16 ms·

Dorothea Lange’s Censored Photos of Japanese American Internment Camps (2017)

100 points by fezz 7y ago

rukuu001 7y ago
"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.” — General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command" Could be straight out of Catch-22
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fiblye 7y ago
  Reading that statement horrified me and sent me back here to comment on it. There was literally nothing these people could've done to prove themselves. If authorization were granted to fully exterminate them, this person would've gladly run with the order. As terrible as this whole time period in American history was, it's even more terrifying to think of just how close it came to being even worse. And it all would've been justified and swept under the rug, and instead of being given a half day of US history class as a passing mention of "yeah bad things happened but it won't happen again", maybe given 2 days of study and a "we definitely learned to not do that again".
  - yostrovs 7y ago
    Your speculation of what America was close to doing to Japanese Americans sounds much like the quote you are commenting on.
  - quantum_state 7y ago
    A clear abuse of power by the government ... all citizen would want to have sufficient safeguards in our democracy to prevent similar things from happening...
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  >“I’ve been to detention facilities where I’ve walked up to these individuals that are so-called minors, 17 or under, I’ve looked at them and I’ve looked at their eyes, Tucker — and I’ve said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member. It’s unequivocal.” Mark Morgan, current Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and complete waste of skin.
  - youdontknowtho 7y ago
    That's just jaw dropping.
matthewmacleod 7y ago
It’s genuinely horrifying to see examples of this sort of thought emerging again into the public sphere in the West.
zeristor 7y ago
Were ethnically German Americans put in concentration camps too? There far more people of German heritage in the US, Col Schisskopf from Catch 22 for example
- _iyig 7y ago
  German-Americans had been aggressively discriminated against before and during WW1 [0]. By the time WW2 rolled around, many German-American families had worked very hard to assimilate and had acquired economic and political influence which could shield them from mass detentions. Even so, a small number were still detained by the government during both wars [1]. [0] http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath/immigrants-during-wartime http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath/immigrants-during-wa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    German-Americans: Missed slavery, missed Nazism still indiscriminately expected to have white guilt Doesnt seem nuanced enough or productive for American society
    - geofft 7y ago
      Can you avoid the passive voice? Who precisely is expecting German-Americans to have "white guilt"?
      - rolltiide 7y ago
        Nobody precisely is thinking of German-Americans The point is that this level of nuance isnt present, and it undermines the understanding of cultural groups within America
        0815test 7y ago
        German-Americans were highly encouraged to self-identify as "white" during the Progressive Era, precisely due to the WWI issue and as a way of promoting some kind of unity beyond national-origin differences. Of course that still involved exclusion of minorities, and one can make the case that this laser-focus on race has had terrible side-effects (many present-day Europeans would probably see it that way!), but still. It's doubtful whether there even is a distinct German-American identity today in the U.S., the way there absolutely was one in the 19th century.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
Here's the conditions of the current ones; >The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities. >All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities. >“You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?'” U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian Tuesday. >U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government’s interpretation of the settlement agreement. >“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” Fletcher asked Fabian. “I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.” >The settlement at issue came out of Jenny Lisette Flores v. Edwin Meese, filed in 1985 on behalf of a class of unaccompanied minors fleeing torture and abuse in Central America. >Finally agreed upon in 1997, the settlement established guidelines for the humane detention, treatment and release of minors taken into federal immigration custody. The guidelines include the right to a bond hearing and requirements that immigration authorities timely release children to parents or guardians and place those not released in facilities that meet certain standards. The facilities are supposed to be “safe and sanitary.” >The settlement landed back in court in 2015, when class members moved to enforce it following the Obama administration’s announcement that it would scrap bond hearings because they conflicted with newer immigration laws. In legal filings, the class contended the elimination of bond hearings and dirty and dangerous conditions at short-term holding facilities operated by the Border Patrol violated the agreement. >U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles granted the class’ motion and ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to ensure government compliance with Flores. >Gee said the administration had breached Flores by failing to provide detainees with adequate food and clean drinking water, or with hygiene items like soap, toothbrushes and towels. She also concluded that the children were being deprived of sleep and access to bathrooms, and were subjected to near-freezing temperatures. >The Ninth Circuit affirmed much of Gee’s ruling in July 2017, finding that detainees were still entitled to bond hearings. >On Tuesday, Fabian asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse Gee’s findings because they added new requirements – such as giving detainees soap and toothbrushes – that were not specifically included in Flores. >“One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian said. >“Or it was relatively obvious,” Fletcher shot back. “And at least obvious enough so that if you’re putting people into a crowded room to sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum-foil blanket on top of them that it doesn’t comply with the agreement.” >“It wasn’t perfumed soap, it was soap. That’s part of ‘safe and sanitary.’ Are you disagreeing with that?” he added. >Class counsel Peter Schey said that, although Gee had listed specific items such as toothbrushes in her order, which were not listed in the settlement, settlement compliance must be analyzed in terms of California contract law, under which the general terms in an agreement must be “reasonably interpreted.” >“The first thing you do is honor the plain meaning” of words like “safe” and “sanitary,” Schey said. >“Today we have a situation where once a month a child is dying in [federal] custody,” he added. “Certainly the Border Patrol facilities are secure, but they’re not safe and they’re not sanitary.” https://www.courthousenews.com/feds-tell-9th-circuit-detained-kids-safe-and-sanitary-without-soap/ https://www.courthousenews.com/feds-tell-9th-circuit-detaine...
thedevil555 7y ago
Before you all jump to the condemnation of Americans, Think. It was warfare. I'm Australian and one of my ancestors spent some time as a prisoner of Japan on the burma railway. I might add Japan had no Americans on it's soil during ww2.
- moose462 7y ago
  Well, if your country is much stronger, has no real possibility of being invaded, no real possibility of being bombed, and interns 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants, maybe your country is just paranoid and racist.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    The entire American condition is held together by paranoia. If there isn't a credible external threat then it turns on itself: The idea of a soviet expansionist theory that actually impacts the US is laughable to enough of the population Nobody powerful actually believes the teachings of Karl Marx except to placate their internal public People kind of seem to understand that interference in the middle east creates danger from very specific people who dont represent everyone, not really protecting us from anything so now that paranoia leads us to ideological introspection, in the absence of a common enemy
- krapp 7y ago
  I mean you're welcome to your opinion but the US putting its own citizens into concentration camps really didn't help Australia at all, much less the US, so I don't know why you would defend it.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    Australia is currently running their own camps; >"Our detention centres are concentration camps and must be closed >Many Australians may wonder why it was necessary to set up detention centres in the far north of the country, or offshore, far from the Australian mainland, surrounded by guards and razor wire, in circumstances of great secrecy, with all staff and visiting medical personnel banned from telling outsiders about conditions in the camps, or reporting physical or sexual abuse of detainees. >Or why it was necessary to make it nearly impossible for lawyers or journalists to visit the centres. Or why the Immigration Department was allowed (or required?) to delay vital medical treatment to Hamid Khazaei, causing his death. Or send a raped and pregnant detainee for an abortion to Port Moresby (where it is illegal) rather than Australia; or delay the treatment or transfer to Australia of the man who committed suicide last week by setting himself on fire on Nauru? >When Nazi Germany set up concentration camps in the 1930s, the purpose was to separate various groups – communists, Jews, homosexuals – from the German community, to prevent them being "tainted" by such people. The camps were maintained in great secrecy; most Germans had little or no knowledge of the awful and dehumanising conditions in which detainees were kept. >Australia's detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island may have originally been intended to hold detainees for a short period – say, six months – while they were investigated and their claims to refugee status were assessed. But that has long since ceased to justify the existence of these centres. >The conditions there are bleak, the tropical heat extreme, airconditioning is rare (guards, of course, are in much better, airconditioned, accommodation) – the guards and surrounding locals are hostile, and detainees are regularly physically and verbally abused. >The worst aspect, however, is the indefinite nature of the detention, and that so many of the refugees who have established their entitlement to refugee status have been held for more than three years, and face an indefinite future in detention. >Australia's policy towards asylum seekers is one of deliberate and calculated barbaric cruelty. It is clearly designed to make the situation of asylum seekers intolerable, to dehumanise them, and to force them to return to their original countries; for example, Hazaras from Afghanistan must return to a country increasingly dominated by the Taliban, which have waged genocide against them; and those who have fled Iran must return to the waiting arms of the Revolutionary Guards and Tehran's appalling Evin prison, one of the most frightful hell-holes in the world. Iran last year executed more than 1000 prisoners. >That Australia's policy is intentionally cruel is well demonstrated by government ministers who have rejected all offers, whether from New Zealand or the premiers of all Australian states, to settle any of the present asylum seekers. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, rejected those offers out of hand. The Prime Minister said it would not be a good marketing look. >The camps in Manus Island and Nauru have long since ceased to be mere detention centres. They are now concentration camps. >Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles has called offshore processing "the single most important policy that any Australian government has made". The Prime Minister recently described those who oppose the government's policy towards asylum seekers as "misty-eyed". >A week ago, representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees visited Nauru and told detainees that none of them would escape from the camps within 10 years. In the past week, two have set themselves on fire. It is the only way to end their suffering. Are those cowards and hypocrites in the Australian Parliament going to tell us that this is merely another attention-attracting device?"
tr33house 7y ago
> This government can never repay all the people who suffered. But, this should not be an excuse for token apologies. I hope this country will never forget what happened, and do what it can to make sure that future generations will never forget. Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps
- krapp 7y ago
  >Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps That's not true. The internment of Japanese Americans in WW2 is taught about in school, and almost everyone knows about it, although not everyone necessarily cares, and some Americans will defend it (and even suggest that maybe doing it to Muslims would be a good idea.) The US doesn't really "whitewash" its history, nor practice mass indoctrination or nationalist brainwashing through its educational system, to the degree some believe. Learning about our history, and learning from our history, are two different things, though.
  - fiblye 7y ago
    I think part of this depends on the school. The ones I attended would completely skip sections regarding the ~1,000,000 civilian deaths during the Philippine American War, the blunders in Korea and Vietnam (my classes basically said "they happened" and then the rest of the year was Civil War and WW2 movies), and there was absolutely zero discussion of American affairs in Central/South America and events leading to the Middle Eastern situation today. Schools and teachers aren't 100% standardized in America. Some have thorough history programs. Some absolutely do brush over a lot of bad parts in history, and my high school in the South was one of the types to say "The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery." Our biology class also had a huge disclaimer about evolution and how nobody had to, or really should, believe it, but they were just required to teach it. So I think when some people talk about how ridiculous/amazing the school system is, it's because that's just their experience. Schools are completely different depending on what state or even what part of town you live in.
  - youdontknowtho 7y ago
qazpot 7y ago
A reminder of how Freedom is often a very flimsy thing in even in First world democratic countries.
blue_devil 7y ago
The real reminder is to be aware that under the "right" conditions most people would actively or passively support such things being done to their fellow human beings. The reminder is to be wary of setting the stage for those conditions to materialize.
- gd1 7y ago
  Yes. For example, under a democratic presidency between 2008 and 2016, no one gave a shit.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Clever - but let's put a fine point on it, shall we? The "right" conditions have typically been under Democrat party rule. This is the party of the Trail of Tears. This is the party that defended slavery (in both north and south). Even killing Abraham Lincoln when their cause was lost. This is the party of the KKK and of Jim Crow. Heck, the last KKK member of Congress, Rober Byrd, who was a recruiter for the KKK, just passed away a few years ago. Obama said the eulogy at his funeral. Hillary Clinton said he was a "friend and mentor". This is the party of segregation. Woodrow Wilson actually resegregated the federal government, ending the careers of non-white civil servants. He promoted "The Birth of a Nation" by having it be the 1st film shown at the White House. And, of course, the party that brought us these internment camps.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    Oh come on, I know of 'The Southern Strategy' and I'm not even from the US. It isn't your modern Democrats who are flying the confederate flag and defending statues of the lazy racist pricks who would rather enslave other people than bother to do their own damn work, now is it? One thing to note is that the Republican Party originated from the Whigs, and the term Whig is essentially synonymous with identifying as politically liberal. So, on this side of the pond, the Whigs were the precursors to our current Liberal Democrats. So both your Democrats and your Republicans have had quite the political journey over the years.
    - 7y ago
geofft 7y ago
What do US schoolteachers assigning The Diary of Anne Frank say about it, these days? When I was in middle school you could say things like "concentration camps are bad" and "hiding persecuted people in your attic is good" without much fear of controversy, and also without much fear of applicability to the present day. Are they still saying that?
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  >"What do US schoolteachers assigning The Diary of Anne Frank say about it, these days?" As a depressing guess, unless they are still working off the censored edition, it may well be something along the lines of; 'This reading material is unsuitable due to lesbianism, we must remove all editions from the school library immediately!'
TomMckenny 7y ago
If you are habitually detaining large numbers of civilians, including children, then you are on the wrong side of history. Somehow this point never seems to be learned
sitkack 7y ago
David Suzuki [1] the Canadian environmentalist talks about his time in concentration camps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 DS: I don't like to look in the mirror at myself. BM: Why? DS: When I look at myself I see the slit eyes, the face that was for four years during WW2 depicted as the enemy. DS: And it was my enemy too! That face was my enemy because I was a Canadian. And we wanted to go out and kill Japs. ... BM: Were you bitter or your parents bitter? [3] DS: I think if one broods on this and becomes bitter and hateful, then ultimately the bigots win, you become them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g [3] https://youtu.be/Y2FD0DoHiK0?t=117 https://youtu.be/Y2FD0DoHiK0?t=117

100 points by fezz 7y ago

"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.” — General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command" Could be straight out of Catch-22

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fiblye 7y ago
Reading that statement horrified me and sent me back here to comment on it. There was literally nothing these people could've done to prove themselves. If authorization were granted to fully exterminate them, this person would've gladly run with the order. As terrible as this whole time period in American history was, it's even more terrifying to think of just how close it came to being even worse. And it all would've been justified and swept under the rug, and instead of being given a half day of US history class as a passing mention of "yeah bad things happened but it won't happen again", maybe given 2 days of study and a "we definitely learned to not do that again".
- yostrovs 7y ago
  Your speculation of what America was close to doing to Japanese Americans sounds much like the quote you are commenting on.
- quantum_state 7y ago
  A clear abuse of power by the government ... all citizen would want to have sufficient safeguards in our democracy to prevent similar things from happening...
inflatableDodo 7y ago
>“I’ve been to detention facilities where I’ve walked up to these individuals that are so-called minors, 17 or under, I’ve looked at them and I’ve looked at their eyes, Tucker — and I’ve said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member. It’s unequivocal.” Mark Morgan, current Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and complete waste of skin.
- youdontknowtho 7y ago
  That's just jaw dropping.

matthewmacleod 7y ago

It’s genuinely horrifying to see examples of this sort of thought emerging again into the public sphere in the West.

zeristor 7y ago

Were ethnically German Americans put in concentration camps too? There far more people of German heritage in the US, Col Schisskopf from Catch 22 for example

_iyig 7y ago
German-Americans had been aggressively discriminated against before and during WW1 [0]. By the time WW2 rolled around, many German-American families had worked very hard to assimilate and had acquired economic and political influence which could shield them from mass detentions. Even so, a small number were still detained by the government during both wars [1]. [0] http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath/immigrants-during-wartime http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath/immigrants-during-wa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans
- rolltiide 7y ago
  German-Americans: Missed slavery, missed Nazism still indiscriminately expected to have white guilt Doesnt seem nuanced enough or productive for American society
  - geofft 7y ago
    Can you avoid the passive voice? Who precisely is expecting German-Americans to have "white guilt"?
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      Nobody precisely is thinking of German-Americans The point is that this level of nuance isnt present, and it undermines the understanding of cultural groups within America
      - 0815test 7y ago
        German-Americans were highly encouraged to self-identify as "white" during the Progressive Era, precisely due to the WWI issue and as a way of promoting some kind of unity beyond national-origin differences. Of course that still involved exclusion of minorities, and one can make the case that this laser-focus on race has had terrible side-effects (many present-day Europeans would probably see it that way!), but still. It's doubtful whether there even is a distinct German-American identity today in the U.S., the way there absolutely was one in the 19th century.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

Here's the conditions of the current ones; >The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities. >All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities. >“You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?'” U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian Tuesday. >U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government’s interpretation of the settlement agreement. >“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” Fletcher asked Fabian. “I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.” >The settlement at issue came out of Jenny Lisette Flores v. Edwin Meese, filed in 1985 on behalf of a class of unaccompanied minors fleeing torture and abuse in Central America. >Finally agreed upon in 1997, the settlement established guidelines for the humane detention, treatment and release of minors taken into federal immigration custody. The guidelines include the right to a bond hearing and requirements that immigration authorities timely release children to parents or guardians and place those not released in facilities that meet certain standards. The facilities are supposed to be “safe and sanitary.” >The settlement landed back in court in 2015, when class members moved to enforce it following the Obama administration’s announcement that it would scrap bond hearings because they conflicted with newer immigration laws. In legal filings, the class contended the elimination of bond hearings and dirty and dangerous conditions at short-term holding facilities operated by the Border Patrol violated the agreement. >U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles granted the class’ motion and ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to ensure government compliance with Flores. >Gee said the administration had breached Flores by failing to provide detainees with adequate food and clean drinking water, or with hygiene items like soap, toothbrushes and towels. She also concluded that the children were being deprived of sleep and access to bathrooms, and were subjected to near-freezing temperatures. >The Ninth Circuit affirmed much of Gee’s ruling in July 2017, finding that detainees were still entitled to bond hearings. >On Tuesday, Fabian asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse Gee’s findings because they added new requirements – such as giving detainees soap and toothbrushes – that were not specifically included in Flores. >“One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian said. >“Or it was relatively obvious,” Fletcher shot back. “And at least obvious enough so that if you’re putting people into a crowded room to sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum-foil blanket on top of them that it doesn’t comply with the agreement.” >“It wasn’t perfumed soap, it was soap. That’s part of ‘safe and sanitary.’ Are you disagreeing with that?” he added. >Class counsel Peter Schey said that, although Gee had listed specific items such as toothbrushes in her order, which were not listed in the settlement, settlement compliance must be analyzed in terms of California contract law, under which the general terms in an agreement must be “reasonably interpreted.” >“The first thing you do is honor the plain meaning” of words like “safe” and “sanitary,” Schey said. >“Today we have a situation where once a month a child is dying in [federal] custody,” he added. “Certainly the Border Patrol facilities are secure, but they’re not safe and they’re not sanitary.” https://www.courthousenews.com/feds-tell-9th-circuit-detained-kids-safe-and-sanitary-without-soap/ https://www.courthousenews.com/feds-tell-9th-circuit-detaine...

thedevil555 7y ago

Before you all jump to the condemnation of Americans, Think. It was warfare. I'm Australian and one of my ancestors spent some time as a prisoner of Japan on the burma railway. I might add Japan had no Americans on it's soil during ww2.

moose462 7y ago
Well, if your country is much stronger, has no real possibility of being invaded, no real possibility of being bombed, and interns 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants, maybe your country is just paranoid and racist.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  The entire American condition is held together by paranoia. If there isn't a credible external threat then it turns on itself: The idea of a soviet expansionist theory that actually impacts the US is laughable to enough of the population Nobody powerful actually believes the teachings of Karl Marx except to placate their internal public People kind of seem to understand that interference in the middle east creates danger from very specific people who dont represent everyone, not really protecting us from anything so now that paranoia leads us to ideological introspection, in the absence of a common enemy
krapp 7y ago
I mean you're welcome to your opinion but the US putting its own citizens into concentration camps really didn't help Australia at all, much less the US, so I don't know why you would defend it.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Australia is currently running their own camps; >"Our detention centres are concentration camps and must be closed >Many Australians may wonder why it was necessary to set up detention centres in the far north of the country, or offshore, far from the Australian mainland, surrounded by guards and razor wire, in circumstances of great secrecy, with all staff and visiting medical personnel banned from telling outsiders about conditions in the camps, or reporting physical or sexual abuse of detainees. >Or why it was necessary to make it nearly impossible for lawyers or journalists to visit the centres. Or why the Immigration Department was allowed (or required?) to delay vital medical treatment to Hamid Khazaei, causing his death. Or send a raped and pregnant detainee for an abortion to Port Moresby (where it is illegal) rather than Australia; or delay the treatment or transfer to Australia of the man who committed suicide last week by setting himself on fire on Nauru? >When Nazi Germany set up concentration camps in the 1930s, the purpose was to separate various groups – communists, Jews, homosexuals – from the German community, to prevent them being "tainted" by such people. The camps were maintained in great secrecy; most Germans had little or no knowledge of the awful and dehumanising conditions in which detainees were kept. >Australia's detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island may have originally been intended to hold detainees for a short period – say, six months – while they were investigated and their claims to refugee status were assessed. But that has long since ceased to justify the existence of these centres. >The conditions there are bleak, the tropical heat extreme, airconditioning is rare (guards, of course, are in much better, airconditioned, accommodation) – the guards and surrounding locals are hostile, and detainees are regularly physically and verbally abused. >The worst aspect, however, is the indefinite nature of the detention, and that so many of the refugees who have established their entitlement to refugee status have been held for more than three years, and face an indefinite future in detention. >Australia's policy towards asylum seekers is one of deliberate and calculated barbaric cruelty. It is clearly designed to make the situation of asylum seekers intolerable, to dehumanise them, and to force them to return to their original countries; for example, Hazaras from Afghanistan must return to a country increasingly dominated by the Taliban, which have waged genocide against them; and those who have fled Iran must return to the waiting arms of the Revolutionary Guards and Tehran's appalling Evin prison, one of the most frightful hell-holes in the world. Iran last year executed more than 1000 prisoners. >That Australia's policy is intentionally cruel is well demonstrated by government ministers who have rejected all offers, whether from New Zealand or the premiers of all Australian states, to settle any of the present asylum seekers. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, rejected those offers out of hand. The Prime Minister said it would not be a good marketing look. >The camps in Manus Island and Nauru have long since ceased to be mere detention centres. They are now concentration camps. >Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles has called offshore processing "the single most important policy that any Australian government has made". The Prime Minister recently described those who oppose the government's policy towards asylum seekers as "misty-eyed". >A week ago, representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees visited Nauru and told detainees that none of them would escape from the camps within 10 years. In the past week, two have set themselves on fire. It is the only way to end their suffering. Are those cowards and hypocrites in the Australian Parliament going to tell us that this is merely another attention-attracting device?"

tr33house 7y ago

> This government can never repay all the people who suffered. But, this should not be an excuse for token apologies. I hope this country will never forget what happened, and do what it can to make sure that future generations will never forget. Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps

krapp 7y ago
>Every school system has succeeded in whitewashing the history. Almost no one in America now knows about the camps That's not true. The internment of Japanese Americans in WW2 is taught about in school, and almost everyone knows about it, although not everyone necessarily cares, and some Americans will defend it (and even suggest that maybe doing it to Muslims would be a good idea.) The US doesn't really "whitewash" its history, nor practice mass indoctrination or nationalist brainwashing through its educational system, to the degree some believe. Learning about our history, and learning from our history, are two different things, though.
- fiblye 7y ago
  I think part of this depends on the school. The ones I attended would completely skip sections regarding the ~1,000,000 civilian deaths during the Philippine American War, the blunders in Korea and Vietnam (my classes basically said "they happened" and then the rest of the year was Civil War and WW2 movies), and there was absolutely zero discussion of American affairs in Central/South America and events leading to the Middle Eastern situation today. Schools and teachers aren't 100% standardized in America. Some have thorough history programs. Some absolutely do brush over a lot of bad parts in history, and my high school in the South was one of the types to say "The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery." Our biology class also had a huge disclaimer about evolution and how nobody had to, or really should, believe it, but they were just required to teach it. So I think when some people talk about how ridiculous/amazing the school system is, it's because that's just their experience. Schools are completely different depending on what state or even what part of town you live in.
- youdontknowtho 7y ago

qazpot 7y ago

A reminder of how Freedom is often a very flimsy thing in even in First world democratic countries.

blue_devil 7y ago

The real reminder is to be aware that under the "right" conditions most people would actively or passively support such things being done to their fellow human beings. The reminder is to be wary of setting the stage for those conditions to materialize.

gd1 7y ago
Yes. For example, under a democratic presidency between 2008 and 2016, no one gave a shit.
tomohawk 7y ago
Clever - but let's put a fine point on it, shall we? The "right" conditions have typically been under Democrat party rule. This is the party of the Trail of Tears. This is the party that defended slavery (in both north and south). Even killing Abraham Lincoln when their cause was lost. This is the party of the KKK and of Jim Crow. Heck, the last KKK member of Congress, Rober Byrd, who was a recruiter for the KKK, just passed away a few years ago. Obama said the eulogy at his funeral. Hillary Clinton said he was a "friend and mentor". This is the party of segregation. Woodrow Wilson actually resegregated the federal government, ending the careers of non-white civil servants. He promoted "The Birth of a Nation" by having it be the 1st film shown at the White House. And, of course, the party that brought us these internment camps.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Oh come on, I know of 'The Southern Strategy' and I'm not even from the US. It isn't your modern Democrats who are flying the confederate flag and defending statues of the lazy racist pricks who would rather enslave other people than bother to do their own damn work, now is it? One thing to note is that the Republican Party originated from the Whigs, and the term Whig is essentially synonymous with identifying as politically liberal. So, on this side of the pond, the Whigs were the precursors to our current Liberal Democrats. So both your Democrats and your Republicans have had quite the political journey over the years.
  - 7y ago

geofft 7y ago

What do US schoolteachers assigning The Diary of Anne Frank say about it, these days? When I was in middle school you could say things like "concentration camps are bad" and "hiding persecuted people in your attic is good" without much fear of controversy, and also without much fear of applicability to the present day. Are they still saying that?

inflatableDodo 7y ago
>"What do US schoolteachers assigning The Diary of Anne Frank say about it, these days?" As a depressing guess, unless they are still working off the censored edition, it may well be something along the lines of; 'This reading material is unsuitable due to lesbianism, we must remove all editions from the school library immediately!'

TomMckenny 7y ago

If you are habitually detaining large numbers of civilians, including children, then you are on the wrong side of history. Somehow this point never seems to be learned

sitkack 7y ago

David Suzuki [1] the Canadian environmentalist talks about his time in concentration camps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 DS: I don't like to look in the mirror at myself. BM: Why? DS: When I look at myself I see the slit eyes, the face that was for four years during WW2 depicted as the enemy. DS: And it was my enemy too! That face was my enemy because I was a Canadian. And we wanted to go out and kill Japs. ... BM: Were you bitter or your parents bitter? [3] DS: I think if one broods on this and becomes bitter and hateful, then ultimately the bigots win, you become them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2FD0DoHiK0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TQTuMqM9g [3] https://youtu.be/Y2FD0DoHiK0?t=117 https://youtu.be/Y2FD0DoHiK0?t=117