Boatpeople

Another wave of boatfuls of refugees are coming and Mr Abbott and Ms Gillard are turning into real sad headcases.

What can I say about this?

Imagine you are a university professor, married, 2 kids, living in your home then "the revolution" start. And the bad people come. They burn your house, rape your wife. You have no weapons. You cannot fight with your books. You run away to the coast with your kids with the money you saved. You must get the people smuggler to get you out. You cannot build or buy a boat yourself. You don't have any idea where to, but you must get out because your homeland is no longer a safe place. Now, what would YOU do when this professor and his kids get "smuggled" here? The fact that he could pay to get on a boat does not mean he is safe in his homeland.

Thank God for the people smugglers! And for the dinky canoes they shoved the poor refugees on and set them out to perilous seas. Yes! Without these bastards and their ruthless money grabbing schemes, I'd be long dead and buried in a nameless grave somewhere in Cambodia!

Yep. I was one of those boat people from Vietnam in the 1970-80s. I was 16, unable to do well at school because of my family's "counter-revolutionary background", and on the verge of getting conscripted to go and fight the Khmer Rouge with a rusty AK-47. My parents were desperate. They had to go the way many other Vietnamese parents did at the time.

They had to find money and worked very hard to get contact with the people smugglers. They sent each of their children out, one or two at a time. They watched their kids going away with total strangers, into some small boats and then their kids vanished. They waited for months or years for a telegram from Thailand or Malaysia. Half of the time, they'd never get the news - good or bad. Their kids had 50% chance of making it to a free country. The other 50%? They would disappear forever, with no news. Never a confirmation of death. Just simply no news.

I have a son. Liem is nealry 7 now. I don't know if I could ever have the guts to let him go on one of those boats. The pain would be so enormous that I'd probably die. But I am not in my parents shoes, watching me and my brothers and sisters growing up and getting "killed" slowly in a country ruled by a bunch of know-it-all illiterates with ruthless vengeance.

Now I live in Sydney, happily. I can't remember very well the hunger I had in My Tho prison where I spent 6 months after being caught escaping on a small boat. I still see the faint scars of scabies on my skin, but they stopped hurting long time ago.

But I remember the fear in my sister's eyes every time the Siamese pirates on their large fishing vessels approached our dinky canoe during our 8 days trip on the sea, from Vietnam to Malaysia.

I don't know much of why the Pakistani or Iranian refugees had to come to our shore on these boats. What I know is, they would not leave their homeland just because Australia has the best beaches in the world. They leave their parents and relatives behind and risk their lives and their childrens lives because of only one thing. A place where you can live without fear.

You most likely would not know what it feels like living in fear and in a neighbourhood where you cannot trust anyone. It's a mad mad thing to be in. You fear everyone, even your best school friend. My brother was so scared when he received the "congratulation letter" for being conscripted to join the war in Cambodia. Of course he went into hiding.

Fear is an incredibly sickening feeling. I remember my brother's face as he climbed down form the roof of our house, shivering with fear and soaking wet from the rain. He had to stay and hide up there for 5 hours while my parents convinced the Viet Cong police that their son had disappeared. My brother was 18. He escaped soon after that day. Now he lives in Germany.

I later found out it was my best friend who told the police that he saw my brother in our house that day. This guy had the gut to contact me on facebook the other day. It is amazing how people can forget. I can't.

So before you switch off the news, get off your comfy couch to refill the wineglass, don't mumble some vague obscenity about these poor refugees. Perhaps you should spend some time getting to know one of them.