Dark Dreams

by Sonja Dechian

  Pishtiwan’s father however had problems fitting in with the culture, and it was hard for him to roam the city without being picked up by the police. After returning from a day out with a feast for his family and friends to celebrate Ramadan, Pishtiwan’s father was arrested and taken to the police station. He had done nothing wrong, and the injustice that occurred shows the levels of respect to people from ethnic backgrounds shown in Pakistan. He was asked to give up money and the groceries he had bought. He didn’t comply with the policeman’s request and was put in gaol for twenty-two days, fifteen of those spent in hospital. It was up to the United Nations, who had granted Pishtiwan and his family refugee status in Pakistan, to have him released from gaol.

  ‘Pakistan is a country with many different cultures. There is a lot of racism in Pakistan because of this,’ Pishtiwan said.

  In 1992 they moved to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and were granted a benefit of 3500 rupees a month ($A100). There they applied to migrate to one of the four countries that were taking in refugees—USA, Australia, New Zealand and Finland. The UN prepared their application, which was rejected by the USA, on the basis that Pishtiwan’s father was unable to work, as he couldn’t speak English. They then tried for New Zealand and eventually received permission to migrate to Australia. Pishtiwan’s mother was upset about the whole idea of leaving her home, and refused to migrate. She remained in Pakistan, intending to head back to Iran. This is a sensitive issue to Pishtiwan even today.

  Iraq is still a dangerous place. There is an 80 per cent chance of death upon return to Pishtiwan’s native country. However he says he would like to return home one day and meet up with his surviving relatives.

  ‘There is only one way to get into Iraq today. That is to travel to Syria first and create a fake Iraqi passport there,’ Pishtiwan said.

  His family is safe now and Pishtiwan is extremely happy in Australia. He has many friends at his high school. Pishtiwan is doing well. His goal is to pass VCE and become a medical scientist. He wanted to become a pilot, however he says no Middle Eastern person is trusted to become a pilot after September 11. He can speak seven different languages and his future is heading in the right direction.

  Zina’s Story

  by Zina Romanov, aged 19

  Ten years ago, in a small town named Vinnista, in the country now called Ukraine, lived a family, my family.

  The picture is directed at a four-year-old girl, one girl who was not suffering, living perfectly in the 1980s away from any wars and troubles. This four-year-old is me, and I did not know what really went on behind my back and how hard the ones who loved me were fighting. The war went on behind closed doors.

  As we all know most of us do not learn from history’s mistakes. I am a Jew, and many would say that being a Jew is not an advantage. Actually many people would say that it is a defect, a fault. In Russia, to my horror, I have to admit it is so. Well the people in my neighbourhood had such thoughts, but it was not until I was six that I was told how bad it was being Jewish. There was an incident that made me realise this. It happened very quickly and went unnoticed by many, yet it affected me and a lot of my friendships.

  A women in a high rise next to my house decided that she had had enough of the small, chubby six-year-old running around in the playground with her friends. She came out and concentrated her look on me. She watched us play for a while and then she yelled, ‘You are a Jew, you do not belong here!’ It echoed all around the street and people looked at me and then at her. The silence was unbearable. It sounded very stupid, but from that moment on I knew I was different. It is this feeling that singles you out of a group of people. Thinking about it now I still have the same feeling. I am definitely older and I understand that what it means is perfectly normal. At that time my parents did not want to bother me with the information and the truth I was entitled to know. They wanted to protect me. And it was this sense of security that they kept for so long that hurt me in the end. I found it harder to blend in with people for the rest of my time spent in Russia.

  This incident happened back in 1989. At the beginning of the year 1990 we arrived in Jerusalem, Israel. Once again I was not told the reason for abandoning my dear friends who had been a part of me, lives engraved into me forever. ‘I am being taken to a better place,’ I told my friends, nearly crying. As the bus drew further and further away something dawned upon me. I did not know what it was then but I know what it is now. A sense of understanding, knowing beforehand, that nothing is as easy as you want it to be.

  Our trip to Israel was not something I can recall with happiness. People got mugged in broad daylight, police were bribed into letting people pass. I saw this and yet never understood why it was happening. Our baggage got ripped, the men of the family physically abused. And the shock of my mother nearly being taken away is something that will live with me for the rest of my life.

  Israel was not what I expected. Not the promised land. I grew used to it and its demands as well as tragedies. You had to blend in. I learnt the language and obtained friends. It was easier with friendships as most of the people living in Israel were Jewish but Israel had its own problems and bad habits. The main problem at that time was the Gulf War, when Iraq launched missiles at its neighbours including Israel. My school consisted of 75 per cent Jewish students and 25 per cent Arab students. And every day I was reminded that one of these children might place a bomb or light a fire or worse.

  Within two months of our arrival we were hiding in shelters and carrying gas masks everywhere. In that period people did not live, people lost their hope, they feared death as it was so close. Innocent lives were taken, young soldiers killed for nothing. Many Russian immigrants lost their children in this war, some we knew, some we did not. As usual I did not understand what was happening. By that time my name had changed to Ilana. With my name I stayed the same, very naive as I think back to it. I wish now I had understood how hard it was for my parents. For everyone. In a way I feel selfish not having known. They had to work and look after my grandparents and me. Everyday they feared. It is horrid when I think back to those moments. I have never actually talked about the war to anyone. I heard myself saying ‘They would not understand’. When we heard ‘nachash tzefa’ it was the first warning, telling us the bombs were being thrown at us, and we either went into hiding or came back out. This was the national sign for the coming of the nachash (snake) or its departure. The gas masks—what were they for? I would ask. I can still remember its rubber smell and its horrible elastics that came over your head and made it hard to breathe. Also the big filter at the front.

  I would sit in the corner of the room wondering if the roof would cave in, or would a bomb land in the middle of the tiny room, would we all be killed? At that time I hated the fact that we had come to Israel. I sit and think back—I did not learn to love Israel as many people do. I am always criticised for this. Whether this land is the promised land or not it took so many lives to keep it the ‘promised’ land. Why is that so? People tend to forget the hard times a country has faced and also the young souls who were lost. I can never make a decision about my true feelings towards Israel as it never came to be my home. It is a country my cousin has to defend—my only wish is to be there to defend him.

  After the war my father set out on a journey to find a country where his daughter would have a right to choose whether she wanted to join an army or not. There is a rule or, rather, an imposed obligation in Israel that once you are a citizen you must go to the army as soon as you turn eighteen.

  My father’s journey was long and he experienced many dead ends. When he arrived in Australia he wrote to us, telling us how wonderful it was. He also wrote that this country had a lot to do with freedom of choice, great opportunities, and that there was a large number of Jews. I feared the move. I was ten years of age by that time and had grown a bit. I required some knowledge and a move did not seem the best alternative. We were also going away without my grandparents with whom I had spent most of
my life.

  The trip was very traumatic for my mother and me. We came here, again not knowing the language and not being able to communicate. I found Australia to be easy going, laid back and a place I could easily blend into without extra trouble. It is here that my true personality blossomed. I finally understood the meaning of life. Weird as it may sound, I now know what I want to do with the rest of my life whether it be happy or sad, in one place or another. And yet I still do not think of Australia as the country that I can call home.

  I never want to move again, as moving is the breakage of all bonds, all that is so firmly rooted to the ground. But in the future I would like to go back to Russia, Ukraine and Israel but I do not think I could live in any of those countries again.

  My families are there but they may have forgotten me. Besides these people, I have nothing there, except my childish memories and the happiness that I thought once existed.

  1112: Anhar—Iran to Woomera

  by Hannah Moore, aged 16

  I Am Here With Hundreds Of Hopes

  I am sitting here waiting for sunrise, my screams do not reach anyone. It feels as if I am screaming underwater.

  I am sitting here hoping for golden dreams, but the thief of the night has robbed these very dreams away from me.

  I am an injured bird that wants to talk to everyone, but others think of me as deaf and dumb.

  I am alive without oxygen, I am suffocating to be freed. I am a stranger in this place, but can see the accidental fall from the cliff on the horizon.

  I wish to escape from this cruel razor wire, I wish to escape from loneliness in captivity.

  I am struggling to be freed, I am struggling to grab the pearls that are released from the eye of the night. I long to see the rainbow in the morning sunlight.

  When will the light appear?

  By Anhar (a translation)

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered.

  ‘But Hannah, why do you think I am in here, when will I get out? I just want to know what you think.’

  There was another long pause, then, ‘I don’t know, soon I hope.’

  I did hope, but it wasn’t what I thought. I thought months, many months, maybe a year or maybe never. Anhar was braver. She measured the time in weeks, she even counted days. I gave her a watch and she watched each second tick by. Her memory is her life now, each second now reminds her of how things used to be and her present is blurred by her past. She remembers …

  ~

  My mother’s long and pointed fingers placed each object on the table with a certain gracefulness. The glass bowls that hung on the wall every other day of the year were now full with overflowing fruit. The traditional candle was centred between the six other gifts of the New Year. I watched as she smoothed the white tablecloth of invisible creases and I sat in awe of her beauty. The light touched her face—my dad always noticed. My brother Bayan, only sixteen then, would come in, and then Dad. Year after year, I watched her set the table.

  Now her tired hands place the makeshift bowls on the floor of our donga. Her loose wrists seem to forget their work, resting every few moments on her wrinkled forehead. The nails on her fingers are brittle and her skin tired beyond its years. Her deep eyes mourn the loss of another life. I watch her thoughts drift back to Iran where she would prepare the New Year’s table. She dares not compare her old life to the new; it scares all of us to remember.

  I remember …

  Bayan walked into the house, his face quivered as he moved his hand to expose a deep cut on the tip of his ear. Dry blood streaked his cheek and tissue stuck to the open cut. He swallowed hard as he told how the boys at his school drew a knife and cut him, how they laughed. He looked down as he told how no one would bandage his ear, how nobody cared. He didn’t cry but blinked back a glimpse of the desperation I recognised in his eyes. He walked away alone because I couldn’t comfort him with the hope of a better day. We all knew the worst was yet to come.

  We sit here avoiding each other’s tired eyes and our limp but truthful bodies. In silence Bayan begins to move from the floor. He walks idly out of the room. Mum follows soon after forgetting the importance of the setting—of this New Year ritual. I am left with my father in this room, just another detainee.

  I am one of many, I am number 1112. Bayan is 1113 and my friend Firoozeh is number 159. You can roughly guess the number of months a person has been in here from their number. Firoozeh has been here almost twenty-six months, over two years. I laugh at the mockery of the watch I wear, how each second ticks by slowly, carefully measuring the seconds, the minutes, tiny parts of the months and years. It has been 472 days. I vividly remember the first. It was confusion, since then it has been fear.

  I remember …

  My teacher shoved the heavy book in my hand. It smelt old and tired. The pages were limp with age, each corner soft with the fingers that had touched it. It was beautiful, carefully written and decorated. Tightly bound with leather and titled in fancy gold print. Qur’an. I dared not protest the attempt to convert me—Mandaeans didn’t have that right. I prayed silently, in my own Mandaic language. I imagined the writings of the prophet Yehya bi Zekaria, John the Baptist, and I found strength to bear my teacher’s merciless words. I only walked the streets of Ahwaz now with my father or my brother. A Muslim man could always tell a Mandaean. I hid behind my father’s thin body, always on the inside of the footpath. I walked quickly and directly and I spoke of my religion to nobody. Everyone in Iran tried tirelessly and aggressively to make me believe in Allah. It was always Allah they talked of. It would please Allah if I were taken from my family to become a Muslim. It would please Allah that I was so unhappy and so afraid.

  I remember …

  I stumbled over a rise in the footpath and felt the dampness touch my leg. I knew it was dangerous, I’d seen other Mandaeans being attacked on the streets before. I sensed it was acid, something powerful that wanted to hurt me. I grabbed my skirt and held it from my skin so it didn’t burn. I kept running. I couldn’t blink away the face of the man whose arm had reached out and thrown this at me. I caught a mere glance of him on his motorbike, but enough to see his eyes looking back at me in disgust as he rode into the thick of the traffic.

  People watched, some shouting as I ran past them on the footpath, knocking their children or their shopping trolleys. I was only a Mandaean. I was lucky to leave with only a burnt chador.

  ‘Stop.’ Their accents are harsh and the hate with which they yell makes my stomach churn, ‘Stop yelling ya little bitch. Sit like the rest of the people in here and wait. Next time I don’t want to even hear ya voice, if you’re going to yell, yell in Australian, ya friggin’ dago.’

  The ACM guards are like that Pasdar who walk through the streets demanding respect of everyone, especially Mandaeans. The guards’ batons hang like guns and their boots tread with the same power. Some are kind but it’s hard to know whom you can trust.

  I remember …

  It was a lifetime ago that we left Iran. Time crept by as if giving us opportunity to reconsider our decision. Time stirred in the middle of the night and woke me into a sharp consciousness. I packed as instructed and followed my father to the car. It was only a short trip but one that seemed too long. Drawn out with a sense of fear, we arrived in Indonesia. We spent only two hours in total in the open, otherwise we stayed quiet and nervous in the hotel. My mother shot glances at my father. Her eyes began to sink into her face as she came to doubt our leaving. Bayan and I noticed but didn’t say anything or let on that we knew. It was too delicate a situation to feed the doubts my parents already had.

  I saw fear rise in my mother’s chest, fear of realising her doubt. Fear that rose and fell from the side of the boat in thick bile from her mouth. There was a line of people on the side of the blue boat. Mothers held their children to their chests as their husbands watched helplessly. We ran out of water on the ninth of the eleven days we spent at sea. The weathered boat gave way to the ocean, cracking slightly through the
centre. Young children bucketed the water with brave strength, avoiding their desperate parents who hung from the edge of the boat, resting their hands on the side, some with their hands on their head, some protecting their body while others shielded their eyes from what they saw of themselves being swept with the waves to somewhere far away.

  What was swept away with the current hasn’t returned. I sit and stare through the door of the donga. The sun falls into the red sand. My view of the sunset is fragmented, I only see slithers of it through the gaps in the fence. I listen to the ticking of my watch, how carefully it marks out each second, I watch the departing sun signal the end of the day and I listen to the changeover of guards.

  Time keeps moving, slowly, carefully while I watch the world around me change and sit, silent, still, eyes only, just a number—1112

  ~

  ‘Hannah, these are just a few of our problems,’ Anhar stated.

  ‘I know,’ I said. I didn’t know at all. I couldn’t begin to imagine real fear.

  There was another pause.

  Anhar stumbled over the broken English, ‘Hannah, I had to leave, you know, I cannot go back.’

  ‘You’ll be out soon,’ I whispered. I hoped, but it wasn’t what I thought. I thought months, many months, maybe a year or maybe …

  Hope to Survive

  by Zana Mujezinovic, aged 17

  We hadn’t eaten for seven days since we were captured and that house in sight might have been a good sign of some food or at least water that hadn’t been poisoned. We got off those buses. There were eleven of them full of women and children. As we followed the drivers and some of the men who waited there for us, I didn’t know where to turn to any more. Those dark-dirty walls that made the house look dead and scary on one side and on the other side a wall with shining daylight pushing through tiny holes. The floor was covered with crushed glass. It seemed like it was telling us something, maybe something we all waited for. Better said, we didn’t know what to wait for any more. Was it survival or death? The walls might have been telling us something but which side do we choose: the dark one or the other dark one with a little light that was like a sign of survival? Maybe in the end our destiny would be chosen by others and not by us.