In 1991 I was 25, a B.Sc under my belt, a brand new sales rep at a medical company in North Ryde, NSW. I was to meet with medical professionals in major hospitals and sell them consumables for kidney dialysis, including bloodlines – the tubing sets that take blood from patients, pump it through artificial kidneys and return it, purified. At my new company these tubing sets were assembled in a small factory downstairs, and the CEO deemed it necessary for me to spend a few days becoming familiar with their production before I was sent out to sell them.
It was thus I found myself, one morning, a cleanroom gown and elastic shoe covers over my smart suit and heels, my neat blonde bob in a hairnet, at a big, white, laminated table. I was surrounded by women from the Subcontinent and the Middle East chattering in various languages over the hum of the laminar airflow system while gluing lengths of medical-grade PVC tubing to drip-chambers, injection sites, T- and Y-pieces according to diagrammatic instructions on charts in front of them.
Having mastered my task of applying a smear of glue and attaching a short length of tubing to a drip-chamber, I turned to the middle-aged woman to my left. I learned that her name was Salma. She had arrived in Australia two years previously with her husband and daughter. They were refugees from Afghanistan.
‘Do you enjoy working here?’ I said. Lame, I know, but it was the only common ground I could think of.
‘Oh, yes, I am happy to work while I get my qualification,’ said Salma.
‘You’re studying?’
Salma smiled. ‘Yes, I study at night. English lessons plus I am re-qualifying as a doctor. I was a paediatrician in Afghanistan. My husband was a GP.’
I stared at Salma’s hands, deftly fastening luer-locks to tubing, while my youthful world order crumbled and reassembled itself at that big white table on the ground floor of a medical consumables company in a North Ryde business park.
There have been calls for replacing a portion of Australia’s migrant intake with refugees. One argument against the idea was that Australia needed the skilled workforce – the doctors, engineers, lawyers – that the migration intake guaranteed. The unspoken assumption is that people arriving as refugees are unskilled. But a short roll call of past refugee arrivals includes award-winning short-story author Nam Le, eminent businessman Frank Lowy, technical entrepreneur Tan Le, football commentator Les Murray and 2000 Australian of the Year, research scientist Gustav Nossal. And, may I add, Dr Salma.
Who are the people on these boats that we’re turning away? Doctors and scientists? Poets and artists? Social workers, nurses, IT professionals? All of the above, I’m sure.
Referring to refugees as “boat people” may be dehumanising. But when the “people” is removed altogether, as in Tony Abbott’s highly effective “Stop the boats!” slogan, how much more dehumanising is that? Who can argue that “Stop the boat people!” would have had the same resonance?
And media, commentators, even the Opposition have fallen into line like so many disciples. No-one mentions “boat people” anymore. I call on everyone to reclaim “boat people” immediately. Counter every smug reminder that they’ve “stopped the boats” with “Oh, you’ve stopped the boat people?” and witness the confusion.
Remember that it’s not empty vessels being repelled from our borders, but people.
People like Salma, who in 1991 patiently assembled medical consumables by day and studied English at night in the hope of treating children again, in her new homeland, one day.
Very apt comments, Jen and Phil. A lot of time and money has been invested in dehumanising asylum seekers to promote Xenophobia and the idea that ‘You need our government to protect you from THEM’
I have started a petition and I’m hoping you will sign it. I am ashamed to say Australia’s environmental and human rights record is disgraceful.
Have a good one,
Steve
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/526/009/066/
Steve, I signed your petition.
High qualifications or illiterate, we are all people.
I believe, as a Christian, that I must be committed to welcoming strangers fleeing oppression, persecution, and torture.
I despair at the hopelessness of the political situation in Australia.
Thanks Phil. I didn’t mean to imply that the only refugees worthy to enter were those with high qualifications. I just meant to raise the question – who are these people? And look how much poorer our society would be without refugees.
I could have added to the list: mothers, sons, fathers, daughters, uncles, aunts. But your comment has given me pause for thought.
Thank you, excellent article.
Thanks for reading it. The language of politics is fascinating. I read somewhere that the current government employs dozens of spin doctors – language specialists who know what effect simple word choices will have on the electorate.