Kevin Andrews, Australia’s controversial Immigration Minister, has been at it again this week. Blowing the ‘dog whistle’ and playing the ‘race card’ (see earlier post “Out of Africa” for background) on federal election-eve.

And, again, it was the country’s most marginalised and obviously racially distinct residents who were his targets. Following the funeral of a young Sudanese man who’d been bashed in a racially motivated assault which Andrews’ initially tried to cite as an example of the failure of Africans to adequately integrate into Australian society, a Victorian police officer was assaulted by an alcohol affected Sudanese youth. So, Kev did what any right-wing politician campaigning on race, chasing the votes of bigots and xenophobes would do – he cited this isolated incident as yet another example of the failure of Sudanese refugees to embrace ‘Australian Values’.

"Violence is not a part of the peacefulness and the tolerance which has been very much a value of the Australian way of life," he told journalists. Yes, we hear you loud and clear, Kev – those black folk are just plain ‘un-Australian’.Of course anyone with half a brain and a sceric of integrity would counter with the logical argument that police are assaulted in the course of their work on a daily basis – by people of all colours, cultures and creeds. The Victoria police themselves acknowledge this fact and that’s why, when they released details of the alleged assault they made no mention of the alleged assailant’s race nor did they seek to suggest it was racially motivated.

Victoria’s Labor Premier, John Brumby went further, telling the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) “…I don't think it's at all helpful to put a racial characteristic to this. The principle problem that we're dealing with here is alcohol." But a small group of protesters stalking the minister made the point more cogently. Among them was a Sudanese refugee who whited out his face with zinc cream and waved a Vegemite sandwich at Kev.

Meantime, there are increasing reports of the racial vilification of African refugees around Australia in the aftermath of the Minister’s assault. But he’s refusing to apologise, saying he’s just voicing the concerns of many Australians. Yes, interesting approach – manage race relations on the basis of ill-informed popular opinion. It’s a strategy that’s been used with great effect in the past, of course...notably in South Africa and Germany. The Minister’s paternalistic excuse for his patently racist stance is that he is trying to do the Sudanese refugees a favour "I am not seeking to demonise them. I am seeking to help them," he said.

Having marketed himself as a staunch Catholic concerned with ethics and the ‘rights of the unborn’ Kevin Andrews’ stance on African immigration has shocked and appalled many friends and colleagues who believed he had a conscience. One of them, the ethicist, Dr Nick Tonti-Filippini, told the SMH "I must admit I am just flummoxed by it and very disappointed… Not only does it not fit in a Christian tradition but it does not fit in a human rights tradition."

Perhaps not, but it definitely fits the Howard Government tradition of playing the race card to win votes. As the director of the Catholic social justice group, the Edmund Rice Centre told the SMH, “The bottom line is that the Government sees itself in political difficulty approaching the election and is deliberately targeting one of the world's most vulnerable communities for some sort of political gain…This is lowest common denominator politics at its worst…”

Postscript: "In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)    [read more]

I recently lost a baby as regular readers of this blog will know (see Baby Lost) and I’ve been talking publicly about the grief that follows miscarriage in an effort to help normalise the experience and raise awareness about the trauma involved.

But as much as I’ve exposed myself emotionally and processed my feelings, I wasn’t really ready for the news I got this week when I visited my obstetrician/gynaecologist.

It hadn’t been a fabulous week, but on my way to the doctor's I had a mesmerising experience: a concentrated storm hit and passed in almost an instant leaving a heavy mist which filtered the sun’s warm glow and not one, but two, rainbows. These rainbows seemed somehow meant for me…I was driving on a quiet road and they passed directly overhead – parallel to one another, like bridges over the Seine.

Mostly when you see rainbows, one end seems visible but the other will be elusive to the eye – not these rainbows. They were both only just long enough to reach from the paddock on one side of the road to the field on the other. It was such a strange experience driving beneath them…calming and time-stopping…like a heavenly-derived pause. It stole my concentration and I took a couple of wrong turns, adding several kilometres to the trip, but I wasn’t bothered in the least.

I was still feeling that strange sense of peace inspired by the rainbows when I walked into the doctor’s surgery. Maybe this was some protective spell…I knew I’d be finding out inside the doctor’s room what the medical tests on my baby had revealed. I’d been told to expect that they’d confirm the most common diagnosis – that a chromosomal abnormality had caused the miscarriage. So, I wasn’t really prepared for the news I received and it had an unexpected impact.

The tests had revealed that my baby was a boy with no genetic or other observable abnormalities. I can’t adequately explain what my immediate reaction was to hearing that news from my unusually empathetic doctor. Heart swelled…eyes filled…breath paused. I guess I’d grown comfortable with the expectation that his was a life not destined to be lived beyond the womb because of the likelihood of gross deformity. Learning that he was essentially a healthy baby until he died, inexplicably, inside me has made this loss more real…and more painful. But knowing that he was a baby boy gives him an identity – I can picture him and give him a name in my mind...imagine what he would have been like to know. Grieve properly.

My doctor told me I should embrace this knowledge of him and let him live in my heart. Others, she said, may find this strange…consider him just pre-life tissue. But to me he was a baby with whom I’d bonded and I had a right to remember him that way. I think her advice was heartfelt and wise. It has been hard for me to break down the protective barriers and allow myself to feel – the grief and loss - at this level but it’s prevented me from just locking destructive feelings in a box deep inside.

So, now he lives and the heavenly believer in me feels sure I’ll see him over the rainbow.

This post is for him    [read more]

They say animals are much more instinct driven than humans – and therefore less influenced by socialisation. In other words nature usually wins over nurture. But I have ample evidence to the contrary right under my own roof!

At my farm, on Canberra’s outskirts, there’s a mini-mouse plague (i.e. small in scale, not ‘Mickey's’ girlfriend :) and I just found my cat, Tom, teaching my dog, Dodson, how to catch, tease and make a meal of a mouse! No kidding!

Dodson, named for the Aboriginal activist-priest, Pat Dodson, is a little black guy, boofy-haired with a white beard, tender-hearted but possessed of a ferocious bark. He’s quite unhappy with the world at the moment, thanks to veterinary interventions following a recent allergic reaction – trigger unknown – and complicated double ear infections. Poor little dude has been subjected to shame and starvation – shaved back to skin, ears tied back in a bandage to stop him scratching; he looks ridiculous and he’s constantly shivering from the unfamiliar cold. And while used to meals of fresh chicken and tasty bickies, he’s been forced to endure a staple diet of supposedly low-allergy biscuits that smell of nothing and presumably taste like cardboard. Problem is, he is as stubborn as the neighbour’s mules and he’s refused to eat for five days. Today when I took him to the vet for a check-up, the scales revealed he’d lost 25% of his body-weight in a week!! No wonder he was angry enough with me to destroy his bed and eat one of my gloves – he was starving! Which is why I suppose he was willing to undergo socialisation by his feline ‘sibling’ and resort to eating mice. His luck is about to change, though – alarmed at his sudden weight loss, his vet has now prescribed a home-cooked diet of $17.99/kilo kangaroo fillet cooked risotto-style with rice. Well, he is half poodle.

Tom is actually a Serbian refugee cat – quite seriously. He was abandoned by Serbian ‘diplomats’ who left for Belgrade without him. He came to live with me…but it was not an easy transition. Tom was overwhelmed by my, now sadly departed, St Bernards and went bush for two months…he was lost for dead. But in a great tale of feline endurance, Tom learned to live like a bush-ranger and was eventually discovered at the back of my garage, under the debris of renovation. Poor Tom had been locked-in for days without food or water and he was in a bad way – averse to human contact. But, with careful, tender encouragement on my part, aided by multiple food bribes, placed strategically closer and closer to my house, Tom eventually crossed over. One day, while he ate, I seized a moment to touch him, sensing he was ready. He could barely contain his delight, rubbed himself all over me in response and followed me inside. He slept under the covers with me that night (after a very thorough wash!) and has rarely left the house since. That was nearly eight years ago and Tom is now an elderly gentleman…quite mad and very fond of sleeping on my head, but a great little bloke to have around.

In my backyard dwells not another dog, but a goose called Bruce. Bruce moved into the house-garden six months ago, after a fiendish fox invaded his enclosure and ate his entire family. Recently, he’s started knocking on the back door with his beak and squawking whenever any of the 'insiders' show their faces in the vicinity...I swear he wants to come inside! I guess he thinks he's a dog - he lives in the backyard after all.

Bruce isn’t the first of my farm animals to suffer from an identity crisis, I used to have a sheep (named Becky by some friends’ children) who used to knock on the front door with her hoof and actually did burst into the house one day! The local farmers were amazed at the way she followed me around and came when she was called. Meanwhile, I have a Scottish Highland Cow called Wallace (after the great highland warrior, William Wallace) who thinks he’s equine, not bovine. He follows the horse(who answers to Dancer) around like a lovesick puppy and, despite having deadly weapons for horns, he’s completely down-trodden by Dancer.

I’m sure there are loads of analogies to be drawn from these stories and applied to human behaviour, but I’ll leave those to your imagination.

But let this be the lesson of the yarn: you can absolutely teach an old dog new tricks!    [read more]