You come at the king, you best not miss.
Omar Little, The Wire (after RW Emerson)
The phrase “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” is at once apt, correct, and yet often oversimplified to the point of disingenuousness. The word “terrorist” itself describes its goal. To instill fear in the heart of the enemy. In the past, the target would have been the king, the dictator, the ruling class, and those who served them and upheld their rule. Politicians, officials, solders and policemen. Today, terrorists indiscriminately target whole societies. Irish bombers blasted communities of the rival faith, murdered shoppers, office workers, and pub patrons, as well as soldiers and policemen. Palestinian suicide bombers hit malls and pizza bars in city centres. ISIS, al Qa’ida and the Taliban detonate cars in busy city streets and publicly execute prisoners in callous and calculating “lectures in flesh” (the phrase is civil rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson’s, from his chilling account of the trials and execution of King Charles I of England and those who sentenced him, The Tyrannicide Brief.).
But targeted and random terrorism has a long historical pedigree. For centuries, it has been the desperate and nihilistic weapon of last resort of resistance and rebellion against perceived oppression and injustice, and against invaders and occupiers.
In the second century BCE Palestine, the Maccabees used assassination in their resistance to the Seleucid Greeks, and a century later, the Jewish zealots, the Sicarii, named for the easily concealed small daggers, paid the Romans in like coin, and ultimately in an insurrection that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE and the scattering of the Jewish race (giving history the emotive and symbolic last exit that was Masada). In an etymological irony that Mark Twain would have been proud of, the present unrest in Jerusalem, a large number of young Palestinians have perished in attempting to stab jewish soldiers and civilians. Their jaquerie is called the “Intifada Sakni-in”, the ‘Knife Uprising – an echo of those long-dead Sicarii “dagger men”.
Nowadays, one would be excused for thinking that “terrorism” and “terrorist” are synonymous with Arabs and Muslims. And a historical precedent reinforces this erroneous assumption. The Hashishan or “Assassins” of Middle East fame (yes, that is where that noxious noun originated) were Muslim men and boys mesmerized and mentored by Rashid ad Din as Sina-n, the “Old Man of the Mountain” (and all this, before Osama in the caves of Tora Bora), and were Twelfth Century hit-men contracted out to rival Muslim princes in the internecine conflicts that plagued the Levant in the wake of the Crusades and the demise of the great Arab Caliphates.
But the assassin’s knife (and in modern times, the gun and bomb, and latterly cars and trucks) predates these medieval hoods and links the Hebrew rebels of old to the Irgun and Stern Gang who encouraged Britain and the UN to abandon Palestine in 1948, bequeathing most of it to the new state of Israel, and triggering the Palestinian diaspora. European anarchists and Irish rebels and loyalists were adept at shootings and ambushes. In Algeria, during the ‘fifties, the nationalist FLN and the “colon” OAS shot and bombed each other and those unfortunates caught in the crossfire. The IRA perfected the improvised explosive device that today has crippled thousands of American, Canadian, and Australian soldiers in Iraq abd in Afghanistan. Hindu Tamil separatists of Sri Lanka introduced the suicide bomber, an economical and efficient weapon against soft (civilian, that is) targets, deployed today by Islamist killers in the streets of London and Lahore, Damascus and Dar es Salaam, Jerusalem and Jakarta. Whilst Arabs – and particularly Palestinians may have given the world the hijacking of aircraft – a tactic that fell into disuse due to diminishing political returns and rapid response forces – other Arabs showed us how to fly them into public buildings as the whole world watched in horror and disbelief. The shockwaves of this one are still reverberating through the deserts of the east and the capitals of the western world.
In going up up against their occupiers, the Palestinians have an old heritage. In my old country, Boudicca and Caractacus fought a losing battle against the Romans in Britain during the First CE. The Roman historian Tacitus ascribed to a vanquished chieftain the memorable words “solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant” – they make a desert and they call it peace. After the battle of Hastings in 1066, the defeated Saxons pushed back against the Normans and brought the genocidal wrath of William the Conqueror down on their heads with the devastating “Harrying of the North”. The Green Man and Robin Hood legends are said to be a retrospective and romanticised remembering of the Saxon resistance. Warrior fugitives from that failed guerilla war fled as far as Constantinple, where many joined the Emperor’s acclaimed Varangarian Guard, (see When Harald Went A Viking)
In the streets and the countryside of Ireland, my parents’ birthplace, the United Irishmen, Fenians, Free Staters, IRA and Unionists fought against the redcoats, tommies, and black and tans of the British Army. Fought amongst themselves, fought against each other, and killed and were killed in their centuries long war of liberation. And in my adopted country, indigenous Australians fought a futile frontier war against settlers and soldiers just as native Americans did, albeit on a much smaller scale, and paid the price in hangings, massacres, poisoned wells, dispossession, marginalization, and “stolen children”. The legacy of those times lingers still – see The Frontier Wars – Australia’s heart of darkness.
In Central America, Juarez led the Mexicans against the French, and Sandino, Nicaraguans against US marines. Spaniards rose up against Napoleon’s forces, giving the world the word “guerilla”, or “little war”. Russian partisans ambushed the Grande Armé and the Wehrmacht. Throughout occupied Europe, the very term “resistance” became synonymous with the heroic unequal struggle against tyranny. In another of history’s ironies, muqa-wamat, Arabic word for resistance, unites sectarian rivals Hamas and Hizbollah against Israel.
And not just resistance to invasion and occupation, but also against oppression by one’s own rulers. Religious tracts tie themselves in knots reconciling the obligation to obey our rulers with the right to resist and overthrow those that rule badly. The unequal struggle against tyranny – or what is perceived by the perpetrators as tyranny – is the cause that inspires men and women to desperate acts.
The most celebrated in fact, film and fiction is the death of Julius Caesar at the hands of peers who feared that he intended to usurp the ostensibly democratic Republic (ostensible because democratic it was not) and institute one-man rule. That ended badly for the conspirators, and for Rome, as it precipitated years of civil war and ultimately, half a century of empire).
In 1880 the reforming Czar Alexander II of Russia, discovered the hard way that liberating the serfs did not inoculate himself against the bomb that took his legs and his life. His fearful and unimaginative successors hardened their hearts and closed their minds against further reform. setting in train the crackdown on dissent and democratic expression that led eventually to the storming of the Winter Palace on Petrograd in 1917. Narodnaya Volya, the killers called themselves – the People’s Will. And that is what terrorists do. They appeal and owe fealty to a higher court, a greater good, a savage God.
So it was when student and Serbian nationalist Gavril Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in June 1914 and ignited the spark that lit the conflagration of World War 1 which precipitated the demise of the old European empires.
So too when John Brown and his sons brought their broadswords to bear on slavers and their sympathizers and made a date with destiny at Harpers Ferry. Their famous raid may or may not have accelerated the downward slide to the secession and civil war that erupted the following year, but it provided a moral and symbolic prelude and also, the resonating battle hymn of the republic. John Wilkes Booth bookended this bloody era with his histrionic and public murder of Abraham Lincoln, shouting “sic semper tyrannis”, “thus always to tyrants,” attributed to Brutus at Caesar’s assassination – today, it’s the Virginia state motto. Brown and Booth were quite clear in their motives. As was were the segregationalist shooters who did for African Americans Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King. Less so were the killers of the Kennedy brothers in the sixties.
To conclude, sometimes that savage, rebel God is one of faith, sometimes, of blood and soil. In some instances, it is revenge for wrongs real and imagined – the reasons at times lost or forgotten through the passage of time and fading memories. And often, “the cause” is corrupted by the immoral economics of illicit commerce, including contraband, kidnapping, blackmail and extortion. Sometimes all merge in an incongruous hybrid of religious passion, ethic identity, libertarian or anarchistic fervour, and protection racket. As was the case in Northern Ireland, in Lebanon, in sub-Saharan Africa, and currently so in Syria and Iraq.
But most times, terror and turmoil is simply a political weapon planned, targeted and executed as a mechanism of regime change. Rebellion, revolt and revolution. Resisting, opposing, challenging, confronting and defeating the central authority. The seizing, holding, consolidation and keeping of political power.
And one thing is for sure. The outcome is unpredictable. History does not move in straight lines, but often follows a bitter and twisted path. Cliched as it is, the phrase “be careful what you wish for” is an apt one. And when, as Bob Dylan sang, “the line it is drawn, the curse it is cast”, there is no going back. To quote WB Yeats’ famous lines, “all is changed, changed utterly”.
Terrorism, then, can shift the course of history. If we were to stumble into the swamp of alternative histories, imagine what might of happened
If Caesar had walked home from the senate on the Ides of March
If Lincoln had been able to guide the Reconstruction
If the reforming Czar had introduced democratic government to Russia
If Gavril Princip’s shot had missed the archduke
If Kennedy had returned from Dallas
If John Lennon outlived George Harrison
If Yitzak Rabin had left the peace concert in Tel Aviv
If the Twin Towers stood still
To quote “Stairway to Heaven”, a curiously apposite title given the millenarian mindset of many terrorists, “Oh, it makes you wonder!”
Why do countries like ours’ and those of Western Europe appear to have settled into peaceful political processes that manage a degree of continuity and stability, and others do not?
In countries where modern institutions are weak and poorly developed, and a democratic or participatory political culture based on consensus and power sharing has not had the time or the political, social and economic conditions to develop, older loyalties and obligations trump allegiance to the state and nation and respect for, or at least, acceptance of its institutions and processes. Countries like Syria and Iraq, and much of Africa, were in reality modern contrivances superimposed upon the wrecks of old empires. The cartographical design may have been determined by the presence of natural resources in such and such a place, or the location of a port or river, highway or mountain pass. And often, in wide tracts of desert or jungle, mountains or plains, lines were simply on drawn on maps from point to arbitrary point, sometimes with the agreement or collusion of a rival power or friendly local despot.
In lands such as these, loyalty and allegiance to family, clan, tribe, religious sect, and ethnic group held precedence over the fabricated state and its often transplanted institutions and processes. Patronage, nepotism, corruption, and a network of mutual favours and obligations smoothed the paths of people seeking or seizing benefits or appointments. Old ways were tried and true, compared to aspirations or pretensions to fair and open governance. Political parties which emerged on ostensibly western lines were no more than parochial political machines, whilst gerrymandering, branch-stacking, vote-rigging and even violence ensured electoral outcomes that favoured the powers that be.
The culture of dependence and obligation that characterized pre-modern societies in the West is still the norm in much the world. And it is replicated throughout society, from the humble street-vendor to city hall. Need a license? A school scholarship? A better job? A party post? Want to avoid a traffic fine? A law suit? A jail sentence? Money changes hands. Deals are done. Debts are incurred. And social and political relationships are established. And thus, the creaking wheels of bureaucracy and governance turn, driven by patronage and payola, often greased with cash and the threat or actual use of violence encourages the emergence of and tolerance for the zaim, the strong leader. That leader develops a sense of identification with the country – not in the sense of service, but that of ownership. Family, clan, kinship and sect obligations and entitlements cement the zaim – literally “boss” – in place, whist patronage and brutal security forces beholden to the elite ensure that he is not challenged. Hence the mukhabarat (literally, intelligence) keep watch on dissent and protest.
Once in power, it can be difficult for the autocrat to vacate his seat. Family interests, party, sect and ethnic ties, and economic imperatives, and fear of retribution should the patriarch depart, render it dangerous for what amounts to a family business to relinquish the keys to the kingdom, and the levers of power. As they say, he who rides a a tiger never can dismount. Hence in countries as diverse culturally and geographically as Syria, Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, the central Asian ‘stans of the former Soviet Union, and North Korea, the “dear leader” is strongly encouraged to hang in there by his nearest and dearest.
This is indeed how societies and polities evolved and developed during Europe’s so-called Dark Ages in the wake of the collapse of the western Roman Empire. When authority fails, its place is taken by force. Today, we see it in many places around the world, especially in the Middle East and Africa, where social order is under constant attack from paramilitary thugs and religious fanatics, and violence is endemic. Any large, diverse society includes individuals who do not conform to the law. And it is said that some 10% of us have the potential to become psychopaths. When that society is in a state of breakdown, violence and the resort to force become widespread, these come into into their own as chieftains, warlords, robber barons, and pirate kings rule their parochial roost, commanding mercenaries, militias, and private armies. As the Bard wrote, “Take but order away and hark what discord follows”. Violence breeds violence, requiring a corresponding use of force by the state to maintain order. And if the initial, brutal crackdown fails to stifle dissent and rebellion, to borrow from Shakespeare again, the dogs of civil war are let lose, and all hell breaks loose. The Bard of Avon had his Henry declaim “Cry Havoc”, this being an old English war cry that signaled no quarter, and ensuing rape and pillage.
On the marches of civil wars, the bleeding edges of nations and empires collapse in on themselves like stars to create black holes where roam robber bands, death squads, militias, and drugged and indoctrinated child soldiers deal out death and destruction whilst trading variously in oil, diamonds, heroin, grass, guns, and people, extorting dollars and gold from locals and from foreign donors. Quantrill’s Raiders and Jim Lane’s Red Legs cut a swathe through “bloody Kansas” and Missouri. And other times and places have seen their sad share of jaywalkers and bushwhackers. Swedish and German mercenaries marched back and forth across a devastated Mitteleuropa during the Thirty Years War, just as Reds and Whites ranged and ravaged through Byelorussia and Ukraine during the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution. The dying decades of the Twentieth Century saw this in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. And it prevails today in Syria and Iraq, Libya and Yemen, Afghanistan and Africa.
And so, and as clear and present example, to suffering, sad Syria.
Following in Father’s Footsteps, Following Dear Old Dad
Bashar al Assad inherited this patrimony from his father Hafez. He was a reluctant ruler, not expecting to take charge. The heir apparent was his brother, a fast-living hedonist who died in a car crash. He did endeavour to bring about gradualist change in Syria. I saw changes whenever I visited Damascus.
This was not to suggest that Syria was an Arab utopia. There was a large divide between town and country, exacerbated by a a long and ongoing drought that forced many rural folk to migrate to the rundown fringes of the major towns, adding to pressures on resources, housing and employment. Whilst in practice a secular, multi-faith and multi-ethnic society, there was a cultural and spiritual divide between the conservative, Islamic rural communities and a more secular-minded urban middle class. The country was ruled for near on fifty years by a family and elite drawn from a particular, minority sect, which sat atop a pyramid of nepotism, patronage and corruption. And that rule was upheld by a cruel and efficient secret police and military special forces that kept a proactive watch on dissent. There was definitely an air of anxiety and caution amongst those who aspired to a more liberal Syria, with the midnight knock on the door, arbitrary arrest, and detention in one of the regime’s many political prisons being a fact of political life in this secular, socialist country.
But on the other hand, Syria was almost self-sufficient in food and oil products. It had well resourced and efficient health and secular education systems, and a flourishing arts scene. As a nation, Syrians were a tolerant and welcoming people, and within the bounds of religious propriety and political caution, freedom of worship, of expression, of lifestyle, and even of discreet gender preference were given. In the narrow streets of the Old City of Damascus, Thursday night, the eve of the Muslim holy day, was a fairy land of lights and laughter. Courting couples hand in hand, girls in hijab and uncovered alike; families promenading in their “Sunday best”; young goths with spiky hair and black makeup, short skirts and tight jeans. Busy stalls and sweetshops, crowded, street-side cafes – the famous Damascene maqha – or coffee shops.
Foreign observers, friendly and hostile, have noted how well-dressed and cashed-up the refugees flooding into Eastern Europe appear to be. The reality is that these are Syria’s middle class. By local metrics, they were comparatively well-off, and had a strong work ethic and a high wages to savings ratio. These were, and are Syria’s future.
Syrians were genuinely proud of their country, of its status as a centre of Arab culture and Arab nationalism, and of its history. And of its priceless archeological heritage. The Roman cities of Apamea, Palmyra, and Bosra; the Crusader castles of Krak de Chevaliers and Salah ud Din; the Byzantine monastery St.Simeon; the Umayyad mosques of Aleppo and Damascus; the Christian villages of Maaloula and Saidnaya where Aramaic is still spoken; the ancient suqs of Aleppo and Damascus. Syria was a historian’s idea of heaven.
When the revolution broke out, sympathetic commentators wondered whether Bashar would be “Hammersmith Man”, a reference to his former career as a ophthalmologist in London, where he lived for many years with his gorgeous, well connected, merchant banker wife and children, or “Hama Man”, recalling his father’s brutal crackdown on an Islamist revolt in that city in 1981 where in some thirty thousand souls perished at the hands of security forces. In the end, Junior was swept along by the elite’s blinkered but well-tried survival mechanism – force and fear.
Back in the heady days of the Arab Spring, Syrians from all ethic, religious and political groups hoped for a loosening of authoritarian controls. But the regime resorted to form and to repression. Sectarian militias murdered and mutilated initiating a cycle of bloody vengeance as a popular, peaceful and largely secular movement became militarized, polarized, in many areas, Islamized, and as internal and external interests with varying political, religious, and geopolitical motives became involved and embroiled against the regime, against the rebels, against each other. Regular forces, militias, warlords, village defense forces, Kurdish separatists, foreign fighters, mercenaries, foreign air forces, undercover operatives. A war of all against all, as Thomas Hobbes once said. To paraphrase Mark Twain, history might not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.
And now, whilst most of the antagonists have been herded by their foreign patrons towards a crowded and reluctant negotiating table, it all seems like a terminal case of “too little too late”. Syria is in ruins, some half a million Syrian are dead, and countless more maimed.and it its population is scattered, weighing heavily on the consciences and economies of neighbours and of the European Union. Syria as a nation state may in fact be no more. There is talk of partition, and a redrawing of the map that emerged from the peace treaties of The Great War. And the odds are that with Russian military support, Bashar al Assad, bete noir, pariah, lame-duck to those governments who wished him gone, and his Iranian and Hizbollah allies, are going to win the civil war.
He may or may not succeed. Right now, his forces are pushing back the rebels, writing himself a pivotal part in the peace. Right now, the parties talk and walk whilst the killing continues, and the diaspora grows. International forums are but talking shops, stages for self-righteous and self-aggrandizing posturing and stotting, acrimonious gatherings that appear to function in a time bubble that is remote from the brutal reality. If and when the guns fall silent, Bashar may or may not be able to put the country back together. He may or may not be able to recreate the multi-faith, modernizing, cosmopolitan society that existed before the war. He may or may not be able to disarm the hundreds of militias and private armies that have proliferated and even prospered during five years of chaos.
He will need billions of dollars and the help and goodwill of many nations to rebuild the towns and cities, and to restore the shattered archeological heritage. He will never bring back the dead, or the skilled and educated exiles who will chose to make new lives in foreign places of greater safety. Nor will he be able to repatriate the thousands of plundered artifacts and treasures that have disappeared into the international black market. He will not be able to heal the wounds, give solace to the bereaved, assuage the grief, counsel and treat the trauma, and divert the desire for vengeance into the promethean labour of reconstruction.
Putting his own words into the mouth of a conquered British chieftain, an old Roman once said, “solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant” – they make a desert and they call it peace.
A Contemplation of Historical Fiction in Book and Film
A post in the British Medieval History Facebook Group a couple of years back happily anticipated the upcoming showing on US TV channels of the adaptation of British author Philippa Gregory’s War of the Roses White Queen Trilogy. A tiny stone created large ripples. Over 400 comments weighed the pros and cons of the book, the film, and also, the fact that a fictionalized version of history was being discussed so enthusiastically among the ought-to-be seriously-minded group. Much midnight oil was burned over its historical accuracy or lack thereof. There was even hint of transatlantic conflict with American members being overwhelmingly ”pro” for each of the aforementioned and many – but not that many, really – British members being “con”.
I joined those in favour, contributing a mini review: “Good-looking historical soapie, but a story well told, well presented, well cast, and well acted. The whole yarn is there. The power plays, the politics, the treachery, and the bloodletting. The princes in the tower. Clarence drowned in the butt of booze. My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a whole posse of horses. The lead, Rebecca Ferguson, the blonde with the sword in our featured image, was the Bond girl in Spectre, but don’t let that put you off. Richard of Gloucester, who became R3, was perhaps too good looking. He is played by Aneurin Barnard, a fine British actor who did very well as Cilla Black’s beau Bobby in Cilla, as photographer David Bailey in We’ll Take Manhattan, as Boris Drubetskoy in the BBC’s recent War and Peace. And James Frain, who played a smooth and sinister Cromwell in The Tudors, is an obsessive, controlling Warwick the Kingmaker”.
The robust exchange of views among group members inspired me to contemplate the connection between historical fiction and the real deal. What follows is a subjective amble through some of the highs and lows of historical film and fiction. It is a personal reflection, self-indulgent, and replete with comments, asides and digressions.
I confess a liking for slash and bash, doublet and hose, cloak and gown, suddsers. Indeed, to enlarge the historical envelope somewhat, i am partial to the “sword and sandal” epics or yore also, but I’ll l leave those for another day. Whilst I very rarely read the books (there are just too many other things to absorb nowadays), I relish the film adaptations – usually with a nice wine and an iPad and Wikipedia on hand to fact check. I am not too fussy – or high-brow – when it comes to entertainment. I am of the “I like what I like school” of literary appreciation, and I can watch the good, the bad, and the “this doesn’t really do anything for me” (although I have been getting fussier of late).
Tudor eye candy
Some can be excellent. The Tudors was addictive and sumptuous to behold, with its more gorgeous-than-life casting of the lead players. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn will forever be Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Natalie Dormer for me, notwithstanding Nat’s gorgeous but doomed Marjaery Tyrell in the “you either love it or you hate it” Game of Thronesmega mythology and JRM’s sexy soccer coach in Bend it Like Beckham. The series was bright, glittering, and sexy, with an air of perpetual treachery and danger. Wolf Hall, by contrast, was dark and brooding (not just the candle-lit interiors), dour and doleful, with an air of perpetual treachery and danger – but it was not a patch on Hilary Mantel’s masterful novels. The jewel in the crown has to be the late-seventies sword and sandals saga I Claudius, the life and times of a typical dysfunctional, incestuous, and vicious Roman family that was, to borrow Lady Caroline Lamb’s description of Lord Byron, mad, bad and dangerous to know. All three were relatively historically accurate, though with a fair bit of poetic license for dramatic effect.
I Claudius
Not all are this good, however. The adaption of Ken Follett’s cathedral-constructing edifice, The Pillars of the Earth, was like watching paint dry, and its sequel, World Without Endoutdid it in ennui and melodrama, notwithstanding its concluding twist on what may or may not have really happened to bad, sad King Edward II. The adaptation of Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth, a strange hotchpotch of magic and modernity told a story of the Albigensian Crusade and the persecution of the Cathars in 13th Century France, and was laboured and contrived. But even with these lacklustre longueurs, I hung in to the literally and figuratively bitter end. Historically accurate? Yeah, but, no but, yeah but…
Even second division movies like King Arthur, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven can draw me in if well directed, well told, and cinematographically well depicted. When it comes to film-making, Ridley Scott, who directed the latter two, can do no wrong, although he can be hit and miss when it comes to the story line (he fares much better with Sci Fi – think Alien and Blade Runner – than with history). There are exceptions: Braveheart (and not just because the wigs looked like they were purchased from the people who gave us Conan the Barbarian), Troy, which was, well, kind of odd (including, as it did, Brad Pitt’s grumpy, well-buffed Achilles), and Oliver Stone’s Alexander which was actually unwatchable – I gave up on it, and I reckon Colin Farrell would leave this one off his cv.
King Arthur
Fine fiction and, indeed, fine plays often make for fine films. Ian McEwan’s Atonement (prewar England and Dunkirk), David Lean’s Dr Zhivago (the Russian Revolution and Civil War) and Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind” (the Old South, before, during and after the Civil War). Alexander Dumas’s La Reine Margotwas transformed into a beautiful, brutal and sad film by Patrice Chereau (dynastic skulduggery and religious persecution in sixteenth century France). Then there is Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons (Thomas More versus Henry VIII), James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter (Henry II versus his wife and sons), and Jean Anouilh’s Becket(Henry II again, versus his troublesome priest). Though all talk and no action – this trio were plays after all – they were beautifully rendered with stellar casts, each portraying a king who had to deal with opinionated, difficult people, each echoing Christoper Marlowe’s Edward II: “Was ever king thus overruled as I ?”
Moreover, high-end historical fiction has entered the literary canon. Like Robert Graves’ I Claudius, Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Mikhail Sholokov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, Boris Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago, and Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Each of these have made the transition to film, some with more success than others. Are there contemporary works that might enter the pantheon? What do you think? Maybe Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy – and also, her debut, A Place of Greater Safety, a French Revolution door-stop and a masterful retelling of those tortured times.
Queen Margot
Probably the most controversial historical film of all time is David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia”. Historians, critics, and partisans of all faiths and factions have argued about this one ever since it first screened back in 1962. It is a deeply flawed film insofar as it reflects a condescending Orientalism, but a timeless masterpiece nonetheless. Love it or loathe it, one cannot deny the charismatic performance of Peter O’Toole, and the magnificent wide-screen vistas of Jordan’s Wadi Rum. That first vista of the desert sunrise with the music of Maurice Jarre. Man! Another film of that ilk – and also one of my all time favourites – is John Huston’s “ The Man Who Would be King”, a ‘boy’s own’ venture based loosely on a story by poet and Empire booster Rudyard Kipling.
Sean Connery and Michael Caine go “undercover” in The Man Who Would Be King
I tend to skip the Mid Nineteenth Century and early twentieth century, which rules out quite a bit of Victoriana and Edwardiana – including “Downton Abbey”, Dickens, Jane Austen, and Emily Bronte. But that is more a matter of personal taste than a dislike for this period. Where does the recent Rajarama “Indian Summers” fit into this mix? A steamy, scenic, well-dressed melodrama of class, caste and copulation set in exotic and tumultuous times. Or the Anglo-Indian ‘upstairs-downstairs’ film “The Viceroy’s House”, a Romeo and Juliet story set against the political duplicity, violence and death of the partition of India in 1947.
To my mind , one of the most enthralling and memorable of historical dramas I have seen is David Milch’s magnificent “Deadwood”. It is set in the eighteen seventies, and is a western too! It ticks all the parental guidance boxes: substance abuse, sexual scenes, strong language, and adult themes. And as a bonus, the acting is superb, the characterization likewise, and the script that traverses from the sacred to the (very) profane and borrows heavily from the raw vernacular and language that channels Shakespeare and Melville. Its lead, Ian McShane, portraying the vicious, conniving, whore-master Al Swearagen, went on to play eccentric Swearagenesque cameos in the aforementioned “Pillars of the Earth” (with predictable, and in that bland film, welcome profanities), in “Game Of Thrones” (an imagining of Al as if he were later to repent and forswear his wicked ways?), and even in a Woody Allen B-movie (“Scoop”, in case you’re interested).
Deadwood
The historical dramas I enjoy can be relatively modern too if they reflect and contemplate well how folk lived, loved and perished in the near past. “Foyle’s’ War”, for example, captures perfectly the ethos and the spirit of place of Britain during the Second World War. Likewise “The Hour” beautifully recreates Britain during the nineteen fifties, just as “Mad Men” draws you back into moods, manners, music and mores of the sixties and early seventies.
But, let’s return to where I began.
Does historical fiction have a place in a History Group forum? Particularly if it plays fast and loose with the established historical record and substitutes glitz and glamour for historical realism.
Historical fiction is for many folk the portal into a lifelong passion for history. And so it was for me. As a young lad growing up in early sixties Birmingham, I devoured Louise Andrews Kent’s “boys own” explorer series. I “went with” them all: Columbus, Marco Polo, Drake, Magellan, and Vasco da Gama. In a sense, I am still travelling with them and their successors both noble and notorious: Cortez and Pizarro, Lewis and Clark, Burton and Speke, Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark, and many others. My adolescent yearnings were sublimated by Sergeanne Golon’s almost soft-porn melodramas featuring the beautiful and pneumatic heroine Angelique. This was my introduction to the history of seventeenth century France: Richelieu, Louis Quatorz, Huguenots, Versailles, and the rest. She was actually bedded by the Sun King himself, and on another exotic frolic, amongst the Barbary pirates, landed herself in the Sultan’s harem. Such thrills for a young lad!
The seed was sown. And good teachers can inspire deeper, and even intense interest. Once my interest in history had been piqued as a youngun’, it was a fabulous teacher who channeled that interest into exploration and inquiry, and a charismatic and wise tutor at university, a Hungarian emigre and refugee of 1956, who despatched me down academic paths. The times were right too – the mid to late sixties, when questioning and dissent were in the air, and old shibboleths were being broken down. Timothy Leary advised that we ought not believe what those in authority told us, and this applied to all authorities, be they political, spiritual, social or intelkectual. I did not cleave to an academic path, however. Travel, romance, and music cast me up on other shores. But the spirit of history still moved me and moves me still.
As for my historical education, the rest, as they say, is history. Or, to quote Saint Paul, “I put off childish things”, and got into the heavy stuff. My point being that young persons’ fiction, and grown-ups’ mass-market (some call it “pulp”) fiction like that of Philippa Gregory, Paulina Simons, and Bernard Cornwell’s Grail Quest, Sharpe and Anglo-Saxon series are inspired by and in turn, inspire an abiding interest in history. An old soldier once told me that he reckoned Zoe Oldenbourg’s “Heirs of the Kingdom”, a tale of the First Crusade and the bloody conquest of Jerusalem, was probably one of the most realistic and visceral depictions of warfare that he had read.
Talking of ‘series’, there is a worrying tendency of writers these days to fail to stop at the red light of one book. I blame it all on Frank Herbert and the fourth, fifth and sixth volumes of his “Dune Trilogy” (he really should have stopped at two!). There was, however a series that I devoured back in the nineteen seventies: George McDonald Fraser’s rollicking, picareque, and quite political incorrect Flashman books. These saw the eponymous anti-hero (the unreconstructed villain in Thomas Hughes’ Victorian yarn “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”) roving and rogering his way through the late nineteenth century, somehow managing to escape by the skin of his teeth from one military disaster after another, including Custer’s famous demise at Little Big Horn, and the last stand of the 44th Foot at Gandamak during the disastrous First Afghan War of 1842, One outstanding volume sees the pusillanimous Flashie fleeing eastwards out of The Crimea having precipitated the disastrous Charge Of the Light Brigade (Captain Nolan was fitted up – and we have had a long poem and at least two questionable films inflicted upon us) and making his way through the vast Asian hinterland, one step ahead of the invading Czarist armies, and of sundry Muslim warlords. Amidst the humour is a poignant reminder of those ‘lost worlds’ that succumbed to the relentless blade of progress,
Gandamak
So, to conclude this self-indulgent post, I think my own position on the usefulness of historical fiction is transparently in the affirmative notwithstanding that I am a history tragic and news junkie, and most of my reading is non-fiction. I love walking down what Welsh poet RS Thomas called ‘the long road of history. My favourite quotation is that of Irish writer John Banville: “the past beats inside my like a second heart”.
Because as human beings, one thing is for certain: we all love a good story. As they say, in Arabic, as indeed in all tongues, times and places, “ka-n ya ma ka-n bil ‘adim izzama-n wa sa-lifi al aSri wa la-wa-n”‘ or, “once upon an time”.
One of the highlights of last years’ travel in northern England was our visit to Hadrian’s Wall. In Roman Wall Blues, I wrote of the magical museum at Vindolanda, the Roman town just south of the wall, and contemplated the lives of those memorialized within. Earlier that day, we had walked through Chesters Fort, where the wall crosses the Tyne, the best preserved Roman cavalry fort in Britain.
Adjacent to the fort is a small but significant museum. It was here that we learned that what we are able to walk through and and wonder at today, we owe to the dedication, foresight, and finance of one man: John Clayton, one of the great unsung saviours of Britain’s historical heritage. His monument is the Chesters Roman Fort Museum which houses the Clayton Collection of 5,500 catalogued items from many sites on the central section of the wall.
A classically educated Victorian gentleman who combined demanding roles running the family law firm and acting as town clerk for the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Clayton had a passion for archaeology and the Roman military legacy in his beloved Northumberland.
Were it not for Clayton, large parts of Hadrian’s Wall would have disappeared as the industrial revolution fuelled the demand for stone to build factories, mines and mills. His role in the preservation and survival of Chesters Roman Fort is undisputed.
During the early 19th century, Clayton lived at Chesters House in the parkland surrounding the Roman fort, and from an early age he was fascinated by the Roman relics surrounding him. By the 1830s, he began buying land to preserve the Wall. This was at a time when what is now a World Heritage Site was little understood, and indeed, was being unthinkingly destroyed through the quarrying and removal of its stones for reuse in industrial and urban development.
Clayton’s enthusiasm helped preserve the central stretch of Hadrian’s Wall that includes Chesters (Cilurnum), Housesteads and Vindolanda. He carried out some of the first archaeological excavations on the Wall, carried out restoration work, and brought early tourism to the area by displaying some of the finds at Chesters. Clayton managed the estate and its farms for sixty years, generating the funds to finance to fund further preservation and restoration work on the Wall. He never married, and died in 1890.
The museum housing the Clayton Collection was opened adjacent to the fort site in 1903, 13 years after his death. Today, it is privately owned, but is curated by English Heritage on behalf of the Trustees of the Clayton Collection, and it has been refurbished to brin to contemprary standards of conservation, display, and interpretation. And yet, great care has been taken to respect its period character, and to retain the feel of a 19th century gentleman antiquarian’s collection, with many of the labels and original cases having been retained.
Click his name to read more about John Clayton and his museum.
I finally broke into the prison, I found my place in the chain. Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows, all the brave young men they’re waiting now to see a signal which some killer will be lighting for pay. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture, you whom I cannot betray.
Leonard Cohen, The Old Revolution
The Syrian civil war broke lose in March 2011, two months after the events in Tahrir Square, and one month after the fall of Mubarak.
Amidst the tumult and media hype of the Arab Spring, it was as if the distant drums had suddenly hit the volume switch. In the dusty border town of Dara’a, just north of Jordan, local kids wrote on a wall: “The people want the regime to fall”. The words had been repeated from Tunisia to Egypt, from Yemen to Bahrain. It was the cry of the revolution. The local governor decided to come down hard. The young people, all under 17, were thrown in jail. The punishment stunned the town, and suddenly, Syria, progressive, diverse, proud, beautiful, but authoritarian Syria greeted the misnamed Arab Spring.
The young men’s families and friends weren’t having any of it. It is said that in broad daylight, dozens of young men pelted a poster of a smiling President Bashar Assad; a statue of the Bashar’s late father and predecessor Hafiz Assad was demolished; and official buildings, including the HQ of ruling Ba’ath Party’ and the governor’s office, were destroyed. “There is no fear, there is no fear, after today there is no fear!” hundreds of men chanted in shaky mobile-phone footage.
Over that weekend, security forces opened fire on marchers. This was the regime’s well tried negotiating technique. But Assad responded immediately, sending a high-ranking delegation to deliver his condolences to the families of the dead. The governor was sacked, and the boys released.
So far, so “I mentioned the war but I think I got away with it” But the die had been cast. The demonstrators made demands the regime was unwilling or unable to meet. And the rest is tragedy.
I am not about to retell the story of the Syrian revolution. It is still being written, and as yet, there is no ending. Only more blood. As I write, well over three hundred thousand souls have perished (soon, it will overtake the butchers bill of the Spanish and American Civil Wars), and tens of thousands have disappeared into prisons and oubliez. Millions have been displaced within the country; millions have sought shelter in neighbouring countries; and at least eight hundred thousand have taken to the roads of Central Europe.
But I will quixotically hark back to just before events reached the fork in the road, to when there was an outside chance that Syria could avoid the chaos and carnage that was besetting other children of an Arab Spring that was turning into a bitter winter.
Back to the days before The Fall when pundits were asking whether Bashar would be Hammersmith Man, reflecting his former career as a successful ophthalmologist in London, and his glamorous, cosmopolitan, former merchant banker wife, or Hama Man, recalling his father’s crackdown on an Islamist rising in Hama in 1982, in which uncounted tens of thousand are believed to have perished. We discovered very soon whom he was destined to become.
To the days before The Fall, before the revolution became weaponized and islamized, and demonstrators danced together in the streets, earning the intifada the short lived sobriquet ‘the Dabke Revolution’, named for the circle folk dance popular throughout the Middle East and the Balkans.
The days before the slaughters began. First by the forces of regime, led by Bashar’s brutal brother Maher and his notorious Fourth Armoured Division. Then by the thuggish Alawi militia – the Shabiha, or “ghosts” or “shadows”, a double-edged meaning alluding to their underworld origin and methods, and also to the fact that they literally turned people into ghosts. And then, in reciprocal ferocity, by opposition militias that grew and proliferated, fought and died, divided, and divided again, and embraced a jihadi creed, sowing the dragon’s teeth that evolved into Jabhat an Nusra and Da’esh.
The days before it became too dangerous to gather on the streets, when men, women and children would parade in public places, waving the flag of the old Syria, the one that flew before the Assad clan seized power in 1966. Canny camera men could take media-friendly shots of photogenic little girls in face makeup looking sad, vulnerable and defiant. When the picture that is the featured image of this blog was first published in Al Jazeera in early 2011, I was both enchanted and inspired. I immediately started using it, with acknowledgements, in my publications and postings. When more and more of these images appeared, I used them too. But I was becoming a tad suspicious. The lasses looked too clean, too cute, and indeed, many actually looked alike. The photographers’ daughters, perhaps, or those of friends. Were they for-real or where they posed? I guess I will never find out.
Needlessly to say, as the rebellion morphed into harrowing civil war, such images disappeared, and in their place, we saw destruction and carnage, and the broken bodies of little girls and boys slain by bomb and bullet, hardship and hunger. Now, as families were forced to abandon their homes and make their way to the borders, and thence, into Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, and finally, into Europe, we see children staggering on dusty roads, carried piggy back by exhausted fathers, pushed in strollers, scorched by the sun, soaked by the rain, and frozen by the snow. And we see little Aylan on his golden beach, a Kurdish toddler now a symbol of all the drowned babies of the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.
Photogenic children no more. Just victims, survivors, lost souls.
I fought in the old revolution on the side of the ghost and the King. Of course I was very young and I thought that we were winning; I can’t pretend I still feel very much like singing as they carry the bodies away. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture… you whom I cannot betray.
On a personal note, we were last in Syria in March 2009, and whilst visiting the famed Roman amphitheater at Bosra, just northeast of Dera’a, we had the pleasure of the company of a crowd of Syrian school children. They treated us like visiting celebrities and sang us a song of welcome. It is saddening to look at these pictures now, and wonder where these children are now.
You know it never has been easy Whether you do or you do not resign Whether you travel the breadth of extremities Or stick to some straighter line Joni Mitchell, Hejira
People’ll tell you where they’ve gone They’ll tell you where to go But till you get there yourself you’ll never really know Where some have found their paradise Other’s just come to harm Oh Amelia it was just a false alarm Joni Mitchell, Amelia
How sweet it is to learn new things – to walk new streets, to look through new windows. Working lately as a volunteer with the Humanitarian Settlement Services progrmme, I have had that opportunity. The HSS’ mission is to assist newly arrived refugees to settle in Australia, participate in our way of life, access services available to us all, and to develop the skills and knowledge needed to begin a new life in our country. The following pieces recall two days in my volunteer life. They are a sequel of sorts, and indeed, a happy ending to my recent post No Going Homein which I endeavored to imagine the refugee journey.
Hejira is an Arabic word that commemorates specifically the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622. But it also refers to any emigration or flight, and this is the context here.
Arrival
I wait at our tiny airport for an Afghani family coming to Australia from a refugee camp on the Pakistani border. They have come here straight from Iran with but a short transit in Sydney. The plane is a little QANTAS Dash 8, and the passengers walk down the gangplank. The day is hot. Young girls in short shorts and skivvies disembark, and young men in shorts, tees and thongs (the sandals, that is). There a few suited businessmen, and retirees in nondescript array.
Our new arrivals are last off. Mum and two teenage sons. She wears a hijab and Iranian dress,, and the boys, jeans and tee shirts. They step onto the hot tarmac and walk, tired and nervous, to the arrivals lounge. We are with the welcoming party – a family of Afghanis who settled here a short while ago, two young girls, their mother and their auntie. They too are dressed in salwar kameez – they came here from a camp in Pakistan. The ladies dwelt there for twelve years, and the girls were born there.
A young Hazara serves as our interpreter. She is dressed like a fashionable Iranian muhajibabe in simple and smart attire – for it is indeed Iran that she and he family sought shelter from the Afghan storm. She is eighteen, and arrived with her mother and siblings two years ago. Her English is excellent – she wants to be an interpreter, and is working towards that goal at TAFE. And this is the thing. These folk have all come here on 204 visas for women at risk, the sole carers of dependent families. Their husbands are either dead or decamped in Afghanistan or in the border camps.
And then there are we three Aussies. The tireless Humanitarian Settlement Service caseworker, a lady from community services who wanted to witness an arrival, and myself, working for the HSS as a volunteer, likewise bearing witness to what is quite a powerful scene.
The meeting and the greeting is done with salaams, embraces (the Afghanis) and handshakes (we locals). The first minutes in their new home in the sun. I help the lads load the suitcases on to the bus, and my work done, I bid them all “khoda hafez” and take my leave. They are driven off to their new digs, an Afghan meal, the first of much paperwork, and then sleep.
But not before they are taken to the headland, from where they will view the Pacific Ocean to the east, hills covered in banana plantations to the west, and beyond them, below the cloudless blue sky, the blue-green foothills of the Great Dividing Range. On the other side, far to the northwest, their landlocked, shattered home is 11,353 kilometers away.
Moving
Our mission today is to move a Hazara family from their first, interim dwelling, to a permanent home on the other side of town. A mother with four children. Three of these are at school today, and the eldest, a sparky eleven year old, has stayed home to help mom move house and help us with translation. Although she has been in Australia for just six months, her English is astonishing. She later tells me she can speak five Afghan languages, Urdu, and a bit of Hindi. Nothing is going to hold this one back.
Their bags and boxes are ready, and these fill the bus. So off we all go to their new home. Two Afghani neighbours greet us on arrival, with two young girls and a tiny boy. Three ethnic groups, three languages, and two religions, and they are getting along famously.
“Why do you think that is?” asks the caseworker. “Because there are no men around”. No men. No controllers. No patriarchy. No rules. No tribes. No prejudice.
In Sydney, in Melbourne, with the larger Afghan and Muslim communities, with the mosques and madrassas, imams and ideologies, the self-appointed and self-perpetuating mullahs and muftis, male control would be asserted, with their restrictive rules and regimentation. All the old baggage that was left behind would be brought in and unpacked – the tribal loyalties and enmities, the specious theological diktats on dress and demeanor, form and function. And the patriarchy.
But not here, in this northern, sea-side town. Just women doing their best to get along and make the new life work for themselves and their children.
What will the future hold for these women taken out of their homes, their culture, their society, and asked to craft a new life and identity for themselves and their children in a new and strange land? How will they go with the language and with life in general? Will they make new friends, find rewarding work, and “fit in”, or will they cling to their old lives, lonely and isolated, their children the sole interface between themselves and the world?
I wonder about the young girls – and particularly the bright and outward-going ones I have met. Will they build successful school and professional careers? Will they make long and lasting friendships with their Australian and other peers? Will they let go the costumes, conventions, and constrictions of their parents’ culture?
I wonder about the young boys, and the young men whom I greeted at the airport. How will they fare in their matriarchal domestic world? How will they adjust to their new life here with all its challenges and temptations?
If they remain in this regional city, who will be their role models? Will they become more Australian than Afghani as they grow up and mature among their north coast peers? Will they complete their education, and find work in an area with a very high level of youth unemployment? Or will they be isolated and lonely, dislocated and discontented? Will they assume their old culture’s patriarchal role and demand their mothers and sisters subject themselves to the son’s authority as head of the family, and impose restrictions their movements and morality, demeanor and dress?
Will they be drawn to the capital cities with their diverse Muslim communities. And into which circle will they be drawn? To the moderate ones who just want to get on with their lives in an Aussie world, to the pious and unassuming who see jihad as an internal spiritual quest, to the criminal and bikie gangs that we hear so much about, or to the radical proselytizers who view our culture and values as anathema to the word and will of God?
All this is in the future, and as these folk might say, in Gods hands. But in reality, it is in their’s and their’s alone. But I am glad to have been able to play a small part in setting these new arrivals on their path.
London, back in the day. What wonders dwelt within. I recall here but a few. The old church of St. Bartolph-Without, which turned up in later days in a bad Dracula movie. The churchyard of St. Paul’s, a haven for summer’s day lunch-timing. Green Park in spring sunshine as the lily white skin of England divests for primavera. Berkeley Square, where the fabled nightingale sang, and where Clive of India, his mind curdled by corruption and conscience, and haunted by guilt and ghosts, cut his own throat.
Read more in Tabula Rasa – Poems of Paul Hemphill, Volume One
My first political excursion. The CND Aldermaston March reaches London, 1966
Never in modern times – since the Second World War – have there been so many refugees. There are over sixty nine million people around the world on the move today – people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes and are fleeing from persecution or conflict. Forty million people have been internally displaced within their own countries – including six million Syrians. Over 25 million are refugees in neighbouring countries and further afield -. 25% of them are in Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, and Uganda. five million are Syrians. These figures are of those registered by the UNHCR. The real numbers are much higher. [See below, The World Refugee Crisis in Brief, and The Refugee’s Journey]
Just imagine …
Millions are on the move – , and you are one of them.
Lebanese American BBC Journalist Kim Ghattas says well:
I often get asked why my family never left – or more pointedly, why my parents kept us there, dodging sniper fire on the way to school and back. The answer is this: We stayed because leaving is hard. Becoming refugees meant leaving our lives, our identity, and our dignity behind…No one’s first instinct is to leave. Their first choice is usually to hold on to the comforting familiarity of home; when that becomes impossible, you leave for another safer area within the country. Then you leave for a neighboring country, so you can return as soon as possible or even keep an eye on your property while you’re away. Only when the walls are closing in and the horizon is total darkness do you give up and leave everything you have ever known behind, lock the door to your home, and walk away.
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying- leave, run away from me now i don’t know what i’ve become but i know that anywhere is safer than here
Somali poet Warsan Shire, Home
A million spaces in the earth to fill, here’s a generation waiting still – we’ve got year after year to kill, but there’s no going home. Steve Knightley, Exile
Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing, through the graves the wind is blowing, freedom soon will come; then we’ll come from the shadows. Leonard Cohen, The Partisan
I pity the poor immigrant whose strength is spent in vain, whose heaven is like ironsides, whose tears are like rain. Bob Dylan, I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Just imagine …
What if you had to leave behind everything that you hold dear. Your identity, culture, language, faith. You job, your school. Your loved ones, your friends, and your play-mates.
What if you have to sleep with your shoes on so you are ready to run if your enemies are approaching your village? And then you have to flee your home and climb the mountain to escape, helping your youngsters and old folk up the rocky slopes in the summer heat, and there is nothing to eat or drink, and nothing you can do except wait for capture or rescue.
What would YOU do if you had but a short while to gather a few things together and run, leaving your whole life behind? What would you try and take with you?
Then you wash up, literally and figuratively, on foreign shores – in border refugee camps, dusty border towns or urban slums. And there you stay, with other tens, hundreds, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands in like dire straits.
Until one day, you are selected for humanitarian settlement in a strange land at the other end of the earth.
That day may never come; so, impatient, frustrated, desperate, you use your family’s savings to pay smugglers and traffickers who prowl the desert and jungle camps like predators and the port cities of Turkey, Libya and South East Asia.
So you take to the seas in frail boats and brave the the deep and dangerous waters of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Indian Ocean.
You might only have enough money for one passage, so you go on ahead and hope to send for your kin once you have reached safe haven.
You may be one of fortunate ones who make it – not one of those cast ashore, lifeless flotsam and jetsam like baby Aylan on his golden beach.
You are now one of tens of thousands in a river of desperate endeavour.
You walk the long miles of the unwelcoming highways of Eastern Europe to a German or Swedish sanctuary. You might end up in a detention camp in Italy or Spain, stranded in the Calais Jungle, or the harbours of Java and Sumatra.
Or else, you are parked in a hot and hostile makeshift camp somewhere near the Tropic of Capricorn.
Just imagine …
You have fled the terror of the warlords and the militias, the holy warriors and the ethnic cleansers.
You discover that the border camps of Jordan and Lebanon, Turkey and Afghanistan, Thailand and Malaysia, Kenya and Namibia have their own ecology of hardship and handouts, rape and robbery, beatings and bribes, illness and neglect, cursory and desultory treatment by overworked and under-resourced aid workers, and shake-downs by the criminals who thrive in these places and the cops who take a cut and turn a blind eye or else enforce punitive directives from politicians, parliaments and bureaucrats.
There, you and yours’ attempt to rebuild a semblance of a life-before amidst the tents and the shanties, the dust and the sewage, the summer’s heat and the winter’s cold. A mosque to pray in, a school for the children, games of football or backgammon for idle youth and menfolk.
You try to keep the children warm and fed and free of mortal illness; you try to keep the spirit alive in a time of anxiety, fear, threat, loss, and confusion, a time of hopeful emptiness and of empty hopelessness.
Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan July 2013
Just imagine …
You are one of the lucky few selected for settlement in the fabled, unknown ‘west’.
New lands, under foreign skies, different constellations, so far away it might as well be the moon.
You now dwell among strangers. You neither speak their language nor comprehend their ways or their foreign gods.
You have no friends or family to call on in time of need.
You must rebuild the basic buildings blocks of a normal life – where even the idea of a normal life has now changed utterly.
The houses, the streets, the shops, the money even – are all new.
The things you took for granted are no longer there, and in their place are new ways and means.
New systems and processes – social, welfare, health, education – with new rules and ways of getting things done. Going to the doctor, to the bank, to government offices.
Understanding that policemen and soldiers are not people you have to pay off or flee from.
Learning English.
Finding a home.
Getting the kids into a school.
Finding a job when your qualifications are not recognized, and work-ways are different to what you know.
The laws are new, the language is new, the way people dress and behave, talk, walk and eat is new.
Many new things are fascinating, tempting.
Others, confronting and insulting to your morality and values.
Some are alien, even, beyond your comprehension.
Codes of behaviour, dress, decorum, politeness, are new. Less formality, respect and deference; open displays of sexuality, affection, and rudeness that would not have been tolerated, permitted even, at home.
You don’t understand what makes the locals tick – their mannerisms, their speech, their body language, their concept of time and space, even.
And you are shocked and frightened by their hostility. Not all – just a noisy and troublesome few who talk quietly amongst themselves, or hurl abuse, or march through city streets with signs that scream, “go back to where you came from!”, “go home!”
Home?
There is no home.
Home is far, far away.
So far away, it might as well be on the moon.
Just imagine…
This is the new. And you still bear the cross of the old. The world you left behind is still with you.
You miss your family, your friends, and the comfort and support you all gave each other.
You miss your old life. The streets, the sounds, the smells. The weather and seasons. Your job, your status, your school, your neighbourhood.
You yearn for street and shop signs you could read, voices you understood on the radio and television, on the street, and on the buses.
You hate having to try and make yourself understood to officials and doctors, desk clerks and shop assistants, and even the supportive and ever helpful case workers whose mission is to help you get through all this.
You are homesick, and lonesome; you feel isolated, helpless, dependent.
There is a terrible ache in your heart and a rift in your soul.
And then there are the scars that won’t and perhaps can never heal. The psychological and physical effects of the events and experiences that forced you to flee your homeland.
Conflict and violence, intimidation and discrimination, torture and brutality, even. You have flashbacks, bad dreams, anxiety attacks, and actual physical and mental pain and anguish.
They say that PTSD is endless. There is no cure …
Just imagine…
You are a stranger in a strange land, and there’s no going home …
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. Psalm 107
Home
Warsan Shire
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city
running as well.
your neighbours running faster
than you, the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind
the old tin factory is
holding a gun bigger than his body,
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one would leave home unless home
chased you, fire under feet,
hot blood in your belly.
it’s not something you ever thought about
doing, and so when you did –
you carried the anthem under your breath,
waiting until the airport toilet
to tear up the passport and swallow,
each mouthful of paper making it clear that
you would not be going back.
you have to understand,
no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.
who would choose to spend days
and nights in the stomach of a truck
unless the miles travelled
meant something more than journey.
no one would choose to crawl under fences,
be beaten until your shadow leaves you,
raped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of
the boat because you are darker, be sold,
starved, shot at the border like a sick animal,
be pitied, lose your name, lose your family,
make a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten,
stripped and searched, find prison everywhere
and if you survive
and you are greeted on the other side
with
go home blacks, refugees
dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
sucking our country dry of milk,
dark, with their hands out
smell strange, savage –
look what they’ve done to their own countries,
what will they do to ours?
the dirty looks in the street
softer than a limb torn off,
the indignity of everyday life
more tender than fourteen men who
look like your father, between
your legs, insults easier to swallow
than rubble, than your child’s body
in pieces – for now, forget about pride
your survival is more important.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home tells you to
leave what you could not behind,
even if it was human.
no one leaves home until home
is a damp voice in your ear saying
leave, run now, i don’t know what
i’ve become.
This Syrian mother and her child were rescued by the Greek Coast Guard.
The World Refugee Crisis in Brief
The Melancholy Mathematics
Like death and taxes, the poor and racism, refugees have always been with us. But never in modern times – since the Second World War – have they been so many!
There are over sixty nine million people around the world on the move today – that have been forcibly displaced from their homes – fleeing from persecution or conflict.
This doesn’t count economic migrants who have hit the roads of sub Saharan Africa and Central America fleeing drought and crop failure, economic recession and unemployment, poverty, gangs and cartels, seeking a better life for themselves and the families in Europe or the USA.
Three quarters of a million ‘economic migrants’ are on the move in Central America, whilst the UN estimates that at least four million people have left Venezuela because of its political and economic crisis in what has been described as the biggest refuge crisis ever seen in the Americas. There are refugee camps on the Colombian border. Most are in Columbia but others have entered Brazil and Peru. But these are not by legal definition refugees – see below, The Refugees’ Journey .
Of those sixty nine million people over 11 million or 16% are Syrians. The numbers keep growing Thirty one people at being displaced every minute of the day. In 2018 alone, 16.2 million people were newly displaced.
Forty million people have been internally displaced within their own countries – this includes six million Syrians and off our radars, some two million souls who once lived in the contested regions of eastern Ukraine.
Over 25 million are refugees in neighbouring countries and further afield. 25% of them are in Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, and Uganda. Some 57% of them come from three countries: Syria, 6.3 million, Afghanistan 2.6 million and South Sudan 2.4 million. The top hosting counties are Turkey 3.5 million, Lebanon, 1 million, Pakistan 1.4 million, Uganda 1.4 million and Iran 1 million.
Jordan shelters over three quarters of a million Syrians; during the Iraq wars, this relatively poor country sheltered a similar number of Iraqis, and still hosts tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians who’ve fled persecution at home.
These figures are of those registered by the UNHCR. The real numbers are much higher. The Lebanese government estimates that there are more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees in the country.
Much of the focus these days is on the Middle East – Syria and its neighbours, on Libya and the frail boats crossing the Mediterranean, on the war in Yemen which has killed over thirteen thousand and displaced over two million.
But situation in Africa is as dire.
More than 2 million Somalis are currently displaced by a conflict that has lasted over two decades. An estimated 1.5 million people are internally displaced in Somalia and nearly 900,000 are refugees in the near region, including some 308,700 in Kenya, 255,600 in Yemen and 246,700 in Ethiopia.
By August 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo hosted more than 536,000 refugees from Burundi, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. And yet, there are over 4.5 million Congolese people displaced inside their own country and over 826,000 in neighbouring countries, including Namibia, Angola and Kenya.
Should the present situation in Sudan deteriorate into civil war, another tide of humanity will hit the road.
And closer to home, there are millions of refugees in Asia.
As of March 2019, there are over 100, 000 refugees in 9 refugee camps in Thailand (as of March 2019), mainly ethnic Karen and Shan. Refugees in Thailand have been fleeing ethnic conflict and crossing Myanmar’s eastern border jungles for the safety of Thailand for nearly 30 years.
There were an estimated 1 million Rohingya living in Myanmar before the 2016–17 crisis, and since August 2017, an estimated 625,000 refugees from Rakhine, had crossed the border into Bangladesh.
The top-level numbers are stupendous. The detail is scary.
Some 52% of the world’s refugees and displaced are children. And many are unaccompanied. Every hour, around 20 children run for their lives without their parents to protect them.
Children are the most vulnerable to disease and malnutrition and also to exploitation and lose years of schooling. Millions are elderly and are also face health problems.
And the problems facing young people and adults are all enormous. International aid is limited and host countries often unsympathetic. Work opportunities are few, some countries even forbidding refugees to take work, whilst unscrupulous employers exploit the desperate. Migrants are often encouraged, sometimes forcibly, to return to their countries of origin regardless of whether or not it is safe for them to return. There are reports that many have returned to Syria into the unwelcoming hands of the security services.
Refugees have lived in camps and towns in Pakistan and Thailand, Namibia and Kenyan for decades. Most refugee children were not born in their parents’ homelands.
And the camps are by no means safe havens. There may be no shelter or only basic shelter in tents; no privacy; a lack of clean water; meagre food; limited medical care; and the threat of injury, disease and epidemics. They may be poor physical security and armed attacks, and abuse by the authorities and officials. There may be organized crime, shakedowns and extortion, corruption and bribery.
Families may have become separated, exposing women and children without the protection of male family members to more fear and violence. Women are subsequently vulnerable to harsh conditions, including potential sexual and physical and abuse, poor healthcare, and unequal access to food and water. They may be coping with the loss of the head of the family and with the changing roles and responsibilities that come from being the sole parent. They may not know if their male family members will return to them safely and they must deal with the stress and anxiety, the grief and loss arising from their recent experiences. They might be fearful of the future, which in a camp is unknown and unpredictable
Australia and Refugees
Of all displaced peoples, 17% of them are being hosted in Europe. According to recent data published by the UNHCR, Germany is home to the most refugees by far in Europe – 1.4 million in total. By comparison, France and Sweden have 402,000 and 328,000 respectively, and the UK, 122,000.
Australia’s contribution to the world’s refugee problem is but a drop in the ocean. But we have a long established humanitarian refugee settlement programme for people officially recognized as refugees by the UNHCR and selected for third-country settlement in Australia.
Our humanitarian migration intake for 2016 -17 was the highest year on record. The intake of 24,162 was some 10% of our broader migration program which saw 225,941 permanent additions to the Australian population, and included the special intake of Syrian and Iraqi refugees (an estimate 12,000 places over several years).
The figures are 17,500 in 2017-18 and similar in 2018-19, whilst Scott Morrison has pledged to freeze the number of humanitarian arrivals for the next term. Under the policy there will be an overall target of 60 per cent of the offshore component for women, up from 50.8 per cent in 2017-18. The Government will also push to increase the number of refugees and humanitarian entrants being settled in regional Australia from a target of 30 per cent to 40 per cent in 2019-20, whilst insisting that new arrivals will only go to areas where there is strong community support.
Coffs Harbour
Coffs Harbour is one of several refugee intake towns in NSW, along with Armidale, Newcastle, Wollongong and Wagga Wagga. It’s medical and educational facilities have….
Coffs Harbour hosts several organizations dedicated to helping former refugees settle in Australia. They arrive in Australia on specific humanitarian visas and become permanent residents the moment they are admitted into the country. – and hence cease to be refugees.
SSI looks after them when they first arrive in Coffs Harbour. North Coast Settlement Services, a division of Saint Vincent de Paul Society, takes over once SSI’s work is done – after between six and eighteen months depending on a family’s needs, whilst the privately run Sanctuary organization assists settled migrants with such matters as family reunion and employment. An ancillary NSW government agency, the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS), assists new arrivals with psychological support, and particularly, the effects of PTSD. STARTTS services include counseling, group therapy, group activities and outings, camps for children and young people, English classes and physiotherapy
I spend two days a week as a volunteer with Settlement Services International, a Sydney-based community organisation that administers the Humanitarian Settlement Program (HSP) which supports refugees from the moment they arrive at the airport, provides essential support and information to assist refugees settle in Australia and empower them to gain independence and build strong connections in their new communities. SSI helps with the needs of new arrivals and the challenges of settling in a new country. Its aim is to enhance self-reliance with a focus on English language skills, education and job readiness.
SSI administers the Humanitarian Settlement Programme in several centres in regional NSW, including Coffs Harbour, Newcastle and Armidale. In all three areas, SSI has teams of staff on the ground who work with refugees, humanitarian entrants and their local communities to help new arrivals to through their initial settlement. The SSI team includes case managers and volunteers from the local community and from the refuge community itself
SSI’s work includes meeting and greeting, arranging temporary accommodation on arrival; orientation, including familiarization with Australian ways, our services and institutions, and getting around Coffs Harbour; basic official matters like Centrelink, banking, and health services; English classes at TAFE and enrolling children at schools; dealing with real estate agents, rental leases and looking after their rental properties.
Where do our clients come from?
When first volunteering, I worked for Anglicare. New arrivals were largely from Myanmar and Congo – mostly Christians – and from Afghanistan. Many of the latter came to Australia under the “woman at risk” programme – mothers and children with no father. Whilst all are Muslim, many were Shia Hazaras, a Turkic people persecuted by the Sunni Taliban. Since SSI took over from Anglicare in September 2017, whilst Burmese and African families continue to arrive, the emphasis has been on Yazidis from Iraq and Syria, and particularly from the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar in northern Iraq, where they endured enormous suffering and hardship at the hands of the Islamic State. Considered infidels by Da’ish, they were targets of a campaign of genocide from 2014. More than five thousand were killed, and some five to seven thousand were abducted and enslaved – mainly women and children. Such was the danger that the UNHCR and the Australian and other governments took whole families straight out of the war zone rather than from camps outside Iraq.
Yazidis are ethnically Kurdish, and their language, Kurmanji, is Kurdish. Their society is hierarchical and endogamous. Their religion, Yazidsm, is a monotheistic religion and has elements of ancient Mesopotamian faiths, including ancient Persian Mithraism, and some similarities to the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Because Yazidis believe in reincarnation and turn to the direction of the sun when praying, it has been thought – erroneously, that the religion has its origins in ancient Persian Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. They believe in the one god, the creator of all things, who delegated the ongoing management to a heptad of seven holy beings or angels, the chief of whom is Malek Taus – the Peacock Angel.
Malek Taus has in the past been associated, by Muslims and Christians, with Iblis, Satan, and the fall of proud Lucifer. This misinterpretation has led, historically, to Yazidis being perceived as devil worshipers, and thus being subject to persecution and pogrom. The atrocities of Da’ish were only different from past assaults and massacres in their scale and longevity.
Volunteering
Whilst case managers specifically look after the new arrivals, they depend upon a team of volunteers to assist them in a wide variety of tasks that we locals take for granted. for example: taking new arrivals them to medical or bank appointments, showing them how to use the bus network, setting up accommodation prior to arrival, minding children whilst parents attend appointments, and even helping folk to purchase use lawn mowers – there are few lawns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As a volunteer, past and present tasks have included walkabouts to familiarize new arrivals with Coffs Harbour, accompanying clients to house inspections when seeking new rental accommodation, and assisting with rental application forms; sending important documents like birth, marriage and education certificates to Social Services’ translation service for official translations; helping clients to apply for bus concession cards, school bus cards, and children’s sport vouchers; and assisting with NBN plans and connections. I have fixed broken cupboards, replaced light bulbs, checked out washing machines and kitchen stoves. and taking families to school interviews.
As I can get by with spoken Arabic and can read and write the language, and as i am reasonably proficient with computers, I have helped with online applications and prepared resumes. I have shown clients how to budget their money, and have run a class on how to set up and use smart phone calendars to help them make and keep appointments. On occasions, I am asked to just drop in on clients to see how they are getting on, and sort any basic house problems.
My most rewarding experiences have been: assisting case managers at the airport when the clients first arrive. It’s a very emotional moment for all involved; Taking families who have never seen the sea before to the seaside; helping a clients get a job; and helping STARTTS run a youth group for children and young people by registering the young attendees
How I got into this
Since my twenties, I’ve had an interest and, indeed, a passion for the Middle East, its history and politics, its people and culture, its languages and religions. I’ve travelled often to the region, and have studied it formally and as a hobby. I learned standard Arabic in the seventies and worked in academic and government research. Though I took a very different road for two decades, I returned to Syria in the noughties and got back into Arabic both standard and colloquial (two relatively distinct languages).
On retirement, I wanted to do volunteer work, and by happenstance, Coffs Harbour was a refugees intake town with several organizations dedicated to assisting new arrivals. At first, I used my knowledge of Arabic script to assist Farsi-speaking Afghans, and then the Iraqi and Syrian Yazidis arrived. Though their native tongue is Kurdish Kurmanji, and few could speak English, many spoke Arabic. SSI had several Arabic speaking support-workers, and some new arrivals had good English and now work as Arabic and Kurmanji speaking support staff, I am able to step in when they are already booked. Who’d ever have thought I’d be able to use and grow my Arabic in Coffs Harbour.
The Refugees’ Journey
Who is a migrant? Who is a refugee? Who is an asylum seeker?
Migrants
A migrant is a person who makes a conscious choice to leave their country to seek a better life elsewhere. Before they decide to leave their country, migrants can seek information about their new home, study the language and explore employment opportunities. They can plan their travel, take their belongings with them, and say goodbye to the important people in their lives. They can continue to phone friends and family, or write, email or Skype them without fear of adverse consequences. They are free to return home at any time if things don’t work out as they had hoped, if they get homesick or if they wish to visit family members and friends left behind.
People who choose to migrate for economic reasons are sometimes called “economic refugees”, especially if they are trying to escape from poverty. But they are not recognized as refugees under international law. The correct term for people who leave their country or place of residence because they want to seek a better life is “economic migrant”.
However, the displacement of people caused by such economic circumstances, or by natural disasters like flood, drought or extreme weather, can contribute towards political, social and ethnic tensions that can precipitate refugee crises. Effective and timely external assistance from neighbours and donor nations will often help to avert this. Aid is therefore provided in an effort to keep people in their homes or in their home countries.
Refugees
The 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees states:
“Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.”
Refugees are forced to leave their country because they are at risk of, or have experienced persecution. Their concerns are human rights and safety, and not economic advantage. They leave behind their homes, most or all of their belongings, family members and friends. Some are forced to flee with no warning, and may not be able to say goodbye to friends and family, and may never be able to contact or see them again.
Many refugees have experienced significant trauma or been tortured or otherwise ill-treated. Their journey to safety is fraught with hazards, many risking their lives in search of protection. They cannot return home unless the situation that forced them to leave improves.
Location is all important. During civil unrest and conflict, people may be forced to leave their homes, but do not leave their country. These internally displaced persons (IDPs) are often referred to as refugees. But, whilst refugees and IDPs may flee for similar reasons, their legal status is very different. Whilst remaining within the borders of their home countries, IDPs are legally under the protection of their own government, even in cases where the government’s actions are the cause of their flight. A person cannot be recognized as a refugee unless they are outside their home country.
Asylum Seekers
These seek protection as refugees, but their claim for refugee status has not yet been assessed. Many refugees have at some point been asylum seekers, that is, they have lodged an individual claim for protection and have had that claim assessed by a government or UNHCR.
Some refugees, however, do not formally seek protection as asylum seekers. During mass influx situations, people may be declared “prima facie” refugees without having undergone an individual assessment of their claims, as conducting individual interviews in these circumstances is generally impracticable (due the large numbers involved) and unnecessary (as the reasons for flight are usually self-evident). In other cases, refugees may be unable to access formal status determination processes or they may simply be unaware that they are entitled to claim protection as a refugee.
It is important to note that refugee status exists regardless of whether it has been formally recognized. People do not “become” refugees at the point when their claims for protection are upheld – they were already refugees, and the assessment process has simply recognized their pre-existing status. People become refugees (and are entitled to international protection and assistance) from the moment they flee their country due to a well-founded fear of persecution, as stipulated in the Refugee Convention.
What causes a person or a people to flee their home country?
The most common causes are war and civil unrest, persecution for political or religious beliefs, or ethnic and racial identity, and human rights violations by government authorities or rogue militias. There could be extreme political instability and fighting; assassinations of people associated with certain political or social groups; arbitrary arrest and torture, mutilation and degradation that can happen without warning; routine sexual violence towards women and girls; forced conscription of child soldiers, forcing families to flee to protect their children; and conscription for slave labour. Governments are unable to protect their citizens, and may actively participate in violations, leaving people with no place or person to turn to for protection.
Often people will hang on, hoping things will improve. Flight is the last option because it means leaving everything behind – home, possessions, jobs, education, family and friends, language, culture and identity. People are often forced to flee with very little warning, no time to collect identity documents or precious things, or say farewell to family, friends and neighbours. They may have to travel long distances, often on foot or in small boats, and through dangerous territory or waters. They may go for long periods without food and water. They may become in danger of being intercepted, robbed or recruited, raped or killed, imprisoned or repatriated.
Life in the Refugee Camps
The fortunate might reach a camp or other place of relative safety. In the camp there may be no shelter or only basic shelter in tents; no privacy; a lack of clean water; meagre food; limited medical care; and the threat of injury, disease and epidemics. They may be poor physical security and armed attacks, and abuse by the authorities and officials. There may be organized crime, shakedowns and extortion, corruption and bribery.
Families may have become separated, exposing women and children without the protection of male family members to more fear and violence. Women are subsequently vulnerable to harsh conditions, including potential sexual and physical and abuse, poor healthcare, and unequal access to food and water. They may be coping with the loss of the head of the family and with the changing roles and responsibilities that come from being the sole parent. They may not know if their male family members will return to them safely and they must deal with the stress and anxiety, the grief and loss arising from their recent experiences. They might be fearful of the future, which in a camp is unknown and unpredictable
The Role of the UNHCR
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mandated by the United Nations to protect refugees and help them find solutions to their plight. It has over 4,000 staff in 120 countries and an annual budget of about US$1 billion. In addition to legal protection, UNHCR now also provides material relief in major emergencies either directly or in partnership with other agencies.
Refugee protection is covered by International Human Rights Law, and this sits within a broader framework of international law. The agency responsible for the oversight of international human rights law is the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).
Refugees are accorded certain rights under international law, including
The right not to be sent back to a country where their life or freedom would be in danger
The right to receive public relief and welfare support at the same level as nationals
The right to access education and health care
The right to work
Entitlement to be issued with identity papers and travel documents
The role of the UNHCR is to
Safeguard the rights and wellbeing of refugees
Ensure that every person can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country
Promote long-term solutions to the refugees’’ plight utilizing the options of voluntary return, local integration in the country of first asylum, or resettlement in a third country
Ensure that refugees are treated appropriately by countries that have signed the UN Convention
Ensure that refuges are given the same rights as nationals of the countries they are accepted into
Protect refuges from being forced to return to their home countries if it is likely they will be persecuted
Promote the reunification of families
Take into account the special needs of particular refuges classes, e.g. women and children
UNHCR’s “durable solutions” for refugees:
Voluntary repatriation, the preferred long-term solution – going back to the country of origin when it is safe for them to return country. Voluntary repatriation is encouraged if it is safe and reintegration is viable. Indeed, most refuges prefer to go home as soon as circumstances permit and a degree of stability has been restored.
Local settlement and integration is the next preferred option – making a home in the country to which they first fled. Such local settlement may e spontaneous with new-comers establishing a new community. Integration is facilitated there are common ethnic groups or co-religionists. However, there may be a political affiliation between the government of their homeland and the country of first asylum which may lead to continued harassment and persecution.
Resettlement in a third country – often as a last resort, when refugees can neither return home nor remain in the country of first asylum, and are then selected by the UNHCR and sent to a third country to start a new life. Some eleven countries offer resettlement on a regular basis: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.
Whilst the UNHCR strives for “durable solutions”, the reality of the global refugee problem is that many countries hosting refugees embrace “non-durable” solutions such as:
“Warehousing” – refugees remain indefinitely in a camp where freedom of movement is restricted, basic supplies are scarce and there are few opportunities for any meaningful activity
Involuntary Repatriation – refugees are sent back to their country or origin while it is still unsafe. Sometimes refugees are forced back; sometimes they return because this is the “least bad option”
Secondary Movement – refugees themselves attempt to get to a western country in which they can lodge a claim for refugee status. This often involves clandestine travel using people smugglers and it can be very dangerous.
Settlement and Arrival
Refugees are selected for settlement in Australia by the Department Immigration and Border Protection, in conjunction with the UNHCR. Before arriving in Australia, humanitarian entrants are required to go through security and health checks.
The Australian Cultural Orientation program (AUSCO) is provided to humanitarian visa holders who are preparing to settle in Australia. The program provides practical advice and the opportunity to ask questions about travel to and life in Australia. It is delivered overseas, before they begin their journey. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is currently contracted to deliver AUSCO on behalf of the DIBP.
The average length of time spent in a camp or in a place of first refuge is 17 years, and migrants may have little experience beyond this. Children may not even have known their home country. Many will have experiences extreme instability and uncertainty. Being selected for resettlement can be an overwhelming experience, and can include feelings of intense elation on one hand and fear and anxiety on the other.
Under such circumstances, a person may not always be aware of the potential difficulties of resettlement. On arrival, feelings can quickly move from elation and joy to culture shock, resentment, dislocation and confusion. It can take months, years even, for new arrivals to understand aspects of their new country and adapt to it.
To rephrase Euripides, those whom the state wishes to destroy, it first demonizes.
When the president of Chile was killed in the military coup d’état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power on 9th September 1973 (yes, that first, forgotten 9/11), ex post facto justification for the bloody coup and its equally bloody aftermath was provided by the content of the drawers in the dead presidents desk. Though never corroborated, there were alleged to contain proof of an imminent communist takeover, and evidence of drug taking and black magic.
Cut to Panama in December 1989, and the US invasion of Panama, ostensibly to take out strongman and erstwhile ally Emmanuel Noriega. There, in the ruins of the city, was Allende’s desk. The same communist literature, the drugs, the voodoo.
Cut to Mogadishu, Somalia, December 1992. US marines led a doomed UN intervention to take out the warlord. Mohamed Farah Aideed. Enjoy the folly in widescreen in Ridley Scott’s masterful Black Hawk Down. And although the villain decamped unscathed, guess what he left behind? Yes, Allende’s desk, contents intact. Actually, the desk had transformed into a bedside table, but the contents now included, shock horror, red silk pyjamas!
Communism. Drug taking. Black magic. And the sheer, un-American decadence of red silk pyjamas. The State Department pressed the hot buttons of white, Christian US morality to garner domestic support for its military adventures. The desk never came to light after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. No doubt the Serbian authorities kept is existence hidden.
And it was never found at Waco because it was no doubt destroyed in the fire of state retribution. But David Koresh, self-proclaimed millenarian prophet, with his apparently indoctrinated and deluded followers, his harem, and his guns, was singled out for treatment very different to that meted out to scores of likeminded and heavily armed fringe dwellers scattered across the USA. To paraphrase Colin Powell, they were demonized, they were isolated, and they were destroyed. And on prime time television too. In that land of paradoxes, few eyebrows were raised when gun-toting members of the KKK offered to assist the DFDA and FBI in their assault on the besieged compound.
When Navy SEALS swooped on Abbottabad in Pakistan to take out long-sought-after Big Bad Osama bin Laden, they took careful notes of the contents of his bookshelves. An eclectic collection of reading matter – and pornography. No kindles, no iPads, so no eBooks or ePorn, which just went to show what a tired, old, out-of-date codger he was at the end of his days. The Pentagon has yet to reveal what they found on Osama’s bedside table. Maybe that voodoo and witchcraft stuff? And Osama’s pyjamas?
Though they both bequeathed sumptuous palaces to their conquerors, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were both spared the indignity of their cupboards being laid bare. But they were both caught hiding in drainpipes, which may show that the restless ghost of Allende’s Desk may have be laid at last.
Rumours of the inevitable demise of current bogeymen Bashar al Assad, Vlad Putin and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi are exaggerated. And the Fat Controller of Korea is still entertaining the world with his eccentricities and imaginative executions. So what will it be? Desks or drainage. And the long arm of the law has yet to reach inside another famous public enemy’s Knightsbridge hideaway. Yet, being the on-line, wired chap that Julian is, we may be disappointed.
And so it goes, as Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout often declaimed when mad things happened. The American way of preparing the nation and its friends for a military adventure. First select your enemy. Give him horns and a tail. The latter day manifestation of the Judeo-Christian personification of the evil Other, the Dark Side of us all, and the public swallows and follows…Because it supports their own value system, their own perception of self, their own identity, and thereby, they’re own interpretation of what is and what is not appropriate behaviour. Then, hang on for a bumpy ride!
Last Sunday, The Guardian published a delightful opinion piece by Guardian producer Madhvi Pankhania entitled ‘So long and thanks for all the flat whites: an English view of Australia’.
She began: “Recently my colleague Paul Owen shared his experiences about being an Englishman in New York, from the volatile customer service, to the way bragging is completely normal. This was after American Scott Waters FaceBook post about being won over by the England’s quaint villages where pubs are “community living rooms” went viral. I lived and worked in Sydney, Australia, for two years until this July, and I got to know its people and its outsider’s view of the rest of the world. Australians know something of the English – there are enough expats over there, and they also still have our Queen. Here’s my take on Australiana”.
I was amused and inspired enough to write a response from the land down under.
Dear Madhvi,
Seeing the title, for a moment, I thought you were writing about me. I enjoyed your article immensely, and was inspired to pen (type, really, but you know what I mean) a detailed response. Here it is, your points, one by one, and my perspective thereof in parenthesis.
1) Government policies on asylum seekers, prime ministerial cock-ups and sports achievements drive the international perception of Australia.
Sadly so, but our embarrassment of a prime minister was replaced and even though his replacement is still a Tory, it is as though a dark cloud has lifted. Politics dominates our front pages to the extent that old timers pine for the days when sport dominated the front pages. These days, it does so only when there is corruption, inappropriate behaviour or a doping scandal.
2) Don’t feel guilty about not tipping – unlike the US, businesses are responsible for paying staff decent wages and benefits, so anything extra you give doesn’t serve to prop up pay, but is a bonus. Cuts to take-home pay on weekends and public holidays, though, are a big current issue.
“Penalty rates” as we call them, on weekends and public holidays, including double-time on Sundays, are sacrosanct to unions and to those who have to work on weekends, but a shibboleth to conservatives and business who would like to see them smoothed out if not abolished.
3) Many Australians are the sons and daughters of migrants from all over the world, and have incredible stories of their journey to the country. And they’ll share these with you.
4) Australians have the gift of the gab; you can expect to hear some great stories.
5) There’s never a wrong time to strike up a conversation – the taxi driver, the barista, the dentist, the guy fixing your internet – they will ask how you are and tell you about their day. And why wouldn’t you want to hear their opinion on Tony Abbott’s latest blooper?
Yes indeed. But don’t let some people loose on issues like Muslims, asylum seekers, and immigration. We can be quite a conservative country at heart. And ironically, it is the naturalized immigrants who can be quite opposed to our “humanitarian intake” policy (Australians have a great penchant for euphemisms). And we do love a tall story. Like this one.
Number Six is missing? Was this censored or self-censored? Australians are great ones for conspiracy theories, especially those subtly alluded to above, though no here near as bad as the Americans.
7) But a word of warning, Australians can be sensitive – convict jokes will go down like a lead balloon.
8) In fact, making quips about Australia – unless you’re Australian – is a big no no.
Strange observation these. Apart from historians and politicians who like to engage in culture wars no one really thinks or cares about our convict heritage. And as for quips about Aussies, you might’ve been talking to the wrong Aussies. Generally, anyone and everything is fair game.
9) Europeans in Australia are ubiquitous. Try not to fall into the trap of only hanging out with other British people, as many others do – how else will you ask them about Peter Andre and Shane Warne?
Certainly true. There is a world of diversity here, and some great stories. See 3, 4, and 5. As our National Anthem says, “For those who’ve come across the seas we’ve boundless plains to share”, (except if you arrive in small, leaky boats).
10) Whether it’s state, postcode, sports, media, or politics, competition between teams can fierce. Pick your side and be loyal. This is truest for contests like State of Origin – a rugby league match between states where the real prize of winning is the feeling of superiority.
We are quite a tribal bunch, and yes, irrationally loyal to our mob of choice. It’s often a bad case of “my mind is made up – don’t confuse me with the facts!”
11) In politics, even within parties, rivalries can go on for years. Prime ministers come and go, ousted by colleagues driven on by the spectre bad opinion polls. They are usually replaced by a former PM whose resentment has been bubbling for years. It’s the Dynasty of political entertainment.
12) Politics is the entertainment. Live, routine interviews with politicians’ scripted responses is considered prime time television. No one seems to get bored with impromptu press conferences, maybe because the rerun shows on other channels are about as interesting as watching paint dry. It’s either that or sports.
Indeed. Politics is our very own “blood sport”, and prime- time entertainment. And views can be quite polarized, predictable, and passionate. Virulent too – Games of Thronesy, even, but without he blood and bonking. Loyalties and hatreds linger for year – generations, evens. Voting is compulsory DownUnder, and elections are full-on, emotional, high octane events. Election Day at the booths is one big party whilst the evening coverage of the counting, on all free to air channels, is all-night family entertainment, often filled with argument and alcohol.
13) A politics/current affairs show is the most popular TV programme. Q&A is a politer version of a Question Time panel because why would they interrupt each other? British comedians and Greek singers are invited to make the panel more lively. And if you don’t watch it, you’ll be completely out of the loop with stories in the newspapers for the next few weeks.
Q&A is a strange beast, part current affairs, part reality TV show, loathed by the more extreme partisans of left and right, and often used as the whipping boy for conservative politicians who would like to see the ABC abolished or owned by Rupert Murdoch. And yes, those British comedians and exotic singers often look and sound like lost extraterrestrials. But Nana Mouskouri and Joan Baez gave the oldies some sublime kumbaya moments at the end of all the partisan posturing.
14) Many politicians become big media presences. Like Clive Palmer, the Australian version of Donald Trump. He was a billionaire, says what he thinks and before he was an MP he was the owner of a dinosaur park and twerked for the public. It’s true! Some other politicians have done strange things, too, like threaten Johnny Depp’s dogs, or eat raw onions.
Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer is a legend in his own longlunchtime, larger than life literally and figuratively. Not only was he actually elected to parliament – quite an achievement for an independent, but he formed his own party (which very rapidly disintegrated), and he donates his parliamentary salary to charity. And yes, Tony Abbott’s onion eating was very peculiar, and the less said about Neanderthal Party deputy leader and wannabe dog killer Barnaby Joyce, the better.
15) Remember when Australia passed the law mandating plain packaging for cigarettes and another one imposing a price on carbon and people thought they were a new progressive force in the world? Now they can’t even pass gay marriage legislation, even with widespread public backing.
Relax, Madhvi. The world will be set aright. The carbon tax was abolished by the next, and now defunct prime minister, and Big Tobacco is taking us to court in Singapore to overturn the plain packaging legislation. Gay marriage will get through in the short to medium term now that the dead hand of Toney Abbott is taken off the wheel of state, but the Republic is still a long way away. Though we love Her Maj to death, and have no time for Chuck and Camilla, young and old alike are mad about Kate, Wills, George and Sophie.
16) is missing. See 13 above.
17) If you didn’t guess it yet, everyone’s really into politics. And sport. Football is Australian Rules football (AFL), and football is soccer or A-league, rugby league is NRL. Or you could just follow the international cricket – but don’t mention this year’s Ashes.
19) Fancy learning to surf? It will only take years of practice and dedication to tame those waves – and most of the time you’ll feel like you’re drowning and being slammed against the bottom of the sea floor. And if you break surfing etiquette, you’ll feel the hard anger of professional surfers and wave police.
Sport certainly is a national religion, although we are quite ecumenical. Anything with a ball is divine, and horses, dogs and pokies are holy too. Even politicians who hate sport are obliged to attend the various Finals and look enthusiastic about it. Serious interviews are interrupted with questions about which team they are barracking for on Saturday, or their tips on the Melbourne Cup. When one bookish state premier was filmed reading a volume from the western canon (probably Flaubert in the original French), he was ridiculed from Bendigo to Broome. Scandals, whether of substance abuse or sexual excess, are salaciously savoured with a mix of sadness and satisfaction.
20) The birds are beautiful, but why can’t they just stop squawking in the mornings and respect that you need a lie-in?
The birds are indeed amazing. They rise at five o’clock in the morning and sing, cackle or squawk all the live long day. Bye the bye, item 21 is missing too. See 13 and 16. What was it you were not permitted to say in print? The fact that we have some of the most venomous snakes and spiders in the Universe, and some pretty mean denizens of the deep? Wouldn’t want to scare the tourists away.
22) Cockroaches will enter your home without fear, swivel their antennae and scuttle across your floor.
Yes, roaches can be very cheeky. As can fleas, ticks, sand flies, blowflies, horseflies and leeches which refuse to respect one’s personal space.
23) Queues are non-existent. Apart from when you wait to get a sandwich at lunchtime as they’re making it from fresh ingredients for every customer.
24) A sip of coffee is nectar to your lips, and even the cheap coffee is good. Some places even measure the water to the “perfect” temperature in chemistry beakers, and guys with big bushy beards hand you your flat white in the street.
Queues for good coffee are ubiquitous. Especially first thing in the morning when you crave a slug from the wonderful jug before you hit the hamster wheel. And yes, coffee here is the world’s best. Starbucks went broke in Sydney because it couldn’t compete (which is why it pays very little tax in Oz – but that, and the matter of Google, Apple, IKEA, and others paying their jus and fair share of income tax, is another story, and another upcoming political battle).
25) A daily commute for some people is sailing past the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, watching the occasional pod of dolphins.
And don’t forget the whales that play in Sydney Harbour, one of the most beautiful in the world.
25) People regularly sell all of their unwanted clothes and furnishings in front gardens, like an impromptu garage sale. You can go out for a walk and return with an old salad bowl.
In England, car park sales are held in, well, car parks. In Australia, garage sales are held, well, not in garages, but in front yards, and on the pavement. You can find everything that you never really wanted, from china to chainsaws, books to banana chairs, dildos to desks.
26) Cars are king of the roads and cities mainly have highways running straight through them. If you do walk in the centre of cities, the minutes spent waiting for the lights to change will feel like an eternity. Jaywalking is illegal though, so you’ll need to not let impatience get the better of you.
The car is indeed king (it was forever thus) and public transport neglected. Politicians promise public transit infrastructure, and pledge millions of dollars or our money, and all we get is roads, roads, and more roads. It could be to do with influence of the road transport and fossil fuel lobbies, but that is probably just another conspiracy theory – see 6. And yes, jaywalking is illegal and you can actually be fined in Sydney – although this is often to do with the fact that incredulous pedestrians start arguing with the enforcement officer.
27) Avocado is fresh, ripe and ubiquitous. Order it served on toast with some lemon and pepper and you will be told it’s the best brekkie in the world. It is. 28) Vegetables aren’t sold in packages of plastic. Then again, it’s just easier to eat out; Vietnamese pho is one of the great migrant dish imports.
Ah! The fruit and veggies. In abundance, but can be pricey in the wake of droughts, fires, and floods. The Thai, Arab and Turkish restaurants and cafes are great too.
29) If you get homesick, there’s a UK shelf in some supermarkets that stocks Marmite, PG Tips and Tunnocks caramel wafers
And there’s Barry’s Irish tea and Harrogate Yorkshire Tea, digestive biscuits, liquorice allsorts, and Dr Who tea pots. And of course, UK TV and BBC First channels on FOXTEL cable with a surfeit of English soaps, comedies and drama. Not to mention the History Channel’s stodgy diet of long-dead kings and queens.
30) There are English people everywhere. Most still believe they’ll move home one day.
31) There are none of the familiar comforts of high-street chain stores. No Marks & Spencer, Primark, or WH Smith. Small independent stores and restaurants do a better trade, and you tend to get better quality, individual products
And there ARE English people everywhere. And most will never go home. Why would you when this place is perfect one day, paradise the next (except for all the usual first world maladies like racism, refugees, child abuse, domestic violence, ice, corruption, inequality, and poverty). Lots of Irish people too, but the way. And Indians. Almost like home, really.
32) Anyone who’s everyone is on social media, and Instagramming every small achievement is standard … breakfast – delicious! New casual sportswear – so hot! Selfie on the beach – so amazing!
Social media is definitely full on, though no more so than in the UK, where wi fi availability is streets ahead of us. Here, it is patchy, depending on where you are, and vulnerable to political posturing and promises. We live in the bush and we are definitely the forgotten people.
33) Flying between states is the equivalent of taking a really luxurious bus.
We have forever suffered the tyranny of distance. It is a very long way between places, and whilst road trips are fun, and the scenery magical, the bush does tend to go on and on and on. Bus and train services are neglected (see 26), interminable and uncomfortable, so, unless you really like driving very long distances, flying is always the preferred option. Expensive but – it is cheaper to fly to Bali for a beano. See 44.
34) Australian slang – arvo, onya, sledge – is more fun, loose and creative than proper English, and the shortness is useful for Twitter. I remember hearing “ranga”, though, about someone with red hair and reeling at how mean it sounded. The words are good ammunition for Australian humour that laughs political correctness in the face. They laugh at everyone and everything, politicians, friends, family, but most of all you. Self-deprecation is a form of modesty, guys.
Language is fun in Oz. and yes, Madhvi, you are spot on. But I reckon the Poms are more politically-correct, particularly the liberal, middle class ones. You would never get Greek, Arab and Vietnamese comedians doing things like “Wogs out of Work” in the UK. Offensive. Off-colour (sorry about the pun). Tsk, tsk!
35) Finding a late-night drinking venue is an arduous journey that reaps few rewards. You think it’s because you’ve missed hidden spots, but no, they just don’t exist. Fun has a curfew of midnight; some Cinderellas have to go home. And no, one seedy hotel does not count as a late-night venue. What happens is that karaoke replaces real going out. Yep, it’s either that or a casino. Daytime weekend electronic music festivals also don’t count.
There is a good reason for this. Innocent people were literally getting killed on the streets at night. The “lock-out” laws have seen the level of booze-induced violence decrease dramatically. The owners of the swill palaces and 24 hour party people would dispute this, but.
36) Listening to Triple J’s Hottest 100 will keep your finger on the pulse of cool.
There is music for all tastes and passions on the dial, from hip hop to be bop, and all beats in between. Concerts by big name overseas artists require a small mortgage, however.
37) Everyone goes on about which is better – Sydney or Melbourne. What I’ll bring your attention to though, is that Brisvegas (Brisbane) has the better nickname.
Melbourne is cool, but Sydney is better. Brisvegas? Must be a Pom term. We don’t use it around here.
38) Wherever you are, you’ll have a great time commemorating Anzac Day. This national day, to mourn and respect soldiers who died at war, is when crowds come together to hoot, whoop, get steaming drunk and bet on the winner of … a coin toss.
This is the uncool picture of Anzac, our secular Christmas, Easter, Eid, and Hanukkah rolled into one. It is now a political and marketing extravaganza as people get up at dawn for the memorial services, watch the parades and the piped bands, and endure hours of History Channel commemorations whilst Aussies young and old wonder the globe, suffering crowds and cold on the scattered battlefields of old. But folk still do get drunk and play Two Up on the “one day of the year” that it is legal.
39) The Australian way to drink beer is: on tap, all day long.
An old and increasingly inaccurate. stereotype. Wine sales overtook beer sales a long time ago. And Australian wine is world-class and reasonably priced in Sainbury’s, Tesco’s and M&S.
40) Indigenous Australians tend to be ignored on national holidays. They don’t really celebrate much – they’ve had their land stolen, their children taken, and have high suicide and incarceration rates. Many Australians do care about these issues, even though there isn’t a quick fix solution. A referendum in 2017 may give them recognition in the Australian constitution.
Yes, the indigenous Australians are still with us, contrary to the expectations of early twentieth century missionaries who endeavoured to give them comfort on their way out of this world. Our treatment of the aborigines and their present predicament is our original sin and national stain. Many care about these issues, and many don’t. Much has been done, and much still must be done. It’s a long winding road strewn with lost opportunities, good intentions, broken promises, and political expediency. But, as Martin Luther King once said, “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what were gonna be, but thank God, we ain’t where we was!”
41) Most Australians aren’t racist. Not everyone is on board with the government’s hardline treatment of asylum seekers.
Most Aussies are not racists, sure, but there is a xenophobic streak that emerges in times of economic and political stress. Our divided response to asylum seekers and boat people, and Islamic terrorism shows us at our best and worst. But at most times, the better angels of our nature come to the fore.
42) Some of the vast outer suburbs of cities have thriving small communities, with kick-ass restaurants, though inner city dwellers stay away. This could be due to the hours of driving it takes just to get there. Or maybe its ruthless tribalism – a friend who grew up in Sydney said beach suburb kids weren’t too keen on “westies”, and north and south goad each other too.
43) Tasmania in winter is a dark and bleak land of no hope. The exquisite food and wine won’t be therapy enough for seeing barely any human beings. And definitely don’t visit Port Arthur in winter, unless you get a kick out of cold, austere tragedy.
We are a broad, wide land, and a diverse, multicultural society, twenty first century in many places, twentieth in others. That’s the joy of the place.
44) If you want sunset cocktails, Australians decamp to Bali over winter to spiritually revive. Or party.
Ah, to be young and free and living in Australia! But we do have a wee problem with alcohol abuse and binge drinking, and quite a bit of ancillary violence.
45) Australian women have swagger. They’re confident, powerful and words will not puncture them.
But, in Australia, there is still a toughened glass ceiling in politics and business, and two women are killed by domestic violence each week. Confident and powerful, maybe, in some places, but frustrated, exploited, vulnerable and frightened in others.
In That Howling Infinite 