Pearls and Irritations

US diplomat Peter Galbraith insists the Australian Government and Opposition are exaggerating the dangers of even trying to bring 10 Australian women and 30 children home from Syrian camps. In an affidavit to the Australian High Court, Galbraith explained he had made 20 visits to camps in north-east Syria and had helped to extract several women and 29 children.

In May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on all countries who still have citizens in the camps to bring them home. Additionally, ASIO director Mike Burgess has assured parliament that camp occupants who had been repatriated to Australia were a low risk to the community.

Nevertheless, leaders of major parties stress the dangers of going to Syrian camps and their fear that returnees might have been radicalised and would therefore be a risk to other Australians.

Reluctance to summon even a smidgeon of courage on behalf of these stranded women and children can be attributed not so much to the cowardice of individuals, but to a Canberra culture in which politicians are socialised, norms imposed, conformity encouraged and courage discouraged.

That corrosive culture explains so much, but before exploring its characteristics, let’s consider the plight of these women and children.

The plight of the women and children

The women claim they were coerced or tricked into travelling to Syria to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State group, and following the defeat of IS, they ended up in tented detention camps with few resources, but supervised by Kurdish guards.

In September, in response to Deborah Snow of the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the women explained, “We are left in the dark and brushed under the carpet like we aren’t living, breathing human beings… Everyday is a living hell; every day is a struggle to stay alive.” She shared the feelings of other women that the worst experience is “a loss of hope”.

The women did not know why they had been left behind when others were “healing and moving on with life”, a reference to orphans returned in 2019 by the Morrison Government and to four women and 12 children returned to Australia in 2022 by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Mat Tinkler, chief executive of Save the Children, says, “These are Australian kids who have experienced immense trauma and suffering, but (for five years are left to languish in these camps).” A mother elaborates, “Our children want to go to school, make friends and go to a park that’s not caged in by a fence and by soldiers.”

In Canberra, a familiar response to such a request is that the “window of opportunity to bring them home is closing”. More specifically, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke observes, “the environment in Syria is dangerously and rapidly closing”. He explains that Australia’s ability to provide consular assistance to the group is “severely limited due to the extremely dangerous security situation and because we do not have an embassy or consulate in Syria”. It goes almost unnoticed that when women and children were rescued in 2019 and 2022, there was still no embassy or consulate.

In his rejection of proposals to bring these women and children home, Opposition leader Peter Dutton adds a characteristic touch of strong-man cruelty. In addition to saying that it’s too dangerous to go to the Syrian prison camps, he speculates that because the children are no longer “four or five years of age, now they are 12, 13 and 14”, he expects them to have been radicalised.

A culture of cowardice

In a privileged, protected political environment, members are encouraged to avoid taking risks, to toe party lines, to find comfort in the company of colleagues of a similar party mind. In contrast to what might be dubbed a cavalier approach to the interests of a common humanity, discipline must be imposed with fear as a crucial ingredient. In Labor’s case, it’s a fear, sometimes referred to as being wedged, of appearing soft on security, of taking a risk, such as bringing radicalised children home from Syria which could earn them an accusatory headline on the front page of News Corp’s The Australian.

The Coalition parties must appear cruel to be kind, show toughness and be unbending, all traits visible in the body language and even in the glowering silences of  Dutton.

In press briefings exist the stage props of a seldom changing culture which could explain why women stranded in Syria would lose hope. Standing behind microphones and podiums, even appearing to be protected by them, well-dressed leaders read their scripts, nod to colleagues, take few questions then disappear through swing doors.

During these appearances, a patriotic need to worship the national god “security” has become the main chameleon-like explanation for maintaining discipline and avoiding risks. Being secure could refer to finance, to housing, educational opportunities or healthcare, but when it comes to helping women and children who had been labelled terrorist sympathisers, it is the physical, military interpretations of security which are used to ignore stranded citizens’ appeals.

A culture of cowardice can also be explained by some understanding of courage or the lack of it. Greek philosophers regarded courage as synonymous with other features which bound and energised family and community life. Loyalty, health, humour, reciprocity, plus a certain curiosity were said to limit the chances of conformity to any boring routine. Transferred to contemporary Canberra, this interpretation of being courageous would require stepping beyond convention, reflecting on how risk-taking would change self-image and identity, actions which would require reflection and rehearsal, as in pondering the moral base of decisions, asking what is understood by human rights and what is meant by justice and injustice.

Awareness of a severe lack of food in the Syrian camp homes of these stranded women and children could prompt Canberra to ponder poet Bertolt Brecht’s seminal “The Bread of the People”. “Justice is the bread of the people,” he advised. “As daily bread is necessary, so is daily justice. It is even necessary several times a day.”

The stranded women and children need ‘the bread of the people.’

Depiction of a shameful culture of cowardice, could be confounded by a sudden brave decision to heed Ambassador Galbraith’s advice that the dangers of going to Syria are exaggerated and that it will not require much courage to bring home the remaining women and children. Even their previous Kurdish guards have departed.

Australians are fast approaching the spirit of Christmas when a tradition of giving is lauded. In the New Year, we’ll be told that the main election issue will be the cost of living, but camp detainees are appealing about the costs of not living.

A different culture in Canberra could see these women and children home for Christmas.

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