Without borders

Andrew Charles

Voglio girare tutte le strade del mondo… senza frontieri, senza barrieri (I want to travel all the roads of the world… without borders, without barriers).

Last year, The Age hosted a regular website on the "flood" of "illegal" immigrants entitled "1999 - the year the trickle of boat people became a flood". Interestingly, the difference between a trickle and a flood seems to lie primarily in the media statements of the major political parties as opposed to sober analysis of the number of arrivals over the past few years.

Between 1990 and 1999, about 7,000 people arrived in Australia by boat seeking asylum. In 1994/5 the number was about 1,200, which fell to a low of 150 in 1997/98, and then back to about 1000 for 1998/99 . A flood?

In 1999, in Italian waters off the coast of Puglia, almost 60,000 people were arrested for crossing the border illegally. The Italian state has a military base on the small island of Saseno, from which navy ships and helicopters patrol the surrounding areas. There have been recorded incidents in which Italian navy and coastguard vessels have collided with vessels carrying people. Hundreds have died. Investigations have been held. In the past twelve months, almost 100,000 asylum seekers have entered Britain. This has risen from 46,000 in 1998. Britain plans to build more detention centers across the country. A similar number have crossed the border to Germany. The other week 58 people died in a shipping container on the back of truck trying to enter Britain.

In the Age, Simon Mann talks of a "rational response" by EU political leaders to the issue of unofficial immigration in the wake of this tragedy. In reality their statements were nothing more than a call for greater co-operation in enforcing rights of non-access to European state's territories. While Antonio Vitorino calls for a "coherent and global" solution, he stresses the importance of a "strengthening of the co-operation in the controlling of access to the EU member states territory.

That is to say that the solution to the problem of unofficial migration is more fences, gun towers, and papers. "Organised criminal people smugglers" are an easy scapegoat. They can be blamed for numerous deaths and mishaps, for misleading the people they are transporting, and for profiting from a business built on fear and misery. They can not, however, be blamed for the social and economic conditions that cause people to flee en masse. Neither can they be blamed for the militarisation of border zones, which requires risky clandestine operations, and thus creates the conditions for organised criminals to meet the needs of refugees. Blame for these conditions falls on the class of people who control the international economy, and who create debt, war, famine, and poverty, and the states who maintain the integrity of their economic islands.

The federal government, with the collusion of the mainstream press have seen to it that any "incursion" of boat people is reported as a high priority. Groups numbering in tens or hundreds are considered to constitute some sort of serious threat, usually explained by reference to an imaginary floodgate that will open as soon as boat people are shown leniency or compassion. Alternatively, boatpeople are depicted as criminals ("…could be murderers, could be terrorists…" - The Age 14/6/00) and carriers of dangerous disease.

This is a highly suspect logic, especially when you take into account the hundreds of thousands of Australians who travel abroad and back, and the hundreds of thousands of tourists that visit Australia every year - modern nations are sieves, and the movements of a few thousand people would barely rate on a graph that included tourism, legal migration, and business trips in and out of the country. The number of "legitimate" tourists arriving daily far exceeds any illegal attempts to enter the country, and these arrivals, on account of their presumably having money to spend, are treated in a far more humane manner. To say the least.

Ironically, "illegal" refugees with money are subject to accusations along the lines of "they can't be that bad off if they can afford to bring food and money with them." Of course, persecution, war and famine do not always spare those with savings, and passage to Australia, official or unofficial, costs money. Damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Australia has found it easier to develop an anti-immigration discourse on account of the land mass being "girt by sea". Unlike nations with land borders, where in times of crisis mass refugee crossings are commonplace and easy, Australia requires a bit more effort to get to, and the combined efforts of Australian defence forces and other government departments make it more difficult to arrive unannounced.

Last year when this was a bigger press issue, there were regular letters to various daily papers full of suggestions like "they should all be sent back home immediately after a meal and a shower" (and these were the generous proposals). It seems the national paranoia of yellow/black hordes lining up to cross the north west frontier is still alive and well.

To callously suggest that refugees be returned to the circumstances that forced them to leave their home country betrays a serious lack of compassion, and a refusal to engage with the reality of why people flee the country in which they are living. The fact that "illegal" arrivals are denied the natural justice considered a right of all people is just one of the ways by which "illegals" are dehumanised. They are denied proper legal counsel, entertainment, and as refugees can receive at most a three year visa. They are subject to mandatory incarceration despite having been convicted of no crime. The independence of those responsible for providing for the inmates and those responsible for investigating their complaints is questionable, i.e. inmates of these camps live under prison conditions, and there is no authority with the power to investigate which represents the interests of the detained. The other means by which "illegals" are dehumanised is by denying them a public voice.

Does anyone else find it ironic that last year's parliamentary delegation to inspect conditions at the detention centres did not speak to one inmate? Clearly, the inmates' wellbeing was not the reason for the visit. Conveniently, claims of smiling, waving inmates have been construed as signs of being happy and content, rather than as attempts to gain favour and better treatment.

The frequent demonstrations, breakouts, and suicide attempts tell a different story, as do the reports of solitary confinement, cruelty, and chemical restraint. I wonder if the stories of some of these "illegals" were made public if there would be such public aquiescence to their cruel treatment. Many immigrants have no papers, having learned that it is often advantageous for there to be no record of their country of birth. Such people without papers (known as sans papiers amongst European migration activists) have been the subject of campaigns in Europe, calling for rights for the sans papiers, and protesting against the increasing militarisation of borders that leads to the deaths of those who try to cross covertly.

Once we start to define a persons humanity, and their right to humanitarian assistance by their paperwork, we invalidate any claim that we live in a compassionate society.

It is clear that much profiteering is going on, mostly at the expense of those people wanting to get out of wherever they are fleeing. There is also the transfer of millions of taxpayer's money to pay the global incarceration company ACM (Australian Correctionals Management, a subsidiary of the US Wackenhut Corporation) to manage the refugee incarceration facilities at Perth, Port Headland, Villawood, Woomera and Maribyrnong.

Australians seem to be a petty bunch these days, witness the outrage that Kosovar refugees staying in camps in Australia were not gushing with thanks at their short term, temporary accomodation. Why were the Kosovars expected to fawn with praise on account of being provided with the basic necessities of life? Because, as Sarah Macdonald suggested last year on the JJJ morning show (16.11.99, in reference to the "baby boomers") Australians have become extraordinarily selfish, taking our "rights" for granted, resentful of any attempt by any group no matter how disadvantaged to get "something for nothing".

Rather than blame our own leaders, and our own system for social problems we prefer to find a scapegoat group. Consider this - most illegal immigrants are British and American travellers overstaying their tourist visas. Why are they not locked away in the South Australian desert? Perhaps because they flew here, carrying papers and money, and are able to "pass" as a "civilised" person, whilst the "boat people" carry the stigma of being different, alien. Or ask yourself why escapees of political persecution in Iraq (which, incidently, the US and Britain continue to bomb on a casual basis) are made to feel unwelcome, while victims of political violence in Zimbabwe who happen to be white landowners are all but invited over for permanent residence? One wonders whether, were the illegals more white, their stories would be told with a little more heroism and a little less overtone of criminality than the mostly Afghan, Iraqi, and Asian immigrants are currently being smeared with. So what am I advocating be done with "illegal aliens"?

What is my alternative to the isolated concentration camps, the strict process of applying for refugee status, and the lack of access to assistance, publicity, and social contact with non-inmates? My solution is a radical revision of citizenship, and a reappraisal of the legitimacy of national borders.

We hear every day about new initiatives to enable sums of money, and material goods, to pass through national borders as if they didn't exist, yet most Western countries are redoubling their efforts to prevent desperate people from doing the same.

While governments scramble to free the movement of capital across borders without restrictions, why are we making it harder for people without capital to move freely? Besides, the right of the current Australian government to this land mass is now widely recognised to be based on invasion and genocide. It takes double-think to continue to fawn to the crown whilst mumbling apologies for past wrongs. From the time I first heard the real history of this nation to the present time I have hesitated to call myself "Australian". I am not a patriot - I am an intenationalist. I am a person, a descendant of Italian, Irish and British immigrants, but I don't claim the right to lock people away for fleeing to this land. My solutions are not based on policy, on election strategies or on readjusting immigration targets. They are based on a recognition of the right of sans papiers to compassion and freedom.

July, 2000