Antony Loewenstein

My investigation in US magazine The Nation:

Soon after President Trump assumed office in January 2017, he had a phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The transcript of the conversation, leaked in August, revealed that the new US president admired his Australian counterpart because Turnbull was “worse than I am” on asylum seekers. Turnbull had proudly stated, “If you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Nobel Prize–winning genius, we will not let you in.”

In their phone call, the prime minister begged the US leader to adhere to a deal struck by Turnbull and former President Barack Obama the year before, in which the United States had agreed take up to 1,250 refugees imprisoned by Australia for years on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru in the Pacific. In exchange, Australia would take refugees from Central America.

Trump didn’t understand why Australia couldn’t take the PNG and Nauru refugees in. Turnbull responded, “It is not because [the refugees] are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers we had to deprive them of the product.” Trump liked what he heard. “That is a good idea,” he said. “We should do that too.”

Turnbull was proudly explaining the complex system established by Australia many years earlier: Refugees are imprisoned in privatized, remote detention centers on the Australian mainland and on Pacific islands. Trump isn’t the only one who is impressed; many Western leaders have not only expressed admiration for Australia’s draconian refugee policies but have initiated ways to implement them in their own nations to contend with the recent surge of people fleeing Africa and the Middle East.

The mainstreaming of xenophobia regarding refugees was perfected by Australian politicians more than 20 years ago. Along with a media-savvy mix of dog-whistling against ethnic groups with little social power, refugees have been accused of being dirty, suspicious, lazy, welfare-hungry, and potential terrorists—and they’ve been accused of refusing to assimilate, despite the country’s largely successful multicultural reality.

Australia hasn’t been shy in offering advice to European nations struggling with an influx of refugees. Former prime minister Tony Abbott warned his European counterparts in 2016 that they were facing a “peaceful invasion” and risked “losing control” of their sovereignty unless they embraced Australian-style policies.

“Effective border protection is not for the squeamish,” he claimed, after pushing the concept of turning back refugee boats at sea and returning people to their country of origin, “but it is absolutely necessary to save lives and to preserve nations.” Abbott refused my requests for comment.

Australia has accepted about 190,000 people annually in its permanent migration program in recent years. This year, however, the migrant intake will be the lowest in seven years. There’s an inherent contradiction in Australia’s migration policy: The country quietly accepts many refugees who come by plane, but treats those arriving by boat with contempt and abuse. Between 1976 and 2015, more than 69,600 people seeking asylum—mostly from Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East—have arrived in Australia by boat.

Unlike some European nations, such as Britain, Spain, and Italy, where about 65 percent of people oppose immigration, authoritative polling by Australia’s Scanlon Foundation found that a majority of citizens back new arrivals: 80 percent of respondents rejected selecting immigrants by race, and 74 percent opposed the idea of selecting immigrants by religion—and yet growing numbers of people expressed opposition to or suspicion of Islam. And calling for a large cut in immigration has entered the Australian mainstream. The latest polling from the Lowy Institute in 2018 found that a majority of Australians now back a curb in migration. Many of those pushing this argument claim that caring for immigrants is too costly and that priority should be given to improving the infrastructure and environment. It’s possible, of course, for such a rich country to do both.

The internationalization of Australia’s refugee stance has, unfortunately, coincided with Europe’s right-wing populist surge. Europe has recently faced millions of asylum seekers arriving on its shores. Many want them stopped and turned back. It’s a view shared by some of the continent’s most extreme political parties; Italy’s new right-wing government is already turning refugee boats away. Some far-right Danish politicians tried but failed to visit Nauru in 2016 to see how it was housing refugees. Punitive attitudes are moving from the fringes to the mainstream, so it’s not surprising they want to see how Australia does it. If this democratic country can warehouse refugees for years, with little tangible international sanction—apart from increasingly scathing UN reports on its migration program—why not European states, with far more people crossing their borders?

I heard this argument regularly when talking to European fans of Australia. Jens Baur, chairman of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany’s Saxony region, told The Nation that he praised Australian “success” against refugees because it was an effective “deterrent.” For Baur, Europe used “ships of the navies of European states as a ‘tug-taxi,’ bringing refugees from the North African coast to Europe.” He wanted Europe to follow the examples of Australia and anti-refugee Hungary.

A more influential European politician, Kenneth Kristensen Berth of the ultranationalist Danish People’s Party, Denmark’s leading opposition party, has increasingly copied Australia’s hard-line position as his party has grown in popularity. Berth said that he liked the “efficiency” of Australia’s system and had no sympathy for refugees trapped on Pacific islands.

“It is their own choice,” Berth told me. “They have been warned by Australian officials that they will never be able to call Australia their home if they tried to reach Australia illegally. As long as they are not manhandled in these detention centers, I do not find any fault at the Australian side.” (In fact, countless refugees have been assaulted.)

One of the key architects of Brexit, former far-right UKIP leader Nigel Farage, praised what a fellow UKIP MP called Australia’s “innovative” refugee approach and wanted the European Union to follow. Farage ignored my repeated requests for comment.

The ideological underpinning of Europe’s far-right support should be understood as a politically savvy mix of racism, a kind of nationalist socialism, and isolationism. Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of the recently published book Go Back to Where You Came From: The Backlash Against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy, explains that many far-right leaders are “defenders of a nativist nanny state.” He told me, “They are not neoliberal dismantlers of the welfare state but defenders of social benefits for only the native born. This is a populist pitch that has been extremely effective at drawing ex-Communists and social democrats into their ranks. These politicians are seeking ways to protect their comprehensive social safety nets and avoid sharing with newcomers.”

Polakow-Suransky finds that in this worldview, Australia’s generous social benefits to its citizens should be copied in Europe but not for “what they perceive as the grasping hands of undeserving new arrivals who are seeking to leech off their welfare state.”

The Australian methods are ruthlessly effective; waves of refugees have attempted to arrive by boat since the early 1990s. Thousands have been physically and psychologically traumatized after being locked up, and one was even killed in detention by local guards (a subsequent Senate inquiry found that Australian authorities failed to adequately protect him). They’re often refused necessary medical care, and sometimes returned to danger in countries such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. A fundamental element of international law, which Australia routinely breaks, is the concept of non-refoulement, the principle that refugees should not be sent back to a place where they will be in danger.

Australia’s refugee policy has been condemned in reports by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, as well as in eyewitness accounts by activists and journalists. I’ve visited many of the most extreme facilities myself—such as Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean—and have heard horror stories from asylum seekers and guards. Successive Australian governments have paid tens of millions of dollars in compensation to many of these refugees, and yet the policy continues, with strong public support. In an age of refugee demonization, Australia was well ahead of the curve.

These policies were developed before the September 11 terror attacks, but they gained greater currency after that infamous day. After that trauma, it was easier to brand boat arrivals as potential terrorists and Islamist extremists; there’s been almost complete bipartisan political support for this view ever since.

Australia’s anti-refugee campaigns are targeted at a scared white population, of course, but their appeal is broader than that. According to the 2016 Census, nearly half of citizens were born to first- or second-generation migrants—and there are plenty of conservative former migrants who have little sympathy for more recent arrivals by boat. As journalist James Button wrote recently in the Australian magazine The Monthly, “Most Australians, including migrants, accept the brutal bargain: you have to be invited, there’s a right way and a wrong way.” The “wrong way” apparently deserves no sympathy. It doesn’t help that there are still very few nonwhite mainstream journalists in Australia, which means the perspectives of the growing number of non-Anglo residents are not getting the media attention they deserve.

My following book review appears in the Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age today:

Addicted? How Addiction Affects Every One of Us and What We Can Do About It
Matt Noffs and Kieran Palmer
HarperCollins, $32.99

When the Australian Greens recently called for the legalisation and regulation of cannabis, following moves in countless US states, Uruguay and Canada, the response from the federal government was immediate. Health Minister Greg Hunt dismissed the idea as “dangerous” and argued marijuana was a “gateway drug” to harder substances such as ice and heroin.

The evidence for Hunt’s theory is highly contested, with countless, reputable studies showing that poverty and troubled social environment have far more influence on a person’s drug intake than partaking in cannabis.

Hunt’s intervention followed a predictable route by opponents of serious drug reform (though he’s pushing for Australia to become a global leader in medical marijuana). As similar debates have taken place across the world – from opponents of Portugal’s successful decriminalisation of all drugs in 2001 to critics of heroin-assisted treatment in Switzerland – many sensible ideas are shunned by prohibition advocates to maintain a law and order response to illicit substances. Decades of these policies have singularly failed to stem drug taking; the Global Drug Survey consistently finds that Australians are some of the highest users per capita of illegal drugs.

These are just some of the concerns eloquently expressed in this important book by two workers on the frontlines of the drug debate. Matt Noffs and Kieran Palmer work for the Noffs Foundation in Sydney, an organisation founded in 1970 by Reverend Ted Noffs and his wife Margaret. It’s dedicated to assisting young people with drug and alcohol problems.

The message of Addicted? is largely about challenging the dangerous myths around drug use and advocating a more sensible approach: “The causes of addiction are generalised: living in a rough area, being of lower-than-average intelligence, being of low socio-economic status, belonging to a particular culture, even having a certain skin colour. The inner qualities of addicts are also overgeneralised: they have no self-control, no willpower, no ambition, or have simply given up on life…Rarely, if ever, is substance dependence viewed as a health issue, affliction of the mind and body, perpetuated by poor or risky health-related behaviour.”

Noffs and Palmer successfully demolish the stereotypes around drugs, explaining how most people taking illegal substances aren’t addicted to them. With justified irony, they rightly ask whether the Western addiction to smartphones, devices used far more extensively than any illicit drug and undeniably causing negative impacts on societal relations, should be curtailed with a “Just Say No” public messaging campaign akin to what is still used against drugs?

“Regulation is the word here,” they write. “Some of the studies of smartphone addiction show that parents can take control of their children’s use and manage the potential problems that arise.” Banning smartphones is never seriously suggested as a solution and yet that’s what many nations believe should happen to drugs despite fewer people being affected.

Addicted? takes aim at the media’s coverage of drugs and asks why most stories we see rarely hear from users themselves. They’re often demeaned, judged and discarded as a lost cause, smeared as people who don’t deserve a second chance. Think of how often the commercial networks and ABC feature drug-bust stories; journalists are spoon-fed images and startling facts by police with little context or history. Because this isn’t a dry policy book, though it has strong suggestions for governments to treat all citizens with respect regardless of what they ingest, Noffs and Palmer offer the personal stories of resilience and success against addiction that the corporate press usually avoids.

During the recent Sydney Writer’s Festival, I interviewed best-selling, British journalist Johann Hari about his new book, Lost Connections, on depression and solutions to it. ABC TV Australia aired portions of the event.

The following public statement was published today after I was asked by John Pilger to write a comment in support of Julian Assange:

Antony Loewenstein, a prominent independent Australian journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, issued the following endorsement of demonstrations and vigils demanding freedom for Julian Assange. The Socialist Equality Party has called a rally in defense of Assange on June 17 at Sydney Town Hall Square. On June 19, vigils are being held in London and in cities around the world.

Loewenstein interviewed Assange in 2008 on the efforts that were already underway to silence WikiLeaks due to its publication of information that whistleblowers wanted known to the world. Since 2010, he has been prominent in defending Assangeagainst the persecution he has faced for publishing leaks that exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the anti-democratic intrigues of governments around the world. Loewenstein’s articles on WikiLeaks are available on his website.

This year, Loewenstein released a documentary, “Disaster Capitalism,” which is a critical exposure of the global aid and investment industry. See here for information and screening locations.

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After six years in detention, rightly fearing US retribution for daring to expose the dark reality of US empire, Julian Assange deserves a just resolution of his case and his voice restored. It’s shameful how many governments and journalists have not just abandoned Assange to his fate, but failed to recognise his important role in releasing millions of documents that reveal how the world really works.

I support heavy pressure being placed on the Australian, British and US governments to bring him freedom and justice, along with the many other whistleblowers and reporters languishing in prisons around the world.

Antony Loewenstein, independent journalist, author and film-maker, June 5, 2018

ABC Radio Pacific Mornings program, broadcast across the Pacific, interviewed me this morning about my work as an independent journalist over the last 15 years. From the Middle East to disaster capitalism and Australia enabling corruption in Papua New Guinea to tackling faith, it was a wide-ranging discussion:

290518 Pacific Mornings – Antony Loewnstein

Despite being Australia’s closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea (PNG) rarely receives coverage in the media. I investigated the reality in the PNG province of Bougainville, when mining company Rio Tinto exploited the area with its polluting copper mine in the 1970s and 1980s, in my Disaster Capitalism book and film.

NGO Jubilee Australia recently released two startling reports on the murky PNG LNG plant along with the associated corruption. The country deserves far better from its leaders, Australia and corporate backers.

I was interviewed about these issues on ABC Radio’s Pacific Mornings this week. The program reaches across the Pacific:

210518 PacMo – Antony Lowenstein

I was interviewed by The Wire news radio program yesterday:

The already fragile stability in the Middle East has been further affected in recent weeks, with the US Embassy move to Jerusalem and President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

Overnight 55 Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state. This is the highest protest casualty rate in the region since 2014, and has some experts feeling that the US’s increased backing of Israel will lead to a more aggressive stance on neighbours such as Palestine and Syria.

With the Trump administration officially moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, opening shortly, tensions in the Middle East are moving from high to extreme.

I was interviewed about it all on ABC Radio Australia’s The Signal news show. The segment starts at 6:03:

My Disaster Capitalism film is currently screening in many nations across the world from Australia to the US.

It recently had two screenings in Pakistan, Islamabad and Karachi, and the Q&A sessions that I participated in via Skype are below (forgive the poor sound/picture quality). Audiences wanted to discuss the film itself but also how it related to Pakistan itself. There’s various examples, such is here, of how the corporate brand is increasingly dominating the country including after natural disasters.

Here’s the Islamabad event.

The Karachi event:

Aid organisation CUFA operates across the Pacific and Asia. They’ve launched a podcast series about how aid is used and abused and I’m in the first guest discussing my work around Disaster Capitalism (in my book and film).

My book review in yesterday’s Weekend Australian newspaper: 

After Hastings’s scoop, many mainstream journalists went after him, instead of questioning McChrystal’s credentials. Hastings was attacked for breaking the “gentlemen’s agreement” that existed between reporters and the military. Journalists would receive scoops and access if they played this cosy game.

The New York Times published articles praising McChrystal and urged the president to keep him in his role. Largely ignored was the fact that his aggressive counter-terrorism policies were a key factor in surging violence against civilians and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hastings, who died in a car crash in Los Angeles in 2013, was contemptuous of uncritical, embedded journalism that cared little about the lives of Afghans and Iraqis.

Australian war correspondent John Martinkus shares much with Hastings’s worldview. His new book, Lost Copy, is a damning indictment of what we don’t see and hear about the never-ending “war on terror”.

A veteran of conflicts in East Timor and Aceh, Martinkus spent years reporting for SBS’s Dateline. In an introduction, he argues that the positive stories told by journalists about Afghanistan, and Australia’s presence in Helmand and Oruzgan, are fantasy.

“The truth of the situation that governments, militaries and some sections of the press that unquestioningly supported them spent so many years trying to deny has been revealed,” he writes. “But very few are telling that story now.”

Today the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. This is the reason Donald Trump gives for occupying the country indefinitely, but Martinkus cites historical examples to show how greater use of US drones and CIA covert actions will only inflame the situation. Indefinite war, benefiting arms dealers and private contractors, is the result.

Lost Copy is a lesson in the ugly alliances forged by Washington in its futile attempts to control Afghanistan. Perhaps there’s no better example than Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, backed by the CIA in May 1979. Martinkus calls him a “religious fanatic and heroin trafficker” who, “despite his outspoken and virulent anti-American views, received between a third and a half of all American aid to the [anti-Soviet] rebels, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars”.

In 1992, Hekmatyar’s rebels “laid waste to large parts of Kabul, with rocket attacks being one of his favourite tactics”. A former ally of al-Qa’ida and the Taliban, Hekmatyar is now rebuilding his political career in Kabul.

Martinkus directly links the American indulgence and patronage of individuals such as Hekmatyar to the country’s ongoing chaos. Travelling independ­ently gives him unrivalled access to hidden secrets. He documents cases of American and foreign forces denigrating, destroying, burning or cursing Muslim bodies.

“Somewhere in the US military, people were identifying Islamic, Afghan and Iraqi customs and recommending ways to violate them, with a frequency that was only slowly becoming apparent as occasionally an incident was caught on film or witnessed or photographed.”

Martinkus claims many of these stories never saw the light of day: “Countless more were dismissed on the ground by sceptical and partisan reporters as the complaining of those with an agenda. Others were blocked at an editorial level by a press, in the US, the UK and Australia, that by and large supported both wars [Iraq and Afghanistan].”

The risk of “taking sides” in war reporting is expertly dissected by Martinkus. When he was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2004, across the road from the Australian embassy, he was condemned by then foreign minister Alexander Downer and also by right-wing bloggers. Some even claimed he had faked his ordeal. On his release, Martinkus said he did not support the US occupation of Iraq, which made him a prime target for attack. “To even broach the topic of what was motivating the Iraqi insurgents,’’ he writes, “was enough to bring down a wave of condemnation for being seemingly sympathetic with terrorists.”

Lost Copy is a fine example of war reportage, sceptical of official claims and committed to honest journalism. Martinkus provides inspir­ation to the next generation of reporters who want to move past the military PR to document the endless wars consuming the Middle East and Africa.

Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist. He will be at the Sydney Writers Festival, April 30 to May 6. swf.org.au

Lost Copy: The Endless Wars: Iraq and Afghanistan

By John Martinkus
Australian Scholarly Publishing, 272pp, $39.95

I was recently in the UK researching the “war on drugs” for my forthcoming book, out in 2019, on the global drug war.

While I was there my film Disaster Capitalism screened in Newcastle in the north-east of the country. Sponsored by the great group, Recovering Justice, there was a full house to watch the film and then discuss the drug war and the film’s themes.

Here’s the review of the evening, written by Rugged University’s Alex Dunedin, along with the links between the drug war and disaster capitalism.

Before the event, I was interviewed by You Die Twice, an outlet that covers alternative culture in the north-east of England: