*Ø* Blogmanac | June 22 | World Refugee Day

There are more than 22 million men, women and children who need our help today. They are the world's persecuted who have found the opportunity to escape their country.

International law defines refugees as people who are unable or unwilling to return to their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or belonging to a particular social group. What international law does not describe is the sheer courage and hope that characterize most refugees, wherever they are.

Refugees should be made welcome where they seek asylum, for they often constitute the best of all immigrants. Why? Because they are generally seeking asylum precisely for the fact that they are strong, resourceful, and committed people -- not shirkers, but men and women of courage who have stood up for their beliefs, or not hidden their faith or ethnicity from their persecutors. Don't we want such people in our community at least as much as people who are accepted by our governments merely because of how much money and property they own?

Eighty per cent of the world's refugees are women and children, and on this special day in particular, we celebrate the tenacity and quiet strength of the millions of mothers and wives who hold their families together in the most difficult circumstances. They are true heroes, and they deserve our respect. We also celebrate the men who have suffered so much yet remain strong. Let's not just welcome refugees, let's meet them and get to know them. Let's learn from their cultures -- I have become friends with many and because I have accorded them respect, they have taught me more than I can say, and boy, some of the great ethnic meals they've treated me to!

Let's write to our political representatives and the media and urge that refugee intake numbers be increased dramatically, even if it means reducing other numbers of immigrants. We need refugees as much as they need us.

Read about World Refugee Day

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Australia, under the extreme right-wing John Howard government, has a racist policy against refugees, keeping many hundreds of them in world-notorious desert concentration camps (such as Woomer, pictured at right) for year after year. Wilson's Blogmanac is dedicated to the 353 men, women and children who drowned in the SievX disaster because of Howard's policies. Even most Australians don't know about the SievX (pictured below), so please spread the word far and wide so that our national disgrace becomes known internationally.

Important links on the Australian refugee crisis -- not a crisis because of the asylum seekers, but for them.