Apr. 21st, 2009

SIEV 36

Apr. 21st, 2009 09:41 am
dreamer_easy: (BLUE ROSE)
The Coalition, knowing a nice little vote-earner when they see one, want to reinstate Temporary Protection Visas. These are illegal for more than one reason: they're intended to deter refugees from seeking safety (which they don't), and they discriminate against refugees. In this instance, I don't mean "technically asylum seekers but almost certainly refugees"; I mean people who have been proven to be genuine refugees, fleeing persecution, torture, and death. On a TPV, a refugee can't work, can't use Medicare, can't bring their family to safety - and has no way of knowing whether this really is safety, or whether they'll be sent back to the horrors they tried to escape. As you can imagine, this fucks them up.

At least the bastards aren't proposing throwing another billion dollars down the maw of the Pacific Solution. (And thank heavens for the Coalition members who oppose the return to TPVs.)

ETA: If you read one document about this issue, read the Refugee Council of Australia's press release. It has the facts and also a dose of black humour: "The temporary protection policy was conceived by Pauline Hanson. When she raised the suggestion in 1998, former Coalition Minister for Immigration, Phillip Ruddock, described it in Parliament 'as highly unconscionable in a way that most thinking people would clearly reject'. The Howard government proceeded to introduce it the following year."
dreamer_easy: (NOT LAUGHING)
Yesterday an old and dear friend confided that he'd recently bumped into a slight acquaintance of mine from the nineties. Not realising how badly she was embarrassing herself, she began slagging off "all those Doctor Who nerds", and in particular that red-headed woman who "wrote those books" and was "out of her mind". My friend showed admirable self-restraint by not laughing in her face (or telling her that he'd married me).

I got home from hearing about this hilarious social gaffe to find an email from Google Alerts. Remember that editor from whose publication I withdrew my story? We've had no contact with each other since then, but the ego-scan informed me that he's still bitching about me in his lj. Creeeeepy. Childish, too. I adjusted the search so I won't see his comments in future.

If you've followed this blog for a while, dear reader, you know of my many flaws. But in both of these instances, the remarks say far more about the remarkers than the remarkee. (My friend was apologetic about not defending me, but my gods, she was manifestly not worth the trouble so thank goodness he didn't.)

The reason I mention this crap at all is that the former incident briefly triggered in me that creepy feeling of being watched and judged at every moment. Haven't felt that for quite a while, but it was almost as though she was standing there in my kitchen, with me thinking, "What must she think of my daggy clothes? Oh no, I'm singing nonsense to the cats, she must think I'm crazy!" And so on.

I assume this pathological self-consciousness is the result of the fun 'n' games at high school, where I was watched and judged at every moment - or at least, often enough, unpredictably enough, that the bullies succeeded in installing a miniature version of themselves in my brain to do their work for them. Fortunately said organ and I know each other well enough now that I can recognise those thoughts for what they are and defeat them.

What I'm curious about is whether anyone else has experienced the same intense self-consciousness - not in a social situation, but when you're quite alone.

Profile

dreamer_easy: (Default)
dreamer_easy

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11 121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 7th, 2025 08:23 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios