I am not qualified to author immigration policy. However, I am not convinced that those who are writing immigration policy are any better at it than I would be. I know the view is different from the top, and balancing the inordinate number of competing interests is nigh-impossible (heavy head, crown, etc). However, in many cases there seems to be a complete absence of basic human kindness. And again, I know that national policy is sometimes a numbers game; adjusting conditions so that there is less overall suffering even if some people still do suffer. I can hear the argument forming already, “to speak of kindness at such a scale is naive”. To which I say, read this book. There is no world in which this sort of suffering is necessary. And to enable, to facilitate, to engineer such suffering is immoral.
Our leaders lie to us. They mislead, they misrepresent, they oversimplify, they conceal, they perform a great number of verbal gymnastics to keep us, the populace, content. They tell us what we should be unhappy about, and then they fix it. And if they aren’t able or willing to fix something, they tell us that it isn’t really a problem. If you have forgotten that this dance is going on all the time, this book will remind you what it looks like, and what the consequences are.
This book is the story of what happens when refugees are turned away. In particular, this is what happens to refugees trying to reach Australia by sea. Rather than being welcomed and offered help, the government decided to close the border and shipped these people to a camp in Papau New Guinea, paid for by the Australian government. It sounds reasonable, especially to hear the politicians explain it. Ealom shows us that it is an utter disgrace.
When people abandon their homes and their possessions just to try to reach your border, it feels reassuring: this is a land of safety, morality, freedom. But when you turn those refugees away, that all disappears: this land becomes selfish, racist, paranoid. In short, we’re the bad guys.
Read this book. It is an amazing and inspiring story. More importantly, it shows us the truth of anti-refugee policies. Remember, Jaivet Ealom is, quite possibly, the only one who escaped.