EXTENDING OUR DEEPEST SYMPATHY
Dear Editor,
The appalling massacre of people at prayer at the Mosques in Christchurch has sent a shudder of fear across Muslim communities throughout New Zealand and Australia.
The Shepparton Interfaith Network extends its deepest sympathy and regret to Muslims in New Zealand first of all, but also to the local Muslim communities and Mosques in the Goulburn Valley area.
Muslims have been members of the Shepparton community for 100 years now. Their contributions to the wider community here in business, agriculture, local government and the professions have been crucial to the development of our proudest achievement – the vibrant and tolerant multiculturalism which is part of Shepparton life.
We pray that this brutal massacre of innocent children, women and men will strengthen, not undermine, our commitment to the building of a tolerant, multi-faith multicultural community throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Yours sincerely,
Frank Purcell
Shepparton Interfaith Network president
I REMAIN DISTURBED
Dear Editor,
I have just read the book that won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for 2019 (Victorian Prize for Literature) written by Behrouz Boochani and translated by Omid Tofighian.
Behrouz book titled ‘No friend but the Mountains’ was written from Manus Island where he still spends his days as an inmate. This book was thumbed on a phone and smuggled out of Manus in the form of thousands of text messages.
Reading this book was difficult and emotionally disturbing as it challenged my very beliefs that Australia was a land of decency, kindness, generosity and ‘a fair go.’ None of these quantities are evident in Boochani’s accounts of hunger, squalor, beatings and abuse. We can only be seen as the ‘ugly Australians’ by the world in general. We have surrendered our right to criticise other countries for their inhumane treatment of fellow human beings.
Prisoners are controlled by the instigation of a Kyriarchal System. This is a system built around domination, oppression and submission. Behrouz Boochani describes the Australian run Manus Island Detention Centre as a Kyriarchal system where different forms of oppression intersect. Oppression is not random but purposeful, designed to isolate and creates friction amongst prisoners leading to despair and broken spirits. Any games are prohibited.
We have been influenced by our government’s propaganda relating to these desperate refugees as we accept our government’s word that these refugees are illegal and probably murders and child abusers. We are now offered an insight from a very intelligent prisoner and a magnificent writer as he shows us the other side of this horrific prison.
I would challenge those people who support the imprisonment of legal refugees to read this book and then to say to me that these people deserve this deprivation. This is a must read for all our supposed leaders especially members of our two major political parties who use this situation for their own political point scoring.
I remain disturbed.
Yours sincerely,
Carole R. Trotter
Shepparton
