Why they protest on Christmas Island

Miqdad Hussain. A name that sadly is unknown to many people. Miqdad was a 23 year old Afghan man who died in an Australian detention centre last week in Cape York, one of five who have died in detention since last August (four by suicide). Miqdad hung himself in the early hours of the morning with a bed sheet.  He died with no family around him to mourn him or bury him. Miqdad’s death has brought no outrage from the mainstream media, there will be no public inquiry into how this could happen and, once again, no one will be held accountable for yet another death in detention while in the care of the Australian government.  His funeral will have only anonymity to mark it and nothing more. Miqdad was able to survive the horrors of Afghanistan and the Taliban but could not bear the despair of detention or the prospect of being sent back to a country where he feared he would be killed. This death should mark a line in the sand to say we cannot afford to continue to turn a blind eye to a detention system that is sending people to the point of suicide.

The past week we have seen countless images of the Christmas Island detention centre being burnt, the images of hundreds of men breaking out of detention and clashing with Australian police and immigration officers and of property being damaged. The media and politician’s catch cry responses all have the same predictable ring to them – from the Herald Sun talking about ‘paradise lost’ for Christmas Island and residents living in fear to both the ALP and Liberal Party talking ‘tough’ about punishing these men.

What is invisible in this conversation and goes mainly unspoken is why this is happening and how have we found ourselves in such a situation in the first place.

The real blame lies with the Australian government and not the men in detention. These men did not choose to be asylum seekers. They did not choose to be held indefinitely in a remote, overcrowded detention centre with no freedom or hope. They did not choose to be part of a legal process that denies them most of their basic legal rights simply because they arrived by boat to Australia. And they did not choose to be tear gassed and shot with potentially lethal ‘bean bag’ bullets simply for asking for freedom.

These men are not criminals. They have harmed no residents on Christmas Island. The focus on property damage ignores the more important concerns about the human damage to these men after months to years of detention. Former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry called detention centres ‘factories for mental illness’ for a reason.  They are places that destroy the spirit. They are places that rob you of hope and reason.

The protests must be a wake up call to both major parties that the policy of mandatory detention is a total failure. What we need is bipartisan support for the humane alternative that exists to mandatory detention and offshore processing. Namely community based processing. I say to people ‘do you want to know how to save Australia a billion dollars plus a year’? The answer is simple – let people out of detention and let them work to support themselves and contribute back to the Australian economy and community as they so desperately want to. The majority of asylum seekers have always resided historically in the community, with plane arrivals out numbering boat arrivals. The asylum seekers in the community have lived peacefully and done all they can to contribute and integrate. The cost to government of supporting asylum seekers in the community would be less than 10% of what is spent on the factories of human suffering that bring nothing but despair, protests and trigger anxiety and fear.

The next time you see a report on the television, radio or in the newspaper reporting that people are protesting against being held in detention – think of why they are protesting, think of the conditions in detention and think of the reasons people have fled.  Only then can we understand the situation and pressure our politicians and the media to change the way asylum seekers are treated.  Every one deserves a fair go.