And does economic development have no positive potential relation at all to security and human rights?
One key factor contributing to the rent-seeking you describe is the lack of economic opportunities for local people. And a major source of support for Papuan independence is a view that the Indonesian centre has done nothing for Papuans.
I am acquainted with Papuans pursuing higher degree study in other parts of Indonesia (utilizing state scholarships). While most support eventual independence in principle, all agree that the Papuan provinces ideally require a great deal of economic development first, along with positive experience in governance under the same circumstances — rather than relying on rent-seeking and corruption.
Makassar is not on the international tourist map? Quite wrong. While the city in itself is not much of a drawcard, its relatively new international airport is a major stop on the established tourist route to the highlands of Tanah Toraja, which have long attracted significant numbers of Europeans interested in ‘cultural tourism’. Increasingly, Australians are joining them. In the global diving community Makassar is also firmly ‘on the map’ as a hub for travel to significant number of internationally renowned dive sites in SE Sulawesi and the Bunaken marine park off northern Sulawesi. Direct flights to Makassar among low cost carriers from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have enhanced Makassar’s position.
And of course Makassar is a hub for areas further east (where Australia targets a great deal of aid), with a concentration of centers of higher learning (particularly in religious studies) that attract many from eastern Indonesia, and hence the city is a center of influence in understanding broader changes occurring throughout eastern Indonesia, notably in relation to Islam and Islamic proselytizing.
It is good to see the Australian government recognizing that understanding and engaging meaningfully with Indonesia involves far more than maintaining links with political officials in Java and serving tourists in trouble in Bali. This is particularly so given the degree of decentralisation that, however recently curtailed, has delivered real political power to regional elites throughout the East.
‘The current crisis could not have been predicted when the Australian government’s policy to ‘stop the boats’ was being designed and implemented.’
Wrong Matt, it WAS predicted. All have been very much aware for a decade that the Rohingya camps could provide people for the next wave of boats, and that Rohingya could achieve a critical mass in Australia like previous migrant communities, supporting an ongoing exodus.
In the past decade, few Rohingya have been able to come because they’re too poor to pay Indonesian smugglers. Asylum seekers, if they’re to get to Australia via RI, need deep pockets and family support. They may be detained and ripped off several times before they make it, having to pay the bribes and survive extortion by POLRI TNI, agents and smugglers. Rohingyas can’t do that. This began to change as more worked illegally in Malaysia, saved money and paid smugglers to take them via Batam to Sumatra. The first syndicate to send them here in numbers is based in Makassar and developed a Line in Kendari and the surrounding Bajau Homeland islands. These are the boats that arrived at Ashmore and approaches to the NT coast.
In the past couple of months some hundreds of Rohingya on small boats have entered Riau from Malaysia. Some had been promised work in Indonesia, others in Australia. A few groups were detained by POLRI while travelling to the south coast of Sumatra to meet their boat to Christmas Island. The skippers and crew were Bajao from Sulawesi. The regional Indonesian media covered this spike in arrivals and both UNHCR and IOM were asked by local authorities to help, as Indonesian detention centres couldn’t cope. The Aust media ignored these developments completely, buying into Gov propaganda that boats had been stopped.
The U.S approach has been productive. Through USAID and the ILO, the US has convinced Indonesian elites to act against trafficking, introduce and enforce legislation and commit resources. It’s been hell difficult, because the illegal labour trade between RI and Malaysia is used by both those countries, at times, as a lever of domestic policy. POLRI are now routinely detaining traffickers and rescuing their underage victims. Whereas Canberra’s approach has utterly failed to arrest or even deter Indonesian smugglers. Policy makers should be looking at the successful US anti trafficking model.
I think this is another lazy and biased analysis which fails to grasp historic
and contemporary causes of current crisis.
Historic causes are the colonial British
and parliamentary Burmese government (pre-1962) had brought in immigrants from Bangladesh for labour (for the former)
and for vote banks (for the latter).
Contemporary causes are, like everyone else, they are seeking better places, preferably western nations to receive free benefits, education and jobs. Not to blame them.
Burmese government’s stance is fair.
Bangladeshi Immigrants and their sons
and daughters will be screened properly
and qualified ones will be granted as
long as they do not use that fabricated word “Rohingya”. But it is political
suicide for any Burmese government and
it is unjust to accept the fabrication
that “Once upon a time, Rohingya exists
and they are here before Tibeto-Burmans
came down from southern China 2000 years
ago.”
As a Burmese, I am sick to see such lazy
scholarship and authorship. Be fair.
British national archives are online and
it is public. British ruled Burma and India
for more than 100 years (first Anglo-Burman
war was 1824 in which Burma lost Arakan to
British and since then British brought in
those illegals from India (today Bangladesh).
British are very meticulous in archiving and
if Rohingya is exist before British colonized
Burma, there must be references. Go and look
up in national archives web site yourself.
Seen from Europe, “the turning the boats back policy” is one of three policies pursued by the Abbott government – the other two being de facto climate change denialism and the appalling cuts in Australia’s overseas aid budgets – that have had large reputational costs. From being perceived as having a bi-partisan approach to “being an (engaged) good international citizen”, Australia is today seen as trying to reach back to its 1950s parochialism with its Cold War xenophobic overtones
.
In an op-ed in the Financial Times dated 27th April by one of the co-authors of the policy, Jim Molan, the “turn back the boats” policy is trumpeted as a policy from “which Europe could learn lessons”. This claim was even made by PM Abbott himself during his largely ignored visit to Paris at that time.
Fortunately there is little likelihood of the EU following the Australian example: as a regional body built on respect for law as a way of avoiding conflict, Europeans take seriously their commitments under UN Conventions. The number of refugees (20,000) in a whole year (2012) in Australia is the figure for several weeks in Europe, yet so far, despite the rise of anti-migrant parties and despite their citizens not having the wealth per capita of Australia, the leaders of EU member states have so far largely stood firm in accepting refugees and examining their claims as asylum seekers.
If some of those making comments above had half of the generosity of the poor fisherman of Aceh and those of Italy… the world would be a better place.
The Australian approach of branding those on the boats as illegal migrants before that claim can even be judged is contrary to basic principles of justice, let alone international law.
Thus Mathew Davies has a valid point, by rule-breaking itself the present Australian government is in no position to criticize the Thais and the Malaysians (the latter to be fair have accepted some 45,000 Rohingya over the last decades) and the Indonesians.
Most importantly by defining in practice all those seeking refuge as illegal migrants, politically, Australia is in no position to contribute to addressing root causes: the stateless status of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the suffering of what Amnesty international describes as the “world’s most persecuted minority.”
Chairman Mao bravado of once boasting of using just then just under 1 billion population of China alone to ‘ran” over to take over the world.
This will be the future of the world as predicted by Mohammed.
The birthrate among Muslim every where especially in India, Bangladesh, Various African and Asian counties, with sizable Islamic population will make migration to everywhere a realities.
Unlike India Myanmar so far is among the last group of countries with the lesser amount of Muslim pop. but with the least amount of politically influential voice, being ‘picked on’.
As Atheist China revise Mao bravado to 1 child policy, with brutal success the chance of Islamic counties doing such are virtually unfathomable.
It will be up to individual country to formulate own policy. The examples are brutal. Then again China brutally successful policy resemble Chinese on Chinese genocide.
None Islamic Bleeding heart liberals and leftist and even converts should have no illusion of finding themselves label “INFIDELS” once the caliphate become realities.
There is nothing in the Indonesian Press about Indonesian persecution of Indonesian Ahmadi Muslims (Ahmadiyya) and Indonesian Shi’ites. Perhaps, they should show an interest in their own Islamic minorities, before they “worry” about Bangladeshi Muslim migrants aspiring to be Burmese.
In the Indonesian press, there usually is a great hype about Palestinians and what Israel is doing, but until recently a silence about what the Burmese are doing to the Rohingya.
In fact Indonesian are starting to show an interest in what happens in Asia is a good thing. Because at least they can do something about it, unlike in the ME
So how many refugees have you personally put up at home, Dr. Matt?
You see it’s fine and dandy talk and we could all feel better if we could take in persons who for whatever reasons wish to leave their own countries, but on a practical level it just isn’t possible.
Most of these guys are economic refugees. They pay for a place on those boats. They pay ransoms when entrapped in Thailand. And if they ever make it to the West their their goal is to make enough money to send for their relatives to join them.
The long term effect would be that the host countries would suffer. Infrastructure could not keep up with demand. There would not be funds sufficient to keep all those fine professors employed at their fine universities.
Governments are elected to serve the needs of the electorate. Wholesale, unfettered immigration would destroy the host counties.
It’s tough on those who were unlucky to be born in countries that do not look after their own, but that’s the reality.
The “rules” set by the US have left the world in the sorry state we see now. There is no everlasting paradigm. Besides whom is Matthew Davies speaking to, as if addressing “the world”. The “world” is not anymore a bunch of English-speaking countries, will be less and less, and a global public opinion is emerging inspired by values and interests that don’t always coincide with that of the so called “West”.
Wanted to post a quick update that a version of the paper is out now for those interested in Winters’ use of “oligarchy” and my initial application of it to Thailand.
A lot of good comments above. Wanted to specifically mention Patrick Jory’s above about monarchy real quick. He is 100% correct. Didn’t make sense though in this New Mandala submission to go into that unless one has space to really do it correctly. Some of those points are fleshed out in greater analysis in the published version.
Still think that more can be done with this theory. But will give it all more thought for the moment before I dive into it again. If others are interested in some of the data points, I’m eager to share those excel files. I missed a lot here due to nature of researching wealth that is specifically meant to be hidden. Others, I know, could fill in a lot of blank spots I may have missed.
While Australia and Southeast Asian countries are reluctant to face the reality of this issue, preferring to tow away the boats out to sea and thus pleasing their populace this issue will not stop. Solutions, or attempts at initiating one by the involved parties ~ Government / UNHCR / NGO, that addresses the local conflicts that continues to force these Rohingya ( and suspected Bangladeshi ) to emigrate, is urgently in need
Most uncontrolled immigration to Australia is from Moslem communities overflowing with people. A high birth rate, tied necessarily to the subjection of women, has brought their populations to the Malthusian limit. For this kind of immigration not to cause trouble, the immigrants have to be converted in a fairly short time to a secular civic culture free of disruptive religious influence. They need, for example, to liberate their women, and thus see a drop in birth rate to sustainable numbers. What chance is there of this happening? With the exception of brilliantly micromanaged Singapore, it doesn’t seem to have been achieved. In many countries, the most refractory Moslems have even started killing secular people, partly randomly, and partly when the victims have exercised their civic right to criticise Islam (or any other religion).
Have Matt Davies and others like him ever considered that their own refractory human-rights beliefs (combined, ironically, with capitalist hunger for cheap labour) might lead us to the kind of conflict that would brutalise both cultures? The ugly trend to the right in Europe goes hand-in-hand with the fear of Moslem immigrants. It is quite possible that that trend might culminate in a bloodbath in which every last Moslem is extirpated from many non-Moslem countries. At least some of the dogmatic human-rights people might then admit that it would have been better to have kept them out in the first place. A present, they seem determined to help Enoch Powell’s prediction come true.
Quite correct Makassar’s not on the tourist map, unless you’re a Jamaat Tabliqui. So why would you have a Consulate rather than an Honorary Consul to process 6 visas a year? Gateway to Eastern Indonesia? And Darwin’s a gateway to Darwin.
We’ve been here before when the NT Gov, realising there were no economic complimentarities between Makassar and Australia [They don’t have the purchasing power, we don’t want what they sell]used the silly Growth Triangle rhetoric of the day to scam taxpayers to subsidise private interests . I even bought some of the Rattan chairs. What happened when Kalla decided to sool his Islamist hounds onto his Chinese rivals? Darwin’s lovely Industrial Park was burned and looted. And Kalla Lines subsequently blacklisted and banned from Darwin Ports.
So why would DFAT want to revisit this disaster? There’s no large Makassar community here [a few Chinese Christian refugees, no direct flights, no economic complimentarity. Very few illegal fishermen are sourced from Makassar compared to 20 years ago. That leaves – tadaaa – people smuggling and terrorism. The largest smuggling syndicates in RI come from Makassar, AQ and IS are active etc. There are some 2000 asylum seekers awaiting acceptance in Australia being cared for in 47 IOM safe houses paid for by Canberra ie taxpayers. But just watch DFAT justify the move publicly with the same NT bs from the 80s – ’emerging middle class,’ ‘gateway to .. [substitute wherever you want to go].’
Some clever student at ANU will no doubt apply for a grant to translate La Galigo into Yolngu, and get it. I know – how about a McCarthy Kickboxing Institute?
It would seem bizarre, even outrageous, if an Indonesian named an Indonesian academic to be “the authority” on a disbarred Australian lawyer’s relationship with the state bar association. I do not expect a useful explanation as to why such comment is presumed legitimate around Tim Lindsey and Todung Mulya Lubis, but I am interested to hear Ken Ward – or anyone else – try it anyway.
From what I’ve read, Lindsey’s quite recent comments on PERADI were conspicuous for their complete refrain from anything at all about PERADI’s 2008 decision disbarring Todung from Indonesia’s legal profession, or even the very fact of PERADI’s decision against Todung (see: http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/wordpress/wilj/files/2015/01/Lindsey-Crouch_final.pdf). If anyone here knows of any such specific and public comment from Lindsey or his associates on that issue, please advise.
With such a long background of lavish western sponsorship as Todung’s, it would be startling if he suddenly attracted critical examination from such sources. However, what’s shocking is the near-censorship, or airbrushing, around Todung’s disbarred status.
The West has not been “manipulated by Israel for the last 50 years”, but they have been manipulated by Leftist cant and Islamist Taqiyya. Israel has many Leftists, who sadly, buy into the same dichotomous paradigms of the rotting academy.
Semantics semantics. I couldn’t care less what his name is. He is still qualified to practice law and Indonesia’s legal system is still flagrantly corrupt. I’m not an Indonesia academic but I am a long term resident in Asia and I’m not in the slightest bit interested in tip toeing around alleged Indonesian sensibilities. Just as I’m not interested in semantics as regards Thailand’s current human rights record.
Change has to come from within. Indonesia’s government may not react to outside criticism however it will react to opposition within the country. The same is true in Thailand. So while all the Asian experts tread lightly the people subject to corrupt governments and institutions make their own choices.
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A happy end for Abhisit
Blame Eton and Oxford University for not giving Mr. Abhisit a proper education. Good bye and good riddance!
A happy end for Abhisit
Thanks for putting a smile on my face.
Flying the flag of reform?
And does economic development have no positive potential relation at all to security and human rights?
One key factor contributing to the rent-seeking you describe is the lack of economic opportunities for local people. And a major source of support for Papuan independence is a view that the Indonesian centre has done nothing for Papuans.
I am acquainted with Papuans pursuing higher degree study in other parts of Indonesia (utilizing state scholarships). While most support eventual independence in principle, all agree that the Papuan provinces ideally require a great deal of economic development first, along with positive experience in governance under the same circumstances — rather than relying on rent-seeking and corruption.
Looking ahead: Australia-Indonesia relations
Makassar is not on the international tourist map? Quite wrong. While the city in itself is not much of a drawcard, its relatively new international airport is a major stop on the established tourist route to the highlands of Tanah Toraja, which have long attracted significant numbers of Europeans interested in ‘cultural tourism’. Increasingly, Australians are joining them. In the global diving community Makassar is also firmly ‘on the map’ as a hub for travel to significant number of internationally renowned dive sites in SE Sulawesi and the Bunaken marine park off northern Sulawesi. Direct flights to Makassar among low cost carriers from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have enhanced Makassar’s position.
And of course Makassar is a hub for areas further east (where Australia targets a great deal of aid), with a concentration of centers of higher learning (particularly in religious studies) that attract many from eastern Indonesia, and hence the city is a center of influence in understanding broader changes occurring throughout eastern Indonesia, notably in relation to Islam and Islamic proselytizing.
It is good to see the Australian government recognizing that understanding and engaging meaningfully with Indonesia involves far more than maintaining links with political officials in Java and serving tourists in trouble in Bali. This is particularly so given the degree of decentralisation that, however recently curtailed, has delivered real political power to regional elites throughout the East.
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
‘The current crisis could not have been predicted when the Australian government’s policy to ‘stop the boats’ was being designed and implemented.’
Wrong Matt, it WAS predicted. All have been very much aware for a decade that the Rohingya camps could provide people for the next wave of boats, and that Rohingya could achieve a critical mass in Australia like previous migrant communities, supporting an ongoing exodus.
In the past decade, few Rohingya have been able to come because they’re too poor to pay Indonesian smugglers. Asylum seekers, if they’re to get to Australia via RI, need deep pockets and family support. They may be detained and ripped off several times before they make it, having to pay the bribes and survive extortion by POLRI TNI, agents and smugglers. Rohingyas can’t do that. This began to change as more worked illegally in Malaysia, saved money and paid smugglers to take them via Batam to Sumatra. The first syndicate to send them here in numbers is based in Makassar and developed a Line in Kendari and the surrounding Bajau Homeland islands. These are the boats that arrived at Ashmore and approaches to the NT coast.
In the past couple of months some hundreds of Rohingya on small boats have entered Riau from Malaysia. Some had been promised work in Indonesia, others in Australia. A few groups were detained by POLRI while travelling to the south coast of Sumatra to meet their boat to Christmas Island. The skippers and crew were Bajao from Sulawesi. The regional Indonesian media covered this spike in arrivals and both UNHCR and IOM were asked by local authorities to help, as Indonesian detention centres couldn’t cope. The Aust media ignored these developments completely, buying into Gov propaganda that boats had been stopped.
The U.S approach has been productive. Through USAID and the ILO, the US has convinced Indonesian elites to act against trafficking, introduce and enforce legislation and commit resources. It’s been hell difficult, because the illegal labour trade between RI and Malaysia is used by both those countries, at times, as a lever of domestic policy. POLRI are now routinely detaining traffickers and rescuing their underage victims. Whereas Canberra’s approach has utterly failed to arrest or even deter Indonesian smugglers. Policy makers should be looking at the successful US anti trafficking model.
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
I think this is another lazy and biased analysis which fails to grasp historic
and contemporary causes of current crisis.
Historic causes are the colonial British
and parliamentary Burmese government (pre-1962) had brought in immigrants from Bangladesh for labour (for the former)
and for vote banks (for the latter).
Contemporary causes are, like everyone else, they are seeking better places, preferably western nations to receive free benefits, education and jobs. Not to blame them.
Burmese government’s stance is fair.
Bangladeshi Immigrants and their sons
and daughters will be screened properly
and qualified ones will be granted as
long as they do not use that fabricated word “Rohingya”. But it is political
suicide for any Burmese government and
it is unjust to accept the fabrication
that “Once upon a time, Rohingya exists
and they are here before Tibeto-Burmans
came down from southern China 2000 years
ago.”
As a Burmese, I am sick to see such lazy
scholarship and authorship. Be fair.
British national archives are online and
it is public. British ruled Burma and India
for more than 100 years (first Anglo-Burman
war was 1824 in which Burma lost Arakan to
British and since then British brought in
those illegals from India (today Bangladesh).
British are very meticulous in archiving and
if Rohingya is exist before British colonized
Burma, there must be references. Go and look
up in national archives web site yourself.
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
Seen from Europe, “the turning the boats back policy” is one of three policies pursued by the Abbott government – the other two being de facto climate change denialism and the appalling cuts in Australia’s overseas aid budgets – that have had large reputational costs. From being perceived as having a bi-partisan approach to “being an (engaged) good international citizen”, Australia is today seen as trying to reach back to its 1950s parochialism with its Cold War xenophobic overtones
.
In an op-ed in the Financial Times dated 27th April by one of the co-authors of the policy, Jim Molan, the “turn back the boats” policy is trumpeted as a policy from “which Europe could learn lessons”. This claim was even made by PM Abbott himself during his largely ignored visit to Paris at that time.
Fortunately there is little likelihood of the EU following the Australian example: as a regional body built on respect for law as a way of avoiding conflict, Europeans take seriously their commitments under UN Conventions. The number of refugees (20,000) in a whole year (2012) in Australia is the figure for several weeks in Europe, yet so far, despite the rise of anti-migrant parties and despite their citizens not having the wealth per capita of Australia, the leaders of EU member states have so far largely stood firm in accepting refugees and examining their claims as asylum seekers.
If some of those making comments above had half of the generosity of the poor fisherman of Aceh and those of Italy… the world would be a better place.
The Australian approach of branding those on the boats as illegal migrants before that claim can even be judged is contrary to basic principles of justice, let alone international law.
Thus Mathew Davies has a valid point, by rule-breaking itself the present Australian government is in no position to criticize the Thais and the Malaysians (the latter to be fair have accepted some 45,000 Rohingya over the last decades) and the Indonesians.
Most importantly by defining in practice all those seeking refuge as illegal migrants, politically, Australia is in no position to contribute to addressing root causes: the stateless status of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the suffering of what Amnesty international describes as the “world’s most persecuted minority.”
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
Chairman Mao bravado of once boasting of using just then just under 1 billion population of China alone to ‘ran” over to take over the world.
This will be the future of the world as predicted by Mohammed.
The birthrate among Muslim every where especially in India, Bangladesh, Various African and Asian counties, with sizable Islamic population will make migration to everywhere a realities.
Unlike India Myanmar so far is among the last group of countries with the lesser amount of Muslim pop. but with the least amount of politically influential voice, being ‘picked on’.
As Atheist China revise Mao bravado to 1 child policy, with brutal success the chance of Islamic counties doing such are virtually unfathomable.
It will be up to individual country to formulate own policy. The examples are brutal. Then again China brutally successful policy resemble Chinese on Chinese genocide.
None Islamic Bleeding heart liberals and leftist and even converts should have no illusion of finding themselves label “INFIDELS” once the caliphate become realities.
The Rohingya and regional failure
There is nothing in the Indonesian Press about Indonesian persecution of Indonesian Ahmadi Muslims (Ahmadiyya) and Indonesian Shi’ites. Perhaps, they should show an interest in their own Islamic minorities, before they “worry” about Bangladeshi Muslim migrants aspiring to be Burmese.
The Rohingya and regional failure
In the Indonesian press, there usually is a great hype about Palestinians and what Israel is doing, but until recently a silence about what the Burmese are doing to the Rohingya.
In fact Indonesian are starting to show an interest in what happens in Asia is a good thing. Because at least they can do something about it, unlike in the ME
Thailand’s oligarchs are fighting
That was a really interesting read. If I have a question it is: Is there a smoking gun? And whose hand is on the trigger?
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
So how many refugees have you personally put up at home, Dr. Matt?
You see it’s fine and dandy talk and we could all feel better if we could take in persons who for whatever reasons wish to leave their own countries, but on a practical level it just isn’t possible.
Most of these guys are economic refugees. They pay for a place on those boats. They pay ransoms when entrapped in Thailand. And if they ever make it to the West their their goal is to make enough money to send for their relatives to join them.
The long term effect would be that the host countries would suffer. Infrastructure could not keep up with demand. There would not be funds sufficient to keep all those fine professors employed at their fine universities.
Governments are elected to serve the needs of the electorate. Wholesale, unfettered immigration would destroy the host counties.
It’s tough on those who were unlucky to be born in countries that do not look after their own, but that’s the reality.
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
The “rules” set by the US have left the world in the sorry state we see now. There is no everlasting paradigm. Besides whom is Matthew Davies speaking to, as if addressing “the world”. The “world” is not anymore a bunch of English-speaking countries, will be less and less, and a global public opinion is emerging inspired by values and interests that don’t always coincide with that of the so called “West”.
Thailand’s oligarchs are fighting
Thank you for everyone’s comments/suggestions!
Wanted to post a quick update that a version of the paper is out now for those interested in Winters’ use of “oligarchy” and my initial application of it to Thailand.
http://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jsaa/article/view/839/840
A lot of good comments above. Wanted to specifically mention Patrick Jory’s above about monarchy real quick. He is 100% correct. Didn’t make sense though in this New Mandala submission to go into that unless one has space to really do it correctly. Some of those points are fleshed out in greater analysis in the published version.
Still think that more can be done with this theory. But will give it all more thought for the moment before I dive into it again. If others are interested in some of the data points, I’m eager to share those excel files. I missed a lot here due to nature of researching wealth that is specifically meant to be hidden. Others, I know, could fill in a lot of blank spots I may have missed.
cheers, -Thomas
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
While Australia and Southeast Asian countries are reluctant to face the reality of this issue, preferring to tow away the boats out to sea and thus pleasing their populace this issue will not stop. Solutions, or attempts at initiating one by the involved parties ~ Government / UNHCR / NGO, that addresses the local conflicts that continues to force these Rohingya ( and suspected Bangladeshi ) to emigrate, is urgently in need
Rule-breaking and the Rohingya
Most uncontrolled immigration to Australia is from Moslem communities overflowing with people. A high birth rate, tied necessarily to the subjection of women, has brought their populations to the Malthusian limit. For this kind of immigration not to cause trouble, the immigrants have to be converted in a fairly short time to a secular civic culture free of disruptive religious influence. They need, for example, to liberate their women, and thus see a drop in birth rate to sustainable numbers. What chance is there of this happening? With the exception of brilliantly micromanaged Singapore, it doesn’t seem to have been achieved. In many countries, the most refractory Moslems have even started killing secular people, partly randomly, and partly when the victims have exercised their civic right to criticise Islam (or any other religion).
Have Matt Davies and others like him ever considered that their own refractory human-rights beliefs (combined, ironically, with capitalist hunger for cheap labour) might lead us to the kind of conflict that would brutalise both cultures? The ugly trend to the right in Europe goes hand-in-hand with the fear of Moslem immigrants. It is quite possible that that trend might culminate in a bloodbath in which every last Moslem is extirpated from many non-Moslem countries. At least some of the dogmatic human-rights people might then admit that it would have been better to have kept them out in the first place. A present, they seem determined to help Enoch Powell’s prediction come true.
Looking ahead: Australia-Indonesia relations
Quite correct Makassar’s not on the tourist map, unless you’re a Jamaat Tabliqui. So why would you have a Consulate rather than an Honorary Consul to process 6 visas a year? Gateway to Eastern Indonesia? And Darwin’s a gateway to Darwin.
We’ve been here before when the NT Gov, realising there were no economic complimentarities between Makassar and Australia [They don’t have the purchasing power, we don’t want what they sell]used the silly Growth Triangle rhetoric of the day to scam taxpayers to subsidise private interests . I even bought some of the Rattan chairs. What happened when Kalla decided to sool his Islamist hounds onto his Chinese rivals? Darwin’s lovely Industrial Park was burned and looted. And Kalla Lines subsequently blacklisted and banned from Darwin Ports.
So why would DFAT want to revisit this disaster? There’s no large Makassar community here [a few Chinese Christian refugees, no direct flights, no economic complimentarity. Very few illegal fishermen are sourced from Makassar compared to 20 years ago. That leaves – tadaaa – people smuggling and terrorism. The largest smuggling syndicates in RI come from Makassar, AQ and IS are active etc. There are some 2000 asylum seekers awaiting acceptance in Australia being cared for in 47 IOM safe houses paid for by Canberra ie taxpayers. But just watch DFAT justify the move publicly with the same NT bs from the 80s – ’emerging middle class,’ ‘gateway to .. [substitute wherever you want to go].’
Some clever student at ANU will no doubt apply for a grant to translate La Galigo into Yolngu, and get it. I know – how about a McCarthy Kickboxing Institute?
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
It would seem bizarre, even outrageous, if an Indonesian named an Indonesian academic to be “the authority” on a disbarred Australian lawyer’s relationship with the state bar association. I do not expect a useful explanation as to why such comment is presumed legitimate around Tim Lindsey and Todung Mulya Lubis, but I am interested to hear Ken Ward – or anyone else – try it anyway.
From what I’ve read, Lindsey’s quite recent comments on PERADI were conspicuous for their complete refrain from anything at all about PERADI’s 2008 decision disbarring Todung from Indonesia’s legal profession, or even the very fact of PERADI’s decision against Todung (see: http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/wordpress/wilj/files/2015/01/Lindsey-Crouch_final.pdf). If anyone here knows of any such specific and public comment from Lindsey or his associates on that issue, please advise.
In that regard it could be significant that Lindsey has appeared with Todung as an invited guest lecturer around the same period as that paper’s draft (https://storify.com/indoforummelb/todung-mulya-lubis-lecture-at-cilis), and that Lindsey has been full of endorsement and praise for his (actually disbarred) guest, as in his description: “…courageous lead Indonesian counsel, Professor Todung Mulya LubisтАЛ, fought tooth and nail to save the two men…” (http://www.smh.com.au/comment/7-reasons-why-bali-pair-should-not-have-been-killed-20150429-1mvkgk.html).
With such a long background of lavish western sponsorship as Todung’s, it would be startling if he suddenly attracted critical examination from such sources. However, what’s shocking is the near-censorship, or airbrushing, around Todung’s disbarred status.
The Rohingya and regional failure
The West has not been “manipulated by Israel for the last 50 years”, but they have been manipulated by Leftist cant and Islamist Taqiyya. Israel has many Leftists, who sadly, buy into the same dichotomous paradigms of the rotting academy.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
Semantics semantics. I couldn’t care less what his name is. He is still qualified to practice law and Indonesia’s legal system is still flagrantly corrupt. I’m not an Indonesia academic but I am a long term resident in Asia and I’m not in the slightest bit interested in tip toeing around alleged Indonesian sensibilities. Just as I’m not interested in semantics as regards Thailand’s current human rights record.
Change has to come from within. Indonesia’s government may not react to outside criticism however it will react to opposition within the country. The same is true in Thailand. So while all the Asian experts tread lightly the people subject to corrupt governments and institutions make their own choices.