Seeking Safety by Sea Films to Inspire
On select Sundays in October, catch a film and after join in the discussion. In Border Politics, leading human rights barrister, Julian Burnside AO QC, deconstructs harsh asylum seeker policies around the world, arguing that failure in political leadership is compromising human rights and destroying democratic principles in the West.
Synopsis
This documentary follows human rights barrister Julian Burnside as he traverses the globe examining the harsh treatment of refugees by most Western democracies. Burnside challenges the audience to consider their human rights obligations towards the desperate needs of refugees and to force their governments to take a more humane approach.
This contemporary story is about threats to human rights, the loss of democratic values and the treatment of ‘the other’. Seventy years after the world constructed international conventions to try and prevent the horrors of WWII being repeated, Burnside finds it terrifying to see Australian and other Western political leaders exploiting fears around border protection to extend political power.
Burnside questions whether the West has lost its moral compass by adopting ideas that reject humanity and undermine democracy and concludes that this erosion of human rights poses a threat to the very democratic values that define Western society.
Rated PG
About Julian Burnside AO QC
Julian Burnside is is an Australian barrister, human rights and refugee advocate, and author. He practices primarily in commercial litigation and administrative law. Burnside is a staunch opponent of the mandatory detention of refulees and asylum seekers and has provided legal counsel to these groups in a variety of high-profile cases.
As Burnside says “The human dimension of the problem is kept well hidden. The tragedy is that those who suffer it are politically irrelevant, and those who have the power to change it either do not know or do not care”.
No bookings required, just drop in!
Presented in partnership with Hunter Asylum Seeker Advocacy
Seeking Safety By Sea is community exhibition developed in collaboration with Hunter Asylum Seeker Advocacy. It contains works from renowned Australian artist and refugee advocate Kate Durham as well as artworks made by students from Cooks Hill School. Combining art, documentary footage and survivor testimony, Seeking Safety by Sea reflects on the SIEV X tragedy in order to remember the past and inspire hope for the future.
