Like many other Mallacoota residents, I was not in Mallacoota when the monster fire hit. I viewed/listened to the horror from a distance, tears rolling and heart hammering, through the filters of mass media and social media. I usually make a point of staying home over the Christmas holiday period, so it was a stroke of extreme good fortune that I wasn’t huddled in the hall or on the foreshore with the rest of the terrified summer population.
My ordeal – and it was an ordeal, make no mistake – was to become, effectively, a refugee. My life, my home, my pets, my “happy place” – all of it is in Mallacoota – and all of a sudden I was locked out of it indefinitely.
I put something on Facebook that day, along the lines of
If anything good can possibly come out of this shit, I hope it’s an acknowledgement that it’s very easy for ordinary people to become refugees - there but for the grace of God etc etc - and this country ought to rethink its stance on refugees.
The Australian government bad-mouths, mis-labels and tortures asylum seekers. It lets them rot and die in offshore detention centres rather than giving them proper medical care. It calls them “illegals” when there’s nothing illegal about seeking asylum (and sheep-like, too many Australians adopt that “othering” attitude and language.) There’s a feeling that “these people” are trying to take something from us; jump an imaginary queue; take jobs from Australians (at the same time that they’re taking benefits from Australians(!)); a feeling that there must be something inherently wrong with these people, and it’s their fault they’re in the situation they’re in. They are somehow inferior, lesser, less worthy, less human than we are – and therefore the inhumane treatment meted out to them is ok. It’s no more than they deserve.
It’s a shameful indictment of Australia: the smug superiority, the government spin, the gullibility and easy inhumanity of far too many ordinary Australians who refuse to share their great good fortune with vulnerable, frightened, displaced people who just happen to not be Australians like them.
While the 2019/20 summer fires devoured their way through millions of hectares of eastern Australia, terrified people huddled terrified on beaches and in showgrounds and evacuation centres; numb people returned to the twisted ruins of their homes. They needed, expected, hoped for – and were shown – kindness and compassion. (Well, apart from those poor Cobargo people whose hands were forcibly shaken by the Prime Minister before, photo opportunity over, he turned his back on them and walked away).
I spent my refugee time with dear friends in Michelago (one of whom, ironically, is an ex-Port Hedland/Baxter detainee) and family in Yass. I felt cared for and welcomed – but even so, I was desperately sad, and keen to return to Mallacoota as soon as possible. I cried all over anybody who would give me a hug (thank you, lady at Yass Visitor Information Centre! Thank you random strangers who went out of their way to be kind and helpful.)
After a couple of very long and frustrating weeks I was able to return on one of the police-escorted convoys from Eden, and found my home town and my community completely changed. BUT – I was able to return home – and I had a home to return to. I am very very fortunate.
There’s a shitload of lessons we need to learn from this bushfire experience, and this is just one:
All it takes for an ordinary person to become a refugee is for their home to become so unsafe that staying there is life-threatening.
--Rising sea-levels, raging bushfires, falling bombs, overwhelming oppression/discrimination/violence sanctioned and systematised by governments.-- These things are not the exclusive province of "others" - brown or black or foreign people...
We cannot afford to be smug. We cannot afford to look the other way. What goes around, comes around. Rediscover your humanity, Australia - because the next wave of refugees and asylum seekers could be us.
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