Malcolm Fraser saved Vietnamese refugees – can Morrison find the same compassion for Afghanistan’s?
After more than 20 years of fighting in a hot, unforgiving terrain, the allied forces left. They took flight in helicopters and planes and whatever vessel or moving vehicle they could get their hands on. And within days, the local government fell. I’m not talking about Afghanistan. I’m talking about the war in Vietnam.
The Vietnam war was the seminal tragedy in the recent history of my family. We owe our existence here in Australia to it. All our joys and sorrows come from this one failed war.
Australia had entered the conflict backing the Americans to stop another domino from falling to communism. But by the 1970s, it was clear that there was no end in sight. They would leave the defence of the republic to the southern Vietnamese.
Pinch me if you see a pattern here. By 1975, Saigon fell, and Operation Frequent Wind saw the western armies flee. My dad was 17.
My uncle Kevin was there at the American embassy when people climbed on top of each other to board that last helicopter. He had fake papers, and the identity of a translator, hoping to get aboard.
But back then, my family wasn’t so lucky as to board one of these helicopters and, eventually, my uncle Kevin was arrested for speaking out against
the Communist party.
So like many before them and many yet to come, members of my family fled on the back of supply trucks and on leaky fishing boats. My dad was just 18 when he made the journey to Khao-IDang, a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border.
At the time Malcolm Fraser, the then Liberal prime minister, opened the doors to Vietnamese refugees.
According to my aunties, Australia was accepting young singles, and it was in Australia where they thought they could rebuild their lives and reunite our family.
In the end, over 100,000 people came to Australia, and the vibrant communities in Cabramatta and Inala are testaments to them.
Today, my parents have both lived the majority of their lives in Australia. They raised a family and started businesses. For them, Australia is an incredibly lucky country. They speak English with a unique Vietnamese Australian twang. My dad drinks VB on Australia
Day, and my mum loves a Tim Tam with her strong Vietnamese coffee.
Today, another decades-long war draws to a close, and Australia is no more victorious than it was last time. We watch on from our locked down homes as people scramble for the airports and climb and push to board planes.
As Kabul falls and the Taliban take power, not everyone will make their way on to those planes. What of the translators and janitors and cooks who happen to work on the wrong side of a never-ending conflict?
But as I look to today’s Liberal prime minister, I’m not entirely sure if another 100,000 refugees might find a home in Australia.
If the experiences of the Biloela family is any indication, I am not too hopeful. It took a little girl getting sepsis for our leaders to muster the compassion in their hearts to allow them on the Australian mainland again.
In the hearts of the Vietnamese refugee community in Australia, Malcolm Fraser is forever immortalised as a champion of humanity. And when he died in 2015, I remember seeing my aunty shed a tear and smelling the musky waft of incense we had lit in his honour.
Today, Australia stands at another seminal moment. Will our leaders today have the courage and compassion of our yesteryear?