In spite of the politically correct, there is a country that plans a long-term existence strategy without too many frills. We are talking about Australia, ironically the youngest nation among those that we define westerners for customs and ethics of reference. It is curious that a young country is concerned with its identity and its cultural and demographic future. At least as much as the fact that older civilizations, that is, those that logically should be more inclined to self-preservation, niche on the subject, as if survival is not a primary necessity.
If Australia already appears distant in the name, in the political direction it is very far from the clichés of the single globalist thought, driven by inertia by the automatic pilot of the facade humanitarianism. Thus, while many states are distracted by the natural duty to protect their own interests (a discipline in which Italy has always shone ...), Australia takes no notice and is aware of being a sovereign territorial juridical subject; Diplomacy is called "his business".
Contextualize.
Australia is 25 times larger than Italy but has a third of its population. Nearly 900.000 Australians are of Italian origin, but a long way from the times of Alberto Sordi in Bello, honest, emigrated to Australia would marry his unmarried fellow countryman, Canberra has decided to regulate the epochal phenomenon of immigration according to a simple logic: its utility.
The disproportion between territory and inhabitants could suggest that Australians, obsessed with a compulsive fear for the alien, are exaggerating; judging by their livelihoods and development indices, however, they are more likely to know how to behave properly.
If the epochal exodus of millions of people who transhume from true poverty to wealth concerns the entire planet and the consciences of all, it is equally true that the right to self-preservation as well as having in itself a legal value, is also based on good feelings . The Christian values on which Western civilization revolves impose respect for life, but do not say they do so at the expense of that of others. In other words, it is not certain that by striving to appear good and welcoming, we do the good of our neighbor and ourselves. Encouraging the exploitation of the desperate and not guaranteeing a certain future (to migrants and locals alike) is anything but merciful.
Australia, very attentive to its Christian identity, understood it well and proceeded accordingly. Far from being stunned by the smoke of hypocrisy as it does in Europe, he considered the protection of national borders as an institutional need of strategic interest and entrusted it to his military apparatus.
So the operation was born in 2013 Sovereign Borders, that being Australia an island, by its name, it lets you guess three things:
- It's about the sea but it's not a boat trip;
- With Marina we do not mean a song by Rocco Granata but an institution created to defend national interests;
- Australians do not intend to enrich traffickers of men and capital mafias.
The Royal Australian Navy with the air component, the Anzac frigates and the Armidale patrol boats (in the future replaced by a large development project) continues to monitor the territorial waters rejecting the ships that try to approach the coasts illegally. Nothing less and nothing more than a reinforcement operation for the defense of the borders, not by chance directed by the military but articulated through the collaboration of three great operators: the Federal Agency for the Frontiers; the Immigration Department; the Federal Police.
Since the operation began, there have been no deaths among migrants and above all no one has complained, except for a part of the press. Net of hypocrisies and hesitations, the Australian government has decided to go on two fronts:
- at sea it relies on its military instrument without consulting its neighbors (Nauru, Vanuatu and other island states have no military navies; that of Fiji and Papua New Guinea combined have less tonnage than the pirate ship of the Legos);
- on the ground, but outside the borders, it coordinates with others for the management of the humanitarian emergency in the strict sense.
The filter for asylum applications takes place in Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Fiji, where the requirements for access to Australia are assessed with the help of international organizations.
Collaboration with TNI AL, the Indonesian navy, the only regional power in the area, is not considered of primary importance. This created the cold between Canberra and Jakarta, irritated by the aggressiveness of the RAN close to their territorial waters but demonstrates, if anything were needed, that the Australians take care of what concerns them first.
So, in times when the immigration debate is over, it is worthwhile to reflect. Maybe even from us it is appropriate to abandon the ideological legacies and rely on more pragmatic principles.
It comes naturally to Australians perhaps by virtue of the Anglo-Saxon matrix or perhaps thanks to the distance that makes them immune to the winds of demagogy.
After all, the Australian "Royal" Marina now has only the name. If it were not for the flag, no one would remember that the head of state is still the Queen of England and that a part of the heart still beats on the Old Continent ...
Giampiero Venturi
(photo: DoD Australia)
