We are not independent
thinkers as a species. We all tend to check in with people around us about what
to notice and how to interpret information. When everyone is scurrying for
cover we at least look up and check if a storm is coming. But if nobody else is
alarmed we don’t worry ourselves.
This tendency can cause
problems. We know that a person is less likely to receive assistance when
calling for help the more people around. This is partly because, before acting,
people check in with others around them to see how those people are
interpreting the cry for help. (After all it could just be someone playing
silly buggers and calling for help from a tickle attack.) Unfortunately we
check in with others surreptitiously. This looks just like a person who has already
decided the cry for help is not important. Seeing that in each other
strengthens that interpretation until we are all less likely to act.
Certainly this reliance on
each other is something that increases when information is ambiguous or
confusing. This is why when people are in trouble it can be a good idea to
scream Rape or Fire rather than Help. Anything that reduces ambiguity will
increase the chance of assistance. Increasing confusion however is a tactic to
ensure nobody responds to the cry for help.
Who would want to increase
the chance that nobody responds to a cry for help? There are three groups who
would. They include anyone who might be causing and benefiting from the harm,
anyone who might be in a position to help but not want to and in the broadest
group anyone who is beholden to either or both of those groups and wants to
keep them happy/placid etc.
Eg. If Jeremy is being
attacked and calls for help;
- obviously his attacker will want any bystanders to feel confusion over that call (lest their intervention cause the attacker grief),
- a bystander will also want to feel confusion over that call (lest they have to intervene which would be dangerous)
- a parent will want their child to feel confusion over the call to minimize their distress and keep them moving to school on time.
- a hotdog seller will want a potential customer to feel confusion because they don’t want them distracted from buying a hot dog,
When we are the bystanders to
a cry for help this third group who just want to keep us happy, (represented
above by both the hot dog seller and the parent,) are everywhere around us.
They are everything that has a vested interest in us just moving in the
direction we were previously going.
Does it matter if we don’t
reply to a genuine call for help? There are many spiritual traditions that say
it deeply matters. In Celtic paganism reincarnation is understood as the
cruelest form of justice. If we ignore a call for help then we can expect to be
the one ignored when making such a call in our next life so that we learn what
we have done. This is similar to the philosophy of the Tarot where we are souls
on an upward journey of maturity, bound to learn the hard way what we ignore
the first time around. Our souls are floating back up to God and keeping them
down only leads to tragedy.
Buddhism makes similar
claims, sans God though. Even more explicitly in Buddhism the tragedy of an
immature soul’s existence is not necessarily that we have ill health or bad
luck; external causes of suffering. It is that we are like petulant children
feeling our smallest woes as unbearable and our greatest pleasures as not good
enough. We suffer because of our immaturity. Hence maturity of the soul is its
own reward.
In Christianity our judgement
for ignoring a cry for help is much more final. We are to face a reckoning in
which our creator identifies them-self with those who were in need. Those who
ignored the cries of the hungry or the oppressed have ignored God. They will be
treated as strangers by God in heaven.
Personally I admire the ideas
of the Stoics. In their philosophy our decisions in matters such as these
define who we are. The question then isn’t what do we want to do, but who do we
want to be, or even who are we? Are we the sort of person who doesn’t respond
to a cry for help? Or are we the type who is willing to risk foolishness and
danger in coming to someone’s aid? This self definition is considered more
important that the “secondary” consequences of our actions, whether a heavenly
reward or a better reincarnation or even the benefit to those calling for help.
I know who I want to be.
Theories of identity, the
soul, God and reincarnation however can be put to one side. Obviously our
response to a cry for help matters to the person making the call. That person
is someone as real as us and as real as our own children. It is central to our most
basic awareness of social reality that we recognize our self and other people as
morally similar. All our thinking rests on a presumption of sanity and this,
our response to a person in need, is that cornerstone of sanity. Hence we must
think from an empathy with others or not think at all.
The last few paragraphs may
seem like I am belaboring the obvious. Of course it is good to help others in
need. I haven’t said much more. However I hope I’m making the point that this
is perhaps the ultimate concern of any ethics, whether theistic or
non-theistic. By comparison, questions of whether you look after your health or
keep yourself sexually pure, both of which seem to dominate our ethical
discussions, are really vanities. They are selfish concerns. I point this out so that when we ask
ourselves how we respond to a call for help hopefully we can remember the
magnitude of what we are discussing. This is our soul’s journey, our
relationship with God, our very identity, and our sanity at stake. This ought
to be the most pressing business of our lives and of our society.
There are real and pressing
calls for help being made to us. One in particular has been on my mind; the cry
of people who are refugees seeking a better life in Australia. Our Labour government, supposedly
our left wing and progressive alternative for government, have recently been
making changes to our country’s immigration policies. In particular the Australian
Gillard government has pursued off-shore processing. Their new camps are
designed to have deliberately inadequate provisions. The purpose of that
inadequacy is to deter boat arrivals. Worst of all however is the suspension of
the processing of refugee applications in those camps. This constitutes
indefinite detention in conditions worse than most jails and for no crime.
Indefinite detention particularly is a major contribution to suicide risk. It
runs contrary to hope to have no idea of the length of your incarceration.
Let’s be perfectly clear
here. This is not an untargeted attack on refugees. This is an attack directly
aimed upon the poorest and most likely to be killed if they don’t come to Australia. Most
applications for an Australian protection visa occur when applicants arrive by
plane with valid visas. They then apply while here for asylum and stay in Australia
outside detention on a bridging visa while their application is processed. They
are not treated as a threat. Most of those applications however are refused as ineligible.
By contrast anyone arriving
by boat can currently expect to wait for ever. Given that they are fleeing
persecution they are not likely to be able to obtain visas from their
countries. They are not likely to be able then to travel by plane. These are
the people we mark as threats and send to offshore camps. However the
percentage of these people (when their applications have been processed) who
have been recognized as “genuine” refugees under Australian law is between 70 and 97 percent.
I am a bystander to these
calls for help. I am looking to my fellow Australians for how they are
interpreting them, as they are looking at me. Our inactivity is being read by
each other as the message that there is nothing to worry about. That is helped
along by our own interest in not helping these people. We have other things to
do. It is easier to embrace confusion about the issue.
We are not aided in this by
both our major parties sharing policy on this matter. Nothing has changed since
when both major parties would have considered indefinite off shore detention
appalling or since when only the Liberal party supported it. However now there
is a blinding reinforcement that this is acceptable in almost any direction we
look.
The long Christmas season is
also about to start up. Christmas holds a range of vested interests in our
doing nothing other than purchasing and partying. The Christmas sales,
celebrations, tourist season, all have their own direction they want us to be
heading in, towards the cash register. Even the adoration of baby Jesus
operates as a distraction in this season from who needs our help. It’s just like
more entertainment. On all these channels the cacophony of Christmas is going
to support confusion over refugees. That confusion breeds inaction which can be
filled with the consumptive action of Christmas instead.
I don’t know exactly what
form of assistance I can render those asking for help. How do I, get my
government to;
- at least improve conditions off-shore;
- ideally bring back on-shore processing where people can quickly move into the community if they pose no risk;
- provide more staff to process claims quicker and;
- recognize that indefinite detention is not a policy option at any time ?
My confusion breeds inaction
which inspires the same in others. When Christmas sucks our time, energy and
excitement into its own clutches there will be very little left for this call
for help. That’s unless we do something potentially unpopular and derail this
Christmas with a constant search for clarity on the needs of refugees. We have
our own and many others’ vested interest in confusion to challenge.
But if we do nothing who does
that say we are? If we embrace these current immigration policies then what would
we say to a Creator who suffers for it? What journey does that put our soul on?
How sick is our society and our selves if we can do this? Given how much is at
stake can we do anything but everything to end our confusion and act on these
calls for help?
_______________________________________________________________________________
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/un-attacks-canberra-for-asylum-seekers-limbo-20121031-28k9r.html
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1295782/Asylum-seekers-Where-Australia-stands
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/immigration/detention_rights.html#8
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