Desert Storm - our tall paul

By Way of an Introduction

Tall Paul

My mother and her family came to this country as 'displaced persons' after World War Two, when refugees were needed to help Australia 'populate or perish'. Back then, Eastern Europeans (Poles, Czechs and Balts) were made welcome because of their fanatical anti-communism and because they looked like how Australians were supposed to look.

Fifty years later, Australian industry has no real need for mass immigration to fill the jobs that were once considered too dirty by the white working class. According to the politicians and the great mass of the population there is no room left at the inn for refugees. Those people who enter Australia outside the official channels are now locked up thanks to the initiatives of that great bastion of socialism, the ALP.

I never really gave much thought about the compulsory detention of asylum seekers until David Kang let off a round from a fake gun in the vicinity of Prince Charles to highlight the plight of Cambodians locked up at Port Hedland. At that time it wasn't such a big issue in the media or the autonomous left. It wasn't until the mass escape at Woomera in 2000 that the refugee issue really took pride of place in the leftist pantheon.

For years I had been reading everything I could get my hands on about the class struggle in the Middle East. I was especially inspired by the workers' councils that sprung up in the Iranian Revolution and were later crushed by the mullahs working hand in hand with the bosses. Self-management also reared its beautiful head in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1990-91 in opposition to Saddam Insane and the Kurdish Nationalist mafias. At one of my jobs I worked with both an Iranian and Iraqi who had each been conscripted to fight against each other by their maniac leaders. They told me how hard it was living under such authoritarian regimes so I wasn't surprised to learn that many of the detainees at Woomera had fled from these countries.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
the workerists have left the building
I knew I had to do something to support the struggle of the detainees locked up all over Australia. It was very difficult trying to stick up for 'illegal' immigrants at work. Most of my workmates, the Aussies and migrants alike, voiced the opinion that the 'boat people' should be shot out of the water by the Navy and left to drown. The most common thread of the conversation at smoko was that refugees carried exotic diseases, had a predilection for terrorist activities as well as stealing 'our' jobs. One bloke who had been in Australia for over 40 years even went so far as to tell me never to rent a house to refugees because they would live 10 to a room and even above the ceiling if need be. Never mind your dog and cat being eaten which he assured me had happened to one of his mates. I felt a little disheartened after hearing such tirades day in day out, so I stuck to my usual shop steward duties such as informing contract cleaners it's not o.k. to use a floor polisher with a frayed electric cable on a wet floor.

I joined the Refugee Action Collective to see what I could do and stuck around for about three months. I met some very staunch and unpretentious people there but left because RAC had this position of not attacking the Labor Party, probably due to the position held by many Trotskyists that the Labor Party can be reformed (or taken over). Hence that old pearl of wisdom: "Vote Labor without illusions". At that time I was in a union being torn apart by Labor Party faction fighting and witnessed serious shit go down such as death threats and physical assaults. I wanted nothing to do with the ALP so I decided that RAC wasn't for me.

At home he's a tourist
Nevertheless, I signed up for the bus trip to Woomera which RAC had organised in September 2001. I persuaded some mates to come along and we set up shop in the back of the bus (where else?)for the whole gruelling 18-hour trip. I was amazed by how beautiful the country was in that part of Australia, especially the inland seas which were partially full due to recent heavy rainfall. It was truly truly surreal seeing pelicans in the middle of the desert so far from sea.

When we finally arrived at the Woomera detention facility I felt a bit deflated. We were stuck at a gate about a kilometre from the actual centre. The detention facility looked exactly like the prison in the Australian film "Ghosts of the Civil Dead", what I could see of it that is, as it was so far away.

After a while we started to get cheeky with the police and began to cross over the perimeter line just to let them know that while we appreciated their 'good cop' charade, we hadn't come thousands of kilometres just to chant mantras. Various networks had devised their own ways of making their opposition to detention known. One group set up a sound system which pumped out Arabic dance music, while others flew kites or waved flags. Even though the centre was so far away we could see that the detainees had made their way onto the roof of their barracks and that they had made flags and banners which they were waving at us.

When push comes to shove
For about two hours we waved at the detainees and it seemed like nothing much was going to happen. Then we noticed that the detainees seemed to be getting more excited and it was at this time that the ACM riot team started to attack them with batons. I also saw the unmistakable plumes of tear gas being fired at extremely close range and at head height which is extremely dangerous. I shouted out to everyone, "The bastards are firing tear gas!" and at this stage I can safely say that the demonstration moved from being a ritual, with pre-ordained procedural etiquette thrown to the wind. Quicker than you could say dialectical materialism we broke through police lines and bolted towards the detention centre.

At least we could see a bit better what was happening inside the camp now as we were only about 500 metres away. There were about 100 detainees trying to break out while the ACM riot units batoned and gassed them in an effort to beat them back. I admired the resolve of the detainees to keep on fighting at this point. Then a miracle occurred. The detainees managed to tear a hole in the fence and started to attack the guards with the metal palings they had dislodged. The guards were forced to retreat about 10 metres but not for long as two water cannons appeared on the scene and started to blast the antagonistic detainees with high-pressure jets of water. One inspirational detainee even managed to get out and attack a water cannon with a metal paling but there was no way anyone could have broken through the ACM defences with anything less than a flame thrower. After 15 minutes it was all over, and the cops summed up the moment by saying "There's nothing left to see folks."

Until we meet again
Dejectedly we crawled back to our buses for the long trip home. I think all of us knew just how lucky we were in the sense that we could come and go as we pleased while the detainees were probably being bashed as we prepared to piss off. Meanwhile, the locals from town had formed a little send-off committee to bid us farewell. Truly, they looked like extras from 'Mad Max' and I expected a V8 Interceptor to appear any moment. They were all laughing and smiling so I naively believed they supported our noble quest to free the refugees. When I asked them what they thought of us coming to Woomera they told me to "Fuck off, you poofter cunt." I was a little taken aback at such blatant hostility so I told them that I was a shop steward and had been fired twice for organising on the job, hoping that they would accord me and the protest more respect. No chance, they burst out laughing in unison and one bloke then told me to "Fuck off, you commie poofter cunt".

I still feel very emotional about what went on (and still goes on) inside detention centres Australia wide. I also want to raise the point that official detainees (i.e prisoners) in straight jails get bashed and gassed also. Maybe if more Australians witnessed what goes on inside the walls they might be a little more empathetic to the plight of those locked up, and a little less judgmental. Terms such as 'criminal' and 'illegal' are used to dehumanise and isolate those on the inside. Inmates are human beings struggling to survive in inhuman conditions. Plenty of my mates have been in jail and they are not bad people, they were just unlucky enough to get caught. Same with the refugees locked up. No one's asking you to be mates with them, just to give them a go and for people to start attacking the real criminals: the politicians, bosses and bankers.