Dream letter - number 23

Dear Khodayar, I have dreamt about you. In my dream I had travelled to a small town and found a man who knew about your death and who knew where your remains were stored. He told me that your remains were going to be loaded on a truck and taken away to another place. He said that he would let me look at what was left of you before this happened. I was scared Khodayar. I know how badly you were damaged and I didn’t know if I could bear seeing you like that. But I have come so far to find you, and to solve the mystery of your murder that I couldn’t turn back.

The dream ended before I actually looked at you but I saw the container that your remains were lying in. It was beside the truck, ready to be loaded. And I don’t know where the truck was going to take you – maybe all the way back to the mountain kingdom where you were born. In waking life your body has been buried in the Islamic section of a cemetery here in Melbourne. In the dream it was going to be taken on a long journey before finding a place of rest. Love Stephen

More flowers for Khodayar at his Final Camp

There are never enough flowers for you Khodayar.

Letter of horror, number 22

Dear Khodayar, another refugee has died on Nauru. This man is called Rakib and has fled from Bangladesh. He was another one who didn’t find safety here – only torture and death. And of course there is young Hodan from Somalia. She burnt herself on Nauru and is still alive but in a critical condition. I hope that she doesn’t die but I know that the injuries she has received will cause her horrible suffering.

A monster is eating human flesh. Taking one life and then another. You were also consumed by this monster Khodayar, and I don’t know when this killing will stop. This is an evil and wicked thing that Australia is doing. A country created by dispossession and genocide. And these crimes too were cloaked in lies. This is the country of the White Australia Policy and of pogroms against the Chinese miners. Now this same violence is directed against different people; people like you who flee from wars in boats. This savagery is a corrosive poison for all who touch it. Thank you for giving us the antidote. Love Stephen Clendinnen

Twenty first letter - for my friend Khodayar

Dear Khodayar, refugees are still burning themselves and people are still dying. I am very sorry to tell you this, but your words have not been listened to. I was heavy with the news of Omid Maoumali’s recent death whin I went to your camp. I brought flowers which I left at the base of the tree. I looked at the photographs of your face and again read your last statement posted to the tree. And I hear your voice clear and defiant. This comes to me strongly as I stand in your last camp. And I hang onto this comunication from you – this impression of your presence.

This is like air to my lungs and I drink it in. A letter has been left for you at the tree. I don’t know who wrote it. I do know that your words are not forgotten and will not be forgotten. Your words are special because they make sense of these crimes. Your words are antidote to the false slogans of humanity that beguile and deceive us. A heart can’t function when its openings are blocked by shit. A mind can’t live while we consume our own young in violence. The fools who own these prison camps will not listen to your words but they can’t silence them either. In their monstrous confusion they ignore the truths that you have spoken with such courage. Love Stephen

Twentieth Dead Letter to Khodayar Amini

Dear Khodayar, with your name I honour each refugee that there is in the world. I honour those that have been killed and those who have made it this far. I honour all the perilous paths that people have fled along and all the dismal sea crossings that have been made. In your story I see myself and my ancestors and my children. I see my friends and family in your struggles and suffering. Yours was a gigantic and a mortal quest. Even as a child death was a threat that hung above you. You had to move; you had to try to find a place that was safe. Your only chance was to push apart the mountains and search for the key that would give you true freedom. You threaded a way through the mountains, passed over the water and managed to arrive here. But there were only dry and brittle hearts to be found – our arms refused to help you up and would only push you under. Relentless logic excluded you from our community. You were put in the camps and learnt there what a living death could be like. Peeling away your name and your past the Government made you like refuse to be burnt. Your future was a grey nothingness. You were forgotten and forgettable and utterly without love and dignity. But they could never stifle your voice, never negate your compassionate words. Love Stephen

Nineteenth Dead Letter

Dear Khodayar, this country that you came to looking for peace and safety has a violent and racist past. Now we re-enact that violence and racism in the present on people like you – the people of the road fleeing unthinkable misfortune. Our false slogans of humanity are both to strangle our own guilt and to harm your spirit. It is not just you bodies that we lock away from freedom but we also stuff your minds with lies and filth. We can not admit what we do to you so we deny the reality of your enslavement. We can not bear your weakness and vulnerability so we blacken your names and demean you. We can not bring ourselves to embrace our sisters and brothers so we deny your humanity and take away your voices.

You know all this Khodayar. This is what you lived and died, and this is what you taught to me. You bore witness to this crime that is being done by us. This was a difficult thing to do and I congratulate you. This crime that is decried in history books yet made afresh each day. Love Stephen

18th letter to Khodayar

Dear Khodayar, when I go to visit you I start from my home in Woiwurung country and drive to your final camp in Bunwurung land. In your plight you withdrew from the cities of concrete and asphalt and turned to the timeless landscape of Australia; to the animals and plants and stories that have always lived here. Settler Australia with its cities and towns is a recent growth on this land. You looked for the gaps between the carparks and the buildings and found some sort of respite in the indigenous paradigm of water, land and air. When I look at the eucalyptus leaves I see your name in their long curving shapes. It is as though this very land remembers you and sighs your name from its pores. As much as the city wants to forget you, the earth and roots and rocks won’t stop singing your name.

I am glad. This land is witness to your agony and to the others who came here and to those who will come after. This land holds the shape of your voice and the light of your face. Deep and large beyond reckoning, this place is witnessing the tragedy inflicted on you and remembering. Each of the cuts with cotton that killed you is folded in animal skin and fur. Love Stephen.