An Ocean Refuses no River
The scope of ‘human rights’ in Australia and other countries has often only extended to its citizens. Before 1967 the Aboriginal peoples of Australia were not afforded the human rights of non-indigenous Australians. During this year they were given the right to vote and other rights afforded to citizens of this Commonwealth. Almost 40 years later Aboriginal Australians still struggle with very high death rates, poverty and social issues, not to mention estrangement from their traditional lands. For more information go to Antar (http://www.antar.org.au/_home.html), a national website supporting indigenous rights and reconciliation.
Today history repeats itself. Another group residing in Australia are not afforded basic domestic or international legal rights. I speak now of asylum seekers.
Human rights should never relate simply to one group of people or another, it should relate to all people; every man, woman and child on the planet, citizen and non-citizen alike.
An ocean…
Your ocean…
Refuses no river*
This is the story of how I came to be part of the volunteer team at the Asylum Seekers Centre. It is a tale that spans several oceans and at least three generations.
In my life I have looked down on the tips of the frozen French Alps, the forever plains of Australia’s Simpson desert and the rolling greens of Northern Ireland. Yet, for all the places of the world I have seen I choose to live my life here in Sydney. It is a place that embraced me, and a place I now embrace back.
When my family came to Australia in 1974 the welcome was not so warm, not at first. Dad, a highly qualified mechanical engineer, had travelled selling and servicing heavy machinery, from Turkey to London and Libya, then back to Turkey again. My family, for the most part, followed him. In Libya of1967 my mother, brother and father were caught in the cross-fire of what is now known as the Six Day Arab—Israeli conflict. With the sound of gunshots in their ears they fled back to the land of their birth, Turkey. One door closed, a window opened. Dad got a high level job managing Fiat, but all was not well.
Even though my ancestors had sailed on the trade winds to this ancient land over 100 years earlier, they had never truly set down roots, never adopted the place as their home. They kept their Italian culture, their language, their children were educated in schools run by Italian nuns. Mum and Dad decided to move to Australia, their ideas possibly coloured by what my brother saw on afternoon television, Skippy being his favourite show.
When we came to the great southern land Dad was reduced to sweeping floors for a living; those first years breaking his heart. My brother within months forgot his other four languages and adopted English as the be all and end all. He proclaimed that this was where he finally belonged, the home of Skippy, the bush kangaroo.
Australians did not at first know what to make of our family. We were people from Turkey who primarily spoke Italian, English with American accents, Greek and French and held Italian passports. We couldn’t really be pigeon-holed, but then neither could most Australians. Our neighbours traced their blood lines back to Captain Cook, but most everyone else was half Irish, half Spanish, with a dash of Portuguese thrown in.
We soon made friends in our new adopted land. My father welcomed all with open arms and a hoshgeldinez (welcome in Turkish). Our neighbours came over and we dug a great big hole in the back yard where we roasted the biggest pig us kids ever saw. Our new friends shared with us their love of meat and three veg and we taught them an appreciation of baklava. Soon my father’s workplace discovered his natural ability to fix anything and he ascended the managerial ladder once again. Our first dog, a real Aussie half-dingo, terrorised the neighbourhood with his big howl. My grandmother, the quintessential Italian grand dame, sat in the front yard watching the world go by with her keen eagle eye, her fingers working away on the crochet doily in her lap. With barely a word of English to her vocabulary she made friends with our adopted grandmother, the lady next door, swapping stories purely by hand signals and smiles.
After I’d mastered the new language I set about becoming a journalist; a hired gun. But after three years working for the world’s largest newspaper group I discovered that journalism was not my pot of Twinings. The most interesting part of my job was a ride home with my regular taxi driver, a brazenly nationalistic Iraqi with some opinions to share. It was the time of the first Iraq war in 1991. I would bring news of US tanks storming their way through the desert, and he would bring the Iraqi editions, claiming Saddam’s secret weapon was about to be unveiled. Each night on the 45 minute drive home we would argue about whether Saddam really did have a secret weapons, and if he did what was he waiting for before he showed it off to the Americans?
I left journalism to try out publishing. I decided to be an editor. People came and went, but mainly went; we were not individuals but a finely tuned production line pumping out books. My heart began to sink under the weight of these tomes. My health suffered, I ended up in hospital with extreme panic attacks and agoraphobia.
That was in July of 2001. A mere few months before the trade centre collapses, before Australia’s asylum seeker policies were sacrificed for the greater good of pacifying a frightened electorate. I watched in disbelief as the Tampa asylum seekers were denied safe passage to Australia. As the years passed and I experienced periods where I couldn’t leave home I felt great sympathy for these people. They were locked up as I too was locked up, only I had the key to my own freedom and they did not. After a few years I found that key to my own freedom and slowly the doors to my world began to creak open, but many of the asylum seekers remained detained. A publisher contacted me, a man who had no knowledge of my interest refugees, and asked me to write my first book, about refugees. Finally a book to my name about a topic which I could literally write a book about!
When I finally quit publishing I started my own editing business and found I had time to do some of the things I loved. While surfing the net I discovered the ASC. It catered to people who had been detained, and had been left to their own devices in the community, often with no access to Medicare, work or benefits. The people I had been writing and reading about were being cared for, not five blocks from my home, at a time when I could just comfortably travel five blocks without having a panic attack. Divine intervention? Perhaps. Fortuitous, certainly. The people I met there, staff, volunteers and the asylum seekers have exemplified the warm welcome and hospitality that I have felt during my life. I am now the media officer for the ASC and have thus far helped publish two editions of the newsletter.
An ocean refuses no river. Any river can only expand the ocean’s beauty and house its wildlife. We cannot be diminished by the people we accept into our hearts. I feel honoured to have the position of editor and share in the wealth that is the ASC’s people: the staff, volunteers and asylum seekers alike.
*Ever So Lonely by Sheila Chandra (Moonsung Productions/Realworld Ltd, 1992)
Today history repeats itself. Another group residing in Australia are not afforded basic domestic or international legal rights. I speak now of asylum seekers.
Human rights should never relate simply to one group of people or another, it should relate to all people; every man, woman and child on the planet, citizen and non-citizen alike.
An ocean…
Your ocean…
Refuses no river*
This is the story of how I came to be part of the volunteer team at the Asylum Seekers Centre. It is a tale that spans several oceans and at least three generations.
In my life I have looked down on the tips of the frozen French Alps, the forever plains of Australia’s Simpson desert and the rolling greens of Northern Ireland. Yet, for all the places of the world I have seen I choose to live my life here in Sydney. It is a place that embraced me, and a place I now embrace back.
When my family came to Australia in 1974 the welcome was not so warm, not at first. Dad, a highly qualified mechanical engineer, had travelled selling and servicing heavy machinery, from Turkey to London and Libya, then back to Turkey again. My family, for the most part, followed him. In Libya of1967 my mother, brother and father were caught in the cross-fire of what is now known as the Six Day Arab—Israeli conflict. With the sound of gunshots in their ears they fled back to the land of their birth, Turkey. One door closed, a window opened. Dad got a high level job managing Fiat, but all was not well.
Even though my ancestors had sailed on the trade winds to this ancient land over 100 years earlier, they had never truly set down roots, never adopted the place as their home. They kept their Italian culture, their language, their children were educated in schools run by Italian nuns. Mum and Dad decided to move to Australia, their ideas possibly coloured by what my brother saw on afternoon television, Skippy being his favourite show.
When we came to the great southern land Dad was reduced to sweeping floors for a living; those first years breaking his heart. My brother within months forgot his other four languages and adopted English as the be all and end all. He proclaimed that this was where he finally belonged, the home of Skippy, the bush kangaroo.
Australians did not at first know what to make of our family. We were people from Turkey who primarily spoke Italian, English with American accents, Greek and French and held Italian passports. We couldn’t really be pigeon-holed, but then neither could most Australians. Our neighbours traced their blood lines back to Captain Cook, but most everyone else was half Irish, half Spanish, with a dash of Portuguese thrown in.
We soon made friends in our new adopted land. My father welcomed all with open arms and a hoshgeldinez (welcome in Turkish). Our neighbours came over and we dug a great big hole in the back yard where we roasted the biggest pig us kids ever saw. Our new friends shared with us their love of meat and three veg and we taught them an appreciation of baklava. Soon my father’s workplace discovered his natural ability to fix anything and he ascended the managerial ladder once again. Our first dog, a real Aussie half-dingo, terrorised the neighbourhood with his big howl. My grandmother, the quintessential Italian grand dame, sat in the front yard watching the world go by with her keen eagle eye, her fingers working away on the crochet doily in her lap. With barely a word of English to her vocabulary she made friends with our adopted grandmother, the lady next door, swapping stories purely by hand signals and smiles.
After I’d mastered the new language I set about becoming a journalist; a hired gun. But after three years working for the world’s largest newspaper group I discovered that journalism was not my pot of Twinings. The most interesting part of my job was a ride home with my regular taxi driver, a brazenly nationalistic Iraqi with some opinions to share. It was the time of the first Iraq war in 1991. I would bring news of US tanks storming their way through the desert, and he would bring the Iraqi editions, claiming Saddam’s secret weapon was about to be unveiled. Each night on the 45 minute drive home we would argue about whether Saddam really did have a secret weapons, and if he did what was he waiting for before he showed it off to the Americans?
I left journalism to try out publishing. I decided to be an editor. People came and went, but mainly went; we were not individuals but a finely tuned production line pumping out books. My heart began to sink under the weight of these tomes. My health suffered, I ended up in hospital with extreme panic attacks and agoraphobia.
That was in July of 2001. A mere few months before the trade centre collapses, before Australia’s asylum seeker policies were sacrificed for the greater good of pacifying a frightened electorate. I watched in disbelief as the Tampa asylum seekers were denied safe passage to Australia. As the years passed and I experienced periods where I couldn’t leave home I felt great sympathy for these people. They were locked up as I too was locked up, only I had the key to my own freedom and they did not. After a few years I found that key to my own freedom and slowly the doors to my world began to creak open, but many of the asylum seekers remained detained. A publisher contacted me, a man who had no knowledge of my interest refugees, and asked me to write my first book, about refugees. Finally a book to my name about a topic which I could literally write a book about!
When I finally quit publishing I started my own editing business and found I had time to do some of the things I loved. While surfing the net I discovered the ASC. It catered to people who had been detained, and had been left to their own devices in the community, often with no access to Medicare, work or benefits. The people I had been writing and reading about were being cared for, not five blocks from my home, at a time when I could just comfortably travel five blocks without having a panic attack. Divine intervention? Perhaps. Fortuitous, certainly. The people I met there, staff, volunteers and the asylum seekers have exemplified the warm welcome and hospitality that I have felt during my life. I am now the media officer for the ASC and have thus far helped publish two editions of the newsletter.
An ocean refuses no river. Any river can only expand the ocean’s beauty and house its wildlife. We cannot be diminished by the people we accept into our hearts. I feel honoured to have the position of editor and share in the wealth that is the ASC’s people: the staff, volunteers and asylum seekers alike.
*Ever So Lonely by Sheila Chandra (Moonsung Productions/Realworld Ltd, 1992)
posted by Jessica at 2:53 pm
3 Comments:
So many blogs and only 10 numbers to rate them. I'll have to give you a 9 because you have a quailty topic.
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Hi Jess, Joanie here. I really like this post, getting to know abit about your history is really interesting. Well done I know you are doing many great things and you know i'm so proud of you! :)
Tom Owens from Shelby, Michigan
Here in USA the Mexican and Latin American economic migrants are resented by many native citizens. But America is like a sea which refuses no river. The Latin Americans coming here have old native blood--the so-called Indians--and so this is justice that they come to reclaim their lands.
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