“They’re just children…”
As a poet, community leader and proud Wiradjuri man, “Riverbank” Frank Doolan doesn’t have a problem with celebrating Australia Day. In fact, he thinks it’s a great way for all people of the nation to come together as one and acknowledge their fortune at living in this country. Therein lies the reason he’ll be spending January 26 at Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre, leading a protest against the incarceration of refugee children.
IDON’T have a problem with celebrating Australia Day – but the continuing issue of children in detention makes me wonder what the day is really all about.
Australia began as a penal colony – the European history at least – and it seems we haven’t moved far from that position. In recent times our record on human rights, and in particular the treatment of asylum seekers is atrocious.
This isn’t about invasion day, or anything like that – it’s about a fair go for people who want to call Australia home.
As an indigenous man in Australia today, it’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to know what it’s like to be stateless, and to feel powerless in the face of it.
There’s been nothing from our so-called “black leadership” about the treatment of asylum seekers.
Australia day is our national day – we celebrate everything that’s good in this country. Isn’t it also a day when we celebrate, most of all, our freedom?
How can we celebrate that as a society when we have children incarcerated – the children of stateless people who are fleeing for their lives?
I work with children. I see a lot of hope in children, and each child is just as valuable as the next.
I want to ask that question – on this day of all days – how can we celebrate freedom when we deny it to these children?
How can we use this day to protest about land rights, for instance, or what you imagine your rights to be as an indigenous Australian, and not protest on behalf of these children?
As indigenous people, we can show our humanity.
I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be in the position these refugees have been in, and are in.
We live in one of the most affluent societies in the western world, and yet countries that are not nearly as “lucky” have a much better record of humanity when it comes to the treatment of refugees.
I don’t want to go on being a part of a society that denies that humanity.
Aboriginal people are the elephant in the room on this issue and that’s one of the bitterest ironies about being black in this country.
My good friend Nina (Angelo) put a question to the Human Rights Commissioner at the time, Gillian Triggs, as to why the “black leadership” wasn’t speaking up on the issue of asylum seekers.
She replied to the effect that Aboriginal people had enough of their own issues to deal with.
With all due respect, don’t patronise me and don’t patronise my people – and don’t ever doubt the capacity of indigenous people at grassroots level in this country to care and to share. I’m just one of them.
What I’ll be asking at Villawood on Australia Day is for the immediate release of all children of asylum seeking refugees currently in detention in Australia and off-shore.
I’ll be asking that question because, honestly, I can’t sleep at night knowing that we’re locking up these kids.
I just want to say to everyone that this is an issue of humanity – a chance to show our humanity. Of course there should be a screening process for people to come into our country but we should be impartial with that process, rather than base it on our pre-conceptions. These people have been demonised.
Where should these children go when they’re released? I don’t have the answer to that – that’s what I’m asking of Australia, and of the Minister for Immigration. What can we do to help these children? Surely there is a better place that we can look after these children. And surely we can speed up the processing of their parents and reunite these families.
Maybe we could have some kind of system of people sponsoring these children; where contact is maintained with their parents, but where the children not locked up behind wire.
All I know is that I’m part of a group that is still feeling the effects of the Stolen Generation, which still continues to impact on my people.
There’s a lot of money spent needlessly to try to address that injustice, but we have to realise that what Australia is doing to these children is going to be a source of great shame to future generations.
Governments talk about the debt we leave our children. What about the moral debt we leave our children?
We can’t keep locking children up.
When we do something to stop this awful practice, then for me – and I think for all Australians – the sun’s going to shine, the birds are going to sing and the rivers are going to run. We’ll all be a lot happier in ourselves.
Peaceful protest
“RIVERBANK” Frank Doolan says the protest at Villawood on Australia Day (Tuesday, January 26) will be peaceful, and conducted within the law. There will be an address to the assembled protesters, he says, but he will be personally insisting the rally remains calm. “I’ll be leading the protest, so responsibility will rest with me, but I don’t envisage any violence or illegal activity. I’ll be telling people at the start that we’re not there to abuse workers coming and going, or act aggressively in any way,” he says.
“Anything we do that’s detrimental to that peace will be detrimental to the people we’re trying to help. I’d actually prefer if we were more of a silent presence.”
Doolan says he promised last year that he’d be back in 2016, and he’s encouraging like-minded people to join him in his peaceful protestations at the incarceration of children in detention centres.
The rally starts at 10.30am at the Villawood Detention Centre, and will draw to a close at 2.30pm.