I try to visit Villawood every now and then. Just see the guys and lift their spirits. Despite the article you read in yesterday's The Australian (I don't mean a specific one) or what heard 2UE tell you this morning. It's a small minority of desperate people who took part in the riot. The majority of the assylum seekers didn't take part and yet are still getting all the punishment and all the hate Australia can muster to throw at them.
We sat together eating chips and drinking Mountain Due, what are the people saying about us ? I tell them it's mostly anger. People are wondering why you'd do such destructive acts to the country that took you in ?
One of the men, a quiet soft spoken man, speaks; It's not us, it's some 20 people who couldn't take it any more, and that was for a reason also, is anybody asking why they did those they did ?
What can I say ?
I speak to another man, a burmese. He asks for an urdo/english dictionary. I promise to get him one. He looks so hopeless. Almost in tears, another friend tells me later. The world is changing around them and they're rotting in cells like criminals. They're not though, that's what kills me.
Visit your local detention center. Make a sad man (or woman) feel happy.
We sat together eating chips and drinking Mountain Due, what are the people saying about us ? I tell them it's mostly anger. People are wondering why you'd do such destructive acts to the country that took you in ?
One of the men, a quiet soft spoken man, speaks; It's not us, it's some 20 people who couldn't take it any more, and that was for a reason also, is anybody asking why they did those they did ?
What can I say ?
I speak to another man, a burmese. He asks for an urdo/english dictionary. I promise to get him one. He looks so hopeless. Almost in tears, another friend tells me later. The world is changing around them and they're rotting in cells like criminals. They're not though, that's what kills me.
Visit your local detention center. Make a sad man (or woman) feel happy.
