Sometimes, you almost find yourself wishing for the utter collapse of Western civilisation, if only because it might mean that Philip Ruddock and others of his ilk might have themselves to seek asylum.

Here’s the old vampire in the Oz this morning.

The government then argues that the worldwide security situation has deteriorated. This is also not true. Indeed, in some places it has improved. The situation has always been difficult in source countries such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and it is arguable that Afghanistan was significantly less safe under the Taliban than it is now. Likewise, Sri Lanka was long beset with a Tamil insurgency that now appears to have been defeated militarily.

You see, there’s nothing to flee from in Sri Lanka. Everything’s just peachy. Never mind that there’s currently a quarter of a million people interned in camps. Never mind that those camps are off limits to human rights organisations and the media. Never mind that, insofar as we know anything about the situation there, it seems that the detainees lack adequate food, housing and medical attention.

That’s why a boatload of asylum seekers are threatening to blow themselves up rather than be returned to Indonesia. Here’s the testimony of one of them.

If the authorities in Sri Lanka know this is me on this boat, they will hunt down my wife and children in Jaffna and kill them. I have been waiting for my wife and children to follow me here. As soon as possible, we need to get to Australia. […]

We are civilians, not Tamil Tigers. Every day there are Tamils being killed and raped in the refugee camps. Men are blindfolded and shot in the back of the head.

“In Sri Lanka if you are Tamil there is no opportunity – the government can detain you without cause, and take you to trial without evidence. […]

[W]e had to flee somewhere.

Ah, but Philip Ruddock says that the situation has improved and Ruddock is an honorable man. So are they all, all honorable men, our politicians, staunching a flow, a flood, a tide or whatever organic metaphor you prefer.  What, then, could that man on the boat be talking about, with his wild rhetoric about killings and rapes?

Well, perhaps something like this (be warned: it’s utterly ghastly).