One who supports the beliefs of humanism. Humors. The Kuwait Metro Map four fluids of the body blood, phlegm, choler or yellow bile, and black bile the Kuwait Metro Map proportions of which were thought to determine a person’s disposition and general health. Hutterites. Members of a major Anabaptist sect, named after Jacob Hutter, whom they chose as their leader in 1533. Hutter was burned at the stake in 1536 for refusing to renounce his faith.
In the case of the SIEV X, as I write this chapter, I am conflicted with the news that the Malaysian Solution, the current plan of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s government, to place illegal refugees into detention centres in Malaysia, has been found unconstitutional by the Australian High Court. Ten years on from the SIEV X tragedy, numerous other boatloads of hopeful refugees have been either refused entry or tragically lost, as is the case with last year’s horrific events near Christmas Island. I cannot help feeling that the SIEV X Memorial failed. The debate looms on, yet we are no closer to a humanitarian approach for our borders. The SIEV X Memorial placated and pacified and lulled us into thinking that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision at the time to ban mandatory detention for women and children would see an eventual end to how Australia currently negates refugees’ status and rights. When memorials are built, in many instances the affected communities move on. Memorials offer some sort of closure in that they recognize and identify various aspects of our history and in some cases they offer an educational stance on how we need to learn from the past to ensure our future. They pay tribute to those who have come before us. The SIEV X may have eased certain consciousnesses at the time and won political brownie points for supportive politicians, but it did not necessarily affect the lives of subsequent refugees. The memorial in this case allows us to forget and continue on without shifting our practices.
Additionally, the border memorial work and humanitarian efforts in the US and Mexico are also abject failures. Agencies including Humane Borders, Borderlinks, Coalicion de Derechos Humanos/Alianza Indigina Sin Fronteras (Human Rights Coalition/Indigenous
Alliance Without Borders), Healing Our Borders, Border Action Network (BAN), Border Solutions, Coalition to Bring Down the Walls and The coalition: No More Deaths (NMD), work tirelessly to rescue imperilled undocumented workers, only to have President Obama in October 2010 order yet another 10,000 national guard members and border patrol agents to defend America’s front line (Jeffrey 2010).
This chapter, much like the project work it explores, is not about finding definitive solutions but perhaps more about opening up possibilities between global, political discourses, temporal-spatial practices and roles that the design of the built environment can play in urbanizing conditions. Within the specifics of commemoration design projects, there is a common practice that is bound with issues of national identity and hegemony. Through re-examining and offering alternative modes of engagement, these projects offer fertile ground for re-considering place, civic and democratic space and global issues with local consequences. They enable alternative imaginings of the city and reveal how global forces shape the urban; additionally the projects provide comment and critique and in some cases altogether reject the social and political consequences of these forces.
