Harrowing but uplifting

PEOPLE smugglers are considered to be the pariahs of the modern world. No other trade is so demonised and yet ironically, so useful to contemporary Australian politics. But there is another side of the coin to a story that reaches well beyond our maritime borders, with a much longer lineage than the recent refugee movements.

Smuggled recounts the journeys to Australia of refugees and their smugglers since the Second World War – from Jews escaping the Holocaust, Eastern Europeans slipping through the Iron Curtain, “boat people” fleeing the Vietnam War to refugees escaping unthinkable violence in the Middle East and Africa.

Based on original research and revealing personal interviews, Smuggled detaches the term “people smuggler” from its pejorative connotations, and provides a compelling insight into an unexplored part of Australia’s history.

People traffickers in fact helped the captive and the helpless negotiate a precarious path to freedom, and many are considered heroes by those they brought to safety.

It’s a timely corrective by

Ruth Balint and Julie Kalman, both of whose families owe their lives in Australia to these “smugglers”.

Putting the history of migration into a new, fascinating context, their stories remind us that we are all to some extent, illegal travellers. Many seeking asylum here have enriched Australia’s culture and given back tenfold. Among these are surgeon Munjed Al Muderis, Ahn Doh, the entrepreneur Taozen and many more whose stories are told here.

Of course the dangerous and shadowy aspect of illicit people trafficking remains, via mafia networks, organised crime and deaths at sea, and while these are human catastrophes, these true stories about migration put the phenomenon into a new historical context, providing an insight into those brave enough to help on humanitarian grounds.

Based on revealing personal interviews, these often harrowing stories are ultimately inspiring and uplifting.