Tag Archives: Refugee

From Laurenzo Marques to Nyngan on Bogan

By Posted in Faith, Life, Travel Tagged , , , , , , 5 Comments

A man accosts me in the darkened lobby of the hospital in the small town where I’m working. ‘Shalom’, he says.
He gropes inside the front of his shirt and pulls out a silver magen david.
‘Shalom aleichem’, says I.
We swap names. For the purposes of this story, his name is Federico.
Federico looks not ancient, not brand new. He’s tall, compact, has an olive complexion and he bends forward as he speaks. His accent is not Australian-made. His English is arrhythmic.


‘What are you doing In Nyngan, Federico?’
‘I live here. Thirteen years now.’
‘Will you tell me your story?’
He does so.
 
 Before I repeat Federico’s story, allow me orient you to the remote, obscure town of Nyngan by referring you to my recent blog post (Nyngan on the Bogan).
 
Back to Federico: ‘I come from Mozambique. You know, was colony of Portugal. In 1976 Salazar dies. A bastard, Salazar. Like Franco, not a Jew-lover. Both of them, friends of Mussolini. Salazar dies, the blacks start to revolt and Portugal says, OK, we leave. They just run away, no negotiation, no transition. Then starts the war. A civil war. Massacres, the usual thing. First the Portuguese come to the coast in sixteenth century, they set up the port, Lorenzo Marques, a stopping place to their bits of empire in India. They go to India for the spices. They build their African colony by sending all their criminals, convicts. Like Australia. Like Australia, the same, those convicts become successful and they are comfortable. Portugal comes, butchers the blacks, in 1977 they go, then more massacres. Africa.
 
A nice place actually, Mozambique – for a Portuguese. But not now, not in ’77. In ’77, I know if I stay I will die. I leave my birthplace. My barmitzvah was there. In the synagogue, in Lorenzo Marques. Now I am in Portugal, a refugee, among all the refugees – from Mozambique, from Timor, from all places that Portugal runs away from. I cannot go back to Lorenzo Marques. Another Jewish refugee. History’s old story.
 
 
No-one can go to LM now. It does not exist: now the town is Maputo. And the big statue of that old colonist, Lorenzo Marques, they tear it down. Now in that square is a sculpture of a bird.   
 
 
My grand-grandfather comes from Portugal to Mozambique. Now my family, all gone, all scattered. Six brothers and sisters, some in London, some in South Africa, one sister in Norway. She was the last one of the six I have seen. She used to visit me here in Nyngan, every winter of Norway. Last time I visited her was before five years. That last time, in Norway. Family all scattered. The Jewish story. Always the same. You know.
 
 
You want to hear how I come to Australia? Things happen for a reason. There is a meaning. I study history, I research. There is a reason. I believe that. So in Portugal I am safe. My grand-grandfather was Portuguese so I have citizenship. But no future, a refugee. The Jewish story. Always the same. So I wander. I work in Vancouver, I leave, my visa has finished. I work in South Africa. Many Jewish there. I work In London, in Finchley Road. Again many Jewish. I work in Norway. In between visas I work on cruise ships. Eight years on cruise ships; you don’t need a visa. On cruise ships there are Jewish. Also Barbados, every one old, everyone rich. Some Jews there too. I work In Korea. That’s where the miracle happens that brings me to Australia.
 
 
One year before Korea in Vancouver I apply for Australia. A Mozambiquean friend in Australia advises me: be careful what you tell them when you apply in the Embassy. Don’t say the wrong thing. So the embassy woman, she asks me what I will do – she means work – in Australia. I say I have qualification. I tell her I am chef. I don’t know what answer is the right answer. I know from my friend they don’t tell you what they want and what they do not want, but if you say wrong, they close the door. I answer, I pay the application. It will take a few months, the application, she tells me. Another cruise. And another. A letter arrives from Ottawa. The letter is from Australian High Commission in Ottawa. I have immigration visa. But no money. To come to Australia I must pay. So I wander on cruises and I work and I save. And I know I will leave the ships one day and I will settle and all my friends on the ship, always they will be slaves. I pay for a flight from Korea to Australia. Maybe three hundred American dollars, I go to the airline office to pick up ticket, the day before my flight. But it is a public holiday in Korea. Office is closed. I have paid, I have visa, I have no ticket. My flight is tomorrow. Here happens the miracle. I put my face against the window. I see people inside, cleaning. I make with fingers – come here please – come to window, I must ask. They come, but no-one speak English. They find someone. I tell him I need my ticket, I point to the office where the woman sold me the ticket, they go in, bring the woman out. A miracle. A public holiday, in Korea, the office is closed but I have my ticket. Things happen for a reason, I believe it.
 
 
 
In Australia, in Sydney, I work in Bondi Junction. Again many Jewish. I am there some years. I marry there, my wife have lymphoma before we meet. Then she is cured and we marry. Have children. Since thirteen years I am in Nyngan. I come here, I come here for the peace. I work at the pub as chef. Then the manager closes the kitchen, leaves Nyngan, manages from the city. I have no job, but things happen for a reason. I believe that. I sit in this coffee shop and the manager of the biggest hotel comes in, says, Hello Federico. Come work for me.
 
 
Small town, you know, everyone knows everyone. Good people here. My wife gets a second cancer. We drive to Dubbo, we drive to Sydney, we drive, drive. Always long drives, costs hundreds of dollars petrol. And the people of Nyngan collect money for our travel. Good people in Nyngan. Nothing happens without a reason. But my son, he’s grown up, I tell him – get out of Nyngan, no future for you here, go see the world, go build your future. You know I believe.
 
 
Will you do me a favour, Howard? I want for my doorpost the Jewish sign, for the doorpost, you know. I google but I don’t just buy. Has to be real, you. Needs the writing inside, not just the box .   

A Christmas Story

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, Books, Childhood, Life Tagged , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Every December for a few years now a friend has written to me and to everyone she knows requesting donations so she can purchase gifts at Christmas for people who have found asylum in our country. I send my small donation, very aware of its smallness. Presently my friend sends me – and all her circle of donor people – a photo of the gifts our donations have amassed. I am duly amazed: for in total they are not small.My friend was raised in a home where the ambient Evangelical Christianity weighed heavily. In time and in pain my friend left the family code behind. And so it is that my lapsed Evangelical friend and her many friends – including this unlapsed Jewish friend – send Christmas presents to a bunch of Muslim refuge seekers.

Christmas was never a part of my upbringing. When as a child , inevitably I learned the story of the nativity, I was moved. “No room at the inn” stayed in my mind as the saddest phrase, as a reproach. The inn in which I live is a Four Star establishment called Australia. There is room at this inn, lots of room.

In this state of mind I post the following children’s story. It feels appropriate to the season of goodwill. This is excerpted from a forthcoming book* provisionally titled ‘A Threefold Cord’, to be published on-line in 2016 by Hybrid Publishers. I have read the book and I like it. I commend it to your children: it is ideal for shared reading between an adult and a child aged from eight to twelve years.

This story begins with a five year old girl named Samara mustering her courage and her crumbs of English to tell her story to her Aussie friends, Jennifer, Nystagmus and Snoth:
“This story, my story. Today I say story. I English say.”
Samara spoke eagerly, her face serious and excited at the same time.
Her friends of the Threefold Cord were surprised to hear shy little Samara speaking like this. They listened without interrupting.
Samara stood up and screwed her eyes closed for a moment. She wanted to be brave and she needed to think hard, to search for every English word.
After a moment she started: “Mans with guns come our village. We family very frighten. Soldiers shoot many shootings. Father’s brother run outside house. He praying. Soldiers shoot guns. They angry because I girl, I going school. They think big mistake, they think Father brother is my father. They shoot father brother. He fall down, he not move, he many blood. Soldiers laughing, go away. Father hold his brother, he say Ahmed! Ahmed! He say Ahmed, soldiers shooting wrong man. Must shoot me, not brother.
Ahmed not answer. Father crying, his face on his brother face. Mother crying, my brother crying, Samara crying. Soldiers send bombings onto house. House is breaking. Is very noise, is very frighten.
Then Father hiding us under house. When is dark outside, Father bring donkey. He putting Mother, brother, Samara on donkey. Father walking. We riding, Father walking all night. We come far village, we hiding, we sleeping in day at Aunty house. And in night we riding, walking, we hiding when hear soldiers in night. Always we hearing shootings, bombings, we very quiet, Father giving donkey eating so donkey mouth have food, donkey not speak soldiers.”
Samara paused and blinked. The friends saw drops of water at the corners of Samara’s eyes. The child took a deep breath and spoke again. “I tell about more bad mans. Not gun mans, truck mans. Man say Father, you give money, I take you in truck. Father give man many money, man put family in truck in night. We say goodbye donkey. Brother cry, he loving donkey.
Truck go. Truck stop. Truck man say truck broken, not go now. Father pay money, truck man take money. He say, Truck not work. You walking. Sorry for truck.
We walking, walking, no donkey, no truck.
We come new country, no soldiers shooting. We come big, big water, shiny water like silver. Man say father, You come boat. I taking you family America. You pay money. Is also bad mans. He take all father money, none left now, we get in boat, fast fast, much peoples comes in little boat, such much peoples, boat very crowd. Is dark.
Boat start to move. I am excite and I am too fright. All peoples in boat very fright because big wind and big black cold water. Water come in boat, all peoples scream, cry, cry, scream.
Mother hold Samara and brother, Father hold too, boat is jump, jump, fall, fall, water is in boat, we very fright.
I praying, mother is pray, brother, father – all pray to Allah:please save us, save us please.
Boat stop, water push boat on side, push boat on other side, peoples falling on floor, fall on peoples. Mother, father holding tight children,
Big big water come and boat fall over, all peoples fall out, we all in water, wind is loud. We call Father! Mother! – no-one not hearing. I not hear voice, I looking, is everything black.
I not swimming, we family is not know swim, in our country is desert, is mountain, not is big water.
I look father…”
Samara stopped again and blinked. She blinked again, and a third time. She breathed deeply, opened her mouth, closed it. Finally she produced a small voice: “I look brother, not see.
I look mother, not see.
Father say Samara, you get up on top this wood, you hold tight. Father is lift me, I am hold tight, father head under water. He come up, he not close now, he under water.
I not… I not see him again more. I not see no-ones. I hold wood, I crying, I cold, I not family. Family is gone.
I pray Allah, I praying Allah, you bring back Samara family. If family not live, I not live. Allah, You take Samara paradise. I not family, I not want live.
But all time I holding wood like father saying me.”
The child shivered as if she felt again the cold water. She said: “Soon I say end of Samara Story. Big ship come with big light. I see water, water, empty, all empty. Not peoples, only many water. Man taking me in big ship, coming Australia. Man is good man, Australia man. But Samara alone, I no-one have. I in Christmas Island, I in Australia, Samara sad, sad all days.
Red Cross say they try find family. Maybe in one country, not Australia country.
Then one day you friends come Refugee place.” A small smile as Samara looked from Jennifer to Nystagmus to Snoth. She touched the face of all three.”You tell me many story, you teach me speak English. Samara not alone now.”
 
 
* the author of ‘A Threefold Cord’ is Howard Goldenberg

Rachel’s Story

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, Family, Life, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Malcolm Fraser lived and worked his work, then he died. His political career and mine started around the same time: he became leader of his party and I became a voter. I enjoyed voting against Fraser and I enjoyed disliking him. At the time I barracked hard for the brilliant Whitlam. By contrast I found Fraser dour, unimaginative and colourless. But from the first moments following the Dismissal I liked Gough less; the oratory which had always sparkled now became tarnished with absurd hyperbole: expressions such as “Maintain the rage”; “Kerr’s Cur” and so on. In time I discovered no-one could adore Gough as much as he loved himself, while Malcolm seemed to grant himself no more regard than we did in the electorate.
Decades passed, we lost the war in Vietnam, and the refugees whom Gough rejected (he judged they’d all vote for the conservatives) were succoured in their tens of thousands by that cold man, Malcolm Fraser. We buried Fraser last week and those refugees took out a full-page advertisement to express their sorrow and their regard for that colourless man. The page teemed with Vietnamese-Australian organisations, marshalled on the page, pouring out thanks and regret in a poignant
effusion. 
Around the same time I received the following from one who is a friend of the friendless in this country:

The following is an abridged version of Rachel’s story, reproduced here with the writer’s consent. Rachel a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was resettled in Adelaide seven years ago (taken from Faces of the Refugee Story: Portraits and Stories of 15 people who now call Adelaide home):

“I was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but when I was about 1 years old the First Congo War broke out and we fled and we went to our first refugee camp in Nakabande and then from that camp we returned back home again to Congo. The Second Congo War broke out and I was almost 2 years old. My family fled again and when we fled this time we knew it was something that was going to be permanent – we wouldn’t be returning back – and it’s a very long journey from Congo to wherever we are going because we didn’t know where we are going. We found ourselves on the border of Congo and Uganda but we didn’t know who was going to be waiting – it could be the rebels to kill us or it could be someone to help us. Luckily the UNHCR were there and we were rescued by them and they took us into another refugee camp in Uganda…from there it got too crowded – too many people coming in – and so they had to move us to another camp. We were given cooking oil, beans, flour and we settled there. The UNHCR gave us tents and eventually land to start our new life there and we were able to build our own houses.

In 2002 we were attacked by rebels in that camp. We did have protection but…it was quite a walk from where we were to them. It was a military base where they had soldiers and they were supposed to protect us but because they were so far away from us the rebels came from the other side, not the side that they were on, so they were not aware of us being attacked until some of the men …went to tell them that we had been attacked.

They had taken my Dad. Because our house was the first on our Block (like a suburb) and the place around us hadn’t been cleared of heavily grown bushes we didn’t hear anything. About four heavily armed men kicked down our door (this was about 11-11.30pm) and wanted my eldest sister but Dad said no and so they took him. I remember that very vividly. They killed a woman that had a baby on her back but her child survived. My mum took us and fled with the other women and we went into a part that was well hidden by overgrown grass and trees. We were stuck not knowing whether Dad was coming back in the morning or not.
The soldiers [came] and fought [the rebels]. There were lots of guns going off and I could hear them from the ground we were laying on keeping quiet. Continue reading →

Africans in my Lounge Room

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, First Australians, Life, Medical, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

Trudy ushered them in, the two-and-two-thirds doctors from Africa. Tall, beautiful and young, each greeted us in perfect Hebrew: ‘Shabbat Shalom’, a peaceful Sabbath. Three smiles of perfect teeth lit our room on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

First and oldest was Tom, thirteen years a doctor, eight months in Australia on a Bridging Visa. Next came Afia, with 18 months’ experience in Ethiopian hospitals and I don’t know how much time in refugee camps. She too holds a Bridging Visa. Last and youngest was Oprah, the vulgar fraction: she has completed four years of medical studies in the Congo. Her birth country is Rwanda. I did not prosecute her with enquiry about her double expatriation. Like the other two, Oprah subsists in Australia at the pleasure of the government. That means the kindness of Mister Morrison.

All three understand fully they can be evicted from this land of asylum at which ever moment Mr Morrison’s kindness might run out. As none of the three came by leaky boat they have the right to work. If they can get work. Trudy brought the three to us to help them find work. I had invited two august medical friends, superbly connected senior people in their fields.

We sat down and talked. Tom outlined his situation. In his early thirties, married, experienced in hospital medicine and a recognized expert in immunisation in third world countries, he is permitted to work here as a doctor only under supervision. At present this distinguished professional works as a medical menial, washing incontinent bodies in a place for the aged. Tom makes no complaints about the red tape, he is grateful to be here, willing to go anywhere – to the outback, to the western suburbs – he just wants to use his training. Can we help him find work? This expert in immunisation – he is just back from Geneva, where he was summoned by the WHO to a conference – with his rich experience of tropical disease would be a gift to a hospital or a tropical medical school or an immunisation project or in policy in any of our tropical zones.

Afia, aged twenty-seven, came to Australia by invitation, to attend the recent world AIDS conference. She applied for asylum with her husband, a chemical engineer who is also looking for work. They too will go anywhere. Afia wants to be a GP. I pictured our large communities of people from the Horn of Africa with Afia as the needed human bridge of cultural understanding to bring these many to safety. I saw the many Aboriginal communities crying out for GP’s.

Oprah has been here for a few weeks. Trudy has given her shelter. Oprah wants to become a nurse. In this country nursing is university course and monumentally expensive. However asylum seekers can pursue TAFE studies at no cost. Oprah managed four years of a medical degree; nursing will not be beyond her grasp. She’d be able to train as a State Enrolled Nurse at TAFE and from that platform gain employment and support herself while studying at Uni. I work with numerous African nurses, highly appreciated in the outback, where the barriers between the African and the whitefella are as nought compared to the gulfs all must cross in indigenous health.

There was little talk of the revolutions, the wars, the massacres; there was scarce mention of refugee camps; there was no complaint, no sense of entitlement, no pity of self, no cries for the families left behind. None of the three had met the others until Trudy brought them together on Saturday and coached them in the Hebrew greeting on our doorstep. Afia, Oprah, Tom, three islands in this distant country, three shimmering humans simply happy to be here, eager to work, to stand up, to make their way.

Theirs is an old, old Australian story. I saw the Reffo, the New Australian, the Boat Person, the Gold Rusher, the survivor of the Shoah, the Balt on the Snowy Scheme, the student from Tiananmen Square. I saw my wife’s mother, a child fleeing Danzig in 1938, I saw my Grandpa arriving here alone, aged thirteen, a stowaway escaping the Ottoman police in Palestine.

There we sat – three young Africans, three old Australian doctors and one good citizen. An atmosphere quietly joyful, of welcome guests meeting grateful hosts, a current flowing back and forth of appreciative respect. A meeting, in short, of human people.

The next morning my wife and I happened to have three guests for brunch. One of the three, an old friend, works with survivors of torture; the second is a classmate from medical school whom I knew is a shy blonde, now President of the World Psychiatric association; the third is her husband, a distinguished gastroenterologist, now practising in Addiction Medicine. Our refugee advocate friend, his face ravaged, spoke of the horrendous week just past in which the Minister of All Prerogatives (Mister Morrison) sold the freeing of 103 detained children in exchange for numberless others, both adults and children. These others are offshore, in another country, beyond the borders of Australian conscience.

My wife and I told our brunch friends of the Africans in our loungeroom. Five Australians, all thoroughly unexceptional in our impulse, in our wish to help, spoke with eager seriousness of people, places, organisations, of contacts, of opportunities and of need. Nothing new, nothing unusual transpired. Five Old Australians, descended from New Australians, animated by memory and self recognition, each saw ‘mon frère, mon semblable’. I read in Sunday’s paper of the endless tides of Libyans escaping likely death, arriving in Italy where the locals, quite overwhelmed, yet see what our Morrisons and Abbotts and Gillards and Shortens will not: they see the human face and they give the arrivals succour.

In the few days since this human weekend I have tried to reach beyond my customary postures of anger and self-righteousness, to grope for understanding of my hard Government, of my soft Opposition, of my fearful fellow citizens in the electorate. I can only surmise that, somehow, at some time, my representatives and my fellow citizens have lost something they used to see – the image of the self in the face of the other.

An afternoon in the loungeroom with guests like mine might change everything.

Do Not Vote – It Only Encourages Them

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, In Detention, Life, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

We had an election last year and I warned all – especially myself – to consider casting a donkey vote.
This coming weekend I will be fined if I don’t vote and angry with myself if I do. On the other hand I do believe it’s every citizen’s duty to help to choose a government. In practice I think this means my choice must encompass one of the two major parties somewhere on my ballot paper.

I consider the present government has made many inequitable decisions which are either corrupt or woefully incompetent. I have always voted for the other team, but Labor has worked assiduously to convince me of its own venality and hopeless thrall to factions.

I look about me and wonder, where is the Labor candidate or the Liberal who rises to cry ‘whoa!’ about our cruelty towards people seeking refuge on our shores?

You might think me absurd to consider a national issue in what is ‘only’ a state election in which the issues should be local.

But the refugee is neither local nor national. Literally, she is non-national. Morally she is universal. She is us, she is me.

Who, among the incompetents and the self-seekers and the factionistas and the corrupt – who will stand for the person on the boat?

I do know that many Aussies in the neighbourhoods stand alongside the newcomer and brotherhood and help. Which is the party – or the nonparty candidate – who will stand against Party and for ‘mon semblable, mon frere’ – the newcomer?

We’re Better Than This

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, In Detention, Life, Medical, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

The Refugee people sent me a young mother today with her four-year-old child who had a cough.
She said: “Interrupter, please.”
I looked at her, not understanding.
“Needing interrupter. Not English.”
I preferred to have a go without an interpreter.
“You tell me, I listen” – I said.
“My child much coughing.”
I listened to the chest of the vivacious child whose smile would melt an official from Immigration and Border Protection. I looked at her throat, I felt her glands. She was well, simply suffering from a snot attack. I ordered an anti-snotic.
I addressed Mum: “From what country.”
“Iran.”
“Salaam.”
A look of surprise. A brilliant smile.
I hadn’t picked her nationality. Her peasant blouse, embroidered with edging of magenta and primrose, somehow made me expect she’d be Hazara. That and her creamy skin. Wrong.

“Are you a Permanent Resident?”
A shake of the head. “Commentary Detention.”
“Are you on a Bridging Visa?”
“No. Commentary. Not visa. Commentary Detention.”

“Ahh… community detention?”
Nodding, a smile, we two are doing well despite the lack of an interrupter. But the smile empty of joy.

“My husband, the police, make shee – you know, shee?” The young woman waves her hand in a whipping movement. “Shee. Sixty times, they make shee.”
The woman pulls out her phone, shows me a photo: an adult lies face down on a narrow bed. The creamy skin of a broad back, fine scarlet streaks, the skin must have been lashed with wires.

“They do this before five years. We are not marry, he is boyfriend. I have baby” – she points to her belly – “They tell, ‘You wait, you come after baby, you also sixty shee.’”

The young woman’s pregnancy approached its end, she was summoned to the police station, but fled here, arriving four years ago – pre-Rudd solution.
“My mother, police tell her ‘where is your daughter?’ Mother tell, ‘daughter in Australia.’
They say, ‘No is hiding. Is in Iran. Must come to police station, have shee.’ They call mother many times. She very scare.”

The daughter appears to believe full well the police intend to keep their promise.
So, the boat. Detention at Curtin, then in South Australia. ‘My baby, not Iran.” The smile, this one half-charged: “Born Darwin.”
 
Her visa is not permanent resident.
Her visa is not bridging.
Her visa is not.
She is community detention.
 
What are we that we might send her back?
 
Whom are we bombing in Syria and Iraq?
Why?
 
I believe it likely the tide of opinion will swing in Australia because we – not our leaders – are better than that.

http://wbttaus.org


http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=tl19NhC0d78

When Must we Disobey the Law?

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, In Detention, Life, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 10 Comments

I have written previously of my colleague and friend Dr Paul Jarrett of Phoenix, Arizona. Paul is old, smart, a tolerant arch-conservative, highly principled. He has no time for those who break his country’s laws. The term he uses for such people is ‘scofflaws’, a bright word, new to my lexicon, pregnant with possibility.

We have scofflaws abroad in Australia. A month or two ago I read – and wrote – of the suicide death of the Tamil refugee Leo. He took his life, apparently terrified of deportation. Around that time, at a school in Adelaide, two star pupils were arrested, separated and flown abruptly under guard to a detention centre in Darwin. The two had been granted temporary refuge in Australia. Their status was now under active – and in the circumstances – ominous review. Stunned, the astonished school population, from classmates to teaching body soon responding with a public petition to end the boys’ detention.

Meanwhile around a dozen fellow Tamil refugee students at the same school took fright and took flight. They disappeared from the school and from the place where the authorities required them to stay.

The students broke the law.

Four weeks later the scholars remained at large despite attempts to find them. The South Australian Police, challenged to explain this failure of policing, expressed a Pilate uninterest: “As there is no report of a breach of South Australian law this is a matter for federal authorities.” Those authorities are piously named Department of Customs and Citizenship. Officials of the Department warn citizens not to aid, abet or harbour the scofflaws on pain of penalties including gaol.

I am a citizen, one of the warned.

The idea of scoffing at the law worries Paul, a thoughtful person. I always ponder Paul’s thoughts, reflecting as they do his ninety five years of living with eyes and brain open. Australia, like the USA, is a nation of laws. The laws constrain me and protect me. Scoffing at the law carries serious implications for our community.

Scoffing at laws is not new. Ned Kelly did it. Any of us who chooses to park illegally or to speed is guilty of disrespect towards that indispensible strut that supports society, which is our communal assent to be governed.

From time to time governments find laws inconvenient; the Howard government chafed at being constrained by the treaty granting rights of persecuted people to seek refuge on Australian soil. The government created a new law that excised parts of our country from Australia. In this highly imaginative act, the laws of our country removed parts of our country from the laws of our country.

Our legislators scoffed at our laws.

After the Nuremburg laws scoffed at the laws of Germany, certain citizens became non-citizens, subject to arrest, persecution and eventual extermination. Many of those former citizens took fright, took flight and sought shelter in the homes of their neighbours. Numerous German citizens aided, abetted and harboured those non-citizens. My people honour the memory of those scofflaws, whom we term ‘righteous gentiles’.

The words of the German pastor Martin Niemoller echo and echo again in memory:

First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out – because I am not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was non-one left to speak for me.

Niemoller spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Grateful that Abbott-Brandis Australia 2014 is so different from Hitler Germany, I wonder still how I will respond when a Tamil scofflaw knocks at my door?

When Must we Disobey the Law?

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, In Detention, Life, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I have written previously of my colleague and friend Dr Paul Jarrett of Phoenix, Arizona. Paul is old, smart, a tolerant arch-conservative, highly principled. He has no time for those who break his country’s laws. The term he uses for such people is ‘scofflaws’, a bright word, new to my lexicon, pregnant with possibility.

We have scofflaws abroad in Australia. A month or two ago I read – and wrote – of the suicide death of the Tamil refugee Leo. He took his life, apparently terrified of deportation. Around that time, at a school in Adelaide, two star pupils were arrested, separated and flown abruptly under guard to a detention centre in Darwin. The two had been granted temporary refuge in Australia. Their status was now under active – and in the circumstances – ominous review. Stunned, the astonished school population, from classmates to teaching body soon responding with a public petition to end the boys’ detention.

Meanwhile around a dozen fellow Tamil refugee students at the same school took fright and took flight. They disappeared from the school and from the place where the authorities required them to stay.

The students broke the law.

Four weeks later the scholars remained at large despite attempts to find them. The South Australian Police, challenged to explain this failure of policing, expressed a Pilate uninterest: “As there is no report of a breach of South Australian law this is a matter for federal authorities.” Those authorities are piously named Department of Customs and Citizenship. Officials of the Department warn citizens not to aid, abet or harbour the scofflaws on pain of penalties including gaol.

I am a citizen, one of the warned.

The idea of scoffing at the law worries Paul, a thoughtful person. I always ponder Paul’s thoughts, reflecting as they do his ninety five years of living with eyes and brain open. Australia, like the USA, is a nation of laws. The laws constrain me and protect me. Scoffing at the law carries serious implications for our community.

Scoffing at laws is not new. Ned Kelly did it. Any of us who chooses to park illegally or to speed is guilty of disrespect towards that indispensible strut that supports society, which is our communal assent to be governed.

From time to time governments find laws inconvenient; the Howard government chafed at being constrained by the treaty granting rights of persecuted people to seek refuge on Australian soil. The government created a new law that excised parts of our country from Australia. In this highly imaginative act, the laws of our country removed parts of our country from the laws of our country.

Our legislators scoffed at our laws.

After the Nuremburg laws scoffed at the laws of Germany, certain citizens became non-citizens, subject to arrest, persecution and eventual extermination. Many of those former citizens took fright, took flight and sought shelter in the homes of their neighbours. Numerous German citizens aided, abetted and harboured those non-citizens. My people honour the memory of those scofflaws, whom we term ‘righteous gentiles’.

The words of the German pastor Martin Niemoller echo and echo again in memory:

First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out – because I am not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was non-one left to speak for me.

Niemoller spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Grateful that Abbott-Brandis Australia 2014 is so different from Hitler Germany, I wonder still how I will respond when a Tamil scofflaw knocks at my door?

At the Hospital for Sick Children

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A too large five year old fills a cot whose sides are raised. His limbs move unpredictably and without purpose. He plays with a six-month old’s bright rattle.

His Mum is Ebony, solid and calm, about thirty. She tells me some of the story of Simon, her boy, naming a heritable syndrome of faulty collagen that causes joints and bones to break or dislocate.

 

But Simon’s bigger problem is the stroke that affected him in utero. Ebony felt turbulent convulsive movements in her belly when she was 20 weeks pregnant. Her tummy had swelled excessively, a sign of polyhydramnios, a hint of underlying abnormality in her unborn child. An urgent MRI showed cysts in both sides of the baby’s brain. After Simon was born he suffered seizures. It took two years before the doctors found the right medications to control Simon’s fits.

 

Ebony tells me all this levelly, undramatically, without reflecting on the strain and the burden she bears for this child she loves. Somehow too, she shows me she is not denying that strain; simply this is Simon’s story; she, Ebony, is not the story.

 

Scanning the clinical notes I gather Simon and Ebony live alone. “What about Simon’s Dad, is he part of Simon’s life?” – I wonder.

“Yes. One day a week… he left six months after Simon was born. He said it was too much for him…he’s a social worker.” A smile, not bitter, but of learned knowing.

 

“I started studying Art while Simon was in Respite. My work is showing in Perth at the Biennale. I sold a picture!”

Another smile, this one of delighted pride.

“The man who bought it was a senior man in the government. When he discovered my opposition to our mandatory detention of refugee children he told me he wouldn’t have bought it if he’d known that.”

 

At my request, Ebony pulls out her portable picture gallery, a series of images on her phone. I lack the vocabulary for the power and originality, the life, in these electrifying images.

“I paint on paper in oils.” I can see from her phone how the oils give a vividness to Ebony’s pictures.

She continues: “I said to that government man, ‘You can have your money back if you want to return the picture.’ But he hung on to it.’” Another Ebony grin.

“And Mr. Morrison, the minister in charge of that cruel policy, he wanted one of my images for his Christmas cards. I said, ‘Sure. You can have the image free of charge. Just change your policy first.’ He sacked the man who took that message to him.”

 

I read Ebony my blog piece – “How We Killed Leo”. Ebony gasps when I read of Leo gifting his organs: “I knew Leo. Down Geelong way, we all did. We all loved him. Such a good person. I never knew about his organ donations. And now we’ve lost him.”

 

Two minds in unexpected harmony.

 

We look down at Simon who continues his sporadic horizontal calisthenics. His belly is large, oddly misshapen. As if it were filled with tumours. I ask Ebony some doctor questions. She shakes her head to all my questions until I ask about the boy’s bowel habit. “He hasn’t pooed for a week. Geelong Hospital sent me to the city because they know him here. They’ll do an enema here and then we’ll drive home.”

I make some calculations: nine hours from her door and back. Nine hours of time and waiting and caring. I look at Ebony and she smiles: “It’s a relief. As long as Simon’s alright…”

How we Killed Leo

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, In Detention, Life, Medical, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 36 Comments

Leo was an asylum seeker.  Let us put aside that weary term and see what Leo was and how we came to know him. Leo was a Tamil. That means he was born into that minority in Sri Lanka which gave rise to the Tamil Tigers. The Tigers rebelled violently against the Sinhalese majority, earning a reputation for terrorism.
A civil war was conducted over many years, culminating in a government offensive that put down the rebellion and targeted civilians. If I read the story right, both the Tigers and the government were guilty of atrocities.
Leo was a baby when, during the worst of the bombings, his father wrapped him in banana leaves and hid him in the jungle. The family fled to India when Leo was five. He lived there in a miserable camp for twenty years, visiting Sri Lanka once to see family. He was imprisoned and tortured. Why? I don’t know precisely, but the explanation would have to start with the fact he was a Tamil.
Leo became an asylum seeker, a boat person, a “queue jumper”, and made his way to Cocos Islands. After only four months of detention, Leo was resettled near Geelong.
That means the Australian authorities – Customs, Immigration, ASIO – found him to be a non-terrorist. They found that speedily.  Leo was judged not to be a risk to Australia.  He was given a Bridging Visa, which allowed him to work but did not endow him with Permanent Resident status.

We said, “Leo, although you jumped our queue, we are letting you into the country and out into the community. But you are a guest. We can tell you at any time to go back where you came from.”
In the last few weeks Leo learned that a couple of Tamil men with stories similar to his own had been taken back into detention. These two faced the prospect of joining the one thousand Tamils whom we have sent back to Sri Lanka where they face persecution. Leo knew that persecution; he knew it in his tortured mind and in his body.

How did Leo spend his time on the Bellarine Peninsula? He worked two days a week for an asphalting company, cleaning greasy trucks. In his spare time he volunteered in an aged care home, he donated blood, he helped bring aid packages to asylum seekers new to the community, he sent money every month to an orphanage in the refugee camp in India that is still his parents’ home.

Leo became an organ donor. Did he expect to die?
Mister Morrison, our Immigration Minister, declares Leo showed no signs of suicidal intent. We know Mister Morrison, a minister who acts as Ruddock spoke, with icy resolve. Only Morrison doesn’t speak to us much. We might judge from his record his capacity for empathy, for humanity. Our minister said Leo’s death “is a terrible and tragic incident and none of us can know the mind of a person in this situation.”
Here is where I can help the minister. I know the mind of a person in the situation of such parlous existence, endlessly uncertain what his fate will be, of having it determined by the opaque decisions of governments and ministers. I know it by the accident of my unusual experience working among detained people in Christmas Island. I know it too by the not unusual gift of empathy. I know Leo’s death was not an incident – far from incidental – it was our doing and it was in the statistical sense, predictable. We saw that with the Tamil man who burned himself to death a few weeks before Leo.

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