Desert Storm - No really, the South Australian cops aren't racist...

No, Really.
South Australian Cops Aren't Racist

Aamer

It's not easy being brown. But it can lead to some rollicking adventures. The night of the breakout police and Australian Protective Services officers completely surrounded the campsite, waiting to catch people who had escaped. I thought it would be amusing and a good waste of time and resources if a detainee was caught - if that 'detainee' was me.

So I headed for the police roadblock, where seven or eight cops immediately surrounded me, grabbing me and sneering things like, 'You're one of those escaped detainees, aren'tcha?' I denied this (in a very bad, stereotypically Middle-Eastern accent), and then started declaring that I wanted a lawyer, that I was a citizen, I had human rights, etc. They actually fell for possibly the most pathetic impersonation of a 'detainee' ever performed, and decided to search me against a van. Luckily they were able to find and confiscate such lethal weapons as tic-tacs, extra shoelaces and my toothbrush.

I was, however, freaking out that such a ridiculous plan was actually working. I dropped my silly accent and told the cops that I was an Australian citizen with identification back at camp. Not good enough - this little darkie got arrested. Well, not legally. The 'arrest' consisted of eight or nine men forcing me into a van for no reason whatsoever. My final protest was that I was "speaking fluent English," to which one officer replied "yep, a lot of them do, mate". Then they locked the door.

When they took me out of the van at the Woomera lockup, they took my photograph and confiscated all my belongings. A religious necklace that I couldn't remove was cut from my neck. I started screaming at the cops about how badly they had screwed up their 'arrest' and about my rights. One of them responded matter-of-factly that I was suspected of being a detainee and therefore had "no rights".

Well, that's just dandy, isn't it? If you happen to be brown and near a detention centre, some gung-ho cops in a van can rock up and do whatever they like to you because you happen to be the right colour. Never mind that I was a Bangladeshi speaking fluent English - I could just as easily have been one of those damn Afghani terrorists who had escaped and were a threat to society at large.

They handcuffed me and put me in a cell with 12 Afghan detainees who told me about how the cops had beaten them when they were captured. Fitting, since they obviously had "no rights". Among them was a 12 year-old boy who we had seen bashed and captured earlier. Three months later, I saw him on the front page of every major newspaper - he was one of the Bakhtiyaris.

Also in the cell was a 14 year-old boy and a man who had been savaged by APS guards. All the detainees had scars and bruising either from beatings or suicide attempts. They told me about how they would rather fight to stay in the jail cell - a bare concrete floor with an open ceiling - than be taken back to Woomera. They told me about the 'jobs' they do (toilet cleaning, dishwashing, laundry and maintenance) which pay a dollar an hour. The money they earn goes towards buying necessities like shoes, clothes and phonecards from a 'shop' in the camp. (The clothes are donated to the camp authorities from community organisations).

The boy who spoke the most English was 19 - exactly the same age as me - but talked like an old man. These people had seen more war, death and torture first-hand than any of us ever will. They had no childhoods. When I think of how afraid I was that day - the breakout, the arrest, the jail - I cannot begin to understand the kind of strength of mind and spirit these people must have.

Finally, an APS official came in. He told the people in the cell that he understood what they were doing and that he "would have done the same thing" if he were one of them. Some of the detainees hated him so much they refused to talk to him. Then there was a roll call. I can't think of anything about Woomera that made it seem more like a concentration camp than watching a group of men call out serial numbers instead of their own names.

When the police realised their mistake, I was driven back to camp. All the officers had swapped shirts and badges. I was 'de-arrested', which simply meant that all evidence of my arrest was erased and there would be no avenue for complaint. I don't know what has happened to my friends who were in the cell with me, except that some of them were shipped to other detention centres, presumably so that nobody who made contact with the outside world could go back and tell their friends about it.

But being arrested for being brown reflects what is driving the entire refugee crisis: ignorance. People too culturally ignorant to tell one kind of person from another, people too stupid to recognise diversity and people too stubborn to accept others. It scares me that we live in a country where you can be arrested for the colour of your skin. But it scares me more that you can be locked away indefinitely for it, man, woman or child, while a nation turns its back on you.

No, Really.South Australian Cops Aren't Racist

Aamer

No, Really.
South Australian Cops Aren't Racist