{"id":19590,"date":"2015-11-25T12:14:24","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=19590"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:14:24","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:14:24","slug":"australias-flotilla-of-the-damned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=19590","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Flotilla of the Damned"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australian navy intercepts asylum seeker boat within 200m of Christmas Island on 20 November.<\/p><\/div>\n

Today\u2019s headline reads, \u201cChristmas Island asylum seeker boat \u2018disappeared\u2019 after being towed by navy<\/a>.\u201d There was no disappearance but rather a death sentence, pure and simple and ordinary. The only news perhaps would be the \u201cdisappearance,\u201d except that it\u2019s not news because it\u2019s so ordinary. Australia has learned to disappear whole boatloads of women, children, and men asylum seekers. This is just one more incidence.<\/p>\n

The story, such as it is, is short. \u201cA boat carrying asylum seekers<\/a> was intercepted close to Christmas Island on Friday, the first to reach Australian waters since June 2014. The boat made it within 200m of Flying Fish Cove before it was boarded by Australian officials, sources on the island told Guardian Australia. It is unclear whether the boat was intercepted by Australian navy or Border Force staff. Those on board were given life jackets. The boat was moved further away from the island and covered in a tarpaulin so the arrivals cannot be counted or identified, the sources said. The boat was towed out to sea<\/a> by an Australian navy patrol boat<\/a>. After that, thus far, all is silence. The government won\u2019t discuss \u201coperational matters\u201d, and so the boat has \u201cdisappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1939, the MS St. Louis famously traveled the Atlantic and Caribbean, seeking a safe haven for 908 German Jewish refugees fleeing State violence. Having been rejected by Cuba, the United States and Canada, the refugees returned to Europe, where they moved to England, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. In the ensuing violence, it\u2019s estimated that anywhere from 400 to 700 survived the war. What also survived was the shame of those nation States that refused entry, in particular the United States and Canada. Of course, apologies, both State and personal, have since been extended, but the shame is there. This was the Voyage of the Damned.<\/p>\n

But the boat never disappeared, nor was it meant to. There was no policy, on the part of so-called democratic States, of forced mass disappearance of refugees and asylum seekers. Now, in Australia, there is. Disappearance is so much more efficient than detention centers and offshore penal colonies. Someday, someone might apologize, but for now there\u2019s simply Australia\u2019s Flotilla of the Damned: women, children, men seeking asylum, set adrift in the silence and the fog<\/a> of \u201coperational matters.\u201d Because for the state, #OperationsMatter \u2026 not women and children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Photo Credit: The Guardian<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s headline reads, \u201cChristmas Island asylum seeker boat \u2018disappeared\u2019 after being towed by navy.\u201d There was no disappearance but rather a death sentence, pure and simple and ordinary. The only news perhaps would be the \u201cdisappearance,\u201d except that it\u2019s not news because it\u2019s so ordinary. Australia has learned to disappear whole boatloads of women, children, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[275,5153,751,114,556,5439,5440],"class_list":["post-19590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-asylum-seekers","tag-australia","tag-christmas-island","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-haunts","tag-ms-st-louis","tag-voyage-of-the-damned","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19593,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19590\/revisions\/19593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}