Mobilising rural Australia
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 3: Webs of Power
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Ann Coombs
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October 2003
Betty Dixon from Goulburn called this morning. She had some information about one of "her boys" in the Baxter detention centre, Ebrahim Sammaki, whose wife, Endong was killed in the Bali bombing. Ebrahim is to be allowed to go to Adelaide for a memorial service for the anniversary on the weekend. As the anniversary approaches I have been thinking of Ebrahim, struck by a double tragedy: the separation from family and imprisonment that is the fate of asylum seekers in Australia; and the appalling bad luck that saw his wife passing down a Kuta street on the night of the Bali bombing. Fate has stuck the knife into Ebrahim, and twisted it.
After Betty's phone call, I pulled out the card that Ebrahim sent to his Australian friends last year, after his wife's death, to thank them for their support. On the front is a family photo taken before the family's separation. Ebrahim is a strong-looking man with bushy eyebrows and a square jaw. Beside him, Endong is slight and beautiful with long black hair. Ebrahim holds their baby daughter, Sara. The little boy Safda stands solemnly in front of his mother.
At the time he sent the cards Ebrahim was in Woomera detention centre. (The cards were prepared and paid for by one of Betty's friends in Goulburn.) In his message, printed inside the card, Ebrahim said: "The desert has shown no mercy for our tears and heartache or the cry of the children for their papa. But you, my friends, we will never, never forget your kindness. God be with you."
Ebrahim is still in detention. His motherless children are still in Indonesia. The Government continues to refuse them visas to visit their father.
Soon after I wrote this John Howard was photographed with the two children at a football game in Bali. He stood grinning with Sara's hand in his and Safda standing next to him. He didn't know their father was in detention. But within days the photograph was published in newspapers in Australia and the Government came under pressure to allow the children to visit their father. Questions were asked in Parliament, Simon Crean took up the call, and Natasha Stott Despoja said she would be a sponsor for the children. Two weeks later the Government issued Ebrahim with a permanent protection visa, allowing him to be released from detention and re-united with his children. The outcome was a win for refugee advocates who had fought a campaign of "email activism" to get the issue onto the floor of Parliament.
The pro-refugee network is in fact a vast mosaic of overlapping networks: lawyers, church people, human-rights advocates, welfare workers, political activists and ordinary people; from highly skilled professionals with specific expertise to the many thousands who have joined a grassroots movement to oppose the Government's treatment of asylum seekers. This is the story of one strand in this network – Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR).
FOR MOST OF HER 73 YEARS BETTY DIXON HAS LIVED a quiet conservative life in Goulburn. She has five children, 13 grandchildren and, now, 12 refugee "sons". There are hundreds like Betty Dixon in rural Australia: older women, mothers and grandmothers, whose outrage has catapulted them into political activism, many of them for the first time in their lives. I think of Elaine Smith, up on the north coast of NSW, who is in touch with dozens and dozens of detainees on Nauru, and of Joc Stenson at Mudgee, helping the Afghan boys at the abattoir with their English lessons and visa applications. I think of my friend Marg, whom I've known for years and never known to be "political", but there she is at every RAR meeting.
RAR members have not shrunk from the challenge of confronting the Government wherever possible. In fact, I've been surprised by the readiness of normally unpolitical people to be politicised on this issue. When I first saw a horde of grey-haired grannies in their RAR T-shirts waving their banners outside Parliament House it occurred to me that I was witnessing something important – perhaps the beginning of a new social-justice movement in rural Australia. It showed that when the chips are down, when they really feel that fundamental freedoms are at stake, ordinary people can and will act.
RAR was born out of frustration. It began after the Tampa stand-off, when we were told that 85 per cent of Australians were behind the Government. Those of us who were not seemed to be cowered by this overwhelming majority, silenced. People who dared speak sympathetically about asylum seekers found themselves falling out with friends, family, neighbours. Public opinion was hardening.
In early October 2001, my partner, Susan Varga, our friend Helen McCue and I were sitting around at home wondering what we, as individuals, could do. This is the problem for people stirred up by our political leaders' actions or failure to act. Confronted with abuse of power, individual action seems futile. But it is exactly at such moments that it is imperative.
We knew there were a lot of people feeling the way we did. But how to mobilise them? Most Australians knew very little about the way asylum seekers were being treated, both in the privately run detention centres and by the bureaucracy that was processing their claims. People were not being honestly informed by the Government. We were convinced that many more would be sympathetic to asylum seekers if they were given the facts.
Thus Susan coined one of our first slogans: "When you know the facts you will open your heart." Susan is great at engaging with people. She knows how to make connections. I'm always full of ideas but not so good at making them happen. Helen is the sort who, if I say, "We could have a public meeting", will respond by pulling out her diary, naming a date and suggesting a venue. We discovered that the three of us made a good team.
We decided to hold a public meeting in our local town, Bowral, five days before the federal election in November 2001. We gathered a small group of like-minded supporters to help us organise. We did some research, prepared a fact sheet and also an open letter to be published in our local paper. We handed out flyers for the public meeting in the shopping centre on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons for a couple of weeks. We collected signatures for the open letter. We arranged an impressive line-up of speakers and invited local candidates to address the meeting. Nearly 500 people packed the Bowral Memorial Hall. It made an impact because it was one of the first public expressions of dissent by everyday Australians.
We coined the somewhat ambitious name "Rural Australians for Refugees" because we believed in what we were doing and its potential to grow, which is exactly what it did after that first meeting. As a result of coverage on radio and television and through the web, we were inundated with people wanting to help or be part of RAR. Within days, RAR groups were starting up in regional areas of Victoria and NSW. The growth was phenomenal – within three months there were close to 30 RAR groups across the country. Now there are more than 60.
Some RAR groups are located close to detention centres, such as those at Port Augusta, Port Pirie and Whyalla, while others are in parts of the country where they rarely see a refugee. So each group, and each individual RAR supporter, undertakes whatever work seems most appropriate. These are some of the ways that RAR people help: writing to detainees; working on submissions to have detainees released; visiting them and taking things they need – from medication to shoes to second-hand computers; finding legal help; writing to politicians and newspapers; lobbying for better treatment in detention; collecting household goods so newly released refugees can set up house; holding regular information nights and street stalls; organising events that raise community awareness; media work; lobbying councils to declare their towns "welcome towns"; organising holidays in the country for city-based refugees; and giving English and driving lessons.
The groups near the detention centres are in daily contact with detainees. In rural areas of NSW and Victoria, many people are involved in helping people on temporary protection visas. Some RAR members are battling to free particular families from detention – a fight that has taken over their lives. Others concentrate on public education and raising money for those working "at the coalface". Our group supports Port Pirie RAR's work and that of the House of Welcome in Sydney. Lismore RAR helps Port Augusta RAR and newly released refugees in Brisbane. Up in Bellingen, Walter Schwarz has co-ordinated a massive letter-writing campaign, linking up more than 1500 Australians with people behind the razor wire in need of friends.
As a network, we have worked on some common strategies, such as the "welcome books", which encourage ordinary citizens to write messages of welcome to refugees in detention and the "welcome towns" campaign, where local councils declare themselves refugee-friendly. Many towns have now passed resolutions to this effect. Last year we launched a nationwide campaign against temporary protection visas, with the theme "Refugees deserve a permanent future". In recent months there has developed a much better understanding in the community of the corroding effect of temporary visas and RAR has played a part in that.
The overall aim of RAR is nothing less than turning around public opinion. Our intent is highly political but RAR is non-party political. From the beginning our supporters have covered the political spectrum, from National Party to Green.