 "If you're not of the opinion that all refugees are spongers who should be hunted down, burned or gassed, then you should make that known, oppose it, open your mouth, maintain an attitude, pillory people in public…"
That (above) is how Anja Reschke, a German news anchor ‘sparked a huge debate’ after expressing her anger and verbally reprimanding those who racially attack refugees. Those are just some of the words that she bravely uttered on her evening TV slot. She chose to speak out after feeling that politicians had reacted "wholly inadequately" to racist attacks on refugees. You can watch here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/german-news-anchor-anja-reschke-uses-slot-to-attack-little-racist-nobodys-in-impassioned-call-to-end-hatred-towards-refugees-10444879.html Here is a woman who not only lets the world know that politicians and many ‘ordinary’ people think it’s okay to describe refugees in all manner of disgusting and untruthful ways, she tells us to speak out if we do not agree with what the hateful people are saying about asylum seekers. Well, do we speak out enough? I would say a resounding ‘No’. We mutter at the unfairness of the situation. Some of us gasp when we hear a politician refer to asylum seekers as ‘boat people’ and say that they are ‘not welcome here’. But do we speak out? I know that I am often too afraid of upsetting someone by stating out loud what I think of the current cruelty dished out to asylum seekers who have made a perilous journey in search of safety; those who have finally reached Australian shores, only to be put into hell holes of ‘immigration centres’ – read ‘prisons’. We hear: ‘They are probably terrorists.’ ‘They will take our jobs’ ‘They are not like us.’ They are Muslims’ And one of the stupidest ones: ‘They are economic migrants’. I am fairly sure that they are not ‘economic migrants’ but…so what if they are ‘economic migrants’? If they are looking for opportunities to improve their (and their families’) lives - why is that such a bad thing? Good on them! You don’t have to read many reports or books to find descriptions of the lives of people suffering in war-torn countries to see what horror and hardships they have to deal with. If Australia and other well-off countries welcomed them as the genuine asylum seekers that they are and gave them opportunities to work and contribute to our economy – how good would that be? They are not terrorists. Those few people who have been charged with planning an act of terror in our country have either flown here or been born here. They have not arrived in a leaky boat. If there are jobs to ‘take’, let them have them. I am convinced any refugee would be a hard worker and an excellent asset to any work place. They may have skills that we need. But, back to the ‘speaking out’ request. I have made a start by speaking out on this blog post. I am ‘speaking out’ on Face Book and I plan to at least try to overcome the nasty feeling that comes when speaking out (person to person) on the plight of refugees and the awful ways they are being treated. In our news bulletins on TV, we are sometimes given short bursts of information about the latest overseas tragedy of refugees drowning at sea or suffocating in the hold of an old boat, but we are not given much information about the suffering of asylum seekers who have reached our shores. It is time to speak out.
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