Standing up by sitting down

Ben Moroney

It's a very strange sensation when you decide that, yes, today, I am going to go and get arrested. Growing up in the system we do, where we are taught that the law is sacred, that the police are to be respected and that authority exists for a reason, it creates a certain amount of psychological dissonance to break that conditioning. Right up until the moment you're dragged off the road by a squad of riot cops, something inside you is telling you, “This isn't right. You shouldn't be here. Why are you here? Go home.”

This is all the more proof that when people do decide to engage in civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action, it's not on a whim. It's not because we enjoy breaking things or being beaten up. It's not some sort of misplaced thrill-seeking. It's because the social order has failed. The social order, what our brains are telling us that we are violating, is performing its own far more destructive violation. 

Such violations are common under modern Australian governments, particularly in the current neoliberal campaign by the Abbott Government. This government would destroy the concept of Australian society, replaced by its vision of an atomised collection of individuals left at the mercy of markets, governed by rules set by the wealthy elite in concert with the remnants of ”small government” which, its economic obligations discharged, is free to focus on ensuring Australia stays white, straight and Christian.

No violation of this civil order, though, no abuse of human rights, is as evil as the government's policies regarding asylum seekers. Since the Tampa in 2001, governments have sought to out-do themselves in their brutality against some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Innocent people fleeing war and death, banking on the promise we made law that we would not see refugees turned away again, as we did with Jewish asylum seekers during World War II who were returned to the death camps. We have violated that promise, and rather than safe haven, we have set up concentration camps, a network of torture in which human beings are kept in conditions we wouldn't accept for our pet animals. Asylum seekers are denied access to sufficient food and water, to medical care, to education, to the most basic of human rights.

Close to home

Villawood is one of these camps. Set up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, Villawood once represented the very depths of our callousness and depravity, though it has since been eclipsed by our offshore detention. Villawood still holds asylum seekers awaiting processing. It was only this week that many of their legal cases were due to be heard, battles that have been ongoing for months, even years, with a significant paper trail. The Australian Government decided that Villawood required upgrades, and that the entire contingent of detainees were to be transferred to Yongah Hill in Western Australia. This would see them displaced thousands of kilometres away from their legal representation, their support networks and what life they'd managed to build. There is no way the majority of them would be able to find new legal representation soon enough, and even if they could, they would not have enough time to familiarise themselves with the cases.

Activists fought back against this. Some demonstrated, forming protest lines. Others were more direct. We, along with another NSW Young Green, brought PVC pipe and cable, locking our wrists together and sitting down in front of the buses. We knew we were going to be arrested. What we didn't realise, however, was that we'd be physically hauled off the road without even being cut apart by Search and Rescue; a clear violation of duty of care. 

The most confronting part was a brief stint in the back of a cage car, keeping us off the road while the buses left. It was either deafeningly loud with the fan, or claustrophobic and stifling without it. While we all knew we were in no immediate danger, our thoughts quickly turned to the idea of not knowing when or where we'd be getting out; stuck in a plastic tub, possibly in baking heat with no water. Banging on the door, desperately hoping someone could hear you — at least in our case, they were willing to listen. The sensation of hopelessness was palpable.

Though we didn't manage to stop any buses, it's important to remember that no single action is what breaks the cycle of hatred. There's no silver bullet to convincing this country to reverse its ways on refugees. There is only the slow war of ideas, a day-by-day attrition against entrenched attitudes. Convincing others to join with you, to disobey together, to fight that little voice that says “go home” and stand up by sitting down.

Ben Moroney is a co-convenor of the Australian Young Greens.