Dark Dreams

by Sonja Dechian

  One day, without my mother’s permission, I ran to Zahra’s house. I knocked on the door. Zahra opened the door, everything was too quiet. She didn’t tell me anything for two or three minutes. Then her tears streamed from her motionless eyes to her dry lips. Her mother was crying and shrieked in pain, ‘They killed Ali.’ Ali was Zahra’s father and was working in the energy factory. When I heard that, suddenly my books fall from my hands. I couldn’t believe it.

  I came back home. When mother saw that my face was red and asked me what happened, the only thing I could say was, ‘Zahra’s father has been killed.’ My mum knew what was going on in my heart and didn’t ask me any more and tears were running from her eyes.

  My mum and I went to Zahra’s house. Poor Zahra hadn’t any older or younger brother, only twin sisters younger than her. Her mother had been sick for two or three years. Zahra had to take the responsibility for her two young sisters and her sick mother. She had to work and bring some food for them and pay the rent for the house. Even in that time the women hadn’t the right to work outside. What choice did they have?

  Days, weeks, months passed and the people of my city were moving the dead bodies of their beloved to the place where before there was a park. The park of the city had become a cemetery. Zahra and her family migrated to Pakistan and they resided in Peshawar. Then she married an Afghan man called Mohammed from Hazareh ethnic group (which is mine and Zahra’s group). After her marriage, her mother died because of her sickness. And the twin sisters were left alone at home and blown off by the bomb. She was left alone in this horrible world, living alone and isolated in an unknown city. For Zahra, life was lonely, dull and helpless.

  Mohammed, her husband, went to Europe. After he left, she lived with the darkness of the situation. A few days later she got a letter from her husband:

  Dear Zahra

  Hope u okay and after a few minutes we’ll go to the boat and I hope to get the visa and bring you here to start a new life, I love you and take care until that day.

  One day the neighbours came and told Zahra that someone phoned her, she thought that it is her husband. She got so happy and start to run. But when she picked up the phone it was Mohammed’s sister, who told her that Mohammed had drowned in the middle of a stormy ocean. The phone fell from her hand.

  She returned home and didn’t come out for two days and no one had any news from her. On the third day the owner of the house came and knocked on the door many times but no one opened the door, then he opened the door with his own key. Zahra wasn’t in the home. There was silence and quiet. The door of the bathroom was closed. He opened the door. Zahra had killed herself and ended her depressing life.

  Police arrived and looked around to find out why she killed herself. They found a note in her album, which had the photos of her father, mother, twin sisters and her husband in it. In the note was her writing:

  Don’t judge me, I wasn’t weak; I was the only candle in my family which was burning through this life. I endured the death of each person in my family and after my last hope was extinguished. I had two choices. One, Die; and the second one was put arrogance aside, which was the worst thing in my life! I choose the first one. I wanted to die in Afghanistan but …

  This was the story of my friend, which will remain with me forever.

  During this time I was still going to school and the only thing I wanted was to finish my education, but very soon the Taliban closed the school which girls used to attend.

  My people or Hazareh people were discriminated against, and the Taliban raped the Hazareh women, hung men, children were kidnapped and houses were destroyed. In this situation there was no opportunity and safety, so my parents decided to migrate somewhere else, but didn’t know where! One day we set off on our journey to a peaceful land or country. It was the year 2002. After journeying from Afghanistan to Pakistan, the hot weather without transport was really hard. Especially for my mum, because she was pregnant.

  In Pakistan the smuggler took all of our money and told us to go to Australia. He said, Australia is an ‘Eden’ and defends always human rights. He sent us to Indonesia, where my mum gave birth to a little son. She had an operation and it was so difficult for her.

  After ten days, we moved to the small boat. It was a very dangerous and exciting journey. We hadn’t ever seen a boat and the ocean. I had to be strong for my little sisters, brothers, father and mother because I was the oldest child. A few days later we were sailing on the water of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. It was terrifying and horrible for all of us, mainly when the boat was sailing in the storms. Hundreds of times we thought we would drown in the darkness of the ocean, the horrible and haunting sounds of the water which wanted to swallow us.

  After ten days out at sea our boat was guided by an Australian naval ship. Finally, we arrived in Australia. I can’t picture the most joyful and happiest memories of the day we arrived on Australian land. I thought my miserable life was over and new horizons of life with its fortunes and happiness would welcome us. But my dream was not realised. I found myself including my family and other refugees in a detention centre, gaoled, faced with fences all around.

  After hearing a lot of excellent things about Australia, for me it was unbelievable, that the same country had placed us in a detention centre.

  We stayed in a detention centre for two months and the situation in there was terrible, everyone worried about the future and the hot weather was uncomfortable.

  After our stay at the centre we were given a temporary protection visa (TPV) for three years which cuts my future prospects. I’m a refugee, that’s why I can understand the refugee’s hardship and difficulties.

  Now I am in Sydney. I spent nine months in an Intensive English Centre (IEC). I am planning for my future to study hard and become a doctor. I’m doing year ten at the moment. And the students and teachers are lovely. I like Australia so much and I don’t want to go back to my country and I can prove that it is not safe. I hope to stay in Australia forever.

  The Place Where God Died

  by Melanie Poole, aged 18

  Preface

  At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?

  The answer—Where was Man?

  When Jostein Gaarder, author of Sophie’s World, wrote these words, he conveyed a very important message: that ‘God’, being the symbol of love, compassion and benevolence cannot be present where barbarism, persecution and injustice prevail. He saw ‘God’ as a spirit present only in humanity, manifested in acts of love and kindness. When Gaarder heard the stories of the detainees in the Auschwitz concentration camp of World War II, and the horrific cruelty they had been subjected to, he was convinced that, in such circumstances, any notion of ‘God’ is destroyed.

  Gyzele Osmani is a refugee who tells a story of persecution and cruelty, of the unnecessary suffering of the innocent, of places where the qualities represented by ‘God’ cease to exist. Most particularly, Gyzele’s story reveals truths that many do not want to believe, truths about what happens to refugees in the ‘lucky country’; truths that will inevitably leave the reader asking themselves what has happened to humanity.

  Fleeing from Persecution

  In 1999, Serbian soldiers marched into East Kosovo and forced Kosovo Albanian villagers out of their homes at gunpoint. Gyzele Osmani, then a twenty-nine year old Kosovo Albanian mother of five, was washing clothes when the soldiers arrived and told her to vacate her home within ten minutes. Terrified, she called her husband and children (aged nineteen months to six years) together, and the family fled, leaving behind everything they owned.

  ‘There was fire and gunshots and shouting … there were bodies on the streets … They were … raping the women and there were screams and agonising cries coming from everywhere … We ran and ran until it was left behind.’

  The family walked for six hours before reaching the house of friends who lived in Macedonia. They stayed with these friends for two nights, after which they again walked for hours to catch a bus t
hat would take them to a refugee camp. They spent over eighteen hours waiting for the bus, during which time there was no food and nothing but water to give the children.

  When they reached the camp, four of the five children had developed illnesses and Gyzele’s youngest daughter (one of her nineteen month old twins) was found to have a dislocated hip, thought to be a result of the long journey and the hours she had spent with her legs at unnatural angles while on her mother’s hip.

  A doctor examined the baby and told Gyzele that, unless she was operated upon, she would never walk properly. He then advised Gyzele to apply to be taken to either Australia, Canada or America. Gyzele applied for all three, desperate to find somewhere with adequate conditions for her children. Within several weeks, she was told she would receive temporary protection in Australia, something that filled her with overwhelming joy and relief.

  ‘I thought to myself, “Now my children will have place that is safe with many opportunities for the future.” My husband and I were so happy. We thought “Australian people are so kind”.’

  On 15th July 1999, Gyzele and her family arrived by plane in Sydney, Australia. They stayed in Sydney for five days and then were taken to the Bandiana Safe Haven in Albury Wodonga. Here they met with support workers who made them feel safe and welcome and arranged for medical care for the children.

  Gyzele’s daughter underwent three operations over ten months, however all were unsuccessful. She was booked in for a fourth operation when suddenly the news came that the government had decided it was time for the family to be deported.

  ‘It was war in my country. They said that it was safe now in Kosovo because the United Nations were there and we could all go back. But we did not think it would be safe in East Kosovo. There were no United Nations there, not in our village. We had no place to go. If we went back we would be in a tent, we would have nothing. We were scared to go back.’

  The government refused to listen, however, and the Osmanis were told that if they did not leave Australia they would be detained. Gyzele did not know what detention was, but did not think it could be worse than what her family would be forced to endure if they returned to East Kosovo.

  ‘I thought; “The Australian people are kind. It is good here. Nothing can be as bad as in my country.” Also, staying here was the only chance my daughter had of being able to walk again.’

  So the Osmani family stayed in Australia, despite the severe threats and fear tactics the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) officers used to try to convince them to leave.

  ‘They told us that in detention everybody would hate us and try to hurt us. They say we will regret it if we do not leave. But we still think that maybe Immigration will change their mind and let us stay to live.’

  Seven Months in Hell

  Immediately after Gyzele and her family made it clear to Immigration that they were too afraid to return to their country, they were arrested and taken to the Port Hedland Detention Centre in Western Australia. The sight that greeted them was beyond any Gyzele had comprehended.

  ‘It was horrible. All desert … No trees, no flowers. My children kept asking “Where are we? Where are the flowers?” I could tell them nothing. They kept saying “We want to go. Please we go away from here.” They kept crying and crying … It was a very, very bad place.’

  Gyzele and her family lived in a building with 200 other people. Conditions were terrible, with poor facilities and little space. As a result, disease was rife and within days Gyzele’s entire family fell ill. As the detention centre was run by Australian Correctional Management (ACM), a private company, everything was done at minimum cost. The meals were meagre portions of partially cooked rice, with occasional serves of basic fruits and vegetables. To wash with, detainees were issued with bottles of chemicals labelled ‘shampoo’ which burned Gyzele’s children’s scalps, and caused their hair to become brittle and dry.

  The ‘education’ program was held in a crowded room and taught by poorly paid, under resourced teachers. It was also selective; only ‘good’ children who didn’t protest or cry or ask for extra food when they were hungry were allowed to be educated. There were also many times when Gyzele’s children were not allowed to receive education because there was not enough room or paper and pencils for them.

  Within the detention centre there were 400 children and, of all the abhorrent things she witnessed, Gyzele found the most heartbreaking to be seeing them deprived of nutrition, medical care, education and, most significantly, their freedom.

  ‘How can they lock up children? How can they lock up any innocent people, but especially how can they lock up children?’

  There were numerous stories of the suffering other detainees had endured whilst in detention, stories that Gyzele will never forget. One particular woman from China had been detained for five years and seven months. During her first month she had given birth and so her five and a half year old had grown up incarcerated, never having tasted freedom at all. Her other child, who was two years old when they arrived in Australia, could not remember anything but his time in detention. Gyzele said she would never forget those two children, who suffered from depression despite their young ages, and who seldom laughed or smiled.

  ‘The children there weren’t like children I’d seen before … Many of them had no hope … Many wanted to die.’

  A constant battle that Gyzele fought while in detention was for her daughter to be re-operated on, as she was still unable to walk properly and suffered frequent pain. When Gyzele finally was allowed to see a doctor, he x-rayed her daughter and Gyzele, who had no medical knowledge, could see that it was quite clear that her hip was out of place. Before the doctor could talk to her, however, Gyzele was escorted out of the room while ACM guards spoke to him.

  When Gyzele re-entered the doctor’s office, she was not allowed to speak to him without the ACM guards present. The doctor—a spinal and orthopaedic specialist, turned to Gyzele and said, rather nervously,

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about this. I can’t help you.’

  Gyzele could tell that the doctor was unable to speak the truth in front of the guards and so she decided she would ring him. When she requested the doctor’s phone number, however, she was not allowed to have it. Gyzele’s daughter still cannot walk properly.

  ‘The ACM scared everybody. They gave threats to all the kind people, all our friends. There were some nice ACM, like one woman who hug me once. She was in a lot of trouble, they say to her, “You are not allowed to hug these people. You cannot talk to them unless they ask you questions or you are giving orders. You must refer to them only by number, not by name.”’

  Gyzele recalls being told that if she asked for extra food, or talked to the media, or protested, then the government would ‘blacklist’ her and she would never live in Australia. Consequently most detainees were too scared to speak out though some, having reached a point of utter desperation, tried to protest against their treatment.

  After seven months in detention, Marion Lé, a well-known human rights lawyer, came to the aid of the Osmani family and secured permanent residence in Australia for them. Such was the Osmanis’ gratitude that they decided to move to Canberra simply to be near Marion.

  Epilogue

  Since being released from detention, Gyzele has actively campaigned for refugee rights. She attends protest marches, writes letters to MPs and, perhaps most importantly, continues to share her experiences. ‘It is only through revealing truth,’ says Gyzele, ‘that anything will ever be changed.’

  Gyzele’s children still suffer nightmares and have found adjusting to ‘normal’ life very difficult. ‘In Port Hedland the guards came into our rooms at night, waking everybody to see our identification tags. They would flash their torches and yell our numbers, as though we were dogs. I used to say, “My children are not going to run away, please let them sleep.” Now the children wake up in the night screaming, thinking that the guards are by th
eir beds.’

  Gyzele has not lost faith in the Australian people, however, and frequently mentions the kindness of people like Marion Lé. ‘I think the Australian people are mostly very kind. But I can never forgive the Australian Government. I cannot forgive the nightmares and the trauma and the suffering. Not the lies and the threats and the cruelty. No, never can I forgive that.’

  If Jostein Gaarder were to hear the story of Gyzele Osmani, I think he would surely ask himself where—in all the talk of ‘legislative framework’ and ‘tough border control’ and ‘profit margins’ and ‘parliamentary debate’—is humanity?

  I think he would wonder what happened to those wonderful rights enshrined by the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Rights of the Child, such as everyone having the right to liberty, education and freedom of speech, and being innocent until proven guilty.

  Like most of us, he would probably wonder ‘why’; and, like most of us, would probably find no answer.

  ‘… This is the place that will inhabit you

  This is the place you cannot imagine

  This is the place that will finally defeat you

  Where the word why shrivels

  And empties itself.’

  —Margaret Atwood ‘Notes Toward A Poem That Can Never Be Written.’ © Margaret Atwood. Used by permission of the author.

  A Refugee

  by Mohammad Zia, aged 18

  Born in a country that is totally devastated in decades of a war that has left no sign of justice, humanity and freedom. Especially for people like me who were born into a minority ethnic group to be the victim of discrimination and slavery of the majority ethnic groups. Pushed away from most of the major cities and our property towards the harshest part of the country because of being in a minority without enough power to defend our rights.

  Free but you can’t move, stuck in one particular part of the country, cut off from the rest of the world. The majority ethnic group surrounds all around this land without access to any sort of facility, from food, market, business transportation etc. We can’t claim our rights for fear of facing sanctions or fear they will stop the flow of food and people would die as a result of starvation. So struggling for our life away from the sight of the world trying not to be ashamed of who we are which has been the case for decades.