Her brown eyes are blank. Her face is expressionless, her body motionless. She has no thoughts, no feelings, no purpose. She huddles in the corner of a stark hospital ward. She does not respond when her children kiss her. She hasn’t drunk today, and hasn’t eaten for days. If only she had the energy, she would find a way to die.
She has just arrived in this foreign land. She doesn’t understand what people around her are saying. Nothing is familiar. It’s not home. Attempts to sooth and comfort are misunderstood. She flinches from my touch. She doesn’t trust me, or anyone. What little she says shows she feels she is being punished. She feels guilty. And she is guilty — guilty of leaving a country in turmoil.
She tried to do what Australians would call the right thing. Desperate to preserve what’s left of her family, to keep her young children safe, she wanted to raise them in a place without fear, persecution and the smell of death. She tried to get a passport but couldn’t — her country’s government won’t give passports to women still able to bear children, still young enough to fight in the army. Even if their husband has been killed in battle. Without a passport, she couldn’t get a visa. Of course you could argue that in leaving, she was avoiding the legal requirements of her country. That’s true. So were the people who died trying to scale the Berlin Wall.
She grew despondent. There was no queue she could join. She chose to leave despite the risks — her country has a shoot-to-kill policy on its borders, but staying seemed a bigger risk. She paid some people to get her across the border. A long walk, sleeping rough, hiding from authorities, fearing her children would be killed, finally paying for a place on a boat.
The grief, the loss, the fear, the dislocation, the death took its toll. Now she sits empty, blank, broken.
She is a boat person. She is the reason we’re beefing up border security and why we’re set on off-shore processing. She is the threat to our sustainable population.
She, and hundreds like her, come to Australia hoping for freedom and a chance to live without fear. But she won’t find it here. If she lives, she’ll be confronted by harsh detention facilities, years of uncertainty, entrenched systematic discrimination and marginalisation. Even the social welfare system will be powerless to help.
We, the citizens of this country, have allowed political fear-mongering to blur our vision and humanity. We, aside from those remarkable few who campaign tirelessly to support her and those like her, are part of the problem, not the solution. “Stop the boats” is the political catch cry, and it seems we voters like it.
The reality is that these boats provide a service — like it or not, they are the only way out for her and people like her. They provide an escape from intolerable brutal and deadly conditions. Consider the paradox — our troops serve in places boat people come from. Yet we suggest people leave these places lightly, for “economic reasons”, as if they would cross dangerous seas for a better paid job. To think we can stop people from leaving danger is naive. To think we should turn them around is inhumane.
The violent slide between asylum seeker and the international terrorist has worked — asylum seekers are now sources of our collective fear. Neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott wish to clear up this awful and deliberate lie.
This woman has risked her life to find a better life for her children. She is a queue jumper. All 30 kilos of her.
And she is a chilling reminder of what is at stake in the global economies of fear.
*Dr Tanya Ahmed is a registrar in psychiatry and principal of the health and communications consultancy RaggAhmed.
Here is another “boat person” in an Australian detention. He is 16 years old- looks older but then he has been the family breadwinner since he was 9. He has left behind a mother, constantly in his thoughts and 4 younger siblings. His father did not return from work when the boy was 9. This happens to people of his ethnicity who hide out in the country next door to his own. At 14 he had travelled to another M/E country to work and send money home. His mother told him not to come back when work ran out. Resourceful is his middle name- his family has survived because of his skills.
He survived months on the streets of Jakarta because he was rescued by the Jesuits there. He went to UNHCR to register and was interviewed but grew impatient as the months passed with no reply.
Now he waits in detention with over 100 other UAM’s (immigration speak for unaccompanied Minors- teenagers under 18 years). He tells me that there is nothing to do, no classes, no place to run- every day the same. This is too hard for aboy used to hard labour. He worries about his mother- she is worrying about her 17 year old daughter with no adult male to keep her safe. Two night ago his head was thundering and he couldn’t bear it so he slashed his arm to realease the pain. He was taken to hospital for a few hours then returned to detention again- to wait. He is one of the suspended ones so his wait will be long.
Our own Northside Chronicle in Brisbane’s Northern suburbs has been doing its best to stir up the race hate debate by attacking the housing of asylum seekers at a motel in Zillmere. After doing a spurious survey which found that “northside residents are angry” about the presence of asylum seekers they have now reported on the protest by Australia First, that happy band of looney right wing racists, outside the same hotel. You may well wonder why these gutless cowards decided to protest outside the motel itself, further intimidating asylum seekers already shellshocked from their flight from their country and inhumane treatment here. What charmers they are. Not game to protest outside Wayne Swan’s office I guess. They were also addressed by Liberal candidate Rod McGarvie who showed his racist credentials in his address to his friends in Australia First outside the motel. You may remember Australia First who first surfaced from the primordial slime in the 1998 state election in Queensland, and received about 1% of the vote. On the plus side, my wife and I did up a 6m x 1.5m banner under our house which reads, “where is your humanity” and “refugees………Help not hatred”, which we put up at roadbridges in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. I also made a corflute sized sign saying, “honk for humanity” and last friday during the morning peak hour on Sandgate Road, I got over 15% who honked or waved.
“I have seen the Enemy, and it is us”.
This place & it’s political ‘leaders’ are a disgrace.
When I travel each year I do not readily admit to being australian.
Lee Quan Yew said of us some 30years ago that we would become ‘the white trash of Asia’. Well in my view we are certainly developing our qualifications.
GOOO… Michael.
If only asylum seekers could tell their stories – maybe Australian hearts would awaken but clever politics ensures that asylum seekers are punished if they speak openly. It is called creating “a surplace claim”. Minister Ruddock ensured that anyone who spoke publicly would be punished with aNO visa. Immigration has set this in stone.
Clever really since most Australians will listen and given a chance to come to their own conclusions will respond with decency and humanity.
Governments do not want this to happen so right now Teenagers without families in detention are routinely denied visitors. Community and Church groups have tried to put up formal programs- a weekend picnic, soccer match, visit to a youth centre with facilities for fun- NO ANSWER. We submitted this months back- still waiting.
they cant stop people visiting detention centres in the city but Leonora, Curtin , Darwin Brisbane blocked.
Efforts to ring in to these places all nigh impossible- phone calls out are made via Sydney with no call back facility. Asylum seekers get one phone card per week.
Becasue of the negative activity at the Motel in Brisbane the kids are playing on a concrete garage- no outings even to apark when i last heard.
CLEVA Courier Mail withits THEYRE HERE headline scared off Immigration.
One day the mindless brutality will be exposed but in the meantine politicians have aready bogeymen to close down resoned debate .
You all forget one thing, it was her choice to leave. There is a queue, it starts at the UNHCR.