About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by security forces. But the camps in Bangladesh are squalid, with surging gang violence and rampant hunger, leading many to flee again.
A mob of Indonesian students on Wednesday attacked the basement of a local community hall in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, where 137 Rohingya were taking shelter. The incident drew an outcry from human rights group and the U.N. refugee agency, which said the attack left the refugees shocked and traumatized.
Indonesia’s navy said Thursday that it forcibly pushed a boat packed with refugees back to international waters after it approached the shores of Aceh province.
One of the single most successful right-wing propaganda pieces over decades has been the vilification of those who are fleeing for their lives. “Of course, people who are being forcibly displaced need to be locked up” – ultimately, to me, the fact that the production of anger and malcontent amongst comfortable middle-class people is so easy is what signals deep structural cracks in social fabric in the west.
It’s almost like we lack empathy – something about led paint and big amygdalas doesn’t cut it for me. People have just succumbed to the rampant right-wing individualist narratives and deeply internalised xenophobia and racism because apparently, that’s easier than dismantling the ever inequitable and inhumane capitalism.
These “refugee crises” are so deeply ignored by mainstream apologist media at this point. It’s no wonder given the top headline in the Murdoch rag today is about how CEOs deserve to be able to micromanage employees “in the office”, rather than enabling the empowering work-from-home model. Sick joke that Australia’s majority outlets are radical right.