#IAmWatching Manus

The refugees are in a state of terror on Manus (GA, 31 October 2017) Behrouz Boochani reports that the detention centre is now unguarded, that locals are looting, and that surrounding police and navy personnel have armed themselves - though it's not clear whether that's because they plan to attack the detainees or the looters. About two hundred locals are outside the camp protesting the removal of refugees into Lorengau.

Manus Island detainees fear for safety after police squads armed 'like it's a war' (GA, 31 October 2017)

Manus asylum seekers stockpiling water in bins to 'survive for a month' in abandoned centre (ABC, 1 November 2017) The ABC and Greens Senator Nick McKim were able to access the centre after the departure of Australian staff. (The ability of journalists to access the centre must be a nightmare for the government. Amnesty International also has observers in place.

Manus Alliance Against Human Rights Abuse group presents petition to governor (Refugee Action Coalition Sydney media release, 31 October 2017)

The key to reality

"Ideologists who pretend to possess the key to reality are forced to change and twist their opinions about single cases according to the latest events and can never afford to come into conflict with their ever-changing deity, reality. It would be absurd to ask people to be reliable who by their very convictions must justify any given situation." — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (p 174)

Yep, I'm back in the saddle. I can only understand half or two-thirds of what Arendt is saying, because I lack the historical knowledge, but it's still like being hit in the head with successive jolts of electricity. The most important message, for me, so far, overall: racism is an idea, like any other, and someone had to come up with it, and they did so for specific reasons. Also crucial: understanding at last what an ideology is - the "key to reality".

Totalitarianism in the age of Trump: lessons from Hannah Arendt (GA, 2 February 2017) This quotes Arendt expert Professor Griselda Pollock: "She [Arendt] talks of the creation of pan movements, these widespread ideas that overarch national, political and ethnic elements – the two big pan movements she talks about are bolshevism and nazism. There is a single explanation for everything, and before the single explanation, everything else falls away. She gives a portrait of how you produce these isolated people, who then become susceptible to pan ideologies, which give them a place in something. But the place they have is ultimately sacrificial; they don’t count for anything; all that counts is the big idea."

Trump: The Choice We Face (New York Review of Books, 27 November 2016) Whether those who deal with Trump should be guided by "realism" or morality. Read this one.