Nothing ridiculous to write about tonight. I just want to share this website with you guys.
http://lettersforranjini.com/I wrote in an earlier post on another thread about how it distresses me to hear of atrocities committed against children. I was thinking about it today when I turned the radio on and heard that old vulture Julie Bishop banging on about how Sri Lankan asylum seekers should all be deported back to their country. Which reminded me about the other thing that distresses me greatly: our government's stance towards asylum seekers. I'm not interested in getting into an argument on here about it. I've got my opinions, formed on the basis of my intrinsic beliefs and morals, as well as factual information and media representation of the issue, and those opinions are not going to change. I believe that we ought to welcome each and every one of these people; I do not believe that Australia is 'full' or that we do not have the resources to support a refugee population. And I believe that our government is following a course of deliberate procrastination and apathy because that's what Australians in general want. Votes, not human lives, are the motivating concern.
Anyway, this website. Ranjini is a pregnant mother of two from Sri Lanka who has been separated from her new husband and detained indefinitely, along with her children (aged nine and six), in Villawood. Potentially, she may never be released. She has been declared a security threat by ASIO but has not been informed as to why. The most probable reason is that her first husband (who is dead) may have been a driver for Tamil separatists. But this has nothing to do with her, or her children, who are facing a lifetime of imprisonment just as she is. The website was created so Australians could send her letters to hopefully provide some cheer to her in prison, and also to remind her that we haven't forgotten her and that not all Australians believe that people should be locked up when they have committed no crime.
I've written a letter to her, and I've written to Chris Bowen (and got the standard ambiguous response - I swear there's a phone app for pollies that creates a template letter and generates appropriate noncommittal phrases to suit the subject matter) and I'm gunna get a card tomorrow and get my boys to do a drawing in it to send to her and her kids. I won't say that I can't imagine being locked up in a place like Villawood, not knowing when I'd get out - because I have an imagination, it's in fair working order, and I use it as often as possible. I don't expect that my imagining is the same, or anywhere near as harsh or as frightening, as the reality. It couldn't be. But I'm going to try and use it to get a point across regardless.
Have I ever been locked up before? Yes, I have. Not in a detention centre, oh, no. But I
was confined, at age twenty, for nine months in my then-in-laws' home in Georgia, USA. I lived there with my baby son, interacted with my in-laws when they came home from work in the evening, and went to the supermarket every couple of weeks. And went out to a restaurant or a pool hall with my husband when he was home, which was about once every five weeks, for two or three days. Even then I didn't see him much - he was always in the toilet, grumbling about his irritable bowel syndrome, smoking and reading his war novels for hours on end. But it's true that I had far more freedom than a refugee detained in Australia. I got to go out at times. I had far more home comforts - there were books (mostly Stephen Kings or Vietnam War novels), food in the fridge, TV with bloody 200-odd satellite channels. But I had no friends there and was not able to make new ones. I could speak to people over the phone in Australia, but mostly I was alone. And I was totally alone (apart from baby Angus) during the day, as everyone was asleep over in Oz. I could go outside but no further than the front yard - there were wild animals (I'm not kidding - coyotes and rabid possums), plus the state prison was located nearby, and when the prisoners were out working on the roads I had to stay inside, no arguments. I did have the internet for a couple of months but then my mother-in-law disconnected it, saying it 'wasn't good' for me. I think she thought I would meet strangers and invite them around. Maybe I would have. I was desperate to see someone my own age. By the time I came home to Australia, I was averaging 2-3 hours of sleep a night, I weighed 40 kilos - about the same as when I was eleven years old - and I didn't know how to react to seeing my friends again. It was good, but
strange. I felt as though I'd been set apart from them and couldn't find common ground with them again. That feeling passed but it was weird as hell while it lasted. I suffered intense postnatal depression during my confinement, which didn't go away when I came home, and I was put on medication within a week of my arrival back in Australia. And this was a f***ing picnic compared to what these people in Villawood and other detention centres are going through. I still have depression. I get through it with my meds and by finding ludicrous stuff to talk about that makes people laugh. But I couldn't find a single damn thing funny when I was stuck in that house. My sense of humour deserted me. I don't know what I'd do if I were in the position of an asylum seeker in Australia. I doubt I'd have the medicine, the support and the love I've got here. I'd probably end up necking myself, and no one would be f***ing sorry at all, and people would probably even write stuff on adelaidenow.com.au like 'One less bit of vermin, now let's send the rest back where they came from'. These people in there are every bit as real as you or I am, and not just a statistic or a problem, as the media and the government encourage us to believe.
I still don't sleep too well at nights. But I hope that by doing things like sending Ranjini and her family a card, and by bringing her plight to attention here, that these issues will rest a little easier in my mind. Most of all I hope that if enough people speak up, we'll be able to change things and achieve justice and peace for Ranjini and people like her. Thanks for reading.