WHAT IS TRUE STRENGTH?
I remember, when I was in a writers’ group, I had to write on the topic, “Where the Men Are Tough.” I didn’t write about macho men, like footballers, or men with arms callused to the elbow from cutting sugar cane all day. I wrote about men who appeared before an inquiry into child abuse and how they stood, in some cases arms tattooed with stories, without the assistance of alcohol or drugs, who told their stories.
You have to ask the question, when it comes to toughness and strength, just who or what is tough? I have seen right-wing politicians sharing memes on social media saying, “Share if you support strong border policies.” My response is this: they are WEAK policies. Having asylum seekers languishing on remote islands telling them that they’ll never see the mainland is NOT a tough policy. Why? Well, we’ve all heard someone say, “Pick on someone your own size.” I said it once, to my detriment, because the kid who was picking on me was my own size but he was short for his age! The asylum seekers being held on remote islands or who hold temporary protection visas or the like, cannot fight back against the government. Then, I have seen right-wing politicians say things like, “This is an expensive lawyer’s picnic.” Here’s what they ignore. People who go into law for the money are going into it for the wrong reasons! The lawyers I have seen representing asylum seekers don’t do so because they were told by a judge, “We need someone to represent this person. You’re it.” A lawyer has every right to say, “I don’t want to take the case.” A lawyer who represents asylum seekers does so because they believe in their cause. Okay, I concede that some activists do so because they believe in justice and what is legal and what is just aren’t always the same thing. The language that right-wing politicians have used, such as, “They’ve tried every trick in the book,” is used to attack and denigrate asylum seekers. Evidently, these stupid right-wing politicians do not know what a lawyer’s job is, either. A lawyer is there to try to find loopholes in legislation to try to exonerate their client.
Being truly strong is fighting back against a threat and fighting against someone who can fight back, not against attacking vulnerable people. Also, it takes more strength to admit that you were wrong than what it does to persist with being wrong.