From the warehouse of lost souls

Rob White dares us to imagine the plight of families who flee their homes in search of safety, and are locked away before being released in a new land

IMAGINE the relief when after days, months, years of fearfulness, fleeing and fretting, you finally find sanctuary.

Your family, your son, daughter, mother, father, brother and sister are safe.

You have lost everything. You have everything.

The horror of bloody conflict and the terror of terrorism are momentarily expunged, yet hauntingly return again, especially at night, especially in the quiet time, the time of peace. It is a time of arrival.

Imagine the frustration when time expands and space shrinks, as your universe collapses into this one tiny space on the planet. There is no movement out, very little in. This is the camp. This is your home away from your home. This is where you temporarily come for relief, but where you will now stay for years. It is alien. It is all that you have. Boredom and rage, illness and trauma: the emotions and injuries bubble up in inverse proportion to time spent waiting.

Imagine the resilience when you realise that for you to survive you, too, must change. The soul needs to spread its wings, wherever and whenever it is entrapped. And education and learning is precisely one such release. You learn. You learn some more. Your mind frees while your body stays shackled to the camp’s routines, its perimeter boundaries, its securities and lack of securities. Permanence and transience are momentarily forgotten as dialogue fills the air, as you soak up the new knowledge, new ideas, new vistas and new ways of comprehending.

Learning is itself a form of salvation.

Imagine the relief when after years and years of waiting, a government official from another country tells you that you have the right papers and the right to leave. You and your family are going on a journey, to a place far away, a place unknown to you before now. You gaze at the human residue around you. They are safe, too. But they will remain, for now, for longer. You feel guilty. You feel elated. You feel apprehensive. But most of all, you are eager to begin a new chapter and to forge a new life. Somewhere else. It is a time for departure.

Imagine the frustration when you try to learn a new language, but the words do not always mean what they say. (He says, “I’ll shout!” You cringe, but he grins). The humour is weird but wonderful, the people welcoming if somewhat reserved.

Some do not like your presence here; most smile and accept your silence as the words of the newcomer. The world smells differently here. The birds and animals are different. Even the sky is different. The food is not what you are used to, but you are grateful for its abundance. You are forced to learn new things. For this is the basis of your survival, here. Learning will set you free in your new land of freedom.

Imagine the resilience when the day of the ceremony arrives. You mutter the obligatory “g’day” but then laugh at the absurdity and because you can. Your family is safe. You have a new home. You are you and yet you are me, too.

You came here by plane. You came here with government approval. But it was not smooth sailing. Being a refugee is a long and lengthy process, and carries with it its own traumas and tribulations. It changes you, and it changes me. Nothing is forgotten and far too much is remembered. But Australia is now what the camp could never be — home. You are here to stay. And for this you are grateful. Yet, it is your neighbours who say the same back to you. Such things continue to surprise you in this now familiar land.

However, the more established you become, the more you understand. For the next group of newcomers, it will be your shout.

Worldwide, two-thirds of all refugees now live in protracted refugee situations, defined by the United Nations as where 25,000 persons or more have been in exile for five or more years in developing countries. This has been termed the warehousing of refugees. Some refugees from Myanmar have lived confined to the camps in Thailand for 30 years. Rob White is from the Centre for Applied Youth Research which, with the Asia Institute Tasmania, is sponsoring a public lecture by Dr Jen Couch on June 29 at University of Tasmania on “The Refugee Paradox: Is higher education possible in protracted refugee settings?”

Imagine the relief when after years and years of waiting, a government official from another country tells you that you have the right papers and the right to leave.