The Politics of Compassion
Dear People
If you feel like me, you may be becoming rather anxious about the way in which compassionate solutions to refugee issues are losing ground to policies of punitive punishment against innocent people. It would be easy to blame politicians and maybe even accuse the Australian people of being too easily led down this path.
As compassionate people, who believe in compassionate solutions to the current refugee situation, I believe we need to take some initiative to offer an alternative and practical solution that we can all support and present to politicians and the public.
A compassionate solution must recognise that refugees are real people with real needs, and their desire to begin a new life should not be punished.
To develop this alternative policy, supporters of a compassionate solution need to come together for a summit to discuss and develop a policy that can be offered to the Australian public.
I suggest The Australian Greens should initiate this process, but the summit should include people from across the political spectrum but inclusive of only those people who have demonstrated a commitment to a compassionate solution.
The summit should be highly publicised and follow on from a web-forum in which anyone can offer solutions which can be voted upon - of course all solutions to be considered must adhere to a principle that innocent people should not be punished for seeking asylum, and that any solution must be compassionate. To manage the public forum aspect, I would hope Getup.org could facilitate this process, having developed such systems in the past.
The outcome of the summit should be a policy that would deal with the refugee crisis in a practical way, and try to look at the problem from the source to the endpoints. It should be a policy that can be promoted by politicians and refugee advocacy groups and drive our public discourse back onto a moral position.
Thanks for your time and consideration.
If you feel like me, you may be becoming rather anxious about the way in which compassionate solutions to refugee issues are losing ground to policies of punitive punishment against innocent people. It would be easy to blame politicians and maybe even accuse the Australian people of being too easily led down this path.
As compassionate people, who believe in compassionate solutions to the current refugee situation, I believe we need to take some initiative to offer an alternative and practical solution that we can all support and present to politicians and the public.
A compassionate solution must recognise that refugees are real people with real needs, and their desire to begin a new life should not be punished.
To develop this alternative policy, supporters of a compassionate solution need to come together for a summit to discuss and develop a policy that can be offered to the Australian public.
I suggest The Australian Greens should initiate this process, but the summit should include people from across the political spectrum but inclusive of only those people who have demonstrated a commitment to a compassionate solution.
The summit should be highly publicised and follow on from a web-forum in which anyone can offer solutions which can be voted upon - of course all solutions to be considered must adhere to a principle that innocent people should not be punished for seeking asylum, and that any solution must be compassionate. To manage the public forum aspect, I would hope Getup.org could facilitate this process, having developed such systems in the past.
The outcome of the summit should be a policy that would deal with the refugee crisis in a practical way, and try to look at the problem from the source to the endpoints. It should be a policy that can be promoted by politicians and refugee advocacy groups and drive our public discourse back onto a moral position.
Thanks for your time and consideration.
