Freeing Ali: The Human Face of the Pacific Solution

By Michael Gordon, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005, 120 pages, paperback, $16.95. Reviewed by Chelsea Rodd in the February 2006 issue.

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When the first boat of Vietnamese refugees docked in Darwin in 1975 the Liberal government of Malcolm Fraser accepted these people into the Australian community promptly and efficiently. The refugees were seeking to enter a country that had only recently decided to distance itself from its White Australian past. Though the pockets of racial anxiety and disquiet within the Australian community were given voice by the popular press of the day, Fraser responded humanely, quashing public protest against the boatpeople. Most Australians soon acceded to the government's decision, welcoming the refugees into the community. Thirty years on, the Howard government has demonised a new group of refugees, exploiting their extreme vulnerability for political gain. This exploitation has seen distressed people languishing for extended and indefinite periods in offshore detention camps, out of sight and, largely, out of mind. The ominously named Pacific Solution, perhaps the most potent example of dehumanising and distancing refugees from Australian consciences, is the subject of Michael Gordon's recent book, entitled Freeing Ali: The human face of the Pacific Solution.

John Howard recently declared the Pacific Solution to have been an 'outstanding success'. This policy imprisoned asylum seekers in offshore detention camps at a time when mainland detention centres were full. Nauru, a small, depleted and desperately poor island-nation in the Pacific Ocean, required very little coaxing to be coerced into this initiative. Its acquiescence was pivotal to the success of this operation. Howard insists that were it not for this 'solution', the problem of boats flooding into Australian waters, transporting people seeking our asylum, would not have been resolved. Australia contravenes the United Nations Convention on Refugees by imprisoning current asylum seekers in order to deter future refugees from engaging their universal human right to seek our refuge. This practice, first introduced by a Labor government, has transcended partisan politics, enjoying sufficient public support, allowing it to persist over the years. In the aftermath of the Tampa disgrace of 2001 the Howard government extended the barbed wire fencing, demarcating our borders of tolerance, enclosing the ocean surrounding Australia. Howard seized upon the threat of Islamic terrorism implanted in the anxious and fearful national conscience, implementing drastic and aggressive measures designed to keep asylum seekers from entering Australia. The government denied the media access to the camps on Nauru. This censorship intentionally obscured and revoked the humanity of the people languishing on this destitute island. Australia, for the most part, turned a blind eye to this situation. If the victims of the Pacific Solution are refugees, its enemies are free expression and objective journalism.

Gordon was the first journalist to be granted entry to Nauru and gain access to the asylum seekers imprisoned there. His book tells the story of the Pacific Solution from the perspective of those with the most intimate knowledge of our government's actions. Ali Mullaie, as the title suggests, is the protagonist of this story. He is a young man of remarkable character and ability who fled Afghanistan, reaching Australian waters by boat at the height of our military's repulsion of refugees, Operation Relex. Detained on Nauru for four years, he taught himself English and became skilled in the use of computers, staving off depression and feelings of hopelessness by volunteering to impart his knowledge to other people. Mullaie's tale sits alongside other similar stories in this objective report that gives voice to the voiceless and human dimension to the inhumanity of recent government policy. Though, perhaps the utility of this book lies not in filling an evident hole in our public knowledge, rather its significance is as testimony to the high quality journalism that our government has been so successful in banning, avoiding accountability for actions unseen and unknown to the public.

Although Australia has accepted unprecedented media censorship, Gordon credits the overwhelming public response to the initial story -- published in the Age and nominated for a Walkley Award -- with effecting recent detention regime reforms. Freeing Ali is the product of more than three years of journalistic persistence. Assisted by a change of government on Nauru -- to one not so dependent on Australia -- Gordon was finally permitted to talk with the people whom our government imprisons, as well as to those whom we pay to jail them. This book implores readers to listen to the stories of the faceless people who had no choice but to tolerate our Pacific Solution, pleading with Australia to pay attention to what has been done in our name. The government has efficiently suppressed the voices of dissent within its own ranks, as well as those of concerned and outraged members of the public, assuring Australia that the detention regime will be softened. Liberal Member for Parliament, Petro Georgiou -- former adviser to the Fraser government on issues of multiculturalism, and consistent critic of his government's position on refugees -- introduces this book. Gordon conjectures that it is as a result of the lobbying by Georgiou and other renegade Liberal MPs that the Pacific Solution has come under recent public attack resulting in this relaxation of detention policy. Two people remain imprisoned on Nauru. Although, after a four-year application process, they have been found to be refugees our government refuses to allow them entry into the Australian community, accusing these young men of being threats to our security. These slanderous and unexplained attacks on the character of these refugees exemplify not only the continued culture of senseless bureaucratic cruelty and fear-politics, they also illustrate the need for writers like Michael Gordon to keep telling the stories of those whom would otherwise remain mute. He makes transparent that which those wielding power over other people's lives have obscured.

Citation

• Chelsea Rodd. 'Review: Freeing Ali: The Human Face of the Pacific Solution by Michael Gordon' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), February 2006. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 23 May 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• Michael Gordon was the first journalist to gain unrestricted access to the refugee detention centre on the tiny island of Nauru, the centrepiece of the Australian government's Pacific Solution. In April 2005 he interviewed more than half of the asylum seekers who remained on the island, witnessing at first hand the conditions in which they were held. His reports from Nauru, published in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, drew an enormous response from readers.
  
  At the centre of those articles was Ali Mullaie, a young Afghan asylum seeker teaching computer skills to Nauruan school children. Freeing Ali follows his story from Afghanistan to Nauru, and ultimately to Melbourne - and recounts the experiences of survivors of the SIEV X tragedy and the 'children overboard' saga. Michael Gordon examines how ordinary Australians forced the Howard government to drop the harsher elements of its border protection policy. And, as the pressure grows back in Australia for a change in policy, he assesses the costs, in human and financial terms, of the Pacific Solution.

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