More on refugees, asylum seekers - whatever.

Much of the discussion in Australia, and I presume other countries with similar problems, has been on how to “stop the boats” from arriving. Short of the drastic step of blowing them out of the water there is no short term solution. People have migrated, gone to what they perceive are “greener pastures”, for thousands of years; in fact we are all, in effect, “migrants” out of Africa!

I am sure that many intelligent people have spent a great deal of time thinking about various solutions to this perceived problem but I have not seen much in the media about the actual causes – why these people take the tremendous risk of a precarious land and sea journey to Australia. For instance just reflect for a moment on where these “boat people” originate – generally Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq – not particularly pleasant places to live at the present time. In none of these countries is anyone “free” as we here in Australia would perceive it; all have corrupt or repressive governments; all are consumed by violence of one sort or another; all have a low standard of living for the general populace; all, with the possible exception of Iraq are culturally bound by a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Quite reasonably many people in these countries want to leave for a “better” future and prospects in Australia. If I was in their shoes, I would too – in fact I did. I left Zimbabwe for Australia, with my family, over 30 years ago. But I arrived in an aircraft.

The solution – long term – is to improve conditions in the countries concerned to the extent that their citizens are not tempted to leave. If this is not possible, and being realistic it is probably not possible, then we have to expect people to move - move to what they believe is a better place. Trying to stop them coming is like putting a finger in the leak in a dike – it may work for a while but long term the pressure will build up to a point when it will be impossible to stop.

A few points to consider:-

• After the necessary health and security checks - welcome them as new migrants and put them to work.
• These are generally industrious, intelligent and resourceful people who have suffered as we have not. There is a shortage of labour in the resource States of Western Australia and Queensland. And some, if not most, have skills we need.
• Give them a welcome; give them succour; allow them to work for a better life than the one they have known – give them a future.
• Be charitable and give them an Australian “fair go”.

Refugees are people too.

First up I would like to state, as boldly as I can, that refugees – however they are portrayed – are actually PEOPLE. Never forget they are people, as I am a person; as are you, the reader. As people, individuals, we all suffer – physical and emotional pain, stress, anguish and anxiety and we all have a desire to be treated justly and without prejudice. This is as it should be and this has been recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It is a noble document and Australia (rightly so) is a signatory to this Declaration.

When some people, citizens of Australia, denigrate and demonise refugees as “boat people”, as “illegal immigrants” or as “queue jumpers” I wonder just how many of them have actually put themselves in the position of these “refugees” and have reflected on what they, the Australians, would do had they experienced a similar background of poverty, injustice and discrimination. And I wonder, also, how many Australians have actually read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Some Australians (the Federal Government included) in violation of the Declaration actually do nothing to prevent prejudice and discrimination, not to say violence against these individuals, ignoring the fact that, for instance:-

Article 7 states that,
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

And Article 9 seeks to ensure that,
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

And then Article 14 which rightfully proclaims,
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

By keeping the refugees/boat people/illegals – whatever – in detention for years Australia is, I believe, in breach of the very Declaration they signed and are hypocritical when they castigate others for not upholding the same Declaration.

And what about charity? This is a quality which is woven into the fabric of every culture and society. In terms of Christianity (and Australia is nominally a Christian country) charity implies love of one’s fellow men (from the Oxford English Dictionary – OED). It means love; kindness; natural affection; spontaneous goodness; a disposition to think favourably of others and to make allowances for their shortcomings; beneficence; liberality to or the provision for those in need or distress.

Is this how we are treating these people who are desperate and in need of succour?

Then there is the adverb charitable which, again in Christian terms, means charity or the love of God and man; tender hearted; loving; benevolent; generous in giving to the poor.

Again I ask are we, as Australians, displaying these virtues and giving assistance to those who ask for our help?

There should be no need for a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If we treat people as we would like to be treated we are applying the universal principles so powerfully declared. We don’t do this because politicians – for political reasons and a few mischievous individuals – for personal reasons, use terms which try to portray these refugees as “different” – they are illegal immigrants; they are queue jumpers; they are disparaged as ‘boat people’ as if this is something to be despised. Once these terms enter the public consciousness it is easy to assume that because they are considered “different” it doesn’t matter if they are treated differently. This is a dangerous step which leads inevitably to the slippery slope of persecution – and history has provided many unfortunate examples of what this means.

To avoid the accusation of breaching the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all applications for refugee status should be processed IN AUSTRALIA; not “off shore” in Malaysia or anywhere else but here within the safety of this great country.

Nearly there!!

I should feel guilty about not keeping my one loyal reader informed regarding my academic progress. My excuse is that I have already written about this in the past, and as I know that the one reader who follows my posts is no fool he/she will know that I am approaching the end of my university studies.

In fact I trust that I have written my last exam – ever! The month of November has been distinctly stressful. Three exams in 10 days to, hopefully, complete my degree. It will be so good. But, and it is a big but, I have learned over the many years that I have been studying never to count my chickens before they have hatched. So I now wait – wait for the examining powers that be to mark all the papers and post the results.

Patience is the order of the day.

QANTAS – where is the humanity?

Many people forget that a company – in fact any organisation is only as good as the people in it and in fact would not exist without people. A company is a human construct without a life of its own.

Now I last wrote about QANTAS with a bit of ‘tongue in cheek’ as it were. But the overall sentiment expressed is quite valid. Wreck a company’s name and it may be gone forever. What CEO Alan Joyce has to remember is that while the QANTAS Board may have agreed with him and with the views of various financial and legal advisors, the World has looked on in amazement. This action cannot be compared to the Waterside dispute decades ago – who in the world cared about Patricks? Only Australia! QANTAS is an entirely different situation. It is a company with a worldwide reputation for safety and reliability. It is an Australian brand.

Because of the action taken by the CEO a few thousand shareholders may applaud the improved value of their share portfolio but who else does? The passengers stranded in airports around the world and Australia? People forget – wrong – EVERYBODY forgets that a company is a service organisation. No matter what the company does it serves someone. A mining company serves the purchaser of the ore; a shipping company serves whoever entrusts them to transport their goods and an airline company serves the travelling public. These are PEOPLE.

The service aspect MUST come first. Provide the best possible service and people will pay. Therefore money follows service. It always has and it always will – not the other way around. Service does not and cannot follow money. Service means serving people. A machine, an aircraft, cannot provide a service, only a person can. This is where humanity comes in. Money serves no one – it is a medium of exchange – made of plastic, paper, or whatever. The number one priority is (or should be) people not money.

I am not going to buy into the dispute QANTAS has with the various unions – all I know is that every problem has a solution. Holding a gun to anyone’s head is not negotiating; grounding 108 planes is not negotiating; withholding maintenance labour is not negotiating. Sitting around a table and TALKING – expressing views – listening – compromising is negotiating. Not an all or nothing approach. Everyone will have to change their position.

I await the outcome of the Fair Work Australia process with great interest. I just hope that wise heads will prevail and that a way forward is delineated not a path back. Nothing stays still and only a forwards thinking and progressive resolution will survive into the future and benefit the service QANTAS is trying to provide – in spite of Alan Joyce. I still believe he was wrong to do what he did.

QANTAS – conspiracy theory?

Is Alan Joyce a “sleeper”? I wonder if the CEO of QANTAS is a spy? Has he been planted by rivals to reduce the famous airline (slowly) to nothing? Otherwise why should he take the unprecedented step of shutting down the airline – basically until further notice? No businessman worth his salt would consider such an action without some sort of plan and without a time line. Without this timeline the crisis could (and most probably will) reduce the airline and the name QANTAS to a shell – something of no substance. Why?

Sure QANTAS has problems – all airlines have problems but why wreck it? Unions have their own agenda (I am not defending unions) and they have a right to attend to the needs and wishes of their members. This will almost certainly clash with the QANTAS management’s ideas of how the airline should be run. But isn’t that how democracy works? And aren't we members of the species Homo Sapiens (reasoning man)? Talk it over; reason with people; this is not a war to be won or lost! Remember history tells us that no one wins a war. In a war everybody suffers to a greater or lesser degree. Joyce is not suffering – not with a 70% increase in salary! And if he feels he is suffering - well it is entirely self inflicted.

For God’s sake TALK (I think it was Churchill who said that we need, "more jaw, jaw, and less war, war").

Pharma-psychology – is it faith based medicine?

I know this is an inflammatory question – but it still needs an answer, is pharma-psychology, the treatment of mental problems by drugs alone - based on faith – pharmaceutical faith? The medicines, the pharmaceutical drugs that have been developed for use in situations when a person’s mind is deemed to be unhinged or they are behaving in a manner considered to be “abnormal”, work up to a point. But no one (psychiatrists, psychologists, neuro-scientists, pharmacologists et al) knows WHY or HOW they work or what the long-term effects of continuous use are. They are adopting a “suck it and see” approach with people’s brains (and minds) – they are in effect using the affected people as guinea-pigs - which I think is both appalling and unethical.

While I have no faith (that word again) in statistics they are useful up to a point, in generalisations. So, generally, if one considers the commonly used Prozac - the results, compared to a placebo (a “sugar pill”), show that only about 50% of people who take the drug appear to benefit. Up to 33% suffer side effects – ranging from insomnia to reduced libido – that is 33 people out of every 100 who take Prozac. This is an astonishing result – so why use them?

In spite of what the pharmaceutical companies would like us to believe, while antidepressants such as Prozac do increase serotonin levels in the brain, this doesn’t mean that depression is caused by a shortage of serotonin. After all, paracetamol may reduce the unpleasant effects of a headache, but this doesn’t mean that a headache is caused by a deficiency of paracetamol!

The truth is that researchers know very little about how antidepressants work. A test that can measure the amount of serotonin in the living brain has yet to be developed. There is no way to even know what a “normal” level of serotonin is, let alone a low level, and it has yet to be shown if or how medication corrects these levels.

Many studies contradict the chemical imbalance theory of depression. Experiments have shown that lowering people’s serotonin levels doesn’t always lower mood, or worsen symptoms for those already depressed. And, furthermore, while some types of antidepressants may raise serotonin levels within hours, it takes weeks before the medication is able to (apparently) relieve depression. If a deficiency in serotonin actually causes depression, this time lag would not exist.

Also it is essential to be aware that the side effects of these drugs, without exception, are unpleasant – in fact some drugs (i.e. lithium) are positively lethal. It is very important to first read the warnings printed on the document inside every box of any medication.

It may be hard to believe but with some people there is the danger that a total reliance on antidepressant medication may cause an increase, rather than a decrease, in depression and with it, an increased risk of suicide. While this is particularly true of children and young adults on antidepressant medication, anyone taking antidepressants should be closely watched for suicidal thoughts and associated behaviour. The suicide risk is particularly great during the first few months of antidepressant treatment.

So, again, why use the stuff in the first place? It is important to recall the fact that no behaviour or misbehaviour (however aberrant - Alzheimer’s and Huntingdon’s accepted) can be categorised as a disease – in spite of the fact that many people now use the term “mental illness”. If you’re suffering from depression, antidepressant medication, used under the guidance of a mental health professional, may relieve, temporarily, some of your symptoms. But antidepressants aren’t a silver bullet for depression. Medication doesn’t cure the underlying problem and is rarely a long-term solution. As mentioned above there are real questions about their effectiveness and the many profound and disturbing side effects.

So to get back to my original question – is the exclusive use of medication to treat mental disturbances based on a faith in pharma-psychology? I believe it is. I also believe this faith is based on a flawed interpretation of the causes and the many issues associated with mental health. It is a false faith and is doing incalculable long term harm to many people.

Facing one’s mortality.

Please don’t think that I am ill – terminal or otherwise! I would hate to shock my one loyal reader. No. I am speaking more generally about mortality. In my case I know that I am much closer to the end than the beginning of my life so I suppose that sub-consciously I have mellowed and adopted a more philosophical approach to Life and the various travails encountered on my journey along Life’s road.

What actually suggested this post is a change in attitude noticed in a person known to me. Others too have noticed a substantial mellowing in attitude toward relationships – at least in the work-place – now taken by this person. It is surmised that this mellowing and gentler approach results from being diagnosed with a severe illness and the associated suffering which always accompanies such an illness. It is cancer, which is (assumed) to be of a serious type, that unless treated early is always terminal.

Now, because this person is always reticent and seemingly unable to form appropriate work place relationships – normally seeing the inevitable work place problems in strict black or white terms – no one is certain about the actual illness, except to note the obvious, that this person is ill. Unfortunately no one has ever wanted to be close enough to either ask or to be told what the matter is. This is a rather sad situation don’t you think? Not to be close enough to the people you work with to be able to share your joys or your troubles.

Everyone has their problems and everyone has their joys and one of the comforts of being human is to share these with others. It helps to realise that others have had similar experiences – that one is not alone. Being human means we are all members of Humanity; we are all of one blood; we all share the same range and intensity of emotions; we all accept, to differing degrees, the challengers presented to us on our life’s journey. With help from others – or providing help to others – the challengers met and the burdens we all carry are somehow lightened, because they are now shared.

This should be one of the great comforts of life; to know that whatever happens there will be a welcoming smile and a friendly shoulder to lean on. Better still - show a welcoming smile and offer a friendly shoulder to others. I just hope that the person I have been talking about may now have realised these truths about living. That by helping others one is, in turn, helped. My hope is that whatever the outcome of the illness this person will attain peace of mind.

I cannot imagine anything worse than to leave this life knowing that some people are glad to know that you are no longer a burden to them; that your negativity will no longer blight their lives; that there will be some who are actually glad you are no longer alive. This would be a very sad end to anyone’s life. Everyone likes to believe that they are a worthy human being and that others think the same.

Remember that a person’s worth is not how much they have, or what they have made or done but who they are!

Who are you?