This is a day to be remembered for a long time. Arnold Zable has written a beautiful opinion piece on it. Here it is below. It made a tear run down my cheek in the computer lab at uni!
If you are interested in more info about events happening for Refugee Week (this week), you can go to http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/docs/current/VIC%20RW%20events.pdf If you're somewhere other than Victoria, your state's Refugee Week activities can also be found by following the links on the Refugee Council website - www.refugeecouncil.org.au - go to news and events.
And now, a reflection by Arnold Zable...
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A reminder of how we treat people who come to us for help
Five years ago 353 people died in the ocean trying to reach Australia, writes Arnold Zable.
TODAY marks the fifth anniversary of the largest maritime disaster off Australian waters since World War II. At 3.10 on the afternoon of October 19, 2001, a 19.5-metre fishing boat carrying 398 refugees sank en route to Australia. A total of 353 Iraqi and Afghan asylum seekers drowned, including 146 children and 142 women desperate to join fathers and husbands living in Australia on temporary protection visas.
There were 45 survivors. On the morning of the fourth anniversary, I met one of seven Australian-based survivors, Amal Basry, at Melbourne Airport. We were to fly to Canberra to take part in an event marking the fourth anniversary of the tragedy. I had first met Basry in mid-2002 soon after her arrival in Australia. She saved her life by clinging to a corpse for hours.
As we waited to board the plane, Basry recounted an anecdote I had not heard before. She could not sleep the previous night because she was haunted by the memory of the sinking. When her son Amjed arrived home after midnight, they tried to remember what they were doing four years ago at that hour.
Basry recalled that in the early hours of October 19 the winds began to rise. The boat rose and fell in deepening troughs. Many passengers panicked. "God, save us. The ocean is angry," some cried. The cries of frightened children filled the air. Amal noticed a group of women on the crowded deck writing on a piece of paper. They were composing a letter to the angel of the ocean, they told her. "Angel of the ocean please protect us," they had written. "Angel of the ocean look after our children. Angel of the ocean, do not abandon us." They folded the letter and threw it into the water. That afternoon they were no longer alive.
This is one of many stories I have heard from survivors over the past five years. Each one records moments that sear the imagination. Survivor Faris Kadhem remains tormented by the memory of his seven-year-old daughter, Zahra, and wife, Leyla, slipping from his sight into the ocean.
Sondos Ismael lost three daughters, Eman, 8, Zahra, 6, and Fatimah, 5. As she grieved in Jakarta in the months after the tragedy, her husband, Ahmed al-Zalimi, was not granted a permit to join her, despite pleas to the Howard Government, since it would have breached the conditions of his temporary visa. Ahmed had arrived in Australia in 1999, in flight from Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. Like many other SIEV-X passengers, Ismael and her daughters were determined to reunite with him, even though he had begged them not to risk the sea journey.
In listening to these tales we come to know the human face of the tragedy. We learn the fate of individuals and come to know their aspirations and the reasons for their desperate flight from tyrannical regimes.
There also remain many questions to be answered. Why did the crews of three boats not respond to the screams of survivors who paddled towards them clinging to debris during the night? Former Australian diplomat Tony Kevin contends the boat sank in international waters, 50 to 60 kilometres south of the Sunda Strait, in Australia's declared border protection zone. He asks what the Howard Government knew of the disaster.
Basry died of cancer in March this year. She was an ardent supporter of a project to erect a memorial on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin. The design features a life-size outline of the boat and a procession of 353 poles decorated by community and school groups in honour of each victim. Inspired by author Steve Biddulph and the Uniting Church of Australia, it is based on designs submitted by students in an Australia-wide competition in schools.
The SIEV-X sinking is our Australian story writ large. It highlights the trauma and dangers that flow from placing asylum seekers on temporary visas that prevent them from seeing their loved ones for years. It is a reminder of the good fortune of those who made it, and the tragedy of those who did not. It is a testimony to all who have undertaken perilous journeys in search of freedom, and it remains a searing reminder that we assess who we are as a nation by the way we treat those who come to us in a search of a better life.
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Arnold Zable joins Actors for Refugees and Julian Burnside, QC, to commemorate Amal Basry's life and launch refugee week on Sunday at 5pm in the Carillo Gantner Theatre, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, University of Melbourne.
2 comments:
You forget one salient fact. These "refugees" sailed millions of miles to come here to Australia, a non-Muslim nation. Alone the way, they could have sought refuge in many Muslim nations closer by- Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Indonesia etc.. Don't you have that a bit strange. That's a bit like walking to Broome from Melbourne and then bitchin about how John Howard is not providing enough funding for hospitals.
Hi Hawkeye,
Thanks for your comment. Please believe me that after the hours and hours of stories I have heard from refugee friends about that boat trip, I will never, ever forget about it! There are a couple of points to make in response to your comment. The first is that the countries that you mentioned are not signatories to the UN Refugees Convention, which
basically just means they've never taken it upon themselves to owe protection to refugees. That means that there is no realistic option for people to stop there 'on the way' to Australia. They simply cannot be protected there.
The other thing is that a lot of refugees who come to Australia are fleeing their governments - often their Muslim governments or ruling militia groups, and many of them have been seriously persecuted by people who have a different understanding of what Islam is and how it should operate. What I'm
saying is that you can't lump all muslims together in one big basket. The perfect example is in Afghanistan, where the Hazara people (Shi'a
muslims) have been persecuted for many years now by the ruling Taliban (Sunni muslims) to the point of having their families slaughtered in the streets. Those people *have* to get out, and I'm sure you'll
agree that it's reasonable that they'd want to come to a country where they will not be faced with that kind of torture and trauma as a reality.
If you want to discuss this any further I would be totally happy to. There seems to be some hostility in your comment, and in your own blog, too, and I think that some of that may come from misinformation or misunderstanding of the true reasons why people leave their homes and flee to far away places.
Cheers
Jessie
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