Playing politics with lives

A new memorial is a reminder of the potential costs of harsh policies towards refugees, writes J. OLAF KLEIST KEVIN Andrews’ discrimination against African refugees for apparently not integrating into Australian society is reminiscent of the rhetoric and actions against boat people during the 2001 election campaign. Yet it seems only few remember the sad consequences of such opportunistic slander against the weakest. Largely forgotten by many Australians, the greatest maritime catastrophe off Australian shores since the second world war occurred six years ago, leaving 353 people dead on their way to Australia. The nameless refugee boat that sank has come to be called SIEV-X. SIEV is the acronym for Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel, used by the Australian Defence Force since 2001 for intercepted refugee boats. “X” was added to denote the one we know did not make it. How do we know? Indonesian fishermen rescued 44 survivors, one of them being Faris Khadem, who fled the regime of Saddam Hussein with his family. “I had never seen the ocean before,” he says. Still, he was a good swimmer and he helped many people to find floating planks to hold. He estimates that about 200 passengers initially survived the sinking of their craft early in the afternoon. Then came night, then the next morning, and when they were found by boats that followed the floating debris, most people had drowned, including Khadem’s wife and their seven-year-old daughter. The report A Certain Maritime Incident, presented to Parliament one year later, did not find considerable flaws in Australia’s response to SIEV-X. But the actions of the government, which put refugees in grave danger in the first place, were not investigated. The Federal Police ran a people smuggling disruption program. This included disabling refugee boats to prevent them from reaching their destination. There is no proof that SIEV-X has been a direct target of such operations. Yet, the disruption programs put people smugglers under pressure so small vessels were hopelessly overloaded, against the will of their passengers. SIEV-X carried nearly 400 people on only 20 metres, which is about the distance between the wickets on a cricket pitch. Faris recalls how he was shocked when he saw the boat, but there was no way out of the situation. “One man who wanted to leave was beaten with a gun,” he says. Also crowded on board were many women and children. While it used to be mainly men who took on such dangerous journeys, the government’s introduction of the temporary visa, which rules out family reunions for onshore refugees, has resulted in whole families making the difficult trip. Not only were the women and children additional customers to people smugglers and extra burdens on the tiny vessel, surviving the cold waters after the sinking proved impossible for most of them. The situation was desperate on board the SIEV-X, but the public debate in Australia sounded even more desperate. Boat people “flooded” and “invaded” the country, according to headlines. They were labelled “queue-jumpers,” evading the government’s selection process. That was, the majority agreed, not Australian. Refugees were not seen as people in dire need, but as objects of Australian generosity. Labor MP Gavan O’Connor demanded in parliament: “We do have a deep-seated value in our society that we ought to give a fair go to all. But those who seek to come here need to be fair about this also.” Nobody was against refugees coming through Australia’s proud resettlement program. But boat people, because they did not wait in refugee camps to be “fairly” selected, just didn’t fit the Australian way of life. The Howard government used this sentiment in rhetoric and actions for its election campaign. Detention camps, the Tampa affair, the Pacific Solution and the children overboard affair pushed the plight of those refugees further and further out of Australian sight. Boat people were perceived as threats and treated accordingly. The Liberal Party’s 2001 “dark victory” was built on dehumanising refugees and painting boat people as unAustralian. It was in this hostile atmosphere that the SIEV-X sank and refugees drowned, unnoticed by many, even today. Since 2002 a small group from Tasmania has been trying to change this neglect. “If 300 people had died in a jumbo jet crash there would have been thorough investigations and grief and concern,” reckons writer Steve Biddulph. “We thought there was a differential valuing of refugees against Western people.” In response, Biddulph founded a memorial project to the victims of the SIEV-X tragedy. After a long process, the memorial was erected in September. It consists of 353 wooden poles, one for each victim, meandering along the shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. Every pole depicts an Australian motif or symbol, created by groups and individuals from all over the country. A name tag on the pole identifies the victim, if known. The sight is stunning, showing the magnitude of the otherwise abstract number 353 while remembering each individual. For Khadem, the memorial has become the grave of his family, their place in Australia where he can mourn them. Moreover, the memorial reminds us of the horrors that can follow from dehumanising the weakest who seek our help. “It stands,” Biddulph says, “for human values.” For now, the memorial is temporary, but the organisers hope it will become permanent to transport its message to all Australians. To remember SIEV-X means not to fear refugees or a section of them, not to collectively discriminate against those who long for asylum. If Kevin Andrews and the Howard government decide to run another election campaign demonising an entire group of refugees as unfitting for Australian society, Australians in 2007 should know that again they are playing with people desperate for their lives. • J. Olaf Kleist, a political scientist and PhD candidate from Berlin, is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology. This article first appeared in the Age. Photo: Detail from photo of SIEV-X memorial by G. Johnston