Love versus Goliath – excerpts
These two short excerpts have not been edited: you are about to read the raw first draft. Dangerous, perhaps, but let’s live on the edge a little. Different periods of time are covered here, the excerpts are not sequential chronologically. Out of context, these excerpts will, I know hope, leave readers with many questions. Good, for when the book is finished, you’ll find the answers you seek. 
As always, feedback is very welcome!
ASRC = Asylum Seeker Resource Centre DIAC = Department of Immigration & Citizenship S417 A special submission to the Minister
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John arrived in China and gained employment. While working one day, he saw an associate of one of his political enemies. While it is most likely that man was simply there on a business trip unrelated to John’s presence in China, I can understand John’s fear. Given what he had been through, he would not have been in any fit mental state to make entirely rational judgements. He made plans to flee yet again.
Where on earth could he go? By now he had been through Tanzania, Zimbabwe, India, Bangladesh and China. He needed a totally different location. Even if he found one, how was he to get there?
He worried incessantly about his wife and children. He had lost contact with them totally. I remember when we were in Qatar together in early 2011, despite the fact we were all still forced to be apart, he said to me, “I know you think this is a hard time, but for me it is much better than ever before, because now I can call my children every day. I know where they are”. By the time of that visit, we also knew we were on the home stretch to be together.
He had been working in China only a short time. He had no money for a plane ticket anywhere. He was still on a false passport of another nationality. He was still living in fear. He was told Ireland and New Zealand were possible places he could seek asylum.
One day when John was still a young school boy, as he was driven to school his father had noticed one of John’s friends out on the street and asked John why he was not in school. John replied to his father that his parents could not afford the school fees. John’s father asked to meet the child’s parents and offered to pay the school fees of the child and his brother until they finished school. This he did. As a result the childhood friend now had a successful travel agency. Nigerian culture is a culture of collectivism: as John’s father had helped him, so would he help John. He provided a one-way plane ticket to New Zealand.
On March 14, 2008 John boarded a plane to New Zealand. Most airline routes to New Zealand stop in Australia, as did this one. Arriving in Melbourne as a transit passenger, John was refused uplift to New Zealand on the basis he had limited funds available and it was a one-way ticket. I don’t find it at all surprising that New Zealand denied him uplift. Certainly according to the rules, he was a visa over-stay risk and certainly would not have sounded like a tourist.
Imagine his stress. He had been gone from home for three and a half years at this stage. I know he would have boarded the plane in Beijing believing he was finally on the way to a new home, somewhere he could settle and reunite his family. He would find them again, he knew he would. His youngest had been not yet two years old when he left. He knew she would likely not remember him at all. There was hope: hope of a new life.
Now he was stranded in yet another strange land he never intended to be in, had barely heard of. He was still on the false passport. He still had no real identity.
John collapsed to the floor in tears. He declared his true nationality and confessed his passport was false. He sought asylum in Australia.
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The next morning, April 7, was the fatal appointment with DIAC. I was home, putting all my energies into networking and job hunting and resume updating. John rang me to say the ASRC lawyer had not met him at the appointed time and place. I was confident they would turn up, if a little late, and told John to go upstairs to the reception area anyway. I tried to contact the ASRC, but their office doesn’t open until late in the morning. I didn’t have any mobile numbers, neither did John. About half an hour later John called again. “They are taking me into detention now.”
A few minutes later the case manager called me to confirm and said I could visit John at the detention centre. I’m not at all sure he was supposed to call me, but he did. I was still trying to get hold of the ASRC. I’d emailed them, but knew they get a mountain of emails – would they even notice the email?
What should I do? Jump in the car and visit, or keep trying to reach the ASRC? I tried to do both.
I arrived at the detention centre to be told I couldn’t see John. I told them his case manager said I could. They called the Manager of the centre to see me. She told me “DIAC don’t make the decisions here, I do”. Hang on – aren’t Serco contracted to DIAC? What is happening here?
The Manager of the Detention Centre was not going to allow the visit on “medical grounds”. I demanded to see the medical staff. She said I could not. I said I will sit down until you decide I can. It transpired that John had refused to undergo a medical. I would have too – good for him! However, the Manager then saw an opening: John was blackmailed to undergo a medical in order to see me.
Eventually I was allowed a visit. He was drugged to the eyeballs. The man I’d made love to the night before was not there. I was looking at a shell of a man. I asked had they even bothered to check what medication he was already on before they force-fed him medication in detention. No, of course they hadn’t.
I now trusted no-one. I didn’t trust my country. I finally got through to the ASRC and PC was a great emotional support. I don’t think I would have got through the day without her. I didn’t have keys to John’s home, so I “smuggled” the keys out in his laptop bag. I collected a friend and we went to John’s house to find the papers and I dashed to the ASRC to drop them off. I was starting to feel like an espionage operative – in my own damn country! Was what I was doing breaking any laws? I had no idea, but I’d been lied to by my country and I was trying to save the life of the man I loved. ASRC was frantically working to finalise and submit the S417. Some of the papers didn’t fax clearly to the DIAC office and the ASRC had to hand deliver copies the next day. We waited. I kept visiting John, but had to call first each day to make sure I was allowed to visit on medical grounds.
We found out after close of business on the Friday night that DIAC staff had decided “not to place the S417 before the Minister”, something they have the delegated authority to decide. It was a horrible, terrible weekend. I had no idea where to turn or what to do.
I think that your writing is very powerful and really relays a strong sense of the frustration, fear and anger that you were feeling. I’m guessing that each reader will resonate with varying emotions, depending on their own perspectives.
I think that your story is very special and extremely important….few people realize the struggle and lack of dignity that immigrants might be faced with. I think by writing this book, you’ll not only be telling an important human/family story, you’ll be helping everyone learn to express more kindness, sensitivity and compassion….and hopefully more ethical interactions, no matter with whom one interacts. Keep it up…you have a very important story here that could have a very strong impact.
Thank you very much for your feedback. Your views are very encouraging and it is lovely to receive confirmation that my words are painting the right picture to readers.
You know – I can’t stop thinking about your words “ethical interactions”. Very perceptive and something I certainly aim to encourage.
Riveting. You’re doing a fantastic job conveying the emotions of your ordeal–fear, despair, anger, frustration.
I don’t envy the choices you have to make. The visa saga is the main focus, but John’s backstory is incredible. You really could write a textbook, here. Or maybe two different books? I’d read however many you put out.
You will definitely have to include a glossary, though. Acronyms are tough, especially for us foreigners.
Thanks, Erin! I’m glad I seem to be getting the “flavour”, judging by the comments.
Yes, John’s back story IS incredible.
I felt your fear but I also felt your courage. When we are terrified our courage can outweigh our fear, as yours did. We can act in an illogical (logical) manner. It’s only when we pause to reflect…
You could have sat down and cried and given up in despair at how unjust life was. You were fighting the might of “Goliath” but you didn’t you kept going against the odds. That comes across loud and clear and is an inspiration to others. If you want something in life you have to fight for it and often fight against the odds.
PiP
Thank you Pip. It is very difficult for me to know how my writing reads to others in this context. I am used to writing technical manuals, but there is no passion or emotion in those! I know if I don’t “paint” the emotions involved well enough, I won’t get our message to the reader.
It’s incredible how much stress and bureaucracy some people have to go through just to obtain the basic comforts we take for granted.
Yes, it is Paul. Thank you for stopping by. I can honestly say the stress and bureaucracy came as a complete shock to me, as I am sure it does to a lot of other people. It is an horrendous experience that I believe catches many people off guard. You know, Mr O ran into an ex-employee of the detention centre in a local shopping centre. He asked the ex-employee why he had left. The reply was telling: “I got sick of lying to people”.
PS I agree with the poster above “you have got balls of steel”
Oops If steel balls was a K+ option. You’d be right up there lady!
OK – will take it as a good thing! Let me know if Klout ever introduce the option!
Hi Robyn,
You hear about cases of asylum seekers on the news and you ponder about the story behind the names and statistics. As I read this post, with tears in my eyes, I am beginning to understand even more your feelings of sheer desperation at this time. I can’t even begin to imagine what dear John must have been going through. The childrens experience is another chapter. The uncaring “jobsworths” at these centres want shooting. And why did they drug him?
{{hugs}} to the family
Carole
Thanks for the feedback Pip.
Yes, the children’s experience is probably a couple of chapters. I’m not sure how to tackle that part of the story yet, but I feel when I get there, it will flow.
At points in time, Miss O 1 was selling water after school to feed the younger children.
As I say in the book, but not in these extracts above, Mr O is “big, black and bald, an ideal candidate for a security guard in this country”. He would have been distressed and the easiest way to “control” a distressed person is to drug them. Other people who knew Mr O during his early days here are convinced some members of “officialdom” were scared of him, yet we all know that he couldn’t hurt a fly. Not wouldn’t, couldn’t! Some days when I visited him he did not remember later in the day that I had visited.
The article Dentention Centres dysfunctional provides more general details. I think it just becomes easier to drug detainees than actually change the system to something more humane.
Words fail me – drugging should be the last result not the first. What happened to his Human Rights?
Pip, I write this from my/our perspective. I am sure officialdom would be able to produce “justification” of some sort, otherwise the system would not still be as it is. Mind you, there is enough very professional and official criticism levelled at the system to indicate …… well, just to indicate………..
That part when your husband fell to the ground and cried just got me, I know men do not like to cry in public and especially African men
believe me!! Can’t even imagine the agony you both were going through at that time, heart wrenching indeed, I totally agree with Trinity, you have got balls of steel, you are very determined and you never lose hope, am sure not many people would endure so much…
John hates it even more when I cry. I cried last night as I realised I had overlooked a gas bill and it just doesn’t fit our budget at this time at all. We knew this time with him at school was going to be tough financially and it has been. So the stresses are not over yet. At least we are together, that is the main thing.
He got the biggest shock when he was detained. He’d NEVER been “locked up” before and that was just soul destroying for him.
What a fascinating story you share…. It has been quite the journey for John and for you too.
Thank you Elizabeth. Quite a journey it definitely has been.
Yes quite… and it will be very helpful for others who attempt same. Don’t give away all the juicy parts online, save the meatier stories for the book… just my two cents!
Definitely! I debated over which excerpts to post – some I selected had details I’m keeping for the book alone.
Wow! What a story. I can feel the tension, distress, anxiety.
I really liked the bit where the good deeds of John’s father were repaid – lovely example of reaping what one sows.
As an anti-acronym advocate, I have to ask if you are going to explain all of those.
Now I understand those airline shows on the telly a bit better where they refuse entry to some people.
Thanks Narelle. I figured most people would know DIAC stands for Department of Immigration and Citizenship and I did put ASRC at the top. TOO MANY acronyms I know, but if they are typed in full all through the book – it will double the word count and it stands at 120,000 words already!
I definitely think a glossary will be in order, though.
I’m guessing each reader will feel different things, so it is interesting to get opinions: it helps me determine if I am not putting in enough detail, but I am wary of writing a text book if I put in too much detail. Given Trinity’s comment, I wasn’t sure the stress and anxiety came through – I thought maybe I sounded too hard. So it is so good to get as many perspectives as possible.
You have balls of steel.
Thank you Trinity – I think!
Of all the comments I might have thought I’d get, that was certainly not one of them! You have no idea how terrified and angry I was, both at the same time. Thank you for taking the time to read, I appreciate it. Your reaction is very useful, as it tells me I am not getting the fear I felt across. Admittedly, this is only a short excerpt, perhaps in full context I do – but I find your reaction helpful nonetheless.