Help The Iraqi Interpreters Who Helped Our Soldiers

My first impression on reading the headline Iraqi Interpreters Find Hate In Their New Home in today’s Sun Herald was that interpreters who had worked for Australian troops in Iraq were experiencing racism and possibly accusations of being bogus refugees after emigrating here.

Reading the actual article reveals a completely different story: the hatred comes from the “Iraqi community” here in Australia. The interpreters are looked upon as spies or traitors by many other Iraqis who have emigrated here.

Although on the same page of the newspaper, the byline article focusing on the interpreters’ ostracism by other Iraqi immigrants is a separate link on the Herald website.

This piece quotes an “Iraqi-Australian” woman named Sara:

“Anyone who works with foreign troops are considered to me, personally, traitors.

Foreign troops shouldn't be in our country. I think it's for Iraqis, the Iraq nation, to rebuild Iraq instead of any other foreign troops.”

Sara said many interpreters now living among local Iraqi communities keep a low profile because:

“They know they're not wanted. They've done a lot of bad things to help the foreign troops.”

One interpreter said he was told by an “Iraqi-Australian who owns a bakery”:

“You betrayed your country. You’re not welcome here.”

What unbelievable hypocrisy! Take all the benefits of living in Australia, but condemn as a traitor any Iraqi who helped the soldiers of your adopted country try to keep order in your old one.

I’ll say something to you, Slimy Sara and Mr. Greasy Baker:

It will NEVER be for you to say who is welcome in this country and who is not. You two should be very grateful to have been allowed the chance of a better life in Australia. The interpreters ARE welcome here. Given your obvious disloyalty to Australia, you and all who think like you are NOT.

Given their personal accounts, corroborated by Australian defence personnel, it is clear the interpreters are genuine refugees. Their lives really would be in danger in Iraq. Moreover, they helped our troops at considerable personal risk. The valuable assistance they provided our soldiers in communicating with locals in Iraq probably saved lives on both sides by preventing our troops becoming involved in misunderstandings leading to firefights.

We owed it to these 557 interpreters and their families to allow them to resettle in Australia. As such, it is very disappointing to read that they have had almost no contact with Defence personnel since their arrival.

The interpreters helped our troops to understand how Iraqi society operates. Is it really too much to ask for Defence or Immigration Dept staff to help them settle in here? Some English classes, some information about navigating our institutions, even an occasional visit to ask how things are going?

Had this been done, perhaps these people would not feel such a need for contact within the Iraqi immigrant community and would not feel the ostracism so acutely. Don’t we want them to assimilate into wider society?

Another disappointing aspect of the interpreters' attempts to settle in Australia is their extemely high unemployment rate, even after three years.

I suggest there are three principal causes:

English proficiency and difficulty having their Iraqi qualifications recognised here. Although they can speak English, the standard is probably not sufficient for many jobs. It is quite possible that the syllabus of their degrees is not equivalent to Western universtiy standards. There's not much that can be done about this, but at least Defence could provide some assistance with spoken and written English.
Ignorance from Australian employers. Most Australians wouldn't employ someone with an attitude like Sara's. Employers need to be aware that the Iraqi interpreters helped our soldiers, do not have values antithetical to Australian society and that they deserve a go. Maybe Immigration could employ a few of them to help assess other refugees' claims and weed out the bogus ones. With appropriate oversight, their advice might be valuable.
Lack of references and advice. Employment references from Defence would go a long way toward alleviating the problem in Point 2. Would it be so hard to write each interpreter a good reference and give them some advice on writing a job application? Apparently many interpreters do have letters of recommendation from Defence, but these don't seem to be having much effect. Perhaps the COs of the units they helped acting as personal referees would carry more weight.

I've implied that Defence is primarily responsible for assisting the interpreters in settling here (improving their English, obtaining housing and employment) because I think it is mainly their role.

The departments of Immigration and Social Security have the same responsibilities as they do for any other immigrants, but the interpreters are a special category because they were defence force employess who helped our troops at significant personal risk and we owe them help in return, particularly as a) they are being shunned by other Arab immigrants and b) Australian employers seem ignorant of their skills.

As for the people in the so-called “Iraqi community” in Australia who are shunning the interpreters as “traitors”, how many of them arrived here as refugees, allegedly “in fear of their lives”? Many, I’d suggest. How many were telling the truth? Very few, I’d suggest.

How many of them are sponging off our social security system? A lot, according to the observation from one of the interpreters:

“They receive Australian government support and they are living as any Australian person, for example, but [some] hate me … because I worked for the Australian Army.”

Australia did not advertise in Iraq for immigrants. We didn’t say to Sara and people like her: “Hey, we’re so desperate to build our population, we’ll take anyone, even people who don’t speak English, follow an alien religion and whose ability to integrate and accept our values is questionable at best.”

In fact, Sara and most other Iraqis begged to be allowed in, many on the pretext of their lives being endangered in Iraq, having already travelled through half a dozen Muslim countries and then paid people smugglers to ferry them here. Despite being allowed to live here and receive the security and freedom of our society, including, I’ll wager, social security payments courtesy of Australian taxpayers, Sara refers to Australian soldiers as “foreign troops” and Iraq as “our country”.

Her choice of words reveals her utter ingratitude and complete untrustworthiness as a potential Australian citizen. Yet, I’m sure she will take Australian citizenship as soon as she can. Her words suggest it will merely be a flag of convenience so she cannot be deported.

These people are among the worst examples of immigrants: fundamentally hostile to our values and with no genuine intention of assimilation, for them or their children. Can you imagine the rubbish they are filling their kids’ heads with?

What needs to be explained to these people, very forcefully, is that freedom of expression does not extend to treason. If you come to Australia to live and call someone who helps Australian soldiers a traitor, then YOU are the traitor and have no right to remain here.

Given our labour shortage in certain industries, Australia currently needs high levels of immigration. Despite this, there is still an order of magnitude more people wanting to settle here than we can reasonably take. Therefore, we can afford to be very choosy about who we actually accept.

In my opinion, the facts that people like Sara and the baker have been allowed to settle here and the lack of effective support given to deserving people like the interpreters represents the misguided nature of our immigration policy.

It is absurd to suggest that we cannot distinguish the relative value of the contribution of various immigrants to Australian society. In fact, this is already done for people entering under the skilled migration category. Proficiency in English is a factor, but religion and culture are not.

It is absurd that criterion scored assessments of immigrants are allowed, but only for certain categories of immigrants and then a significant portion of the variables explanatory of successful integration into Australian society are excluded for ideological reasons.

We should apply criterion scored assessments to all categories of immigrants, including refugees. Obviously the assessments would be different for different categories, but there is nothing wrong with giving preferential treatment to refugees who already speak some English, who have a good education or who have worked at a trade in their home country, if indeed these factors are explanatory of successful integration.

We should dispassionately analyse ALL the objective factors which are found to predict the future success of immigrants in becoming good Australian citizens. Success is subjective, but hardly indefinable. In addition to obvious criteria like criminal activity, it should encompass the ability to learn English, maintain steady employment and not hold views clearly completely opposed to Australian values, like the separation of religion and state and you’re not a traitor if you help our troops.

This analysis should form a points test for each category of immigrants. If some of the factors turn out to be highly correlated with race or religion, so what? We should ignore the bleating of the lying, lefty hand wringers who cry for their exclusion and want to force their misguided political views onto the rest of us, in this case to the demonstrable detriment of society. Evidence based policy should always take precedence over ideology.

We should expand the character test so that immigrants who through their words and deeds demonstrate a sufficiently high probability of unsuitability can have their visa cancelled, or indeed, their Australian citizenship torn up and be deported. In the latter case, it is almost certain that such people obtained their citizenship under false pretences: lying under oath.

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

Really, do you?

How many immigrants like Sara and the baker would say these words without one iota of committment, with the sole purpose of obtaining the piece of paper saying “Australian citizen”.

If the Iraqi interpreters who helped our soldiers are traitors to you, you are lying if you say the above words and consequently should be sent back to where you came from, to lead the shitty life you deserve.