Remembering refugees – the humanity behind the headlines
- deansimpson7
- Jun 17
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 17
BY ANTHONY CASTLE
I remembered to speak with a friend recently. I had intended to contact them in the lead up to Refugee Week but failed. My friend is an advocate who has worked for the freedom of people seeking asylum, and migrants, for 15 years. Australian policies continue to utilise detention and deterrence against many people seeking asylum, and I was hoping to ask her about the issue. I had not, however, for one simple reason: I forgot.
It seems sometimes that it is becoming easier to forget things. We live in an age of information saturation and constant disruption. Studies have found that attention spans have shortened over the last 20 years, with memory declining alongside frequent use of multiple forms of media. In many ways, the same platforms and smartphones that drive us to remember things can cause us to forget them as well.
Moving on? While the refugee issue was once an overwhelming part of Australia’s media noise and news cycle, many seem to have moved on. The arrival of boats and failures of offshore detention were breaking news in years past. While those who arrive by boat are still threatened with, and may be subject to, mandatory detention offshore, we don’t hear about it as much. While a decision by the government in 2023 enabled 19,000 refugees to apply for permanency in Australia, there are still many who have no chance to prove their refugee status. The issue never really went away.
REFUGEE WEEK RESOURCES ON MY SALVOS: click here
Perhaps this has less to do with technology and as much to do with the difficulty of the issue itself. The harms of mandatory offshore detention are well-documented, with a record of neglect, assault, child abuse, and 14 deaths. The debate is also polarising and can bring out the worst in political divisions. It might be hard to remember all this, but I wonder about what else we forget in the process.
There is a passage in Scripture, an instruction woven into the story of the Exodus: You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21, New Living Translation).
This command exists within a particular biblical narrative, but has relevance for us, too. It instructs us to show compassion to those who come here, to work for their freedom, but also to remember that we ourselves may have similar stories.
Some on these lands are First Peoples, with a sovereignty that goes back 60,000 years. Others have a story here that begins with the arrival of Europeans following colonisation or the advent of immigration following World War II. In fact, one in three current Australians were born overseas and almost half of Australians have a parent born in another country.
The real story
I remember to speak with my friend and ask them why we forget, about those still in detention, still with no certainty, and about our own histories. There are reasons, they explain; the issue has changed over time. The debate about those seeking asylum, and specifically those arriving by boat, can harm the vulnerable. My friend suggests that the point is not to return to the days of noise and news cycles, but to remember the people seeking asylum. Not to remember the ‘refugee issue’, but to continue to remember the people at the heart of it.
This year, Refugee Week expands on its theme of Finding Freedom, and we shouldn’t forget the importance of this issue. While there were fewer than five children left in immigration detention at the end of last year, there were still 979 people in these facilities, and there are up to 10,000 people seeking asylum here who have no certainty or pathway forward.
The Salvation Army has long recognised that the ability to seek asylum is a basic human right, and advocates for the freedom and safety of all people. There is still work to do, no matter how hard. In an age of information saturation, let’s not forget, but rather focus on the real story: the humanity of those who come here, as many of us have come here before them.
