Refugees and Races - Research Paper Example

?Refugees and Races Sadly, with the issue of refugees, race still play an important contribution. More specifically, discrimination in regard to the acceptance of refugees on the basis of race is still prevalent today. This is particularly sad because refugees are driven out and uprooted from their homelands due to some form of persecution such as ethnic cleansing, threat to their lives, repression and violation of human rights, among others. The countries of the world, especially those who preach against the very factors that drive refugees out of their homes, is expected to open their communities and societies in order to receive these poor souls. But the fact is that some of them refuse accepting immigrants or impose restrictions on refugees. For the purposes of this paper, several countries would be cited in order to provide a picture about sorry state of policies governing refugees. The first of these is Australia. The country has a number of codes and legal guarantees for the acceptance of refugees. For instance, there is the Section 91R of the Migration Act of 1958, which identifies the requirements for an immigrant that should be accepted because he or she is a refugee. In a specific case that is already part of the Australian jurisprudence, Applicant A v MIIEA, it was held that "as long as the discrimination constitutes persecution and is inflicted for a Convention reason, the person will qualify as a refugee." (Bagaric and Vrachnas 2006, 296) However, recent events demonstrate a different reality with regards to the Australian refugee policy. In 2001, hundreds of Afghans and Iraqis being persecuted at home and hoping for sanctuary in Australia were met with Australian warships effectively sending them to Indonesia, where they languished for weeks with uncertain future, having no country of their own (Timberlake 2001). Recently, 430 Sri Lankan and Pakistani refugees also suffered the same faith when Australia refused to accept them after they were rescued by a Norwegian cargo ship (Mail Online 2011). The fact is that Australia has been enforcing tougher immigration policy and could be found discriminating against refugees, particularly boat people, even though they fit the profile of those persecuted individuals that the country ideally welcomes with open arms. According to Sidoti, the National spokesperson of Human Rights Council of Australia: The most recent refugee arrivals in Australia have been predominantly from Afghanistan and Iraq and they have been predominantly Muslim. They have experienced discrimination on these bases along with other Muslim and Middle Eastern residents of Australia. The NSW Police Commissioner recently reported a great increase of attacks on Muslim or Middles Eastern residents of the state since the Bali bombing on 12 October... They have also included stones thrown through the windows of the homes and shops of Muslims (2002).. The same can also be said about the United Kingdom. This country has a long anti-immigration history. For example, the Merchant Shipping Act of 1906 introduced a language test for those signing in British ships in the UK, meaning to discriminate against all non-white sailors. (Shah 2000) It was only after the 1980s when the UK government started to encourage plurality. It was a gradual process that has been characterized by community resentments and race riots, considering the way the British see immigrants as foreign and alien. Today, the country's immigration and refugee policies are characterized by a particular aversion to non-white applicants and is still reminiscent of the Merchant Shipping Act by mandating English proficiency, along with other stringent requirement for all immigrants designed to weed out undesirable races. By 1990s, the UK has accumulated a series of measures that strengthened immigration controls, especially those that made it more difficult for asylum seekers to enter the country by imposing visa requirements on the countries from which asylum seekers came and imposing a duty on carriers to ensure that only passengers with roper travel documents were accepted. (Guibernau 2001, p. 78) In addition, according to Spencer (2003), the assimilationist bent of the immigration and refugee policies in Britain are part of the imperial legacy and is slow to fade but, nonetheless, it formed part of the racial discrimination in immigration processes including those about refugee acceptance. (p. 201) What this means is that policies and rules that has something to do with opposing immigration or discriminating against race in accepting asylum seekers is easier if not readily supported by the public. Against Muslims An important factor that contributes to the increasing incidence of racial discrimination among refugees was the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States. The War on Terror that ensued afterwards in addition to the series of terrorist attacks in several parts of the globe have ensured the growing fear of Muslims, particularly in Western societies. Refugees from Muslim countries, hence, were more discriminated upon not just because of their otherness as foreigners, but also in addition to the fact that the Muslim race has been increasingly associated with terrorism and violence. For instance, several cases of Muslim refugee incarceration had occurred recently in the US and that they have been effectively denied their civil rights or access to fair trial. In order to pursue stricter anti-refugee policies, the UK enacted the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which repealed the guarantee against discrimination by empowering the executive branch to apply harsh policies to immigrants and refugees. (Laciner, Ozcan and Bal 2008, 42) The wider Western society appears to sanction the prevailing negative attitude and reinforced further by the Muslim depiction in the media, wherein the Muslim and Islam keywords are often tagged to violence, extremism and brutality. Conclusion There are basically two dimensions to the way race and discrimination figure in the issue of refugees today. First is that people seem to believe that refugees somehow are responsible for their own fates. The West’s aversion to Muslims is seen as just appropriate due to the fact that terrorists come from their ranks. This also partly explains why refugees are rejected or when they are already settled in a foreign community, they tend to be at the receiving end of systematic discrimination. Secondly, there is the focus on the discrimination of Muslim refugees. The War on Terror and the depiction of Muslims by the media collectively present an unflattering image to n increasingly suspicious public. As the tide of public opinion turn against certain racial minorities, many societies are emboldened to discriminate against asylum seekers on the basis of race and institutionalize it. Bibliography Bagaric, Mirko and Vrachnas,John. Migration and refugee law in Australia: cases and commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Guibernau, Motserrat. Governing European diversity. London: SAGE, 2001. Mail Online. "Refugees leave asylum ship." Mail Online. Web. 23 April 2011. Laciner, Sedat, Ozcan, Mehmet and Bal, Ihsan. USAK Yearbook of International Politics and Law. USAK Books, 2008. Shah, Prakash. Refugees, race and the legal concept of asylum in Britain. London: Routledge, 2000. Sidoti, Chris. "Without prejudice: discrimination and refugees." Human Rights Council of Australia. Web. 14 Nov. 2002. Spencer, Sarah. The Political quarterly. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. Timberlake, Ian. "Stranded in Indonesian camp / Refugees, refused by Australia, in limbo." SFGATE. Web. 23 Nov. 2001. Read More