According to Joe Hildebrand and the Daily Telegraph, the Devil needs pity too.

The Daily Telegraph is peddling an asylum seeker mythology in which there are only two choices; deaths at sea or playgrounds on Nauru.



In an article published last Friday, Daily Telegraph columnist Joe Hildebrand argued that the question of sending 267 asylum seekers back to offshore detention is a grey area, an “impossible moral quandary,” while simultaneously painting the most black and white image of the situation one could imagine.

Although the article is not alone in its defence of offshore detention, I could find no better example that encompasses popular opinion.

To Hildebrand and the majority of the Australian public, the issue of Asylum seekers comes down to a binary choice in which there is no clear compassionate answer, as every conscientious action is 
met with an equal and opposite reaction of suffering.

Hildebrand stipulates that if you save the 37 babies from Nauru, “you know that you are depriving another baby [in overseas Refugee camps] … of that very same future.” It is simply a one-for-one swap.

He goes on to suggest that the previous “impact of well-intentioned compassion” was deaths at sea, and that the only alternative is offshore processing.

This point of view does have some internal logic, but only if you commit the outrageous error of not seeing further than the narrow spectrum of ALP and LNP policy, which is clearly evident in Hildebrand’s discussion.

This is a point of view that the Daily Telegraph repeated on Monday with a front-page image of an asylum seeker vessel sinking, juxtaposed against the image of an inviting playground, supposedly found on Nauru, with the words “you choose” printed ominously underneath.

According to Hildebrand and the Daily Telegraph, the choice is clear; it is deaths at sea or it is detention camps with playgrounds; you can choose to save an asylum seeker here but in doing so, sacrifice an asylum seeker elsewhere.

Most outrageously, in this article entitled “This is the Devil’s choice, and may God help those who make it,” Hildebrand insinuates that the only clear decision is that we afford Politicians such as Mr. Dutton and Mr. Turnbull our sympathy, rather than our anger, for having to face problem at all.

Hildebrand considers the reality of the topic to be “complex” and “vexing,” but anyone with integrity would find the idea of sympathising with politicians who subject innocent people to collective punishment by indefinite detention the most ‘vexing’ prospect of all.

This is compounded by the testimony of the Paediatricians who assessed the health of the 69 children in the group, finding that they were some of the most damaged children with which they ever had to work.

Even the Immigration department’s own top Doctor has conservatively echoed their views and asserted that detaining children is harmful to their wellbeing.

Furthermore, Hildebrand agonises over the threat of “inadvertently [creating] a cruel incentive for people to feign illness or commit acts of self-harm in order to win a chance at freedom” if the Government were to abstain from sending them back to Nauru.

Perhaps, Joe, the answer is to remove the incentive by closing the camps. 

For Hildebrand and those readers who are stuck in the Quagmire of two-party politics, this does not mean that we must again resign ourselves to the prospect of a northern sea graveyard. There are serious alternatives.

For example, using some of the many findings from the Houston Panel’s 2012 report on Asylum seekers, the Greens party has outlined a plan that would see an increase in humanitarian intake (which to his credit, Hildebrand himself advocates) and refugee processing in Indonesia to prevent the likelihood of people risking the high seas.

Assuming this kind of plan or any other alternative fails to stop the stream of people smuggling, we can learn an important lesson from the Italian Navy on what to do about it.

In response to the drownings of 150 asylum seekers in the Mediterranean in October 2013, the Italian Government enacted a policy of search and rescue in the waters between Italy and the coast of Libya. 

The operation dictated that a boat in distress was to be towed back to the Italian coast for processing and the refugees on-board given the aid that international law stipulates.

This operation is widely considered to have saved the lives of approximately 130,000 African asylum seekers, while 3,000 drowned over the 12 month period.

It was only when the $12 million a month ‘Operation Mare Nostrum’ was replaced with the cheaper ‘Operation Triton’ in October 2014, which had a far smaller search and rescue range, did the body count begin to run wild.

It was in the very first week that Operation Mare Nostrum was abandoned and Operation Triton began that over 1000 refugees drowned, which amounted to a third of the previous year’s body count in only a seven day period.

But not only did the death toll rise tenfold from 4.2 to 46.5 per 1,000 refugees over comparable periods, there was a similarly a rise in the amount of asylum seekers that attempted to make the journey despite the decreasing prospect of success.

This showed clearly that it was not the pull factor of Operation Mare Nostrum that explained the tide of refugees, rather it was the nature of the push factors that were sending them fleeing.

To bring the discussion back to Australia, it is clear that the recommendations from the Houston Panel and the example of Operation Mare Nostrum provide alternatives we can adopt to find the “greatest possible good” that Mr. Hildebrand is looking for.

Joe can continue to champion the cause of the ‘worthy’ refugees in overseas camps, who he refers to as the ones we do not see, but the undeniable fact is that he does not know, in fact nobody knows, that the fate of those who are dissuaded from braving the journey over the sea is any different from those remaining in the camps.

It would be a cliché to suggest that Joe should stick to entertainment journalism, and nor do I think he should; anyone with a voice should speak up in defence of those who cannot defend themselves.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hildebrand seems to have drowned in the quagmire of two-party politics and public opinion and ended up regurgitating the mythology that there is no escape from our current reality.

It takes some courage to be a contrarian and to stand against the masses, but when faced with those who would say ‘I know that detention camps are a human rights abuse, but…’ it becomes our moral obligation to speak out in protest.

The many names of Australia Day

The concept that is Australia Day is not unique to our great southern land, it is a day that lingers offensively around nations that fail to recognise and deal with the subjugation of indigenous peoples.

Australia Day has more than one name

It is becoming common knowledge that not everyone in our vast country agrees on what to call January 26.

Our mainstream media and society refer to it lovingly as Australia day, but to many others it is regretfully remembered as Invasion Day, or Survival Day.

I argue that Australia Day has more names than this, because the commemoration of the events that transpired beginning on January 26, 1788 is not a concept that is unique to our Country.

There happens to be another southern land in which this day has an entirely different name.

In South Africa, the Day of the vow on December 16 once encompassed no more or less than what we still celebrate as Australia Day.

Like Australia, South Africa is a land that was stolen away from those who had lived there for consecutive generations over many thousands of years.

Like us, the white South Africans came to commemorate what they considered to be their God given right to conquer the lands of the Zulu people on a day which befell a monumental slaughter upon the resisting local populations.

To me, the only difference between the Day of the Vow and our Australia Day is in name, apart from which they are entirely the same thing.

Perversely, this racist occasion continued on through modern times and was annually celebrated by many white South Africans during the Apartheid years.

While black citizens suffered the humiliation of segregation and the neglect of their civil rights, white South Africans celebrated The Day of the vow in pride.

This carried on until 1994 when the election of Nelson Mandela ended Apartheid and the December 16 commemoration was altogether transformed.

Since then, South Africa’s Day of the Vow, its Invasion Day, its Survival Day, its Australia day ceased to exist and became a new day: Reconciliation Day.

Over the Indian Ocean in Australia, our Day of the vow clings on, it saunters around every year, and it continues to drape cheap Australian Flags over uncomfortable secrets.

It falls over the legacy of our wretched Imperial past, but also over the faces of First Australians found dead in police cells, the scores in our prisons, those who are suffering preventable diseases of poverty, those who live in squalor, the children that continue to be removed from their families, and those who die far younger than they should.

We know what to think of those South Africans who celebrated this day with impunity during Apartheid, so why don’t we think of Australians in the same way?

Until the time comes that a treaty is signed with the First Australians and their human and collective rights are respected, January 26 will remain a day of exclusion.

It is perfectly reasonable to celebrate your identity and good fortune on Australia Day, but the denial and obfuscation of the legacy and present reality of First Australian suffering mars the day in shame.

Australia walks down memory lane: A stroll on Cronulla Beach and a coffee at Martin Place

Although what happened at Martin Place on Monday has nothing to do with the Australian Muslim community and everything to do with Man Haron Monis, the Lindt Café siege has become a reluctant addition to the context of Australian cultural relations.

To understand why this is so, it is important that we examine the recent history of the Islamic community in Australia to find out where we are and how we got here.

It is pertinent to start our exploration in the 1970s when large numbers of Lebanese who were fleeing their civil war began to arrive in Australia as immigrants.

Muslims had lived in Australia for many years before this (some anthropologists theorise that Islam came to the continent’s northern shores before Europeans arrived) but the 1970s marked the first great period of Muslim immigrant intake.

After they were settled, they enjoyed a low profile life in Australia until the first Gulf War began in 1990.
This is understood to be the first time in which Australian Arab Muslims were under pressure to define their identity; are you a Muslim, or are you an Australian?

I hope that people come to realise how nonsensical and Orientalist that is, that our society shunned the Lebanese community because of a war between the United States and Iraq; it is like hating the French because your cousin got in a fight with a Spaniard.

Regardless, The Gulf War is an historic moment for Australian Muslims, particularly the Lebanese, as it marked the genesis of their place as the marginalised minority group in Australia, following the Greeks, Italians and Vietnamese.

This marginalisation was further entrenched in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, as the twin towers were destroyed and U.S. President George W. Bush declared the second war on terror.

Only a year later, the Bali bombings carried out by Islamic militants claimed the lives of 202 people, including 88 Australians.

The social paranoia that arose from those attacks is widely understood to have blurred the lines of the terrorist/Muslim dichotomy in the minds of many, and laid the groundwork for the Cronulla Riots in 2005.

After a group of lifeguards were bashed by men of ‘Middle Eastern Appearance’ on Cronulla beach, a series of events began that concluded with Australia’s first anti-Islamic pogrom.

The bashing received heavy attention in the media and was a popular topic of discussion in newspapers and on talk back radio, with popular 2GB radio host Alan Jones now infamous for his agreement with callers who were inciting anti-Muslim vigilantism.

On Sunday morning of the 11th December 2005, A crowd of 5,000 people (mostly young white men) flocked to Cronulla beach with Australian flags and cartons of beer while wearing singlets marked with slogans like ‘We grew here you flew here’ and ‘Ethnic Cleansing Squad’.

They had been summoned by a single text message that was shared over 200,000 times between people in the Sydney Suburbs which read: “This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day …”

They came to the beach early in the morning and despite a heavy police presence, began marauding around the streets to bash and abuse anyone of ‘Middle Eastern’ appearance that they could find.

Perhaps the most iconic image of the riots is the series of photographs taken by Craig Greenhill which shows a mob of men brutally bashing two young Afghans on a train that arrived at Cronulla station.

In retaliation, Arab and Lebanese gangs roamed Sydney suburbs in the following nights and staged revenge attacks which left many innocent people in hospital.

Since those explosive few days, anti-Islamic tensions have simmered within some Australian communities and groups, especially due to the constant media barrage of overseas terrorism, Al Qaeda, and now the Islamic State.

That was until Monday when serial sex offender and murderer on bail Man Haron Monis walked into the Lindt Café with a shotgun.

So why is Martin Place so significant? Whether or not you can make any meaningful connection between Monis and the international threat of Islamic terrorism is one thing, but the real significance of the Lindt Café siege is that it elicited a national reaction and conversation that has not been seen since 2005.

You do not need to look closely to find that the Australian Muslims have been reluctantly dragged into the equation on the back of the actions of one lone criminal from a community of over 400,000 people.

Social Media could be described as being nothing other than explosive during and following the happening on Monday, as anti-Islamic nationalist movements are in full swing with the popular ‘Take back Australia’ Facebook page seeing a sharp increase in likes, up 37.8% to 42,400 since Monday.

This has been countered by the wildly popular #illridewithyou twitter campaign which intended to reassure Muslims who use public transport that they are welcome on the trains and buses.

News outlets went rabid with the Daily Telegraph printing a sensationalist emergency edition at 2pm on Monday to cover the events and Media King-pin Rupert Murdoch again finding himself in hot water over an insensitive tweet.

Although social divide has existed as long as society itself, it seems to be a safe assumption that the current circumstances that we find ourselves in are perpetuated so much by traditional and social media that they could almost be considered their creation.

As always, the effect of Martin Place on the context of Australian Muslim relations cannot be understood in isolation; and it is only because of this history of media and ethnic group mentality that what Man Haron Monis did has anything at all to do with communal relationships in Australia.

This is not the last time we will visit this dark place, as long as people continue to generalise Australian Muslims and Islamophobia lingers in the suburbs, we will find ourselves back here again and again.

Title Photo: Andrew Meares Sourced from: Sydney Morning Herald
Image of Man Haron Monis: Stephen Cooper Sourced from: The Daily Telegraph

October 21, 2014: The end of an investigation, the death of Gough Whitlam and the closing of an historic chapter

On this day, October 21, 2014, two different events occurred with eerie relevance to one another. Today, the Australian Federal Police have ended their investigation into the deaths of the ‘Balibo 5’ and Roger East. Today, Gough Whitlam passed away at the age of 98. Although these two happenings are not directly related, together they evoke memories of a shameful era in Australian history.

They speak of a time in which tiny East Timor, attempting to secure independence from the Portuguese Empire, seemingly had to struggle against the entire world to decide its own future.

In September 1974, Gough Whitlam travelled to Jakarta to meet with Indonesian President Suharto, a leader with an astoundingly violent past. During his stay, Whitlam secretly expressed his desire that Portuguese Timor should become Indonesia’s 27^th province, preferably through an act of self-determination, but ultimately regardless of whether the Timorese want it or not.

A year after Whitlam’s visit, the 16^th of October 1975, 5 journalists employed by Australian news agencies were murdered by rampaging Indonesian troops in the small Timorese town of Balibo. Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie have become infamously known as the ‘Balibo 5’.

Since then, Australia has struggled over coming to terms with the truth. Were the 5 journalists killed in mortar cross-fire as the Indonesians claim? Or were they individually and purposefully gunned down because they were Australian Journalists, as evidence suggests?

Two months later, Whitlam’s private message to Suharto that Portuguese Timor should become part of Indonesia was echoed by the Governments of the United Kingdom and the USA, with US President Henry Ford’s visit to Jakarta in early December, 1975. This visit was described by a US state department official as ‘the big wink’.

This western-sanctioned invasion landed in Timor's capital city, Dili, only 24 hours after President Ford had left Indonesia. During the initial wave of violence, Australian Journalist Roger East was publicly executed with scores of Timorese locals on a city wharf. He was in the country to investigate the deaths of the Balibo 5.

The invasion and subsequent occupation of Portuguese Timor by the Indonesians is undoubtedly one of the most violent of the modern era. It is difficult to come to a reliable figure, but approximately 200,000 people, or one third of the Timorese population were killed as a result.

This period of mass-murder was comparable to the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia in relative terms, but  fell entirely on deaf ears. The people of Timor were left to suffer alone, as Whitlam’s foreign policy of indifference and covert co-operation continued under Malcolm Fraser.

Although our tumultuous relationship with Timor quietly continues as the Timor-Leste v Australia case plays out in the ICJ over the legality of maritime borders and oil deals, it seems inevitable that the remaining chapters of Australia’s saga in Timor will continue to close with the same secrecy by which they were opened.

Scroll through as many articles about Whitlam’s death as you like, many provide a detailed timeline of his life, but very few will mention the role that he played in the Australian betrayal of East Timor. It can be described as nothing other than a haunting coincidence that his death fell on the day in which the investigation into the Balibo 5 was closed without a conclusion.

Whitlam should be remembered fondly for his progressive social policies, but our failure to recognise his, and our collective role in the generation-long destruction of East Timor besmirches the nostalgia.

Book Review: The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage

“To the people of 1788,

Whose land care is unmatched,

And who showed what it is to be Australian”

“The Biggest Estate on Earth” by Bill Gammage was published in 2011, and has become one of the best examples of research on Australian pre-Colonial history. The title is in reference to the unique idea of the book, that the whole Australian continent conformed to the land management techniques of the First Australians. One of the major issues that European Australians have faced since 1788 (The arrival of the first fleet) is our understanding of the Australian landscape and the First Australians. Gammage outlines the reasons for this and explores the true history of Australia, from a time where there are no written records and personal accounts have been lost. “The Biggest Estate on Earth” is a science and history book about Australian land management techniques before colonisation, but is also a powerful theoretical examination of what it means to be an Australian traditionally, and in the modern era.

Considering how well researched and relevant this book is to the common Australian, it is important reading for people who feel they do not know enough about indigenous culture, society and history. It is not a unique issue that the Australian population at large has a very basic, and often times ignorant view of the first Australians. Indigenous populations in other places around the world that have gone through colonisation such as Canada, New Zealand and the USA also suffer the consequences of a simple and inaccurate view of their history. First Australians are tarnished by the idea that their culture existed in a stagnant point in time since its conception – that the reason for an absence of technological achievements or societal progression is that they are simple people by nature and unmotivated to achieve new things. It is the responsibility of all Australians, whether descending from an immigrant ancestry or Indigenous themselves, that they learn the history of, and understand the meaning of First Australian culture.

One of the most striking features of this book is its collection of primary sources that provide visual descriptions of the Australian landscape before 1788. According to Gammage and referenced with evidence, the most common description of the Australian Environment by British settlers after the word “Bush”, was that of an English “Gentleman’s Park” which feature vast green lawns, with trees scarcely dotted along the terrain. This is significantly different to the way that the Australian environment currently appears, being either vast, thick rainforests or dry, clear grazing lands and desert. The title of the book is in reference to the fact that this kind of land management was not localised to specific tribal regions sparsely situated across the continent. Gammage shows that the entire continent conformed to this land management, in such a fashion that the early scientists that arrived from Britain were dumbfounded by the garden-like appearance of the nature, and slowly discovered that it was due to the land management of the First Australians. It was with fire that they shaped the landscape – regular controlled burnings that were conducted with precision of timing allowed them to manage where their food would grow, and where their prey would congregate. With fire they managed the cycle of the land, so much so that the land now has a heavy dependence on controlled burnings, the lack of which has had profound negative effects. One of the most damning scientific statistics that the book cites is that since the end of World War II, 1/3 of the world’s mammal extinctions have been Australian species. Because controlled burnings are now no longer reducing dry shrub and grasses in an orderly manner, when a wildfire is sparked through natural or intentional causes, the ensuing bushfire creates vast destruction that does far more damage in the form of fauna population destruction than it could ever hope to recuperate when regrowth begins. Along with scientific research, Gammage dedicates a chapter of the book to examine what we can learn from early Colonial Art.

Martha Berkeley, Mount Lofty from the Terrace, Adelaide, c1840

*This painting shows the grassy Mount Lofty and the plains beneath it from the perspective of North Terrace in 1840. This painting may come as a surprise to readers who have walked the Mount Lofty trail in recent times - a trail that is now defined by its thick shrub and Rainforest.

One of the most prominent ideas that I gathered from this book is that Australia has traditionally been the land of fire. In times before Colonists arrived with European farming techniques, fire was friend to the people and the environment, having formed a mutual relationship together over the thousands of years of controlled burnings. Not only was it not a destructive force to be feared as it is today, it symbolised the new cycle and encompassed the idea of the Dreaming that was held by almost all tribes across the continent. The Dreaming is a religious and philosophical way of life that guided the first Australians for thousands of years. The central idea of the Dreaming is one of complete sustainability and abundance, that wherever the Nomadic tribes moved, they would leave a trail of land that was neither better, nor worse than the condition in which it was when they arrived. Understanding the Dreaming helps one understand the true value of first Australian societies. The common view that is held by people such as our Prime Minister Tony Abbott that the Australian continent was “unsettled” in any way before 1788 is rooted in the idea that the value of a society is measured by the amount that it resembles traditional western civilisation. This style of civilisation was incompatible with Australia, the land of fire and Dreaming. First Australians did not manage the same technological advancements or forge vast cities, but they have existed in complete symbiosis with the land, and enjoyed the abundance of its spoils since the last Ice Age. This is in stark contrast to the society in which we live, which is driven by incredible technology, but relies on the destruction of the natural environment for capital gains and is fraught with ever increasing poverty. Perhaps we have an important lesson to learn about moving forward into the future from the example of the first Australians, and the humility and wisdom of the Dreaming.

This book is an important addition to Australia’s historical understanding of the First Australians. It teaches us the nature of our landscape, and identifies a complexity and wisdom in their societies that has been neglected to be understood by our European nation. Gammage ends the book beautifully with this last passage:  “There is no return to 1788. Non-Aborigines are too many, too centralised, too stratified, too comfortable, too conservative, too successful, too ignorant. We are still newcomers, still in wilderness, still exporting goods and important people and values. We see extinctions, pollution, erosion, salinity, bushfire and exotic pests and diseases, but argue over who should pay. We use land care merely to mitigate land misuse. We champion sustainability, which evokes merely surviving, whereas in 1788 people assumed abundance, and so did Genesis. We take more and leave the future less. Too few accept that this behaviour cannot survive the population time bomb. When the time comes to choose between parks and people, species and space, food and freedom, 1788’s values will be obliterated … We have a continent to learn. If we are to survive, let alone feel at home, we must begin to understand our country. If we succeed, one day we might become Australian.”

Tom Russell, July 2014

Image Sourced from: http://www.fiveaa.com.au/photo_mt-lofty-from-north-terrace-1840_331798

Why are there so many Sudanese people in Australia? Personal comments and criticisms

Yesterday I posted my two part article that I had been working on. This is the first article that I have created for the portfolio, and on the whole I am very pleased with the result. I'm happy with the standard of writing style and I believe that the article achieves the goals that I intended it to. It is well researched, contains very little of my personal opinion and there is very scarce amounts of needless content.

Although I think that my two part article is effective in educating readers about Sudan and the Sudanese community, there are some things that I would like to change.

Firstly, The format of the article is a Journal Article, rather than a news article. For this reason it is lengthy, has more content, and is more academically toned. When I first set out to create the article, I was interested in making a piece that took the form of an editorial that may be posted on a news website. However, the article organically took the shape of an Academic essay form, of which I am now accustomed to after years of university study. For this reason, I am going to conclude my work on this topic by rewriting a new article which will be an attempt at news form. I will need to change my style and learn how to properly structure my unique content (the subject matter of the interviews) within the context of Sudan.

Secondly, I learned a lot about how much work needs to go into the creation of an article such as this. Initially I wanted to get it onto my blog within a few weeks of the interviews, but instead it took 2 months. This is in part because of how busy my working and social life has been, but also because I made no attempt at a deadline. Again, this is different to what I am accustomed to from university, and I will probably seek to have some form of personal deadline in future.

These are the two major criticisms I have about the article that I have done, apart from some minor criticisms such as structure and language that could potentially be improved.

Why are there so many Sudanese people in Australia? part two

Part 2: Sudanese Refugees in Australia

When a nation takes in asylum seekers, they are granted permanent residency visas to ensure that they can remain under their protection for the rest of their lives. Since 2000, Australia has granted permanent residency to 28,275 Sudanese Refugees.

Figure 1: Graph that displays Refugee intake from Sudan or South Sudan since 2000. 

                     (Data provided by immigration Australia)

Year	Amount of people
2000	961
2001	1281
2002	2612
2003	4644
2004	7356
2005	3885
2006	3679
2007	1360
2008	723
2009	732
2010	270
2011	221
2012	184
2013	367

Figure 2: A table which displays the graph data in number form.

Although there were Sudanese people living in Australia before 2000, there was a rapid exodus from the region during the most recent conflict in Darfur. The urgent need to grant asylum to Sudanese Refugees can explain the increase of intake between 2003 and 2006. It was not until the end of 2006 that the number decreased, after the scattered conflicts in Sudan were downgraded from crisis levels following the end of the Darfur insurgency in 2005 and the signing of the Naivasha Agreement (CPA) which ended the North/South civil war.

It is interesting to note that many of the Refugees that came from Sudan during this period would have been already waiting in Refugee camps for many years prior. Most of those who were displaced by the early century conflicts are likely still in Refugee camps, some of which will have moved back home.

To be granted asylum in Australia, Refugees must apply through the UNHCR. This is a lengthy process and can sometimes mean that they need to stay in dangerous locations or within poverty stricken refugee camps for a harmfully long period of time. It is common that Refugees can spend between 5 and 10 years waiting for an accepted application through the UNHCR. Many will never find asylum. After a waiting period, Refugees coming through the UNHCR must gather money to purchase plane tickets to make their way to their country of Asylum. The wait of the refugees relies almost solely on the amount of spots that countries are offering to asylum seekers, and where they choose to take them from.

Who are Refugees?

Refugees are people who meet the criteria of the UN’s 1948 refugee convention, of which Australia is a signatory. This convention was widely accepted into international law to protect those who are fleeing violence. As outlined by the UN, Refugees are non-combatants who are fleeing from violent political, religious or ethnic persecution. These people become refugees when their own Government fails to act as their protector, and is commonly that from which they are fleeing.

Joseph Mangong and James Manut, two Sudanese Refugees living in Australia

I came to know Joseph and Manut through my connections to St Peter’s College. Both have incredible stories to tell about their journey from the conflict stricken Sudan to Australia as Refugees. I was lucky enough to talk to both of them individually and they shared with me some of their story and their thoughts about the Sudanese community in Australia. They both belong to the Dinka tribe, which is the majority tribe in South Sudan. There is a large population of Dinka in Adelaide and they are mostly Catholic. Because they have moved from a vastly different culture and have unique struggles, it is important for Sudanese refugees to stick together. For this reason, it’s common that the community will organise celebrations or mourning ceremonies in community halls. This community is not just a loosely connected network of friends; it is simultaneously a support group, a friendship group and a group of familiar faces for those who may feel homesick. When together, they will do things such as dance, eat, or hold group discussions if there is a particular issue that they need to address.

Joseph Mangong

Born in 1986 in a small town called Tonj (pronounced Toing), Joseph is part of the Abuk Juwiv clan. He grew up unable to have an education due to the crippling effects of the civil war. During the Northern offensive of 1992, Tonj was raided by unknown northerners, most likely Khartoum Government forces or an Islamic militia. This violent raid resulted in the death of Joseph’s father and separation from his Mother and brothers. From this day, the 6 year old Joseph began a journey by foot that involved a trip to Ethiopia and back, then to the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya. Although Joseph was with other Refugees on this journey, he was with no one that he knew. Over the course of 1992, he walked approximately 2,600 kilometres. To put that into perspective for Australians, he walked a straight line from Adelaide to Darwin. The terrain that he crossed was sometimes arid, and sometimes thick rainforest. When he arrived in Kenya, he spent the next decade in the Kakuma Refugee camp with a man named Kel Wol, a member of his tribe from Tonj that he managed to find.  It was here that Joseph grew up, gained a basic education through the UNHCR and learned how to speak English. In 2001, he was transferred to a Refugee camp for Southern Sudanese people in Northern Uganda. From here, his application to become a permanent resident in Australia was accepted and in 2003 he moved to Perth.

Since then, Joseph has married Ajor (Kel Wol’s niece), has a 5 year old daughter named Alek who has just commenced primary school at Brahama Lodge, and a younger son named Deng. He works as a groundsman at St Peter’s College alongside Manut, and has miraculously come back into contact with his Mother and Brothers who he was separated from in 1992. None of this would be possible if it weren’t for the UNHCR’s work and Australia’s decision to grant a residency visa.

James Manut

James Manut was born in 1967 in a small village called Agok, in the disputed Abyei region of South Sudan. When he was young, he did not go to school due to the war; instead he was a village farmer. In 1993, his village was raided by northerners and he fled north with his family. It took 6 months for him to travel to Khartoum by foot, a city where he lived for many years with large numbers of other Southern Sudanese refugees. In 200* he travelled to Cairo, Egypt. In both of these places, he was wary of his status as a Christian, and often feared persecution from Muslim people. Cairo is where he made his successful application for residency in Australia, and in 2004 he arrived in Adelaide. Manut has a partner named Akol and a 16 year old daughter named Adut, both still live in South Sudan. He hopes that someday they will be able to come to Australia with him.

Like many communities that have tribal backgrounds, the Sudanese community in Australia has elders that act as guides and leaders. Manut is an elder in Adelaide, and his position was earned through respect and age. His perspective from this position is valuable to understanding the way in which Sudanese refugees are integrating and progressing into Australian society. Manut’s role as an elder is similar to that of our own Australian Indigenous elders; he acts as a role model and as a mediator for those who are in need of wisdom, encouragement or advice in regards to relationship disputes or other family and community issues.

One of the major issues that the Sudanese community has been facing is problems with youth and education. According to Manut, a significant difference between Australia and many African countries is the standard of education. Although this is not surprising to hear, it is striking to notice how much emphasis Manut was putting on its importance. He thinks that as time goes on and the youth of the community stay in school, the issues that they currently face will diminish. Recently across Australia there has been fear of Sudanese gang violence. Although there was a period of violence in recent years, there has since been a progression in the Sudanese community. As Manut puts it, 3 years ago there were many issues with the youth, many of which were leaving school and turning to alcohol. However, there has been a clear change for the better since then. This was important to hear, because it shows that there is not stagnation in the Sudanese community. They are moving forward from the Sudanese conflict and refugee camps, and as Manut put it, “are saving their life”.

Final words: The future of Sudan, South Sudan and the community in Australia

Although the Republic of South Sudan has been free from conflict with the North since 2005, it is not yet at peace. It remains the youngest state in the world and is offering an example for historians and scholars to examine the formation of a new state, and the process by which a nation is built. South Sudan is currently in conflict again, as the SPLA/M is going through leadership quarrels involving current President Salva Kiir (part of the Dinka tribe) and former Vice President Riek Machar (of the Nuer tribe). Both have different visions for the direction that South Sudan should take, and both seek Governmental control due to ethnic tensions between their tribes. This conflict began in December with an attempted coup, and continues on today.

Despite the continuing cycle of violence, both Joseph and Manut are hopeful for the future of South Sudan. That hope is also there for the future of the Australian Sudanese community.  Their hope is sincere and warming and I believe them.

Although most of the violence in Sudan has been towards Black Christians in South Sudan and Darfur, it is easy to forget that Arab Muslims have been victims of the conflict as well. Although the Government of Sudan is Muslim controlled and they have a heavy burden of guilt over atrocities and oppression, many innocent Muslims were swept up in the conflict all the same. It is important to note that this is not a story of good Catholic vs evil Muslim.

As a final point, I would like to thank both Joseph and Manut for agreeing to give me their time and their thoughts. As a young journalist it’s valuable to have the opportunity to speak to people with the experience that they have, and this article would not exist without them. Thank you.