John Howard shamed

BY PIP HINMAN

In the early
hours of August 26, activists from the We Are All Boat People group decorated
statues around the city in barbed wire, Tampa sashes and black armbands.
Her Majesty Queen Victoria at the Queen Victoria Building sported a sash
with the words “Tampa — another reason to say sorry”. Other statues — in
Hyde Park fountain and around the CBD — were adorned with black armbands.

These activists, along with hundreds of others across Australia, were
marking the first anniversary since the Australian government refused to
allow the captain of the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa to bring some
400 refugees the ship had rescued to Australia. The asylum seekers were
eventually shipped to Nauru, the government announcing the launch of its
“Pacific Solution”.

As the reports on these pages illustrate, the refugee movement has significantly
extended its networks since August 26, 2001. The public mood is shifting
as refugees are given a human face and the government's lies are exposed.
One example of this is that some $7000 was raised by refugee groups selling
tens of thousands of black armbands for the day. An August 11 Canberra
Times poll showed a massive 82% of respondents saying children should
not be detained.

Not everyone is happy, however. A scathing opinion piece by Piers Ackerman
in the August 27 Daily Telegraph argued that the Shame Howard campaign
on Tampa Day was “sick” and that the refugee movement amounted to a “breast
beating”, “teeth gnashing” irrelevancy. (The unanswered question being
why he then devoted so much space to it!) Immigration department officials,
however, didn't see the event as irrelevent. An alert was issued to the
department’s central Sydney office, restricting access to the building,
to prevent staff being asked to wear a black armband on August 26.

From Green Left Weekly, September 4, 2002.

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From GLW issue 507