Seek asylum from hate

By Chris Van Ingen
Today I ask us to seek asylum from hate in our hearts and let asylum seekers into our beautiful country.
Boat people are not on a holiday cruise they want freedom from fear isn’t that what you want?
One of the units I train in the disability course is cultural diversity and the different family backgrounds of participants always amaze me, after all every European Australian only arrived a few generations ago.
On my dad’s side of the family I am second generation Australian so I try to remember that before I judge anyone coming to this country.
In my prep for the cultural diversity unit my wife pointed out that we live on an island and should something happen we would be boat people too, food for thought.
According to literature from the immigration museum most asylum seekers return to their homeland once the threat to their life has past.
Personally I think the people that stay make Australia the place it is but if you listen to the media we are being “Over Run!”, however, the fact is there are only a few hundred boat people every year.
Did you know? that it is not illegal to seek asylum and when we lock asylum seekers in detention centres we are braking a UN treaty we signed in good faith.
My disability has made me a person obsessed with security so I know we have to protect Australia but there has never been an asylum seeker that was a terrorist.
My disability also makes me realise how lucky I am because if I lived somewhere else I might not be alive and I want everyone to have the chance to live a life like the one I have been blessed with.
I don’t pretend to have the answers this blog is just a space to think. Please remember we are all human and when you forget try recalling that we live on an Island.
“Keep the wheels of life turning in your direction.”