Today we did our very last interview for the Lentil as Anything book. It was with an 18 year old guy from Afghanistan, who'd fled civil war with his family (when he was seven) to live illegally in Pakistan for ten years. Then as a 17 year old he hooked up with a people smuggler who helped him (alone) to Indonesia and then get on a boat to Australia. It had four holes and they only kept afloat because a generator pumped the water out continuously. He was detained as an asylum seeker on Christmas Island, given a protection visa, and moved to Melbourne. He then became homeless and lived on the streets for eight months, missing his family. He lived through all of this, alone, and he's younger than my younger brother. All he wants now is to get a job to send money to his family to allow them to follow him here.
I was going to have an early night and read my book, but then I got sucked into the Q & A special 'Leaky Boat' discussion because they were showing Afghan asylum seekers and that just seemed like too much of a coincidence. What a debate. I hate politicians and politics in general, to me they're all catty bullies who never answer the question. But this issue is so complex and fascinating and emotional. There are such extreme viewpoints. If only we could solve the problems of civil war, persecution and poverty in the source nations that refugees flee from.
I honestly think we will be having this same debate for the rest of my life.
Here are some tweets.
I reckon we'll be looking back in 20 yrs & thinking - only 43 million displaced people! And we thought we had a problem! #leakyboat#qanda
Still reeling from seeing Raye accuse a Hazara refuguee who got on a boat to flee GENOCIDAL MASSACRES of not being "needy" enough. #qanda
Why are we willing to treat cattle better than people? #qanda
Can't they just save time and literally run around in circles? Might be less embarrassing for tonight's panel members. #qanda #leakyboat
Listen to Raye, she met some black people once, and they were really nice and they deserve to come to Australia over everyone else. #QandA
How dare people want to come to a liberal democratic country with a good quality of life who honour international refugee conventions #qanda
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