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Australian PM Scott Morrison recently visited the University of Queensland in order to witness the development of a COVID-19 trial vaccine. I did not know this until a number of hours later however, as I had initially assumed his visit was in relation to the recent budget announcement that degrees in the Humanities and Arts would be increased significantly. As concerning as the ideology behind this switch is, I will leave that for another discussion. Instead I want to highlight how the visit was further dramatised by the student protests against our current immigration policies – particularly our treatment of asylum seekers.
With ‘ScoMo come off it, refugees aren’t for profit‘ ringing across the campus, it was hard not to join in to protest the unjust policies we are currently employing. As there are already solutions proposed and frameworks established, I will not recant what I believe should lead Australia’s approach.
Instead, I will discuss the ways in which the dominant ideas are portrayed by the media and institutionalised by the government, as we must understand how our current policies have become so legitimised. The dilemma of finding a place for people forced to leave their homes is highly complex, and this article will attempt to unravel the ideas and perceptions surrounding this topic.
The starting point
Proposed in 2001 by PM John Howard as the ‘Pacific Solution’, offshore detention sites were envisioned as a way to discourage asylum seekers from arriving by boat – a problem highlighted by the 2001 Tampa incident wherein a ship carrying asylum seekers was denied entry to Australia (Fleay & Hoffman, 2014).
This incident radically changed popular discourse, as political rhetoric began to dehumanise asylum seekers by describing them as ‘cargo’ rather than as individuals (Patil & McLaren, 2019). Additionally, this policy was birthed within a context of fear following the 9/11 terrorist attack that fuelled Islamophobia and a fear of the ‘culturally different’ (Muytjens & Ball, 2016).
This process of ‘othering’ stemmed from rhetoric surrounding Australian national identity, as the values and stability of Australian society became increasingly ‘threatened’ by the influx of asylum seekers negatively framed as ‘capable of behaving in a manner that would be unacceptable in Australia’, fuelling an ‘us/them’ dichotomy (Austin & Fozdar, 2018; Ellis, 2016, p. 83).
Painting the frame
‘Framings’ underpin our perceptions of what are deemed social ‘problems’, and thus influence public discourse and policy approaches by shaping our understandings of these issues – such as justifying Australia’s use of detention centres (Cairney, 2015).
These social ‘problems’ are often fuelled by popular assumptions enforced by the media. In the case of asylum seekers, this includes their ‘deviant’ nature as ‘illegal’ criminals, their ‘bogus’ motives (as some dispute they are ‘genuine’ refugees), as well as the perception that they are a ‘drain on the [Australian] economy’ (Muytjens & Ball, 2016, p.450; Austin & Fozdar, 2018).
As a result of the widespread dominance of media across much of our society – a process known as mediatisation – the narratives presented often contribute to the creation of a hegemony. This exists as the accepted version of events which lends legitimacy to policies which come to be considered the common sense answer.
No Friends But the Mountains
For many, the reality of Australia’s poor treatment of asylum seekers was only revealed through the work of Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist who was forced to flee his home after receiving threats following his critiques about the rights of Kurdish people in Iran.
4 days after Kevin Rudd’s 2013 reintroduction of Howard’s ‘Pacific Solution’ (and declaration that ‘boat people will never again be welcomed to Australia’) Boochani was one of the first diverted to Manus Island as a part of the ‘Offshore Solution’.
In 2015, Boochani began communications with Janet Galbraith, the head of on organisation called Writing Through Fences which works to publish the work of journalists and artists in immigration detention across the world.
Smuggled out in a secret series of text messages written in Farsi, Boochani began work on his book No Friends But the Mountains. Written from the confines of an island wrought with human rights violations, Boochani began to consolidate his experience into an artistic journey that highlights his struggles, as well as his resistance.
It’s an angry book, and its anger is what gives it its impetus and its energy.
Geordie Williamson
Finally published with the help of Geordie Williamson, No Friends But the Mountains struck the world’s literary community with force, winning multiple awards including the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Literature.
He made us see what we wished we never had to see. And he did it with a great integrity and honesty. When you read the book the refugees aren’t angels at all. Some of them are brutal, some of them are selfish. That’s the power of what he did. He didn’t seek to glorify them or sanctify them; he presented them as human beings.
Richard Flanagan
Boochani’s work has been remarked as one of equal outrage, passion, struggle, and power. Now residing in New Zealand thanks to a visitor’s visa (granted in order for Boochani to accept a writer’s award), it is quite certainly not the end of this story; it is a renewed and refreshed beginning.
The ABC’s Australian story delves further into Boochani’s story, and provides a lens into the affronting reality much omitted from the public eye.
Changing the frame
It is possible to challenge these framings by (1) increasing media attention within these detention sites; (2) humanising this vulnerable group to showcase them as individuals and victims; and by (3) encouraging a multicultural ‘Australianness’ which promotes their protection rather than persecution (Ellis, 2016, pp. 83-4; Patil & McLaren, 2019; Austin & Fozdar, 2018, p. 295).
Boochani’s narrative presents itself in stark contrast to that of the hegemonic ‘fear frame’ present within the attitudes of the Australian government. Boochani is just one of many who have managed to break through the wall of hegemonic stereotyped constructs, and highlights many of the prominent issues which litter our world yet lie unaddressed.
References
ABC’s Australian Story, The Great Escape with Behrouz Boochani & follow-up article
Austin, C., & Fozdar, F. (2018). Framing Asylum Seekers: The Uses of National and Cosmopolitan Identity Frames in Arguments about Asylum Seekers. Identities, 25(3), 245-65. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2016.1214134
Cairney, P. (2015, November 2). Policy Concepts in 1000 Words: Framing . Retrieved from https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/policy-concepts-in-1000-words-framing/
Ellis, K., Fulton, J., & Scott, P. (2016). Detention Attention: Framing a Manus Island Riot. Pacific Journalism Review, 22(1), 74-92.
Muytjens, S., and Ball, M. (2016). Neutralising Punitive Asylum Seeker Policies: An Analysis of Australian News Media During the 2013 Federal Election Campaign. Journal of Australian Studies: ‘Boat People’: The Long History of Immigration in Australia, 40(4), 448-63. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2016.1223153
Patil, T. V., & McLaren, H. (2019). Australian Media and Islamophobia: Representations of Asylum Seeker Children.” Religions, 10(9), 1-14. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10090501
Wow, this article is fastidious, my younger sister is analyzing such things, thus I am going to inform her. Inga Neddie Dessma