The next meeting of the 17 Group will take place on Wednesday the 4th of May at 7 pm in unit 6 at 20 Drury St, West End. The topic is “Australia, Europe: the Refugee Movement and the Politics of Borders”. The speaker will be prominent advocate on behalf of refugees, Ian Rintoul.
Here is a summary of Ian’s talk:
For twenty years both Coalition and Labor governments have relentlessly pursued anti-refugee policies. This talk will look at why Labor and Liberal governments have embraced anti-refugee policies and the politics of the movement that has fought against Fortress Australia and Operation Sovereign Borders and what is needed now. It will make compare aspects of the Australian policy and campaign with the refugee crisis in Europe and the challenge to the borders of the European Union.
Biographical notes:
Ian Rintoul is a long time political activist, best known in recent years as a refugee advocate.
He is a founding member of the Refugee Action Coalition, formed in the late 1990s, initially to fight the anti-refugee policies of the Howard Coalition government. And since then opposing the anti-refugee policies of both the Coalition and Labor parties in government.
He has been prominent as the media spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, campaigning for a humanitarian refugee policy and against the mandatory detention and off-shore processing of asylum seekers.
Leon manifested high approval of Ian’s former and especially his present activism. “He has good credentials on this issue, which is close to my heart,” he said, and then he presented us with his own credentials, in photographic and written form, from History Today, vol. 61, issue of 12 Dec. 2011, where we read as follows:
“After he was formally condemned to death in Moscow, the Mexican government offered Trotsky refuge and protection, on December 6th 1936.”
Ever one for exhaustive historical detail, Leon directed us to a further link:
See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/trotsky-offered-asylum-mexico#sthash.hex76V7z.dpuf
All this augurs well for his interest in the meeting, but you would be advised to moderate your hopes of his presence in the way now familiar to you. Leon, old master of the sudden brilliant move, has not embraced his posthumous existence in the expected way.
The next meeting of the 17 Group will take place on Wednesday the 4th of May at 7 pm in unit 6 at 20 Drury St, West End.
The topic is “Australia, Europe: the Refugee Movement and the Politics of Borders”.
The speaker will be prominent advocate on behalf of refugees, Ian Rintoul.