The world around us in darkness
Large sharp rocks silhouetted against the sky, while I headed for the deep and nearly didn't come up again.
Charged electric wires hummed above my head while I headed up for the high and nearly didn't come down again.
I learnt to look around, I learnt to feel the outlines, realising, the reality is waiting somewhere else, just our of my eye-lines,
but what if threat comes from behind, from my fellow human beings I have been raised to respect and trust?
What if I had no idea they had something they were trying to hide, the way they twisted the facts so suddenly I became the problem they need to arise?
Suddenly I was thinking of the many and various ways in which people could be used and abused, corned and manipulated, threatened or even killed and disappeared from the surface of Earth.
I watched my incredibly fortunate children, unharmed and loved and accepted, they are not illegals, they have my protection and also protection of the state.
What if I am an illegal, running from my homeland, full of killings and death and my children, suddenly, disappear from the face of Earth?
I would look at the rightful citizens shouting their rightful slogans: 'Britain for the British...Australia for the Australians, what's wrong with that?' Would I turn my eyes away or would I fight back with the last embers of rage?
Would I stop a journalist taking a picture of my children's washed out bodies who nearly made it to this lucky land?
"You know it would come to this and yet you did nothing." Would be I able to say this in my broken English. And if I did, he would probably say: " I only report the stuff, I don't make it happen."
I would probably hide out of praying eyes and wait for an immigration officer to find me and lock me away.
I would probably plead, explaining my nationality, the terror I left behind, my name, but then I would tell to myself: "Save your breath, he is not interested in you, who you are..
you are the problem, the difficulty of his job he needs to do."
He would lock me up and all around stooped figures would beg and wail: "I don't want to be sent home." I would look around on all those human beings turning into something less than goods you can buy and sell...
I would be one of illegals, we will be locked up till they can ship us home or somewhere else, or get rid of us anyway they can. Plenty more like us to take our place.
Maybe I would try to run away, the only possible escape route for me was provided by the sea and there I would go and let the icy water numb my legs and waist staring out at unceasing grey swell...
Large grey swell would silhouetted against the sky, while I would headed for the deep and didn't come up again.
There would be no more me, but no one would care, plenty more like me to take my place.
' Life is what you make it', they say, and yet not everyone of us can relate to that. I can and you can, but can THEY?
Another Afghan asylum-seeker died in Australia's mainland detention centre.
He was just 20 years old, found dead on remote Cape York.
According to detainees inside, the Hazara man hanged himself using a bed sheet.
But his family suspect foul play, after he told them on the phone of death threats he had received.
He killed himself or had been killed because there was no future for him.
My son is in the same age like him, and his bright future just opens up like an exotic flower with all the excitements life can bring to us.
He has future because he is not an illegal.
There are more than 200 children locked up on Christmas Island within plain sight of residents.
They live with their parents in transportable cabins just a stone's throw from playground equipment behind the fence the children are not allowed to use.
The local's club's decision to ban detainees from playing on their oval and swings means that asylum seeker's kids haven't been able to play on the grass or the swings for months...
They are in their cramped camp watching the local kids having fun.
The shire president of the Christmas Island's club was accused of racism but nothing changes. Detainees look with their sad eyes through their barbed fence on the other side...
Detainees look with their sad eyes through their barbed fence on the other side...
where members of the local club, calling themselves 'whiteys' enjoy privileges of life.
And they see nothing wrong with that. "The island prides itself on cohesion," one local told me: "But they are not like us, are they?"
NO PLACE FOR THE WEARY TRAVELLER
On Monday there was a murder
of an unidentifiable
but clearly foreign man,
stabbed
and left to die
between two blocks of squalid Council flats.
Multiple stab wounds,
the trial of blood
showed the victim's effort
trying to get away,
crawling towards the light,
his attacker making more lunges
as he faltered and fell.
Between two blocks of squalid Council flats,
that tend to attract only the desperate
and those
with no choice in the matter,
addicts and the unhinged,
immigrants,
asylum seekers,
refugees,
people
nobody really wants to think about,
only if something happens.
The killing is clearly a race crime,
or is it?
Then it starts,
a raid by the immigration police,
to punish those
who are already punished,
to evict those,
who are already evicted,
to lock away those,
who are already living locked away.
Policemen don't feel guilty.
They are part of the state apparatus,
that see the world
in terms
of evil – THEM
and good - US
Us, citizens,
who read about the raids
in our daily press.
We don't feel guilty,
either,
We see the world
in terms
of evil – THEM
and good – US
WE PUT THE PAPER IN A BIN AND GO ON WITH OUR DAILY LIVES....
On Tuesday the autopsy
of the as yet unidentified corps
was already underway,
the human spirit reduced to meat on a slab.
Men in aprons and wellingtons,
slicing
all those victims,
without identity,
home or name,
whose lives had ended,
before their interest in them
had begun.
On Wednesday you meet
a young politician,
his well known
Father's easy charm
had been replaces with something
much less winning,
an absolute confidence,
he was always going to be
one of life's winners
not because of what he was,
any qualities he might possess,
but due to that lineage.
“I am not racist,”
he says: “But our lives would be so much easier without THEM.”
“We are all racists,”
you reply: “Even me,
it is how we deal with that ugly fact
that the world is divided
between wealthy and those with nothing,
and it is so unfair.
You listen to his pre-election speech,
that our population is ageing rapidly,
we won't have enough people in the future in workforce,
enough people paying income tax to pay for all the social provisions...
“So we need immigrants,”
you say.
He shakes his head:
“ I don't win election saying that.”
“They don't get much of a welcome,
here,
anywhere,
people don't want THEM.
But you are politician,
you have to provoke people to think,
about the darker side of the world
we all inhabit.
which is rife with racism,
bigotry,
slave labour,
the smuggling of human beings,
and the clever ways these poor souls are used
as mules for drug deal.
They are referred to as asylum seekers,
but are housed in former prisons
under the most horrendous circumstances.
One of the ugliest crimes against humanity.”
He shrugs his shoulders:
“Maybe, but no one wants to hear that,
we live in democracy,
politicians just express people's wishes,
who believe that we should just send,
all these black bastards home,
that our country would be paradise
if only it weren't for the 'Pakis' and 'Gypsies' and 'Sambos'...
and others like THEM.
On Thursday you visit
the family of the murdered victim
in an Immigration Removal Centre.
The road became a pot-holed
single track.
Signs warned trespassers
that they would be prosecuted.
The twelve foot perimeter fence,
guards watching your every step.
Their cell was fifteen feet by twelve,
a bunk bed, a single bed,
wardrobe and a desk.
A mother sat there,
staring into space,
hands on her lap.
Two small children draw a picture
next to her,
of open door and balls of yellow sunshine
that never reaches down to them.
The room was windowless,
the woman looked up at you
with hollow eyes,
her six years old boy
went to her,
offering comfort
with his arms.
His face
hardened
beyond its years,
and his eyes telling you:
“Another intruder to let us down.”
On Friday the family travelled
in a immigration van
with a guard on each side
to the mortuary
to identify 'the piece of meat on a slab'
that was
their father,
their husband,
the only person they knew and trust.
They have been put into a strange environment,
these asylum seekers,
not confident about their role in this place,
trying to make new friends.
They have left their own country
because of daily murders
and they are displaced.
It was another culture, another country.
You yearn to do your duty as a policeman.
and a human being.
It is not easy task to ask.
You help them out of the police van,
acknowledging the guards,
walking on the street,
stares of strangers,
passing by,
you recognise them:
Local people,
who don't like incomers:
immigrants, travellers...
People who see anyone
who is different to them
as a threat.
Then you bump on others,
hidden in a crowd,
who let the world passing by,
determined not to notice,
people you pass on a street,
making eye contact
only with the pavement
ahead of them,
because what you didn't see,
couldn't hurt you.
And then,
they are others,
hiding now,
in a bright daylight,
waiting for their opportunity
at night.
Locals, bigots,
people with a grudge.
Packs of angry men,
prowling dark streets,
protecting most
of the harshly lit doorways,
identical
in the way
they see the world,
divided into two groups:
threat and prey.
This particular family,
just like the other asylum seekers,
is so easy target for them.
And they are others,
who meet you in front of mortuary,
and outstretch their hands
to help,
who tries to understand,
willing to share,
They have their own prejudices
and know that asylum seekers have theirs.
They are never tired of asking the same question:
“How much common ground
we might turn to share?”
There is just a handful of them,
but it is a relief to know,
they are...
On Monday there was a murder
of an unidentifiable
man,
stabbed
and left to die.
Sipping your coffee
reading this
you know
deep down
that justice isn't always done.
The justice that you get in courts
isn't always
the kind of justice that satisfies.
YOU FINISH YOUR COFFEE AND GO ON WITH YOUR DAILY LIFE....
On Monday there was a murder
of the man,
you knew,
your friend,
your brother,
your father,
your son,
stabbed
and left to die.
Murder has ripples.
You never go back to being the same.
You look in the eyes
of the people that investigate
the crime,
the people who knew the victim,
even the murderer
and you ask: “WHY?”
YOU ARE UNABLE TO FINISH YOUR MORNING COFFEE AND GO ON WITH YOUR DAILY LIFE...
Something inside you has been profoundly changed,
there was a murder,
something unique was taken away from the world,
something that can't be replaced.
HOW CAN YOU GO ON …
HOW CAN YOU PRETEND THAT NOTHING HAPPENED?
'There was a murder of an asylum seeker
on the streets of Edinburgh,
that made me think about the Scots
and about racism
and the myth of how welcoming we are to strangers.
The crimes tend to be hidden in Edinburgh,
they are conspiracies,
things happening under cover of darkness.
It is a city in the pattern of grave robbers.'
introduces the writer Ian Rankin
his book:''FLESHMARKET CLOSE'
Fleshmarket close by Ian Rankin
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