertarians over abuse of draconian security powers have already been realized in Australia. Anti-war Texan Scott Parkin is a teacher, environmentalist and peace activist who gives workshops on peaceful protest. On Saturday 10 September 2005 he was publicly seized by 6 Australian Government security officials in a popular restaurant area of Melbourne. He was subsequently imprisoned for 6 days without charge in a prison for dangerous criminals awaiting trial. He was repeatedly defamed as a "security threat" by Government Ministers acting on "secret advice" from un-named secret police and was denied access to media, although not to legal representation. Parkin was subsequently deported under guard to the US under threat of long-term detention in solitary confinement (and evidently with the collaboration of US authorities). As a final imposition, on arrival in Los Angeles Scott Parkin was given a bill for nearly $12,000 to cover the cost of his imprisonment and deportation.
Scott Parkin practises and teaches non-violent, peaceful protest against war and those profiting from war (notably Dick Cheney's Halliburton corporation). In stark contrast, the Australian Federal Government involved Australia militarily in the illegal invasion of Iraq and has made Australia complicit in horrendous war crimes in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories. Thus while jihadist terrorists have killed 5,000 Western civilians over 20 years, the latest UN figures indicate that post-invasion avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in US-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan now total 2.0 million and 1.6 million, respectively, due to non-provision of life-sustaining requisites in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions. Indeed the post-1950 under-5 infant mortality in Asian and Pacific countries in which violent, racist, White Australia has been involved militarily in this era now totals 35 million.
If Australian politicians, media and government comprehensively refused to acknowledge the reality of the Jewish Holocaust we would be quite reasonable in concluding that Australia was profoundly racist and specifically anti-semitic - yet they comprehensively refuse to acknowledge publicly-available UN data indicating the horrendous post-invasion avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories that now total 2.0 million and 1.6 million, respectively.
The extent of fear, racism and holocaust-denial in proto-Nazi White Australia is given by the ZERO public response to the following letter that was recently sent to ALL members of Federal Parliament and to a wide range of State politicians and mainstream media in the public interest:
Australian democracy is facing an acute threat arising from dishonestly-fomented hysteria over the recent terrorist atrocities in London. A scientist for 4 decades, I would urge you to consider the following scientific analysis of the threat to Australia from non-state and state terrorism.
Rational, World's Best Practice approaches to risk management (critically employed in high risk areas such as the nuclear industry, defence and aviation) successively involve (a) untrammeled reportage, (b) rational, scientific analysis of the data and (c) systemic change for a safer environment (James Reason, Human error: models and management, British Medical Journal vol. 320, pp768-770, 2000).
Unfortunately typical risk management approaches successively involve (a) secrecy, lying, spin, censorship, self-censorship, intimidation and threats to whistleblowers, (b) political and self-serving analysis and (c) blaming, shaming and "shooting the messenger" with no systemic change.
The Coalition Government and politicized and intimidated public servants are comprehensively following World's Worst Practice in addressing Australia's security as well illustrated by the "children overboard" affair: (a) secrecy, lying, spin, unsubstantiated assertions and public servant intimidation; (b) dishonest, politics-driven, irrational analysis e.g. the scientific absurdity from leading officials that "there is no evidence that children were not thrown overboard"; and (c) no sensible systemic change but "race and fear" politics and concentration camps for indefinite detention of uncharged adult and child refugees.
Subsequent hysteria over 9/11 (3,000 innocent civilians murdered, assertedly by non-state terrorists from a jihadist organization previously supported and funded for a dozen years by US state terrorists) led to Australian participation in the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq (post-invasion avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality now totalling 2 million and 1.6 million, respectively, in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions).
The Federal Government is charged with preserving Australia's security but is dangerously complicit with US state terrorism - this involvement representing a major threat to Australia's security (as evidenced by the Madrid, Bali, Djakarta and London bombings, the findings of international terrorism experts and indeed the statements of the non-state terrorists themselves).
The Coalition Government (with dishonest and improper support from politicized public servants) has succeeded in emplacing draconian laws permitting detention and silencing of Australians without charge and now demands further repugnant and counterproductive violations of our long-held democratic, habeus corpus, due process, freedom of speech and freedom of association rights - and even the power to terminate the very citizenship of Australians.
Media non-reportage and poll-driven Opposition timidity have substantially contributed to the appalling rise of "democratic tyranny" in Australia. We are indeed approaching an Orwellian "1984" nightmare in which "2 plus 2 does not equal 4", "war is peace", "freedom is slavery" and "ignorance is strength" as well illustrated by mass hysteria over 5,000 Western civilian deaths from non-state terrorism over 20 years versus comprehensive Australian ignoring of 2 million avoidable deaths in post-invasion Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan due to US state terrorism in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Australians concerned with the "terrorist threat" to ourselves and to other human beings should at least get to the first stage of considering the actual data on "avoidable mortality". Thus consider the following "risk estimates" expressed as "annual percentage mortality": 0.00003 (Western civilians from jihadist terrorists over the last 20 years); 0.00003 (from shark attack), 0.0001 (Western civilians from jihadist terrorists over the last 4 years), 0.008 (car accidents), 0.1 (smoking-related causes; 19,000 Australian deaths annually due to bipartisan lethargy), 2.6 (under-5 infants in Occupied Iraq), 5.8 (under-5 infants in Occupied Afghanistan) and 10.4 (Australian POWs under the Japanese in WW2 - 8,000 deaths out of 22,000 POWs over 3.5 years).
The US alliance is the cornerstone of Australian security policy but Australian craven complicity in the crimes of the Bush Administration has done both America and Australia a profound disservice. Australia's Gadarene slide into entrenched human rights abuse, war criminality and "democratic tyranny" can be halted by resolute, bipartisan insistence on rational risk assessment and the uncompromised retention of our civil rights. This has been written in the public interest.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]
website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html
Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html; for a recent ABC broadcast see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm)
