I cant give a whole historical perspective on RAC because I’ve only been involved for the last year and a half. But I can tell you what we’re doing now and what our particular stance on issues has been and how we’ve reacted. Our groups takes on the political front of refugee issues, like the Rural Australians for Refugees we aim to engage a broader community in a grass roots campaign to achieve freedom and full rights for refugees in Australia. Through public actions, community education and face to face campaigning our main aim is to develop a mass movement of people to oppose the governments racist and destructive policy. We know there’s a lot of people out there who feel the same way, who might not feel compelled to bring it out and say it or don’t know what to do. So our aim is to tap into those different channels and get as many people as we can to actually come and publicly speak out.
So when people say, we’re not going to change the governments mind by standing on street corners or by yelling, that’s not were trying to do. We are well aware that Amanda Vanstone isn’t going to turn on the TV and go “let’s change the policy because there’s a group of people in Melbourne with a banner.”
Our intention is to get everyday people to come on our side. As a much larger group we will have a lot more clout I suppose. We’re a collective based organisation, we meet every Tuesday in Trades Hall. Being a collective enables us to involve as many or as few people as want to turn up on the night. We don’t have any members or committee positions. Anyone who turns up can participate and share their skills.
Since the beginning of RAC there’s always been a list of demands, I suppose. That are non-negotiable and are the basis of all our arguments and all our actions. We want an end to mandatory detention. To close all detention camps. To abolish bridging visa’s and temporary visa’s. To allow refugee boats to land. And overall to fight the racist scape-goating of our government and government departments and legal system.
RAC has always aimed to go a step further than any other group in the refugee movement or at least be as vocal as possible and not compromising on any of these things. Not saying it’s ok to just have men in detention, to have community detention, our aim has always been not to make it better, but to crush it all, I suppose.
One thing that captures the essence of RAC is the national convergence’s at the different detention centres across Australia. The Baxter one this year involved 400 people from all around Australia who trekked out to Baxter over the Easter weekend. And took part in various actions all over the weekend with a wide variety of aims. And everyone went there I guess with different intentions and perspectives. Some of the main things that we hoped to achieve - and everyone agreed we did achieve - we wanted to gain widespread media coverage of both the protest, but particularly of refugees in general – the impact of mandatory detention, the effects that long term detention had on detainees, the mental health issues of those inside detention centres and those out. I guess a main focus of the RAC campaign has been keeping these issues alive in the media. Not just having politicians discuss them and opening a space where refugees and activists can be part of the public debate. Another main hope that we had was that we would be able to provide some inspiration to the detainees inside. Letting them know in a personal kind of way that they hadn’t been forgotten about. That there are a lot of people who actually care and want to say and do something to show that. A lot of people have been visiting and writing letters.
There’s a massive number of people who visit detention centres individually all the time, but I guess we want to do something that’s huge and noisy that people will remember and stir their souls a bit. One of the highlights of that weekend for everyone was when that actually did happen and we were able to make contact. The police made it difficult for us to get anywhere near the detention centre gates or anywhere the refugees could hear us because they knew that was exactly what we wanted to do. But there was one night when we did manage to find the particular point on the fence and we actually made contact with the detainees inside and they started to chant back to us. Or scream messages of freedom or thank you or whatever it was, for about half an hour. Someone managed to climb up on a roof and wave to us and all sorts of things.
I would like to read a response from someone who was inside at the time and how they felt about it.
“As an asylum seeker and a foreigner I felt so glad and strong when hundreds of Australians came towards us in their own land. In supporting us, by understanding our sufferings by being locked away for years only for seeking asylum. I always thank them for their great thoughts and humanity in a very compassionate way. Protesters were accused by Minister Amanda Vanstone in the media during the protest. But my point of view is that people of compassion and humanitarian thoughts have never been bad. And there was good change in my mind that offered me further hope and solidarity.”
And I guess that was the sort of thing that we were really hoping for. Another objective was to create cohesion among activists, collectives and organisations that are spread right across the country. We all have the same knowledge and hopes. And the same anger about the things that are being done in our name. And the same compassion for the people who it is being done to. It was a fantastic space for us all to finally get together and to move forward together.
An event like that captures what we do on a small scale. We try and have mass public rallies as often as possible, usually two or three times a year with varying degrees of success depending on the political climate at the time. Before the election we managed to get a fantastic crowd together and then, well, at different events throughout the year it obviously changes.
One thing that we have been struggling with, and both Jan and Pamela have mentioned this, is how to know where to go from here and making sure people don’t sit back and feel easy. I was very disturbed when Peter Casim, the long term detainee, was released about two weeks ago. Dick Smith, who had been a very avid supporter of him, was on the news laughing saying that Australians could feel better about themselves now. I think that was counter productive and I don’t think that was the truth. It’s fantastic that he’s out and it’s horrific that he had that experience.
Although we’ve had some backbench support led by Petrou Georgio who has managed so called ‘softened sections’ of the Immigration Act - it’s certainly no radical overhaul. To claim otherwise is simply not the truth.
We don’t see any point in chipping away at the legislation. It’s clearly rotten, it’s been proven again and again. We will only be happy, as I said before, when the goals of our group are realised. To have mandatory detention as a policy non-existent. We take it a step further than that. We will continue to fight for an Australia that doesn’t just protect asylum seekers, but one that embraces their culture and contribution to our lives, that respects the traumas and past experiences. You can look at the way we mourn people who died in the Bali bombings and in past wars in Australia and all these things in such a pompous and ceremonial way sometimes and we feel and recognise the suffering that they and their families have gone through. But just because these people weren’t born in Australia, they’ve suffered on our soil and at home because of our involvement in their political and world affairs.
I think we’ve got a long way to go on that front as well. Even when there is policy changes. You don’t continue to grow if you don’t say at times, no, that’s not enough. We don’t want a minor change. If you don’t niggle away, always on the argumentative and bitter front, then you don’t get anything. Petrou Georgio made a good attempt to get the best he could in his position, to make some changes. But because he wasn’t radical enough in his demands it was very easy for the government to say, oh well just take about half of that on and we’ll change it a bit as well.
So we will always continue to push through the boundaries of fear and ignorance and racism till all the refugees can enjoy the same quality of life as we can. I really believe that the consistent and varying activity of groups like RAC has greatly contributed to the greater public awareness there now is of refugee issues and of the racist and cruel acts which are committed by our government.
As I was saying before, when people say ‘you’re never gone to change the Governments mind’. People can change the Governments mind. Maybe not the 20 of us sitting around every Tuesday, but 20 people can recruit 20 more to ensure that the group stays alive. To ensure that every time there is a hunger strike inside a detention centre or major issues there will be a group of people on a street corner jamming stuff down people’s throats. Making sure that issue is heard - even if its just 50 people in Bourke Street Mall - making sure that there’s an interruption to people’s lives, letting them know that there’s stuff going on that we think you should know about. Even if that’s as far as we get, well that’s enough and it’s important to continue.