Perth Voice Interactive

PAULINE PANNELL is a member of Grandmothers for Refugees Fremantle. She can usually be found on a Friday outside the Scots Church on the corner of South Terrace and Parry Street, joining fellow refugee advocates calling for a more humane approach.

FREO is distinctly different to other places I’ve lived.  

We have a lot of ordinary people who are prepared to raise their voices on local, national and international issues: AUKUS, fracking, Woodside’s North West Shelf, the Voice and the live sheep trade to name a few.  

Unfortunately, even some of our most hardy reformists may be flagging under the international fallout of Trumps’ daily trail of destruction.

Inhumane

His new inhumane pronouncements on immigration and humanitarian aid in the US are a particularly horrifying example.

They will have a ripple effect well beyond the American continent. 

Many thousands of refugees who were awaiting approval to resettle in the US have had the door slammed in their faces.  

One group who will be in deep despair are refugees in Indonesia who have been on a pathway to resettlement in the US. 

There are over 14,000 refugees in Indonesia who have remained stranded there for many years.

Their misery started when the Australian government adopted the infamous policy of turning back the boats in 2013.

It is a policy that breached Australia’s obligations under international human rights law and has resulted in thousands of asylum seekers living in Indonesia for more than a decade, where they do not have the right to work or gain an education. 

In this new era of international uncertainty, do the efforts of local activists really change anything? 

My communication with refugee friends in Indonesia shows me that news of refugee activism here gives some hope and heart to those who have every cause to despair. 

We may be acting locally but we can influence national policy. 

There were over 1600 children in detention in July 2013, and by August 2014 nearly 200 children were detained on Nauru. 

Thanks in part to the persistent voices of purple clad grannies around Australia, a lot of politicians were made to feel very uncomfortable about asylum seeker children in detention, with the result that our country no longer keeps children seeking asylum in detention.

Damage

The recent findings of the United Nations Human Rights committee highlight the appalling treatment and the lasting damage to children resulting from these experiences. 

Activism is contagious, so a local movement can become national or international.

Think of the powerful environmental youth movement that grew from Greta Thunberg on a street corner with a placard.

The connection with others in your neighbourhood that comes from local activism means that Fremantle also becomes a stronger community when people participate in lobby groups. 

If you are curious about whether it is useful to raise your voice, come and listen to Fremantle’s own associate professor Mary Anne Kenny, from Murdoch University’s School of Law and Criminology, who will be speaking at the Fremantle Library on Thursday, February 6 from 6–7 pm, free entry. Register at Humantrix and search for Grandmothers for Refugees.