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| Love it or Leave It | |
SBS TV reports that an Indonesian family, raided by
ASIO in the recent targeting of suspected Jemah Islamia (JI) sympathizers have gone
home. The family said they were hounded out by 'hate mail and death threats', and
doubtless this is how it will be portrayed in the Indonesian media. Along with slogans
like 'Australia is the
Satan' and 'Australians are evil people who will throw your children into the sea', this
is the best kind of publicity that Australia could have in the region, as
people get the (albeit distorted) message that Australia's tolerance of Islamic fanaticism and
anti-Australian hate from the
new arrivals is at an end. However this doesn't make the family's claims true. Clearly these are
people with a complex relationship with the truth. In fact the father of the
family (Jaya Basri) was escorted to the Airport by immigration officials after
spending some time as a guest in Villawood detention center. Apparently he had
overstayed his visa, and he was here illegally. This didn't stop him calling himself a victim of course - he said
that after the recent raids everything was fine, and he had spoken to his
immigration agent 'only recently' before immigration officials showed up, and
took him into custody. Spotting the connection between overstaying a visa and
being deported was obviously too hard for him. Presumably his family knew that they were unlikely to convert their visas
into permanent residency, they were going to be eased out sooner or later, and
it was time to join their brethren in peace-loving and morally superior
Indonesia. The bizarre thing is that Jaya Basri's father is an Australian citizen, so moving to live
with people you hate is a family tradition which this apparently traditional
family will have to break. Breaking with tradition is sometimes a good thing.
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