Another refugee in our care dies needlessly as Turnbull dishes out a few meals and lectures us to hug the homeless. Jennifer Wilson reports.
MILLIONAIRE PRIME MINISTER Malcolm Turnbull was asked – as he and his Kaminski-millinered wife Lucy served a few Christmas lunches to people doing it tough – about the death on Christmas eve of Faysal Ishak Ahmed, 27, a refugee held illegally on Manus Island by the Turnbull Government.
Mr Ahmed had been ill for some time. According to his friend, Abdul Aziz Adam, he was repeatedly turned away from the International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) clinic on Manus by nurses who accused him of “pretending” to be ill. After collapsing, Mr Ahmed was flown to the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where he subsequently died of his "imaginary" illnesses.
Mr Adam said on learning of his friend’s death:
“The system is designed to kill us one by one.”
This is an observation with which I entirely concur.
It is remarkable enough that the Turnbulls chose to exploit underprivileged citizens by using their Christmas Day as a photo opportunity. It’s not as if the PM is particularly concerned about their fate, having slashed the very funding that holds at least the possibility of relief to homeless people, those whose lives are in chaos as a consequence of domestic violence, disabled people, pensioners, the unemployed and those of us unfortunate enough to struggle with illness. Actually, the only demographic the PM does look upon with tender concern is bankers, mine owners and the otherwise wealthy.
However, when the PM was asked on this occasion about the death of Mr Ahmed – an innocent man who had been declared by the United Nations to be a refugee – he defiantly replied that he stood by his Government’s policy to protect our borders and stop deaths at sea.
Quite why refugees have to live miserable lives and die in their 20s in order to protect Australia’s borders remains a dark mystery to me.
Quite why it is entirely immoral to let people die at sea but entirely moral to let them rot and die on land, also remains one of life’s even darker mysteries.
The lie (let us not sugar-coat by using the term "post-truth") that asylum seekers and refugees who arrive here by boat have committed a crime, continues to be the foundation of and justification for successive Australian governments’ murderous policies. This lie is invoked at every turn to justify denial of medical treatment, detention in inhumane conditions, denial of human rights and destruction of all hope. We do not do these things to convicted murderers and rapists. We strongly disapprove of those who do these things to animals and when anyone is caught ill-treating animals there is an outcry — sometimes even by Liberals.
What Turnbull accomplished on Christmas Day was a staggering performance of hypocrisy that I doubt he will be able to trump in the coming year. In one half hour, from the lofty heights of political position and personal wealth, Turnbull acted out a ghastly and perverted imitation of Christ’s publicly washing the feet of the poor as a lesson in humility to the arrogant.
Turnbull “humbly” served lunch to the very people he victimises. He then instructed the rest of us to “hug” them.
At the same time, he refused to acknowledge that his government’s policies have murdered yet another refugee, who came to us seeking sanctuary from murderers in his homeland.
I think Turnbull has jumped the shark. Anything that follows can only be pale imitation and dull repetition.
You can follow Jennifer Wilson on her blog No Place for Sheep or on Twitter @NoPlaceForSheep. This article was republished with permission.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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