Saturday reading: John Keane is director of the Sydney Democracy Network and Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney. Visit his full profile here. He raises deeply concerning questions in this article Without sparing the subject much thought, you would imagine a democratic country founded on long-distance transportation and the incarceration and systematic violence against indigenous peoples would harbour deep antipathy towards concentration camps. You would think the country would enjoy an abundance of brave citizens, journalists, politicians and public opinion leaders willing to speak against the cohabitation of democracy and camps. After all, democracy rests on the radical idea that nobody on our planet is entitled to rule arbitrarily, without restraint, over others. Concentration camps, you would say, stand at the polar opposite of democracy in this sense. The Manus Island and Nauru centres are concentration camps, in my view. They are places where people, often in large numbers, are indefinitely confined, against their will. In overcrowded settings, theyre denied proper toilet and sanitation facilities, pushed to the limits of their endurance, beaten and driven crazy.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 23:10:00 +0000
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