"Looking at these people, me and my friends cried because they
looked so hungry, so thin...How can we not help destitute
people like this? It would be a big sin."
Muchtar Ali,
Acehnese Fisherman.

Hear the words of this man of the sea, for they tell us much
about the simplest and most rational of human responses.
Mr Ali, who helped rescue more than 400 Rohingya asylum seekers
on a squalid boat in the Andamon Sea, speaks a truth that
transcends legalities and international politics. He has no
time for the hard-line and cynical responses uttered by
national leaders who might prefer to close their eyes to
boatloads of asylum seekers and desperate migrants washing
around on the high seas. He sees the need. He sees people
dying and Mr Ali and his fellow fishermen know intuitively that we
must respond charitably.

Now hear the words of Tony Abbott, a man who leads a nation,
"Nope, Nope, Nope."

The Prime Minister's wall of negativity says much about this
nation's failures but far more about his government's
appaling lack of compassion and its globally embarrassing
hypocrisy and moral bakruptcy. It encapsulates his government's
dispiriting response to asylum seekers: no acceptance of
asylum seekers in boats, no resettlement in Australia, and no
further debate will be had.

It is a facile and flawed strategy one that brooks no middle
ground that bears no nuances, no flexibility and which will
never be a "solution" to anything. Towing back boats to
Indonesian waters, as the Abbott government has done for more
than a year, might have saved lives in this immediate region -
but it should not represent the end of our responsibilities.

It does not stem the causes of mass migration. It does not
stop millions of people leaving countries where they are
being denied their fundamental human rights, where they are
murdered, raped, beaten and cowed, where they are denied any
say in the governance of their nation.

With his triple no, Mr Abbott has bastardised Australia's
humanitarian tradition ...

This was taken from The Age Editorial, Saturday, 23 May 2015.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/nope-is-not-good-enough-mr-abbott-20150522-gh7hne.html

warmair,

No one here is saying that those Bangladeshis and Rohingyas should just be left to drown. It is what should happen after they are saved. The Bangladeshis are clearly economic migrants and can be sent straight home, even under the strictest interpretation of the Refugee Convention. The Rohingyas are being offered temporary asylum, and the time could be used to establish (maybe through the World Court) whether Myanmar or Bangladesh is responsible and then put international pressure on the responsible country if it won't take its people back or persecutes them after they have been sent back, even if this means loss of business opportunities for the transnational corporations.

Due to the numbers involved, allowing boat people to resettle in rich countries will just result in those countries being swamped. The only cure is for all countries without exception to get out of the Malthusian trap, bring their population into balance with their resources, support honest and competent leaders and the rule of law, look after their environment, and change customs and attitudes that have clearly become dysfunctional. Yet all we hear from the Left is our responsibility to be "compassionate" (show lack of compassion for our own disadvantaged people who would be competing with all those refugees for housing, public services, and help), never about the responsibility of those fit young men to fix up their own societies.

There is a huge literature on Malthusian trap societies and the poverty, conflict, environmental degradation, and refugee flows that they cause, mostly from archaeologists and economic historians, some of whom have written books for the general reader. See for example, Steven LeBlanc (Constant Battles), Lawrence Keeley (War Before Civilization), Gregory Clark (A Farewell to Alms), Peter Turchin (War and Peace and War), Azar Gat (War in Human Civilization), Paul Billings and Joanne Souza (Death from a Distance), David Montgomery (Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations), Jared Diamond (Collapse)...

Peter Turchin has an article on the Web explaining some of his thinking

http://aeon.co/magazine/society/peter-turchin-wealth-poverty/

Hi there ONTHEBEACH...

Your most recent commentary is 'spot on' ! You've articulated the entire issue precisely and correctly ! Therefore you must now ready yourself for the avalanche of criticism you'll receive from the 'usual suspects' ! Those who would have our entire country awash with all manner of dissident's and religious subversives.

Unfortunately the occasional poor souls who are legitimate refugees, and who really need genuine asylum, but are inextricably bundled up with the many 'pretenders', rendering their bona fides infinitely more difficult to establish, therefore increasing their agony of 'indecision' and waiting, exponentially.

On another note ONTHEBEACH, I believe if your were to quietly sit down with a few of the more moderates on this Forum; people like FOXY, POIROT SUSEONLINE, and PAUL1405, and show them the real evidence (not the stuff peddled by the left leaning media) material emanating from police, ASIO and ONA, I have no doubt, they would all harden their line on any further Islamic refugee intake. I don't mean rendering them without some real assistance, but notions of resettlement per se, would be out of the question ?

ONTHEBEACH, do you have an opinion on this particular question I wonder ? Appreciate hearing it, perhaps ?

Foxy, nope, compassion isn't rational, it's an emotional response and the pro illegal immigrant posters are engaging in social status signalling, which is a traditional pastime of the idle middle classes.
To us "Let them in" sounds just like "Let them eat cake".
Steele Redux is exemplar of that tradition, he's suggested that O Sung Wu is jeopardising his reputation with the "in crowd" because he's polite and respectful toward "racists" when they presnent an opinion or an argument.
Look at it this way, the violent Leftist thugs who go around bashing people and making bomb threats against events they don't want to go ahead are like the bouncers at the door to a nightclub, they decide who's in and who's out, if you're not dressed right, if you don't have the right attitude or the price of admittance they won't let you party with the in-crowd.
To actively display your brand of compassion is to submit to the demands of thugs and the arcane political correctness of Anarchists and Trotskyites because they're the gatekeepers and bouncers of an elite club, once inside you can be yourself but disrespect the rules of the Compassion Club and you get the bum's rush.

o sung wu,

Bless you for being one of the world's optimists. I am one too, it is always cup at least half full as opposed to half empty for me.

However I do not for a moment imagine that anyone is ever going to convince the leftists with a vested personal stake in disrespecting Australia and trashing our traditions, our cultural inheritance and our sovereign independence. They are going to be swinging from the taxpayer's teat and bucketing Aussies at the same time no matter what.

Here is the sort they follow and quote, Philip Adams. Unrelenting purveyors of cow dung and making a fine living out of it too - quite unlike most of the followers who cannot think for themselves, the 'Useful Idiots' of International Socialism,

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/phillip_adams_on_how_to_be_a_moral_bullsher/

The Rohingya boat people are 9000 miles away. Perhaps you also believe we should be taking some of the Africans off Italy.

Its exactly this point in time that Australia needs to stand firm and thankfully we have a government that is strong in its determination.

Abbott is absolutely right, offering to take even one of these people will signal a weakness in our current policy and the boats will start coming again over night.

Send them money, and keep them in their own region. Its up to Myanmar to find an appropriate and humane solution.