Before the Australia Federal Election, you couldn’t turn the news on without hearing something about “boat people”. It seems that boat people and refugees are a hot topic in Current Affairs at the moment. Even news websites are talking about “boat people”. Having read Freedom Next Time and The Handmaid’s Tale I’ve started thinking that maybe all the news about “boat people” has just been made to scare society. In Freedom Next Time, John Pilger explains how dangerous and difficult life in a war-torn country is. It seems crazy to me, that as Australians who really do live in a lucky country that we would even think of refusing to let people who have escaped a war-torn country live in Australia. Australia is built on multiculturalism, so why would we turn people from other cultures away? I think it is just a power and control issue; the Government wants both power and control. The reality is, many asylum seekers arrive in Australia by plane, but we never hear about such incidents in the news. That seems stupid, if the people have enough money to get on the plane, surely they are a little bit better off than the people who have to stow away on ships to get to Australia? When I saw an image in one of the class presentations showing children running in pain and fear during the Vietnam War, it made me realise the horrific nature of war and I can’t understand how anyone could let that happen to children. I think if we deny “boat people” entry into Australia, they we can’t really call ourselves multicultural, in fact what we are doing is condemning them to return to, and live in, countries stricken by war which, let’s face it, have mostly been started by Western countries such as American. I don’t know about you, but that just doesn’t seem right to me.
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