No Hate, No Fear:
Working-Class Resistance to Liberal Inhumanity
Written By: Peter Craig
In a small hotel in the inner-city suburb of Kangaroo point in Brisbane, over 100 men are being held in detention without charge, indictment or trial. Their only crime was seeking refuge in Australia. Some of these refugees have spent over eight years in detention, unable to enter the community or be with their families. At different stages of the last 8 years, these men were all transferred to Australia under the Medevac legislation designed to allow medical treatment or family reunions in Australia. Despite the Government having to transfer these men to Brisbane for treatment, they have chosen to exacerbate the issue by refusing them access to the community and leaving them in poor conditions under constant guard. That this treatment is inhumane and disturbs the rights and dignity of these men goes without saying.
However, this type of cruel treatment is not new. Successive Australian governments have developed a coordinated policy of cruelty and inhumanity squarely directed at refugees, a group of people who are in need of significant support.
“The working class has a long history of intervening on behalf of oppressed people, often opposing uncaring bourgeois Governments at their own risk”
In response to this casual cruelty by the Australian Government, residents of Brisbane, mostly from amongst the working class, have staged significant protests. Chiefly amongst this was the 24/7 blockade organised by Refugee Solidarity Meanjin which prevented almost all transports from the hotel to other detention centres for several months. Protests have been held almost weekly since early last year, despite the extremely violent response from police. Dozens of people have been injured, with one protestor having been hospitalised after being coward punched by a Police Officer. Despite this response, the working class of Brisbane has continued their resistance into 2021, with no plans to cease until their demands are met, and these people are freed. Despite some success, with several people having been released so far, there remain still over 100 prisoners in the Kangaroo Point Detention Centre.
The working class has a long history of intervening on behalf of oppressed people, often opposing uncaring bourgeois Governments at their own risk. The 1938 Dalfram dispute saw labourers, members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation of Australia, refuse to load pig iron onto the SS Dalfram, which was headed to Japan. This pig iron would have been used in the genocidal Japanese invasion of China, which saw over 15,000,000 casualties, many of them civilians. This was not the only act of defiance against fascist warmongering; in 1937 Sydney waterside workers staged a walk off of the Tamon Maru when they discovered scrap on board was being sent to Japan. This was in spite of the fact that the 1928 Transport Workers Act effectively gave control of who could work on docks to the federal government, and almost destroyed the Waterside Workers Federation.
These actions were undoubtedly against the material interests of the dockworkers. Had they turned a blind eye and loaded these ships, they would have been paid and could have continued on with their lives. These workers, however, displayed an internationalist attitude, declaring that all the proletarians of the world are inexorably linked, and that they would not support the oppression of others, at home or abroad.
Proletarian internationalism is a fundamental part of the struggle of the working class to achieve liberation. The Australian left must lend its aid, where it can, to the struggles of proletarian movements all across the world. Not only do such acts demonstrate our solidarity with the international working class, but they also have a chance to make a material difference in the lives of exploited workers everywhere.
The working-class resistance to the unjust detention of over 100 refugees in a Brisbane hotel is likely to continue for some time yet. Despite threats of violence from the state, the working class of Brisbane will actively continue its resistance against inhumane and tortuous treatment.
To quote Emma Lazarus, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”