Past shows need for Australia to show more compassion - 7th September 2015

Past shows need for Australia to show more compassion

September 7, 2015 11:53pm

Theo TheophanousHerald Sun

A man carries his child as they land on Greek island Lesbos. Picture: AFP

WHY should Australia accept more refugees of war? Let me recount a very personal story and then you decide.

It is World War II and the German army has occupied Greece, including the islands, after a series of fierce battles in which many Greeks lost their lives.

My mother, Maria, with 20 others, has been hiding in a cave on a shore on the island of Chios.

They are waiting for a boat that will take them to Turkey. It is the middle of the night when the boat arrives.

It has to be at night. The German army patrols the shoreline on the little island and anyone caught trying to escape is executed.

The boat is old and designed to take only six. But they all scramble on. Anything is better than the brutal treatment handed out by the Nazis.

All the food stocks on the island have been confiscated. The young men are forced to work to exhaustion to support the German army.

The older residents and children forage the barren countryside for wild greens to survive.

In the village Maria had watched as her father refused to eat his own meagre portions in order to give her something to keep her alive.

He slowly died of hunger, one of 300,000 Greeks who perished during the famine caused by the German occupation.

Barely alive, she knows she must escape the brutality and the hunger no matter how high the risk of a boat journey to Turkey.

So more than 70 years ago, my mother pulled herself into a rickety boat and in circumstances of indescribable terror set off with the others hoping to get through the German lines to Turkey.

When I see today’s refugees now going in the opposite direction, from Turkey to the Greek islands, I am filled with despair at the recurring inhumanity of what is happening today.

The UNHCR estimates that more than three million Syrians have fled in a desperate attempt to escape war.

Australia, meanwhile, has reduced its refugee intake from 20,000 to 13,750 and now ranks 49th in the world in terms of intake.

The Prime Minister’s latest move, to accept more from Syria without increasing the overall quota, is simply robbing Peter to pay Paul.

But back to Maria. When she got into that rickety old boat, she was 19 and she held in her arms a girl of five who had no family and who knew only fear and hunger.

That is the reality of war.

Slowly the boat edged towards Turkey, half drifting and with the men taking turns to use two broken old paddles. Every wave washed a little more water into the boat and increased the terror.

Maria could not swim and neither could the girl with her. If the boat sank, they would both surely drown and perhaps be washed up on some unknown shore.

The images of Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body being washed up on a beach has shocked and moved the world, and for many boat refugees like my mother it is a reminder of how little has changed.

By the time Maria could see the shores of Turkey, there were eight men desperately hanging on from the side of the boat. Six began swimming to the shore.

Four were of Jewish background who had been targeted by the Gestapo for transportation to the concentration camps.

Maria didn’t see those men again, and not knowing if they survived haunted her all her life.

The boat drifted until, with a crash, it lodged itself between two rocks close enough to the coast so the refugees could get to shore.

They scrambled up the coastline and spent the night wondering what the Turkish army would do to them.

They were wet, cold and hungry. My mother told me it was the longest night of her life.

Somehow she had managed to keep a small orange under her clothing and with the girl she went behind a rock to eat it.

Everyone was hungry and it was such a small orange. But Maria still felt guilty that she had not shared it with the other survivors.

Maria and the other refugees were picked up by the Turkish army and transported to Cesme, a city on the coast.

Turkey had maintained a semi-neutral position during the war, originally favouring the Axis powers and gradually moving to support the Allies at the end of the war.

During that period of relative neutrality, Turkey allowed Greek refugees to be moved from camps in Turkey to Cyprus. My mother arrived as a refugee in Cyprus, where she met my father.

Poverty then drove them to leave Cyprus with their young family to immigrate to Australia for a better life and my own destiny was also set.

I understand why Prime Minister Tony Abbott wants to maintain the “stop the boats” policy, but why extend that to refusing to expand our refugee intake when we are contributing to the world refugee crisis through our military actions?

Abbott must make us proud to be Australians. He must lead us in opening our hearts to more refugees fleeing the brutality of war. That is what Australia is truly founded upon.

Were he to adopt such a policy, my mother, if she was alive today, might even be tempted to vote for him. 

Theo Theophanous is a former Labor state government minister