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Introduction
to ANOTHER COUNTRY Rosie Scott |
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When we read this
collection, we are entering another country – a shadowy, unfamiliar
country
with its own laws, language and borders. The
literature of the country represented by the writers
in this
anthology is by turns lyrical,
despairing, angry, hopeful and brutal.. For this
is a
nightmare country they’re mapping for us, and it lies in the heart of
Australia. It is a place where innocents are locked up
for years without charge, without trial,
without hope, where children live
behind razor wire without trees or dreams. It
is a country where people
sew
their lips together in acts of courage
and despair, and the fostering of hopelessness is law, deceit the
language, the
breaking of the human spirit official policy.
It’s a country where politicians lie and lie to the
public
and smilingly
count their votes in private, where jailers are a law unto themselves
and
their corporate employers and where the
processes of justice- labyrinthine and Kafkaesque as they are have
almost
creaked to a stop. This
is a
country where people, driven mad by despair die
by their own hand, or slowly day by day, as the years
wear on.. It is a country where mercy has
no place and
children die of grief. The
writers who inhabit this country have only
their state of
exile in
common. There
are distinguished poets and fiction writers like like Adeeb Ad-Deen,
Yahia
as-Samawy and Nasrin Mahoutchi, refugees
now living
permanently in Australia. There are
detainees who are
‘called to write’ in an urgent attempt
to reach the outside world and to
express their suffering and pain, like Mary
Memoush, Tony Zandavar
and Rahman Shiri. There are
ex-detainees who are still trying to come to terms with their experiences in the camps, like the talented
poet Mohsen Soltani and human
rights award winner Dr Aamer Sultan.
There are journalists, playwrights, fiction writers, poets, cartoonists
like
Shahin Shafaei and Cheikh Kone- people whose escape from tyranny
in their own countries has made them strong enough to
speak out eloquently against injustice
here as well. There
is another small
collection of anonymous
writings that we decided to publish; group manifestos
coming out of the camps, cries of pain,
appeal, suffering and gratitude to Australians helping them. They are startling in their eloquence, the
urgency of their messages to the world. The poignant note from the pregnant
women is a reminder of the daily humiliations of camp
life.
This anthology came about from the
realisation that there were writers imprisoned in Australian detention
camps,
living in harsh conditions, always with the fear of deportation at the
back of
their minds. With PEN’s commitment to opposing censorship and the
unjust
imprisonment of writers all over the world, it seemed imperative for us
to look
at what was happening in our own back yard. With the formation of the
Writers
in Detention Committee we set about the long complicated task of
contacting
writers, encouraging them to send writing, working with
their pieces and arranging for translation.
Some
like Cheikh Kone and Lam Khi Try were
adopted as official
PEN
writers because
it was their political writing that had led to their persecution in
their own
countries. Most of the other writers are political refugees involved in
various
ways in democratic movements. We are proud to report that
both Cheikh and Lam were released
with the help of PEN. The
reason for the small number of women
writers in this
anthology is because
they are in a
minority in the camps, and those who are there are often
too busy trying to keep their families
together to write, as Mary’s Story illustrates so poignantly. It
is worthy of note however, that during the difficult process of
contacting
writers in the camps, it was without exception women refugee advocates
who
answered our call; typed, edited and sent the stories and poems to us.
In
conditions where the self- confidence necessary to write is being
systematically dismantled, theirs was a rare gift of faith to the
writers... As
guest editors, Tom
Keneally and I are proud
to be editing this anthology for Sydney PEN – and we
salute these
writers who prove once more
that the human spirit is stronger than the
razor wire, beatings, humiliation and trauma of imprisonment; the
loneliness of
exile. In
his address to the PEN
World Congress Moris Farhi,
Chair of International Writers in Prison Committee said
‘In facing up to their oppressors and
speaking out despite extraordinary
dangers to themselves, these writers have used courage as a tool for
survival - an attribute that distinguishes
us, like
love and compassion , and makes us fit to belong to the caring humanity
we
create.’
This anthology is a celebration
of that courage. |
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