{"id":17643,"date":"2014-04-24T19:04:41","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T09:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=17643"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:58:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:58:06","slug":"visiting-concentration-camps-in-utopia-burgewords-interviews-ggeorgiadisrn-on-that-comment-the-dibp-didnt-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/visiting-concentration-camps-in-utopia-burgewords-interviews-ggeorgiadisrn-on-that-comment-the-dibp-didnt-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting concentration camps in Utopia: @burgewords interviews @GGeorgiadisRN on \u2018that\u2019 comment the DIBP didn\u2019t like"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Asylum<\/a>

Asylum seekers protesting at the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney (Photo: Adam J.W.C. Source: Wikipedia).<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Australian twittersphere freaked out when refugee advocate @VanessaPowell25 was threatened with legal action by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Unless she removed a post on her Facebook, which documented one moment at a protest outside the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney\u2019s Western Suburbs, the DIBP would \u201cconsider our options further\u201d.<\/p>\n

Public servants tweeted about looming changes in policy on the use of social media for political critique, and warned the Abbott Government\u2019s $4.3 million in contracts for research companies to trawl the social media, ostensibly to seek \u201cperceptions\u201d, was actually the force behind \u2018dob in a mate\u2019.<\/p>\n

Talk of tweet deleting did the rounds. Powell removed the post, and her Twitter following tripled to over 800 across the weekend.<\/p>\n

Like a few other journalists, I picked over the traces to find the facts, because a comment on Powell\u2019s post by another refugee advocate, George Georgiadis, was the underlying focus of the DIBP.<\/p>\n

So I took a gamble and friended him on Facebook. A few weeks later, George replied.<\/p>\n

Turns out the man who posted the \u201coffensive\u201d comment was continuing to do what he has done for the past five years, visiting detainees at Villawood twice every week in between his shifts as a mental health nurse.<\/p>\n

Yes, George Georgiadis is a public servant, and in the midst of the social media storm, he dobbed himself in on Facebook. This week, I became his 18th Twitter follower.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t want to talk about \u2018that comment\u2019 because, George said, it\u2019s \u201cbleeding obvious\u201d he\u2019s under surveillance, and this issue is not about him, it\u2019s about the men, women and children incarcerated in Australia\u2019s detention centres.<\/p>\n

Listen-up slacktivists, we have a lot to learn.<\/p>\n

There is now no \u2018morally neutral ground\u2019 on the issue of the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Refugee<\/a>

Refugee advocate George Georgiadis (Photo: supplied).<\/p><\/div>\n

I started by asking George if five years of visits to Villawood had allowed him to witness any change in governmental approaches to mandatory detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean by \u2018a different government\u2019?\u201d George asked. \u201cBoth major parties are now almost indistinguishable, we simply have different politicians doing the same thing the previous politicians did\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNor can it be claimed that one party is worse than the other in their cruelty toward asylum seekers. It was the Labor Party\u2019s then Minister for Immigration, Gerry Hand, who introduced mandatory detention in 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the Labor Government which reopened the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres. It was the Howard Government which worsened conditions for people in detention, however, they also removed children from detention, but it was the subsequent Labor Government under Julia Gillard which placed children back into detention,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings have been getting worse, but it’s not because one party’s policies are worse than the other, but rather because we as a nation have become worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2011, George Georgiadis appeared in\u00a0Detention Centre<\/em>, an SBS interactive documentary in which his barely-concealed emotion for asylum seekers\u2019 plight illustrates the passion behind his words.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stated that we as a nation had lost our compassion. Now it\u2019s worse, we have lost our empathy by dehumanising asylum seekers in the media, breaking their spirits, returning them to where they have fled from,\u201d George said this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, for God’s sake, we are now trying to send Syrians back to the horrors of Syria! Children born in detention are being kept in detention! People Australia recognises as refugees have been held in detention for five years and will continue to be held indefinitely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are over a thousand children being held in detention centres, pregnant women and newborns are being sent to detention on remote islands lacking facilities. How is any of this acceptable to people who supposedly pride themselves on living in the land of \u2018a fair go\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t just continually blame the government in a democracy. The Australian peoples\u2019 hands are not clean in this either,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Touch\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cA concentration camp is \u2018a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents\u2019, etcetera,\u201d George said. \u201cThat is precisely what detention centres are\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not \u2018processing centres\u2019, because there are asylum seekers being held in indefinite detention because they are \u2018Stateless Persons\u2019. What \u2018process\u2019 can they go through other than being granted a nationality?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not \u2018processing centres\u2019 because there is no \u2018process\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cSince Manus Island was re-opened, not one asylum claim has been processed, not one\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not \u2018administrative\u2019 detention as is claimed in order to justify its indefinite nature, it is quite obviously punitive detention, and worse, it is the punishment of innocent people seeking refuge in Australia with the aim of deterring other innocent people from seeking refuge here,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are being punished for not only their own innocence, but the innocence of others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis nation has gone mad, and is completely insightless about its madness. People who have broken no law are indefinitely locked up in detention, they are dehumanised, cut off from society, denied freedom, denied access to legal assistance or trial, they are killing themselves, cutting themselves, hanging themselves and now they are being murdered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else are detention centres, if not concentration camps?\u201d<\/p>\n

Why does George believe successive Liberal and Labor governments have sanctioned this treatment of people?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s scapegoating. There is a brilliant story by Ursula K. Le Guin entitled The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas<\/i><\/a> which describes a \u2018utopia\u2019, a city in which everything is idyllic and whose inhabitants are intelligent and cultured. But the happiness of Omelas depends on one thing: a single, unfortunate child must be kept imprisoned in filth and darkness and must not be shown any kindness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Omelas<\/a>\u201cIf any kindness were to be shown to the child, the peace and prosperity and happiness of Omelas would end. Each citizen of Omelas learns of the existence of this child at their coming of age. Most are shocked and horrified at first, but soon learn to accept the child\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few, however, choose not to accept, and they walk away from the \u2018bliss\u2019 of Omelas which they realise is, in reality, a dystopia because of the abused child.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is much like what is happening now in Australia,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want people to vote you into power, the easiest way is to create an imaginary enemy for people to fear and then promise to protect them from the bogey man.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Border Protection\u2019 sounds impressive until you realise we live in a nation which has no borders with any other country, yet now has a government department responsible for protecting those imaginary borders. It’s advertising hype to buy votes, nothing more.<\/p>\n

Five years of visiting asylum seekers has given Georgiadis a deep awareness of detention experiences. How has this impacted on him?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was actually scared about what I was getting myself in to, and that fear, in some ways, has proved to be justified,\u201d George said. \u201cWhen I saw for myself what was happening to fellow human beings, I couldn’t go back to not seeing it. My life has changed dramatically as a result, and I’m glad it has\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe despair of the situation, the hopelessness, the apparent indifference of the majority of Australians to their plight, not knowing the reason why you are imprisoned and having no redress, the years of young lives wasted away, being separated from contact with family and friends,\u201d he said of what he has seen as a visitor to Villawood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to be very careful here because there is a genuine fear that cases which are discussed in the media are unofficially punished with adverse assessments. This climate of fear has, in my opinion, been deliberately created to prevent cases coming to light which show the cruelty and inhumanity of the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not safe to do so now, perhaps in years to come when the concentration camps are closed, individual cases will be able to be openly discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can ‘average’ Australians do to help asylum seekers?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to stop being average. Average people are the most destructive to the world in my experience,\u201d George said. \u201cThe average Australian couldn\u2019t care less about our inhuman treatment of asylum seekers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we think of it as a bell curve, about 20 per cent of the population care about what is happening and want the inhumanity to end. On the other end of the curve, another 20 per cent hide their racism and bigotry under the guise of \u2018Border Protection\u2019 and \u2018saving lives at sea\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe middle 60 per cent – the \u2018average Australians\u2019 – try to reassure themselves that their silence on the issue is neither condoning nor condemning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsylum seekers have become political footballs and have been demonised in this nation, and this dehumanisation has allowed us to lock them in prison indefinitely – even children and newborns – without charge or trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo remain silent in the face of this is like remaining silent when you see a child being molested. There is now no \u2018morally neutral ground\u2019 on the issue of the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, each person has to decide for themselves whether or not to \u2018walk away from Omelas\u2019, but I recommend making the decision that you will wish you had made when looking back on your life on your deathbed, and once you make that decision, act on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who act, is there a way to gauge the impact of their actions?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes a difference to the issue of our treatment of asylum seekers are the peaceful protests around Australia, the candlelight vigil for Reza Barati (the asylum seeker killed during a riot on Manus Island) which drew 15,000 and the Palm Sunday rallies around Australia which drew more thousands,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to stop the buses from taking handcuffed asylum seekers to remote detention centres is an act of love by a friend for a friend, but angry violent protests will never achieve anything in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was George Georgiadis\u2019 comment on Vanessa Powell\u2019s public image of a bus intended for detainee transport from Villawood to Curtin, Western Australia, which drew the attention of the DIBP. I asked George if he recalled his comment before it was deleted.<\/p>\n

\n

Interesting use of the @DIBPAustralia<\/a> Twitter account. (HT @ZacDavies<\/a> ) pic.twitter.com\/A4pqdzMx81<\/a><\/p>\n

— Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) April 6, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n