Pic from Canberra Times, 17 Nov 2005, News p.5.This pic stunned me. It's the face of a very tired and bereft Terry Hicks. Terry is the father of David Hicks, the Australian who has been held in Guantanamo Bay for 4 years. I needn't recount the story. Quotes from David Hicks' defence lawyer, the US Marine Major Michael Mori, say it for me. "He just wanted to know why the Australian Government didn't want him to come home...I couldn't answer his question except to say that he had not violated any Australian law but that his government had decided to leave him there in Guantanamo anyway...He didn't understand this and neither do I. Still don't. I couldn't understand how Australia could abandon its own citizen this way. Britain didn't, neither did Italy or any other European country. We don't do that. As an American, there is an expectation that citizenship means something. No American was sent to Guantanamo. No American will be tried by military commission." And even more damning is this. "This is a process designed by the President and the Vice-President and the imperative is to get convictions... This process is nothing like a court martial, nothing like it. I'm still not an expert on international law, but I know enough to know this is not justice." (Sydney Morning Herald, 19-20 Nov 2005, News Review, p.30).
David Hicks in not the first sacrifice on the altar of political power and influence in recent Australian history. Refugees are an obvious offering, and now terrorists take their place as the devil to be feared. It's a simple picture that's painted: with us or against us; good or evil; black or white, no shades of grey. And no understanding of the other allowed (see how the press not allowed to present images of refugees our camps) and little sought. David Hicks is unlikely to be the last. Heaven help us. We are on a dangerous path. It's one that's been seen before, but with our common ignorance of history, it's one we are likely to tread again.
