Closing address to the Perth Writer's festival.
an excerpt
In this desert of silence that now passes for our public life, a
silence only broken by personal vilification of anyone who posits an
idea opposed to power, it is no longer wise for a public figure to
express concern about a society that sees some human beings as no longer
human; a society that has turned its back on those who came to us for
asylum – that is, for freedom, and for safety. And so, with our tongues
torn we are expected to agree with the silence, with the lies, and with
the murder of Reza Barati.
Will our prime minister say of this
death what he so recently said of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, “We
accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things
happen.” It would be condemned as not showing affection for our national
team were a public figure to repeat the story of the Tamil woman,
Vasantha – as reported by the BBC at the time of the prime minister’s
comments – who describes being “kicked, beaten with batons and pipes,
burned with hot wires and cigarettes, submerged in a barrel of water
until she thought she would drown, suffocated by having a petrol-soaked
plastic bag put over her head, before being repeatedly raped by men in
[Sri Lankan] army uniform”, the torture and rape going on for 20 days
“before a relative could find her and pay a bribe for her release”.
It
would be even more foolish to not accept that human beings crowded like
animals without hope in a compound on a hellish island is perfectly
right and civilised, as is the language of politicians of both parties
who now publicly boast that it is good and necessary to be cruel. This
is the most wicked poison to ask any society to drink, and yet we are
drinking it, and drinking it to the full.
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