Over 4 million people are travelling the road from Damascus, in exodus from war-torn Syria. They are people like you and me. They are families, they are mothers, fathers and children. They are doctors, plumbers, waiters, actors, taxi drivers, students, homemakers. They are human beings.
And our response? Christians first. Not ‘Here is a blanket’ (bravo, Germany!) or ‘Here is a roof that won’t be bombed’, but ‘What religion are you?’ because we just want the Christians. We have seen the light!
And this is in your name, Australia. Is this the country we are? Do our bombs discriminate between Allah and Yahweh? Does a Christian taxi driver have more right to life and dignity than a Muslim taxi driver? Are we to perpetuate the bigotry that led to this mess in the first place?
And before we congratulate ourselves on ‘stepping up’, as our erstwhile Christian prime minister Tony Abbott put it, consider that Australia is NOT taking MORE refugees. That’s right, in the face of this epic humanitarian crisis (which Australia played a small part in creating by invading Iraq along with Uncle Sam and demolishing all semblance of social administration in the cradle of civilisation) we are welcoming the exact same number of refugees as we were set to do before this event erupted… no more, no less. We’ll just take different ones; and now we get to shuffle the Christians to the front of the queue. This is not stepping up; this is stepping sideways and burying our heads in the sand.
Shame on us, Australia. Thanks, mate.
ALSO READ THE FOLLOW UP, 09 Sept 2015: Australians all let us rejoice, for we are welcoming an extra 12,000 Syrian refugees