Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

The 'Malaysia solution': has its time now come?

By Clive Kessler - posted Wednesday, 27 June 2012


Malaysia could not long sustain two different human rights policies, or management regimens, towards two different classes or categories of refugees in their own country.

It could not long support both a more “liberal” regimen for those who, via the Australia-Malaysia agreement, came under appropriate and effective international supervision and protection and, at the same time, a different, far more restrictive and grimly authoritarian policy and regimen for everybody else, all other refugee-status claimants.

Implementation of the “Malaysia solution” would soon put enormous pressure on Malaysia to treat all refugees there in the same, more “enlightened” way, in accordance with the basic requirements of international human rights law and practice.

Advertisement

Beyond that, this liberalising momentum would, in turn, further increase humane pressures on Malaysia to act in general in accordance with international human rights law and practice, not simply in refugee and immigration matters but towards its own citizens, all of them.

A splendid outcome!

Those who are eager to see Malaysia align itself in closer conformity with international human rights principles and standards may have here exactly the instrument that their otherwise impotent rhetoric needs.

This outcome ought to please not only the high-minded supporters of refugee rights in Australia but also those who call for greater liberalism in Malaysia.

That prospect poses a special challenge, which they cannot flee, to those who see Malaysia’s “liberal democratic deficiencies” as the very reason why a “Malaysia solution” for the region’s immigration problem must be rejected.

That outcome, to me, seems a very fine and neat solution all round.

Advertisement

Not perfect, not totally fine and neat, but getting there, heading in that direction.

It is clearly the best, most practicable, course that we might take under the very difficult and always potentially tragic circumstances now obtaining.

Some may object in high-minded horror: “But you are proposing to use these poor refugees as some kind of lever or shoehorn against the Malaysians, and just about everybody else too! You want to use them, and to make use of their plight, instrumentally!”

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. All

This was first published in The Malaysian Insider and a shorter version appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 26 June 2012.



Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

55 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at The University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Clive Kessler

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 55 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy