In conversation with Behrouz Boochani and Simon V Kurian

Transcript – In-conversation with Behrouz Boochani and Simon V Kurian

SARA: Wow. What an extraordinary film. It's such a searing indictment on Australia's abuse of people seeking asylum, as well as a powerful depiction of the enduring resistance and humanity of those who have been forced to endure this system of imprisonment and banishment, and in particular, the story and struggles of one man, Behrouz Boochani. My name is Sara Dehm I'm an academic here in at the UTS Faculty of Law, and I'll be moderating tonight's panel discussion. It's my absolute honor and pleasure to welcome to the stage Behrouz Boochani and Simon Kurian to join me in conversation, please take a seat. [Applause]

Thank you. So, let me begin by acknowledging that we are in Gadigal Country, to pay my respects to Gadigal Elders past and present, and to acknowledge the sovereignty resistance, leadership and survival of First Nations, people across these lands and waters for today's event. 

I think it's particularly important to acknowledge that First Nations people have also been harmed by Australia's border regime and immigration prisons, and that the struggle for refugee freedom and justice is connected to the struggles of First Nations people for self-determination and justice. 

Before we begin tonight's panel discussion, I'll also flag that each of you have received a postcard on your seat in relation to UTS humanitarian Scholarship Program. This program is really unique in terms of its size and scope and is necessary, because otherwise many of these students would be unable to access Commonwealth Supported places or government loan schemes due to their visa status. The program covers not only tuition fees, but also provides comprehensive support beyond such fees, including the education costs, as well as a range of peer academic and industry mentoring. Earlier this year, the program was also expanded to offer four additional places in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine, including for Palestinian students fleeing the ongoing genocide in Gaza who are now in Australia, we would not be able to run this program without the generous support of donors. 

If you are in a position to donate, you can find information on the postcard. And so as essential as it is that universities step in to rectify this particular injustice of federal law and policy, I think it's important that we don't lose sight of our responsibility as members of Australian universities and the Australian public more generally, to keep insisting on law reform and policy change so that all students from refugee backgrounds, irrespective of visa status, can access government support to pursue further tertiary opportunities in Australia. 

But of course, this denial of tertiary education rights operates within a larger punitive environment towards people seeking asylum in Australia, as we've just seen in this remarkable film. As many of you would know, Australia has had a law and intermittent policy of offshore, so called ‘offshore’ immigration detention or prisons for over two decades now. The film that we just saw depicted the second phase of this period - the reintroduction of offshore detention from 2012 onwards, which means that when Australia reintroduced offshore detention, they did so, or the government did so knowing fully well the catastrophic human consequences of this policy, as well as that, it systematically violates core principles of international law, and yet it also continues to this day. So, whilst the film that we just watched ends in around 2020 when Behrouz and others finally managed to find some freedom. And even though Australia formally ended its so-called offshore detention agreement with PNG in December of 2021 there are still around 50 refugees and asylum seekers in PNG, who Australia forcibly deported there over ten years ago, and who now live some alongside their partner and children, partners and children in incredibly dire and deteriorating life-threatening conditions with little or no state support. In addition, since September 2021, Australia and Nauru agreed to renew and make permanent their offshore detention arrangement, and in fact, there are currently around 94 people seeking asylum in Nauru today who Australia sent, and they're forcibly sent there in the last year. So, this means that the policy and harms that you saw depicted in the film are very much ongoing so on that sobering note, let me introduce our esteemed guests, Behrouz Boochani And Simon Kurian. 

I'll be incredibly brief. Behrouz will need very little introduction to all of you. He's, of course, an acclaimed Kurdish writer, journalist, scholar, advocate and filmmaker whose extraordinary book rightly was awarded Australia's most prestigious Literary Award in 2019. Simon is an award-winning film director, editor and Director of Photography. In addition to the film we just watched, Simon's other documentaries include STOP THE BOATS, that depicts the harm of harms of Australia's militarized border policing. His works have won several awards and have been in official selections of many film festivals.

So, welcome to you both. We'll speak for approximately 20 minutes, followed by some time for audience questions. And I'd like to start off by exploring the making of this extraordinary film. So, Simon you and Behrouz started working together on your STOP THE BOATS film when Behrouz was still in Manus prison, and then you decided to collaborate on this current feature film that we just watched, not knowing what would happen or how things would unfold for Behrouz or your collaboration, or indeed, Australia's refugee law and policy. So, can you share with us your reflections on the making of this film, and in particular, the specific impetus for the project, as well as some of its challenges and highlights.

SIMON: Hi everyone. Thank you for coming and thank you for coming to watch the film. Yeah, to start with, like I was working with Behrouz since I think 2015 when I first contacted him in Manus to shoot some stuff for me for the STOP THE BOATS, my first film. And we've been working together for, you know, four years on that film, and in 2018 I thought now that film was telling the broader story from both from Nauru and Manus. I wanted to hear from Behrouz because he's one man who brought this story to Australia constantly through his articles, more than anyone else. Because of Behrouz, people were more aware of what was happening in Manus, because often these sent away from a country is forgotten. People don't hear the stories. And Behrouz, single handedly, brought that constantly through his journalism, so I thought it's appropriate to tell the story from his point of view. And of course, there are many challenges. The first challenge being, how, you know, How? When do we start? When do we finish the film? So, this the question Behrouz posed to me and said, okay, he said, he's, he wants to make the film, but when do we stop filming? When do we act? I said, ‘We'll finish the film, no matter how long it takes when you get freedom.’ So that that's how you started. And of course, there are plenty of challenges, because Behrouz being in Manus, you know, and this now added challenge, because for STOP THE BOATS, Behrouz was filming for me. Now he became the subject, so we needed to find other people to film him. So, we had to find other, you know, detainees, who were willing to help us. And we found one or two, and they managed to film, and then we had to, you know, bring the footage to Australia. And because consider that Behrouz is in detention, and he has tremendous pressure on him, on various other things, and more than anything, is freedom. And in between, you're asking him to, you know, make a film, it's a big challenge. So, the process is fairly slow, but, you know, little by little we managed to put in get enough footage out of there, and then I was able to follow Behrouz to New Zealand, and then in 2020 Behrouz got his claim, and that's how we did this. Yeah.

SARA: Amazing. Thank you. There is, you've spoken about collaborations like this as acts of resistance and solidarity. What was your experience of making the film and in particular, building trust with Simon around the collaboration all the while you're facing the very real ongoing, daily struggles of being in detention, limits on communication, but also more broadly, thinking about questions around your own sort of authorial voice in the film and creative integrity as a filmmaker yourself.

BEHROUZ: Thank you very much. Hi everyone. I'd think working with refugees, especially inside the detention centre, is really challenging already, because people who approach refugees approach detainees to do any kind of project. It can be an academic, it can be a writer, it can be an artist or filmmaker. Already is a challenge, because there is a power dimension there. And most of refugees who've been approached by people mostly from Australia, and especially for me, because I met many people via internet, and I work with many people. So, is it challenging? Because people who approach refugees, they already have an image about you as a refugee, so they see you less. That is the first thing. That is the first challenge. Or, of course, they are free. And so, I think for people who approach refugees, they should be always aware of that power dimension. But for me, it was not only that. For me, was to work with people who understand the context intellectually, understand the different layers of it, you know, understand the colonialism context of this policy. So, when someone approached me, yeah, I think I easily trusted in him as a person with a good heart, as a person, who I felt that we are equal and as a person, he was skilful as a filmmaker. So that's why. So that was the first film, and the second one, when he approached me about this story that was quite challenging for me, because I've been writing about others for many years, and that then I became a subject, but I trusted in him, and we worked together, and he made the film. 

SARA: Thank you. You mentioned power dynamics on an interpersonal level as well as systemic level in terms of colonialism and the prison system. Behrouz, I want to ask you, or draw you out a little bit more around this question of power dynamics. So, one of the things I think your work does, so importantly, is to show how Australia's offshore prisons are a form of torture in terms of their cruelty and attempted dehumanization. And in your book, you theorize this as the kyriarchal system with its logic of domination and domestication, which deliberately punishes, oppresses and inflicts suffering on people in prison there. And you've written so powerfully about the everyday violence of the queue in Manus prison, whether it's for meals or internet, and how this tries to create conflict between detainees or deny people food, for example. And yet we saw in the film how you found ways to collectively endure and resist this system. And I think there's a really powerful moment in the film from November 2017 where you talk about it as being a happy situation, because finally, the system doesn't have the same control over you when the you got together and occupied Manus prison. So, from your perspective, what did it take for refugees to come together in that way, and how do you reflect upon that particular moment now?

BEHROUZ: Yeah. Yeah, I think, of course, it's a very long story, long history, but always I say that actually, what we've done, or I myself, and people that I've been working with, we've been trying to, of course, expose the system. But link with the political context in Australia. So that's I was always aware of it, that we shouldn't talk about Manus as a like separated from Australia. Always I've been trying to bring Manus to political context in Australia, and analyse it here and try to understand it from here, because we were banished by Australia, and the system was designed by Australia and was running by Australia. So of course, in all of my works, always, I try to create that link. So, our work was generally, I say, to create a space for that collective resistance that I always talk about it to be here to make refugees visible and but in Manus, we have a very long history of collective resistance, and some moments were very important. For example, in 2014 when we did a riot. Actually, ended up in a riot in end of 2015 when we did the hunger strike, 600 men. And in 2017 during the siege, when they want to relocate us to other side of the island, and we refuse to leave, and we stay there for more than 20 days without medication, food, water, electricity, nothing, but we manage it. I think it's really important. In these particular moments we see the agency of refugees, because it's not easy to bring all of the detainees together to do like a protest. So, we had to like any kind of society or community. We had to run a campaign inside the prison camp, talk with different people, to bring people together that it and also we had to manage the right time we were looking at Australian politics, for example, we had to look at the like, when the federal election is the date. You know, what is happening in Australia. If we do it now, we achieve more. So, I mean, that is the agency, you know, that is a political like we were very political. So that's people who watch or look from outside. They really don't see that process is going on inside the prison camp. And I think it's really important that when we go back and look at it, we see those moments and understand it. But in the particularly in the siege in 2017 when we just woke up and all of Australian guards left, and we had no water, no food, nothing and we managed for 20 days. But actually those moments, those days, were very difficult, but I think we were quite free for the first time, because, and, you know, there is, there is an article I wrote about it, actually a letter from Manus prison that I tried to explain those 20 days that how it was important and how we created the like a democratic community or society in those 22 days. So, there is more details about that in that article, if people find it actually, I've published another book in 2022 Freedom only Freedom, which is the collection of my articles. Not all of them, some of them. So, yeah, this article is there as. 

SARA: It was such incredible reporting that you were doing at the time. And also remember your use of Twitter and social media in order to speak directly about your campaign to people who were in Australia and elsewhere. There is elsewhere you've spoken about the limits of journalism as a medium for understanding the system, systematic torture of Manus prison, and the need to turn to other forms of creative expression for conveying the horrors of that system and for articulating a systemic critique. So I'm interested in hearing both your and Simon's reflections on the power of film and storytelling, or visual storytelling as a sort of particular genre for of truth telling and advocacy, particularly knowing that refugees are so often forced to tell their stories to official asylum determination processes like you had to do in New Zealand, and that these stories can, at times, be turned against refugees as well. So, what does the medium of film enable for both of you, that's distinct from other genres, such as writing or poetry or journalism. What were you hoping to achieve through the film? But also, what were some of the ethical considerations that you discussed in making the film? So, Simon, would you like to go first? 

SIMON: Well, for me making this film, I've always was very sure that when I make touch any subject that it should always be the voice from the people who are in the film, not an external voice. So that's that I was very particular about, that both of my films STOP THE BOATS and this and also I was very conscious that I'm recording a part of Australia's very dark history. And that should not be just a film that screened a few times here and there and then disappears. You know, I made a film and that just goes away. So, I released, STOP THE BOATS in 2018 and it's still continuing to screen. I still push to screen the film, because that is really, really relevant to keep this subject alive. Because, as you said, rightly said, everybody says ‘Oh, now Manus is closed. Manus is closed. Therefore, everything is back to normal’ and especially when the new the recent election, they said ‘Oh, everything is fine.’ But the policy has not changed. It's still there. So tomorrow, if about a lot of people come in, they're going to face similar prospect. So, this is a reminder, because when I first made my film, STOP THE BOATS, I titled it STOP THE BOATS. A lot of the refugee advocacy people wrote to me and said they will not see the film because I used the three word, ugly three words I said, ‘I'm using it to remind Australians constantly. This is what you said. This is what you did with those three words, slogans.’ And the purpose of making this film is these two films is like to make sure that stays relevant, it continues. And these are the voices directly coming. I mean, it's not my voice, it's Behrouz’s voice in my previous film. It's the voice of the detainees, the children in in so those even 10 years, 15 years from now, the newer generation should know. I mean, as you know what happened since, I don't remember John Howard, the Tampa the year, where you know what he said and what happened since. So again, this is a simple policy, simple issue that taken up by the politicians to use for political purpose and convert it into complicate it. Because simply, what does it say? Refugee can come by boat, swim, whatever form. This is what they signed on to, and they come to our shore and say, give us protection. There's one obligation Australia had processed them, not to put them in jail if they are not refugees. They had the, you know, the means to deal with that. But instead of that, they when the, you know, the ugly part of it was, I think it's racist. The policy was designed as a racist policy. Had it been a bunch of Europeans coming by boat, they probably would have been welcomed with tea and crumpets. You know, instead of that, these people were sent to and banishing people offshore often is take the story away from Australia so you don't hear it. So, this is, this is what is happening. And I don't like injustice, so I wanted to tell make this film. As truthful as I can.

SARA: Behrouz, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that?

BEHROUZ: Actually, I've been quite moving between different languages to tell this story, to expose the system, like writing, like literature, journalism, even photography. But I think cinema is quite special, because they send us to Manus and Nauru to be out of sight. So, I think cinema is a powerful language to make people visible. Make this the story visible. And also, you know what Simon has done in his two films, to humanize people against the system that actually designed to dehumanize people. And I don't think that in other medium, like writing, we can do that. Of course, we can do it in but cinema, you know, visual story, and I think that's why it's very powerful. Yeah, so I just mentioned my film as well. Choco, please tell us the time. I don't know that you watch it or not. That is another film that we made with Arash, commonly starved. 

SARA: Thank you. There is you've spoken elsewhere about your duty to history and how important that is particularly or to tell history from the viewpoint of the persecuted or oppressed, particularly in the face of successive Australian Government's attempts to deny the harms of offshore prisons and even to dismantle Manus prison physically, to sort of erase the trace of it. And you've emphasized the ongoing responsibility of all Australians to be informed about what our government is doing in our name, and continues to do so with that in mind. Could you both briefly before we open up to audience questions? Give us a sense of your current sort of creative or scholarly or advocacy projects, whether it's working to demand accountability or to achieve or to archive, sorry, the harms of offshore detention or to inspire social change varies.

BEHROUZ: I just actually, I say that many times, but I'm not agree with that fully. Please agree to what I say that it is a duty to history. Of course, these works remain, and people in future generations can, you know, return to these works and find them and have a better understanding. But what is the point? You know, we've been writing and working to expose the system, to create a change for people who are currently suffering under this system, so that for people who've been detained, who've been banished. They don't care about history. They don't care what will happen in the future, how people in the future feel sorry, or can get a lesson from this, you know, in the past. So, I think that's why I myself. I say that many times, but I am not agreeing to what I say. Sometimes I say differently. It's so interesting. Just briefly I mentioned last year I visited the Tasmania, and I accidentally I visited the prison Port Arthur prison in Tasmania. And many people were there, like as a tourist, they felt so sorry. You could see about the convicts, convicts who suffered on that time. Of course, we should feel sorry for that. But I was thinking that, you know, in the right time, right now, there are the tension all around Australia that people are suffering. Why people don't care? Why we should just feel sorry for the history, you know. So that's why I think we shouldn't really romanticize the history. And we see that Australia has didn't get lesson from history. That is another point, you know. So that's why I have quite problem with what I see. It.

SIMON: What am I doing? Yeah, basically, I keep pushing these two films to the wider audience as possible. I mean, to be honest with you, I made these two films with the intention not the audience who have already converted, but the others. But it's a very hard task to get them to come and watch and when they do come and watch it, either they heckle or some of them get converted. So, one of the things that we want to continue to do is push these films as much as possible. And you ask me what I'm doing next, because I'm on to another subject, which is an LGBT issue that I'm making a film in India about the transgender and LGBT in India that's been going on for now three years. So hopefully we should finish that in the next year or so. So that's what we're doing.

SARA: That sounds like a remarkable film as well that I look forward to watching. So, I think this is an ideal spot to open up to audience questions in order to maximize our panellists’ ability to respond to those questions. We ask that you keep your questions as brief as possible, and perhaps we'll gather two questions and then throw it over to Behrouz and Simon to respond, and then we'll proceed like that. So, there's some roving microphones. I should also note that we are recording the discussion tonight, so please just flag with us afterwards if you don't want your question to be included in that recording. So does anyone have a question? Yeah, please. So there's a microphone coming.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Hi, thanks again, and thanks for being here, Behrouz, that was really incredible viewing. I'll keep it quick. I just saw that you had several books with you when you're in detention, and I just wanted to ask what literature has inspired you and what literature you were reading in detention.

BEHROUZ: In detention, it was quite difficult to read books, especially at the first years, because we, you know, it was difficult. The internet was too slow, so you really couldn't read books. But a particular book that I mentioned is the book that written by Dostoyevsky when he was banished to Siberia. Yeah, I can remember that book, but yeah, once I was walking the prison, I found Harry Potter read that as well as, like, a hard copy. But later, I think, after like four years, they let us to receive letters or books or this kind of thing. I received books from France.

SARA: Thank you. Anyone else with another question? 

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: In the film, some of the men that you were obviously had relationships with because you'd been in there for so long. Do you still keep in contact with them? And have they been reunited with their families?

BEHROUZ: Yeah, I think that's a very good question. So right now, you mentioned 50 people remain, but actually 32 people remain, and they are just slowly sending them to mostly New Zealand. So, from like 950 people, 30 people remained, 32 in Port Moresby. But people in the film, yeah, I am in touch with some people. It's, of course, hard to stay in touch with everyone. And one of them actually the guy, who did shooting for us. He got citizenship last week in us, yeah, and another one, yeah, just people, different people, you know, different stories, another friend. He is being transferred to Canada, but last week, he met his family for the first time, but in Turkey, so he went back to Canada, hopefully that he'd be able to. Take his family to Canada in six, seven months.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: Thank you. Thank you very much for coming. That's wonderful film, and great to hear you. Heard so much about you over many years, various you're in Australia now. How was that emotional journey in Australia, coming to Australia,

BEHROUZ: I can't say the most challenging time for me two years ago when I came to Australia for the first time, it was in the Melbourne Airport. When I arrived there, I was thinking that might I'm wrong. I feel that I've done quite a lot about this story, but I'm wrong, because I just imagined Australia. That was the first time I visited Australia. Even when I came to Australia, they didn't let us in, they just banished us. So that was the moment. Was quite challenging, but when I passed the gate, actually the officer in the gate, he recognized me and said, ‘Oh, that's good sign.’ So when I passed the gates, yeah, no, I think it was not challenging. I know that some people say that. Why you visited a country that banished you or like that. But always I said, you know that collective resistance that I mentioned, I don't mean only refugees, people who've been working with refugees as well, people like Omit, like Simon. I say that I work with good side of Australia against the dark side of Australia, so I don't look at it black and white. So that's why I think it's not fair that we reject the whole country or whole society, yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 4: Firstly, thank you so much for being here. It's an absolute honor to be in your presence. You have a very beautiful and powerful voice. Mashallah, I wanted to ask if you have any plans in the future to use your voice in that way, to tell your story.

BEHROUZ: I think I am working on some projects that are not about refugees, because I look at it as again, as a kind of resistance as well, because you know, when you in the Western culture, the if doesn't matter who you are, if you be a minority, they always put you in a box, and they only accept you in that box that you should just tell your story. So that means that I am supposed to just write about refugees forever. Of course, I write about refugees. I feel responsible. I should write, or still I'm writing, but I do other things as well. Like, you know, these days, I write fiction stories that they are not absolutely know about refugees, so that's why I do different projects. But so that's why I'm not going to tell my story in that way. But regarding music only is here we met each other. I think it was two years ago in Bali in a festival. So he's a pianist. We met each other. So it was supposed that I come here and we go to his studio to record something. But I was lazy. I was not proper, yeah, but I promised him that we, you know, in two months, I will send him some I record something and I send it to him that he work on it, yeah, I just do it for fun, just for myself. I like it, yeah, I

SARA: think we have time for one final question. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: It's on, Hi Behrouz. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you Simon for being here. And from film, got the book from when my question is, if you could, my request is, if you could speak to just a little bit about that freedom when you did finally get it. How did that feel, I guess. And did you find anything surprising at all? And my second question is, what would if we wanted to do something for the people that are still detained? What would you suggest we do?

BEHROUZ: Yeah, I think I remember a particular moment when I arrived in New Zealand in the airport. So, it took quite an hour that they let me pass the gate because I didn't have a proper documentation. And when I passed the gate, I can say that I was about to cry, and that was the moment that I never forget, because for a second, I had the chance, for the first time, after many years, to look at back, you know, all of those years passing the ocean. All of you know, for many years, I didn't have an opportunity to look at the past because I had to keep going. So, I didn't have a chance to and I think that was that moment was very interesting, that I become quite emotional. Someone with the camera was there and they recorded it. But I don't know that people realized that, but it was hard for me, really to manage it. So that moment and another question that what people should do, I think, of course, you can support people you know, like people who are in Port, Moresby, 30 people, you know, I know by donation or like that. But in terms of, you know, the academics, people who are researchers, I think it's really important that we created the body of work, not only me. You know many people, many refugees. And really, we create the, I can say, our unique resistance knowledge. And I think that's really important. As an academic, you can use those materials, bring those materials into the you know, your research, I think, is really important. That's something, because in end of the day, we were people or someone like me. I was in a remote island, and I was watching Australia all the time, and I was experienced violence by a system that created by Australia. So of course, our political perspective, our understanding of Australia, it can be unique. You know, that's why, not only refugees, the minorities in the society. You know, because in end of the day, we produce the most radical like fundamental knowledge to create change, because we experience the dark side of liberal democracy, not others. So that's why we always think to find a way to create change, you know. So I think in terms of refugees, there is a body of work. Is a huge body of works, books, films, you know, poetry, and it's really important as an academic, just, you know, use those materials,

SARA: What a powerful and instructive note to end our discussion on. So, I'm sure you'll all agree that it's been an absolute honor being able to host and welcome Behrouz And Simon here and to listen to them in conversation. So please join me in thanking them for tonight's discussion. Thank you. [Applause]