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Keywords: Sri Lanka

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Songs and stories of Sri Lanka's war

    • Martin Mulligan
    • 23 November 2011
    5 Comments

    After a meal cooked in the distinctive Jaffna way, the multi-talented Professor treated us to a repertoire of his own songs about his mother, victims of the 2004 tsunami, and those who had suffered during the war. Songs and stories of lived experience, translated into all the languages of Sri Lanka, might achieve more than the government's Reconciliation Commission.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Putting the faith back into development

    • Duncan Maclaren
    • 27 October 2011
    3 Comments

    The development theory of 'modernisation' taught that old traditions, including religion, had to disappear for people to be 'developed'. This purely Western model is now seen wanting. All faiths put the human person, not economic theories, at the centre of development.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    One day at Villawood

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 16 November 2010
    8 Comments

    Soon enough there was a group of children in the yard and a soccer game was about to begin. First we had to decide the teams. I asked one small boy, whose family was from Sri Lanka, which country he wanted his team to be. 'Australia,' he yelled back.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Refugee poems

    • Various
    • 16 November 2010
    1 Comment

    Go and open the door .. stare at the bright blue sea .. for boats .. struggling southwards from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. .. Feel the rippling fear of refugees .. wondering if supplies will last .. or a  hand reach out .. or turn and lock the door.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Tales from the kingdom of force

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 16 August 2010
    2 Comments

    Flicking the frisbee with a well practised arm, Jimmy told me about his former home in Sri Lanka. 'Last time I was there, I was carrying bodies to their graves in my arms, even the bodies of friends.' Homer's Iliad is a poem of force in which, at all times, the human spirit is shown modified by its relations with force.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    I am every asylum seeker

    • Greg Foyster
    • 21 July 2010
    42 Comments

    I am not here to get rich, to receive charity, steal your job, or cheat the system. I am not a 'queue jumper'. I am not an 'illegal arrival'. I am not a 'political issue'. I am an asylum seeker, and this is my story.

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  • RELIGION

    The 747 or the leaky boat

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 June 2010
    14 Comments

    As the election lather on the asylum seeker issue continues, let's ask, 'Why is it right to treat the honest, unvisaed boat person more harshly than the visaed airplane passenger who fails to declare their intention to apply for asylum?'

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australia in Crisis Group firing line

    • Eve Lester
    • 01 June 2010
    12 Comments

    Some countries including Australia turned a blind eye to atrocities committed during the Sri Lanka conflict. The International Crisis Group has called upon these countries to ensure proper international investigation of war crimes. This includes granting asylum or other protected status to witnesses.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Refugee backflip misses what matters

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 April 2010
    23 Comments

    The decision to suspend the processing of future asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka does not respect the dignity of asylum seekers. Now that the Government has bent to the populist winds fanned by an opportunistic Opposition, there are grounds for fearing the claims of asylum seekers will be judged in a way that unduly reflects the interests of the Australian Government.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Another 'certain maritime incident'

    • Tony Kevin
    • 05 November 2009
    11 Comments

    Peter Costello draws a long bow in presuming smugglers provided the boat that sank off the Cocos Islands this week. As with the sinking of the SIEV X, it is unfortunate that it takes a tragedy to remind us that at the heart of this issue are desperate human beings.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Indonesia solution' is immoral

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 November 2009
    10 Comments

    The reception of asylum seekers is to be judged by the human reality of those who seek asylum, not by convenience of those on whom they make a claim. It is morally unjustifiable for Australia to transfer its responsibilities to Indonesia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Stop Sri Lanka, not its refugees

    • Michael Mullins
    • 19 October 2009
    45 Comments

    The Rudd Government is pursuing the same unprincipled border protection strategy for which it criticised the Howard Government. It could better assist these refugees by asking the Sri Lankan Government why so many Tamils are fleeing the country, especially if the war is over.

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