All cruelty is meaningless - 36th letter to my friend

Dear Khodayar, all cruelty is meaningless. Can I apologise for the cruelty that was done to you when you were alive? Those cruelties lacked any meaning and they shouldn’t have happened – not to you, not to anybody. I apologise for the cruelty in the world; for this meaningless cruelty that we do to each other. Our job is to create meaning in this world, to tell stories about what we care about and to fill life with love and humour.

I am learning so much. I am figuring things out for myself, I am being told about life by you and the others. I am discovering what has meaning for me and what doesn’t. I am forced to make choices about what my values are. Betrayed by one of those closest to me I must heal myself.

Dear Khodayar all cruelty is meaningless. A cruel act tears the web of meaning that joins us all together. It deletes the music of relatedness between you and me. Don’t let me be cruel to others, Khodayar. Don’t let them be cruel to me. I will not descend into that pit of craziness – I will not forget the meaningfulness of your words. Khodayar I stand close to you as you make your Final Statement. ALL CRUELTY IS MEANINGLESS. Love Stephen

The Manus letter

Dear Khodayar, as I write to you the refugees on Manus Island are digging wells in the ground in the hope of finding water. The court has said that the prison is illegal so all the guards have left, but before they went they cut the water pipes and removed the generators. There are about 600 men abandoned in the old gaol without food and water. Many of them are sick.

Local people try to bring them food and medicine but the soldiers outside the fences say they will shoot at any one who does. The soldiers intercept the boats and cars that come from Lorengau and arrest people bringing relief. The refugees are without power and lighting and are begging for help in their sorry plight. They ask for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to come to their aid; for Red Crescent or Red Cross to save them; for MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) to keep alive the sick and the injured. They do not want to move into the new prisons that Australia has built near by. They want to escape from their torment on Papua New Guinea to somewhere that is safe.

They don’t want to be beaten anymore, nor hacked with machetes. They refuse to be left to die through medical neglect as has happened to their friends. They reject the illegal prisons that are designed to harm them, where they have been locked for so many years. Nevermore. Love Stephen

Dead Letters from around the world may fall into your lap

One of my Dead Letters on its travels to find my friend Khodayar Amini.

34th letter for Khodayar Amini

Dear Khodayar, it is two years since your death. Over that time I try to keep your memory alive, as do several other people who know you and love you. We keep your memory alive in our minds and by talking to others about you and your story. We keep your memory alive through art that celebrates your message to us all.

Recently I have travelled with my wife to a different country. I mailed you letters from there expressing my love for you. There must be some corner of this earth where someone knows how to get in touch with you.

Our bus was stopped by soldiers with guns. Just a routine check, nothing to be concerned about, as long as our papers are in order. We handed over our passports and answered their questions. Then they let us continue on our way. They decided to let us pass that day. I thought of you often in the different cities that we visited. I am sorry that you were trapped, and that there was no way out from suffering for you except death. The world is so big and can be so beautiful but our cages stopped you finding the things that you needed to nourish you and keep you alive and safe. We built these cages, we denied you the things we already have and that you sorely needed. Love Stephen

Australia imprisons refugees who come here, whether they are children or adults. To do this a vast immigration gulag has been constructed over many decades. This gulag stretches from Yongah Hill prison in Western Australia to the prison on Nauru; a distance of 6,305 km. And it stretches from the MITA prison in Victoria to the immigration prison on Christmas Island, which is a distance of 4,943 km. This gulag is constructed of razor wire and concrete, but more importantly it is constructed in all our minds with an ideology that denies the humanity of those we imprison.

These people are imprisoned with no legal process – there is no charge against them, no trial and no conviction against them. There is no law that they have violated. They are innocent. And yet there is no limit to how long they can be locked away. It might be two years, it might be five years, or for some it may be eight years. The detention is indefinite and arbitrary.

Clause 39 of the Magna Carta says “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.” This fundamental human rights protection entered into force 800 years ago and since then many other treaties and conventions have also become law to protect the rights of human beings. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), the United Nations Convention Against Torture (1985) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990). Australia is subject to all of these conventions and yet routinely violates them with its treatment of the refugees within the immigration gulag.

In the immigration gulag the prisoners are denied their freedom, they are referred to by numbers not their names, they are denied adequate health care, they are denied clean food and water, they are denied education, they are routinely denied access to lawyers, they are denied work rights and their ability to practice their religion is severely curtailed. The immigration gulag was explicitly set up to make these people suffer – to subject them to “harsh” treatment. The result of this is an epidemic of mental illness amongst the tens of thousands of people who have been locked away in the gulag. Added to this are the beatings, the sexual assaults and rapes, the gunshot and machete wounds and the murders that have taken place in the immigration gulag. Conditions in the immigration gulag are worse than in the prison system in which Australia locks up criminals.

This violence directed against refugees by Australia is rooted in the racist ideologies of invasion and occupation that were, and continue to be used against the first nations of Australia. The denial of the humanity of the racialised other, the false accusations against those persecuted by the state and the farcical claims that the state is acting in the interests of those it starves and harms is the same in both cases. The collective punishment is the same. The public invisibility of the multitudinous state crimes and petty cruelties is the same. And the crushing weight of a capricious and all powerful bureaucracy used against the oppressed is the same.

For the second anniversary of Khodayar Amini's death, I took flowers to his grave.

33rd letter to my friend, Khodayar

Dear Khodayar, I am writing to you now while I am ill. At night my cough wakes me again and again. During the day I am tired and find it difficult to talk. But I can still write. I send you my best wishes and the news that the coroner has made findings about your death. Insufficient findings; disappointing findings. He made no mention of the system that was designed and constructed to make your life a hell - to make the lives of all your sisters and brothers in detention a misery. He didn't mention that other refugees have also burnt themselves in their extreme desperation. It seems that these deaths and this inflicted suffering may continue, as the wheels of bureaucracy turn and human beings are addressed as numbers. As babies are separated from their parents and children spend their whole lives behind bars. This cruelty has been made normal - that which is disgusting tastes bland to us now. Over all is cloaked these "false slogans of humanity" to deceive our feeble minds and make us feel that all is well, while hate and cruelty rule our withered hearts. Love Stephen

#32nd letter to Khodayar

Dear Khodayar, today I manage to catch some winter sunlight coming through the bedroom window as I write to you. I can hear the faint call of a bird from outside. As I lift my eyes from this page I see spider webs glittering in the lemon tree. The fruits are plentiful and yellow. I hope you are well - I hope you can be safe. In these last few months I haven't thought of you so often. Is that cruel of me? It seems that the flowers I am holding for you have slipped from my hand and fallen in the dirt. How careless of me. How careless of the world. When you were alive you could tap my shoulder and walk into my room. But now that your life has been snuffed out I must go looking for you - you will never come for me. I walk beside Dandenong creek to get to your final camp. The burnt patch of ground where you died is very hard to see now, but I have the tree next to it well decked out with your photo, with flowers and with your final statement. How many others still come here to remember you? The Hazaras still come here to play sangirag. They choose this place specially in remembrance of you. Love Stephen

Final Statement for apathetic, so-called human beings.

As time passes and our lives play out, the words of Khodayar Amini are remade and reimagined in the forests and the cities where we live.

More flowers for you Khodayar.

More flowers for Khodayar Amini, left at his Final Camp - where he died - and at his grave.