The refugees on Manus have written a letter to some of the leaders of the free world (I have corrected a few spelling mistakes):
To the Honourable: President Donald Trump,
Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau and also humanitarian people of those countries
We, refugees and asylum seekers in Manus Island detention, are writing to you to explain our terrible condition and also our request. The condition in here is out of humanity. Australian government cut food , water and electricity for 5 days. They also cut toilets and everything for around one month. There is no medical clinic in here if something happened for us. We are refugees or asylum seekers and we are not criminals. Even criminal have the right for food and water. This type of torturing is new and Australian government have been torturing us in many ways for more than 4 years. Crime against humanity have been exactly happening in here. To sum up, President Trump, our processing for the USA is running. We want you to please notice some genuine refugees have detained in here. We have no any other choices except for remaining in here. We also ask from Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau to help us. We are skilled or educated from University. We can participate in the way that your countries are heading.
Please help us as much you can. We are in critical condition right now.
We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Detainees in Manus Island
5th of November 2017
CC:
– All humanitarian people all over the world.
I feel very sad for these people. They have come to us in good faith and we are turning them away. We have more than enough resources to accommodate them and help them with their disputes. This makes us look hostile, even overly suspicious. Please help us to change our policies by being the example we can not be right now. Please help ensure these people are provided better conditions. As assylum seekers they are already in a crisis observing international law seeking help from Australia. I am very sorry our government refuses to help them and us treating them poorly. Their attitude is not the attitude of every Australian citizen. Please help.
Dear Jacinta Ardern,
It is with intense embarrassment that we can not welcome the Manus Island refugees to Australia.
Please accept our sincere thanks for your offer to these long suffering homeless people, restoring their faith in humanity, by offering them a home in New Zealand.
We are aware that Malcolm Turnbull has attempted to deny your worthy intentions. We hope that you will ignore his heartless refusal and provide these people with a new life in your wonderful country.
It is terribly disheartening to see that people are still clinging to the anti-refugee propaganda. These men are suffering in ways most of us could not imagine. They have genuine fears, based on provable facts, that they are not safe. Senator Nick McKimm has been to the site at East Lorengau and says that one of the three buildings is not ready and two of them are not adequate. Forget “third countries”, we need to bring them all here and spend the next decades apologizing to them and giving them the safe life they sought and deserve.
It is more than time that we faced up to our responsibilities and brought the people on Manus and Nauru to Australia. But not to camps and detention centres – after all, they have done no wrong. They simply respectfully requested a safe place to live; it is shocking that this government has placed them in prisons and treated them so badly. See this article that explains everything perfectly: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/13/all-we-want-is-freedom-not-another-prison-camp?CMP=share_btn_link
When our children ask why we demonise and punish innocent people, it is time to rethink. This should never have happened, let’s keep trying to change it.
“We are skilled or educated from University.”
Sounds just like the Nigerian prince who cannot wait to wire his millions my way.
The West does not owe these people anything. Please do not presume, Mr Burnside, to import them onto my streets, within my city and at my expense, to say nothing of the future threats imposed by their cancerous and barbaric ideology.
Cancer cannot be acclimated; it either kills or is killed. The fantasy that we can import these people en masse into our communities so as to erode their rougher edges (or whichever euphemism you prefer) and at no intellectual, social, or moral cost to us is asinine, and is at odds with all historical precedent.
One need only look to Europe (or Egypt, for the most recent example) for proof.
Send them home to clean up their own mess, if they can. Western civilisation’s obsession with the importation of people who want to harm us, and all in the name of conscience, is both terrifying and tragic.
Your attitude is understandable and fairly common: but it denies the Australian instinct for decency.
Would you really send a person home to face persecution?
If these people were German Jews, late 1930s, would your attitude be the same? Serious question. It tests the ethics of your position.