Anyone following news would think that Australia was under some vicious attack from an amalgam of hostile forces. The country’s political establishment of both the major political parties, now in the midst of an election fever, is studiously cultivating this paranoia. And what are the forces that are so scaring Australia? These are a bunch of asylum seekers from war torn or insurgency ridden countries, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka et al, who are making their escape to seek asylum in Australia, believing it to be a welcoming democratic country where they might feel safe. And to reach that safety, these desperate people embark on a hazardous journey in leaky, unsafe and unseaworthy boats from a transit country, like Indonesia, to reach Australia. In countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, these refugees are fleeing the chaos and killings following the US war on terror, of which Australia and other allied countries are an integral part. In other words, they are in large part responsible for the conditions that the refugees are escaping from. The refugees/asylum seekers (or boat people, as they are called here) are seeking security in Australia from a world turned upside down for them. Australia’s inhuman treatment of the boat people dates back to 2001 when John Howard was the country’s prime minister. He made an art form of stoking people’s fear and paranoia in the wake of refugees arriving on Australia’s doorsteps fleeing persecution, torture and murder in their countries. As most of these refugees were escaping their war torn countries in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was easy to tar them as possible terrorists heading to create mayhem in peaceful Australia. The politics of boat people enabled Howard to win an election and helped him to remain in power till 2007. His defeat in 2007 election brought the then centrist Labour Party to power with Kevin Rudd as the new prime minister. His message on refugees was relatively mild promising a humane policy. But it did not last when more boat people started arriving and the issue once again became a political hot potato. And when Julia Gillard became prime minister in 2010, she sought to capitalise on the politics of refugees by seeking to outsource some of them to Malaysia, over and above Howard’s so-called Pacific solution of dumping the refugees on Papua New Guinea (PNG), and the tiny south Pacific state of Nauru. But the conservative opposition was still making the political runs by opposing whatever the Gillard-led government proposed. With talk of another election in the offing, the Gillard government was facing political oblivion. A desperate Labour Party dumped Gillard and brought back Rudd as prime minister, as he was supposed to have the necessary popular appeal to change its political fortunes. And the issue that seems to matter most, at least in marginal parliamentary seats that will make or break political fortunes, is to convince people that Kevin Rudd will have the necessary gravitas and the ruthlessness to deter boat arrivals. There seems to be accepted wisdom here that whichever party is able to deter boat people and their handlers (called people smugglers here) from heading to Australian shores, that party is likely to win the election. The question then is how to do this? Rudd has decided to dump them on Australia’s neighbour and former colony, Papua New Guinea, and the tiny nation of Nauru, which have been suitably bribed. The Australian government is now running a wide ranging advertising campaign at home and abroad to warn new asylum seekers that those trying to reach Australia will now be processed and settled only in these two countries in mosquito infested camps and with very little security, health and other minimal living conditions. The assumption here is that many refugees coming to Australia are economic migrants and once they understand that their prized destination, Australia, will not be within reach, they will stop heading this way. The assumption that many boat people are economic refugees is outrageous and arrogant. For God sake, even refugees love their families and will not risk their lives escaping in leaky boats for shelter in Australia! It is only desperation that drives people across oceans, hoping for safety and security, and it is not a crime. Which is not to say that such things don’t happen but they are not the norm for human beings. John Howard, Australia’s then-prime minister, ran with a story accusing asylum seekers of throwing their children overboard (into the sea), with confected rage that Australia wouldn’t want such people in their midst. But it was later found that this was false and politically motivated. We know that the asylum seekers’ issue is a political football here, with the government and opposition outbidding each other in cruelty to win votes. And for this, it is necessary to dehumanise the boat people with no faces, names, images etc that might strike a cord with Australian people. They are simply boat people; some of them might even be terrorists while others might simply be adventurers seeking a better economic future in Australia. Therefore, these faceless people might be peddling fake claims of fleeing persecution. And they have criminal connections with alleged people smugglers who are paid to smuggle them into Australia. In other words, many of the asylum seekers are a bunch of shoddy people involved with people smugglers. The argument goes that Australia has to break this ‘business model’ in which people smugglers are making lots of money by smuggling boat people into Australia. Besides, it is argued, it is humane to put these ‘people smugglers’ out of business to prevent people from drowning at sea. In other words, Australia is supposedly acting humanely by being cruel to asylum seekers to prevent loss of life. It might seem a neat argument but it is dishonest and self-serving. It suggests that many boat people heading to Australia are not genuine refugees. This is fallacious because even Australia’s own review processes have found 90 percent of them as genuine refugees, hence entitled to settle in Australia. By seeking to now junk its refugee review process and dumping refugees on PNG and Nauru, Canberra is creating ‘Australian gulags’, with conditions as bad as at the worst forced labour camps of the Soviet Union, according to Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian prime minister. The opposition conservative coalition, led by Tony Abbot, is outbidding the Rudd government by promising to create a unified task force led by an army general to deal with this national emergency of tackling the helpless boat people who are no threat to anyone. If only this ‘lucky country’ might be a bit generous with its enormous luck. The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au