paradigm_shift people movement Autumn 2018 Edition 03
A publication produced by produced A publication ANU College of Asia & the Pacific & of Asia ANU College CRICOS Provider #00120C W E T Canberra ACT 2601 Australia AustralianThe National University HC Coombs Building #9 ANU College ofAsia & the Pacific
ANUasiapacific ANUasiapacific [email protected] 1800 620 032 asiapacific.anu.edu.au ANU College ofAsia & thePacific anu_asiapacific
Autumn 2018 Autumn
03 Edition people movement paradigm_shift
A publication produced by ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Introduction Regional snapshots
01 Dr Nicholas Farrelly 07 Professor Helen James Worlds in motion Urbanisation and rural development: interrogating changing socio-economic realities in contemporary Myanmar Politics, opportunity, trauma and regulation
08 Dr John Funston 02 Professor William Maley Malaysia and the Rohingya – Refugees, security and populism humanitarianism and domestic imperatives
03 Dr Ceclia Jacob 09 Dr Rizwana Shamshad Forced migration, early warning and the prevention of mass atrocities From persecution to safe haven? Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne
04 Dr Cynthia Banham 10 Assistant Professor Yasuko Hassall Kobayashi Apathy, the mistreatment of non‑citizens, and the problem with From non-immigrant country to de facto public accountability immigrant country: recent shifts in Japanese immigration policy
05 Susanna Price 11 Associate Professor Katerina Teaiwa Legislative paradigm shifts for involuntary people movement: Moving people, an update moving islands in Oceania
06 Dr Luke Bearup 12 Dr Sverre Molland Migrating to the blockchain: exploring Beyond anti-trafficking? Rethinking the implications for the recognition migration management in Asia of Others
13 Kirsty Anantharajah The achievements of the Manus Island resistance
The Australian National University does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented here are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University, its staff, or its trustees. 01 Autumn 2018
Dr Nicholas Farrelly Dr Nicholas Farrelly is the Associate Dean In 2017, the world was faced, yet again, by at ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the deeply troubling violence that often responsible for development and impact precipitates the largescale movement of our initiatives. In this role, he leads the College’s fellow human beings. In that case, almost engagement with a wide range of government, 700,000 Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim Worlds in motion business and civil society organisations. After minority from western Myanmar, fled their graduating from ANU in 2003 with First homes seeking sanctuary in Bangladesh. Class Honours and the University Medal in An enormous humanitarian response swung Asian Studies, he completed his M.Phil and into action, but most of the damage had D.Phil at Balliol College, University of been done. Villages burned to the ground, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. families torn apart. There are allegations Since 2011, he has held a number of key of rapes and murders too numerous to academic positions in the ANU College of comprehend. Myanmar government denials Asia and the Pacific, including as convenor have done little to convince sceptical of the Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours) audiences. Their unwillingness to allow program. His own academic research focuses independent investigators to undertake their on political conflict and social change in painstaking work in northern Rakhine State mainland Southeast Asia. He has examined these themes across the borderlands where has made it hard to start accounting for what Myanmar rubs against India, Bangladesh and happened during those turbulent, disastrous China. While studying these areas, Nicholas months. The reputation of Myanmar’s has continued to research, write and lecture State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, has about Thailand, a country at the heart of been shredded by her reticent and uncaring some of his oldest academic interests. response. Myanmar’s security agencies have big questions to answer, but the protection offered by Chinese and Russian diplomatic vetoes imply that growing calls for serious scrutiny will be elbowed aside. Dr Nicholas Farrelly Dr Nicholas The Rohingya – vulnerable, impoverished, unloved – are now huddled together in a thin strip of land between the Bay of Bengal and the mountains that cascade down from the north. As the monsoon rains and storms turn everything to mud, it is difficult to imagine a more miserable situation. On current trends, hundreds of thousands of these Rohingya will be stuck in Bangladesh with no apparent prospects for formal resettlement elsewhere. Some will take to the sea, hopeful of finding a better future somewhere else, Without implying that there is a borderless utopian maybe Malaysia or Indonesia. Others fix to today’s iniquitous landscape of population will strike out overland, looking for opportunities in India, or perhaps beyond. movement, it may be worth us all thinking harder
about what kind of connections we value, and Continues on next page how we can help to ensure that everyone gets the sort of movement that they deserve.
Worlds in motion 3 01 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
A lucky few might have a chance to fly out of That grim Rohingya predicament should Dhaka, throwing themselves on the mercy of encourage reflection on the contrasts and people smugglers and border officials. There contradictions of people movement today. For are no good options for the displaced Rohingya, billions of others, including me, the 21st century and even if a program of large-scale and has unleashed untold opportunities for well‑resourced resettlement to Myanmar is one unprecedented movement and interaction. day possible, there will always be the lingering At any given moment, there are almost prospect of further violence and, therefore, 10,000 planes above the earth. Together, future waves of migration and displacement. moment‑by‑moment, they are carrying well over one million people. It is a city in the sky. The darkness of this Rohingya conundrum That high technology part of this transport offers lessons about the inadequacy of policy equation naturally gets lots of attention, but responses to large-scale people movement. we should not pretend that it is only in modern Nobody was able or willing to stop the conveyances that people are on the move. persecution of the Rohingya which forced The boats from South and Southeast Asia them from their homes. And, once displaced, that have featured so prominently in the the Rohingya have found themselves caught past generation on the Australian political in grand geo-political and geo-cultural battles landscape will never go away. And then think which limit their chance of a positive outcome. of all the millions of buses, trains, trucks, and Formal mechanisms – whether grounded in more. With billions of cars, too. And then all international law, the practices of the United the people on bikes, on foot, crawling. The Nations, or the protocols of the Association volume of movement, everywhere, almost all of Southeast Asian Nations – all appear the time, is a spectacular aspect of the human inadequate. Political activism and advocacy, societies that we have created together. while it has come in many pro-Rohingya flavours, also seems to have failed, at each And the story keeps getting busier. If you step, to shift the equation to the advantage ever take a long walk through one of Asia’s of those now displaced from their homes. vast airports, it quickly becomes clear that Dr Nicholas Farrelly Dr Nicholas A longterm stalemate, with hundreds of our standard geographies – of connections to thousands of lives in the balance, is probable. obvious places, well-marked in pop culture In a world on the move, the Rohingya are and scholarly discussion – are only a fraction stuck: without citizenship, without much of the destinations on offer. Cities that we money, and without many friends. might consider well off-the-beaten-track now claim huge airports of their own, with the resulting flurry of back-and-forth, in-and‑out.
A longterm stalemate, with hundreds of thousands of lives in the balance, is probable. In a world on the move, the Rohingya are stuck: without citizenship, without much money, and without many friends.
4 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Worlds in motion 5 01 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
For many people, the government has not Inevitably, there are winners and losers. found the right balance. Some despair And much of what we have tended to that the longterm off-shore detention of understand of people movement has yet would-be asylum seekers is a black mark to fully catch up with the infrastructure against Australia’s record of providing a and technology at our disposal. In an era new life to those who need one. Others of the blockchain, artificial intelligence, fear that Australia’s capacity to absorb a and autonomous transportation, what larger population, particularly when people will the migration story become? arrive without official endorsement, is Answering this question will require too big a risk. Racism, particularly when further efforts to research and explore combined with hesitations about Muslim the deep connections and entanglements migrants, is a further bleak element of political of a world that continues to shift, often calculations. On such an emotive issue we dramatically, as its people get on the move. know that tempers fray easily. Many people With that in mind, our understanding of feel that there could be an easy fix, but only people movement needs to start and end if the politicians had greater courage. with the profoundly human dimensions The Australian situation, of political deadlock of this issue. The dire situation along the and resignation, helps to explain how such Myanmar-Bangladesh border, one that could ready resolutions are unlikely, perhaps prove intractable to the fixes proposed by impossible. The scale of people movement regional and global deal makers, reminds us today means that every aspect of life, in that conditions in Australia’s neighbourhood Australia and elsewhere, is in flux. Often, there are often unkind to the most vulnerable is no way of ‘fixing’ the situation. Looking populations. Minorities – ethnic, religious, around the Asia Pacific region, the implications sexual, physical, political and economic – Kate Ausburn/Flickr Kate of such assessments are clear. Millions have carved up into all manner of different cohorts, struggled across borders in the hope of present targets for stronger groups seeking future peace and prosperity. Over the past to flex their muscles. It is hardly a recipe Dr Nicholas Farrelly Dr Nicholas generation, Thailand alone has absorbed more for longterm stability. And where people Such well-ordered mass transportation, appreciate what people movement means for than two million migrants from Myanmar. In decide that they want to move, the world and flinging people hither-and-yon, is a revolution their longterm success and future prosperity. mega-hubs like Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, Australia will need effective ways to support in human affairs. It will take time for all the migrants do all of the jobs now deemed their ambitions, and perhaps to better share In Australia, migration remains a potent implications to become clear. Indeed, the public beneath the locals. China’s booming cities, of the opportunities that global transportation political issue, one on which views have health monitoring stations established over course, are awash with vast streams of rural to infrastructure can provide. At a time of such hardened markedly over the past generation. recent decades at many major airports are urban migrants. Every society has its story of stark disparity, some passports have a much The deaths, at sea, of asylum seekers, have just one weak signal of what may be to come. people taking the main chance and hitting the easier time travelling where their bearers forced recent Australian governments to road. As information circulates more widely, as need or want to go. Without implying that Other political and economic stories also implement policies that seek to break the infrastructure improves, and as the cost of long there is a borderless utopian fix to today’s need to be told. As the essays in this volume business models of those who promised distance travel plummets, one obvious outcome iniquitous landscape of population movement, explain, flashpoints across the Asia-Pacific desperate people a ticket to a better life on is the unprecedented shifting of human lives. it may be worth us all thinking harder about region encourage people to get on the move. these shores. Too many drowned at sea. what kind of connections we value, and how Some instances are dramatic and violent; Others are now hostage to the principle Making sense of these dynamics will never we can help to ensure that everyone gets they make for regular headlines. Others get that to accept resettlement in Australia will be straightforward, but, in this volume, we the sort of movement that they deserve. ignored: the product of great social, economic only entice further waves to try their luck have sought to understand and explain the and technological forces that play out on on the high seas. Australian politicians powerful forces at work. The pushes and pulls timescales unfit for tight media attention and policymakers have struggled to of the global migration economy are subtle spans. The intensity, scale and scope of human find adequate mechanisms to allay fear and often well hidden. There is much money movement this century needs concerted about being ‘swamped’ by unauthorised to be made for those who can manipulate attention, among scholars and across the policy arrivals while still meeting the country’s conditions in their favour, whether at the community. All political systems need to international and moral obligations. individual, communal or national level.
6 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Worlds in motion 7 Autumn 2018 02 Professor William Maley Professor William Maley is based at the In May 1939, a merchant vessel called the Australian National University’s Asia-Pacific M.S. St Louis embarked from Hamburg College of Diplomacy, and is author of for Cuba under the command of Captain What is a Refugee? (Oxford University Press, Gerhard Schröder. On board were 2016) and Transition in Afghanistan: Hope, over 900 Jewish refugees, carrying Refugees, security Despair and the Limits of Statebuilding with them memories of the so-called (Routledge, 2018). Professor Maley is a ‘Reichskristallnacht’, the horrendous Nazi Barrister of the High Court of Australia, pogrom of 9 November 1938 that had seen Vice-President of the Refugee Council of windows of Jewish shops smashed across and populism Australia, and a member of the Australian Germany by thuggish members of the Committee of the Council for Security brown-shirted Nazi paramilitary wing, the Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). He Sturmabteilung. But no one, as it turned is also a member of the Editorial Board of the out, was keen to welcome them. Turned journal Global Responsibility to Protect, and away from Havana, the St Louis headed for of the International Advisory Board of the Miami, but had no more luck. “The German Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination refugees”, said a US State Department at Princeton University. In 2002, Professor official, “must await their turn … before Maley was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). In 2009, he was they may be admissible to the United States”. elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Captain Shröder was forced to return with Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA). his passengers to Europe. Over a quarter of the passengers were subsequently murdered in the Holocaust. These events were chilling but not especially surprising. Antisemitism was quite common in the 1930s, and at a July 1938 conference held in Evian, France, to address the plight of German Jews, the Australian representative T.W. White, infamously remarked that
“as we have no real racial problem, we William Maley Professor are not desirous of importing one”.
A sense of guilt about the treatment of Jewish refugees in the 1930s, and about the bureaucratic rigidities that left them fatally exposed, underpinned the wording of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and especially Article 33.1 which provided that “No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.
Refugee policy is a classic example of a Continues on next page sphere of international relations profoundly influenced by domestic considerations.
Refugees, security and populism 9 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018 02 Until the First World War, those with the situation, but organic approaches are much “When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community more appropriate when it is necessary to in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned wherewithal to do so could travel the world respond creatively to unexpected challenges. many things. The most important thing that I As the case of the St Louis showed, the learned … under those tragic circumstances relatively easily without a passport, since for mechanistic application of rules can have was that bigotry and hatred are not the the most part there were no border controls of disastrous consequences when vulnerable most urgent problem. The most urgent, the people face extraordinary dangers. Yet state most disgraceful, the most shameful and substance to confront. bureaucracies are very often mechanistic in the most tragic problem is silence.” their orientation, and refugees can be among One of the key factors contributing to the the prime victims of such an approach. This is worldwide enhancing of the powers of compounded by another problem. Denial – of border‑control bureaucracies to intercept the reality of the dangers refugees face, or and detain ‘illegal immigrants’ has been of the need to come to their aid – can easily the growth of a popular sense of insecurity, Yet, almost two decades into the 21st century, different paths in different parts of the world. become part of the organisational mindset especially in the face of the threat of terrorism. the climate for refugees is once again Until the First World War, those with the within a mechanistic organisation. Such toxic At one level, this is not a rational response, distinctly unwelcoming. My aim in the wherewithal to do so could travel the world organisational mindsets have the capacity since the perpetrators of recent terrorist following paragraphs is to identify some relatively easily without a passport, since for to dominate the moral instincts of those attacks in Western countries have much more of the key factors that have contributed to the most part there were no border controls who become cogs within the system; a point commonly been either homegrown – that is, this. There are five, in particular, on which of substance to confront. Furthermore, the made in different ways by Hannah Arendt born and raised in the countries where the I wish to focus: simplistic ideas about notion that the right to exclude people at in her famous and controversial 1963 book attacks have occurred – or legally within the ‘sovereignty’; bureaucratic pathologies; the border is an intrinsic and inextricable Eichmann in Jerusalem, and by Guenter Lewy country, as was the case with every one of exaggerated security fears; toxic domestic element of sovereignty is at the very least in his meticulous 2017 study Perpetrators: the 11 September 2001 attackers in the US. Yet, political considerations; and, related to complicated by the existence of instruments of The World of the Holocaust Killers. This is true irrational fears can seem terribly real to those this, a broader drift towards populism in international law such as the 1951 Convention not just of murderous bureaucracies, but in their grip. In Western countries, the risk of the affairs of countries that are otherwise Relating to the Status of Refugees under which of punitive and exclusionary ones as well. a given individual being caught up in an act well positioned to assist the vulnerable. states have relinquished any absolute right This problem is then greatly compounded of terrorism is statistically very low, but as to exclude certain people. In a globalising if a wall of silence is constructed around The idea of sovereignty has found its way the philosopher Robert E. Goodin has pointed world, strict claims of sovereign entitlement a problem, either by ensuring that poor
into discussion of refugee issues through out in his book What’s Wrong with Terrorism?, William Maley Professor are increasingly under challenge. This is not treatment of refugees occurs in remote various channels. A common argument, there is a strong human disposition to have to deny that some states have been trying places, or by penalising attempts to blow the much deployed by politicians, is that border greater fear of mass-casualty events (such as very hard to avoid some of their obligations whistle on what is happening. This point control is an essential, fundamental dimension terrorist attacks) rather than endemic problems under international refugee law, with was made forcefully by Rabbi Joachim Prinz of sovereignty. This claim, however, is suspect that cumulatively claim far more lives (such Australia a recent and egregious offender; the in a speech to the famous March on on both historical and conceptual grounds. as traffic accidents); and to fear dramatic and point is rather that conceptually, the idea of Washington protest in August 1963: The Peace of Westphalia of 1648, comprising the sovereignty does not provide a particularly Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück, strong justification for such behaviour. is often depicted as the point of origin of a European system of sovereign states. Yet it Problems of bureaucracy have also added to neither used the word sovereignty (which had refugees’ difficulties. In the rich literature no specific Latin equivalent), nor concerned on organisational theory, there is a useful itself with border control (as opposed to borders distinction, highlighted by Tom Burns and One of the key factors contributing to the as devices for delimiting spheres of authority). G.M. Stalker in their 1961 book The Management of Innovation, between ‘organic’ and worldwide enhancing of the powers of Indeed, it reaffirmed the right of emigration ‘mechanistic’ forms of organisational behaviour. (jus emigrandi) contained in the Peace border‑control bureaucracies to intercept and Organic approaches emphasise cutting of Augsburg of 1555. As Charles S. Maier has corners to achieve outcomes; mechanistic shown in his magisterial book Once Within detain ‘illegal immigrants’ has been the growth approaches emphasise rule-following to Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging promote a predictable environment. The latter of a popular sense of insecurity, especially in since 1500, border controls emerged through has much to offer where one’s main objective ragged and laborious processes that followed the face of the threat of terrorism. is the management of a stable and routinised
10 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Refugees, security and populism 11 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018 02 rare events (such as shark attacks) rather than what policy settings might best enhance that it added less than one per cent to the of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, such mundane and more common events (such their prospects for re-election. In 2009, the Coalition’s vote. The problem has rather been courage has recently been in relatively short as attacks by domestic pets), irrespective opposition Liberal Party of Australia, led that major parties have seen the issue as one supply where refugees’ needs are concerned. of the objective risks that they may pose. by Malcolm Turnbull, attacked the refugee with the potential to shift swinging voters, The scale of asylum-seeker movements to Terrorism has been employed as a political policies of the Rudd government, claiming and this has resulted in an amplification of Australia can easily be exaggerated. Until tool for centuries, and there is no reason to that asylum seekers were being lured to rhetoric around the issue that far exceeds the relatively recently, many more arrived by plane think that states in the 21st century have any their deaths on leaky boats. Behind the salience it intrinsically enjoys with the bulk than by boat. Indeed, if every ‘boat person’ who magic formula for eliminating it. Under such scenes, however, an informant whom the of the public. This problem might fade with had arrived in Australia from 1976 onwards circumstances, however, there is a danger that US Embassy described as a ‘key Liberal party the passage of time; but again, it might not. were to be seated in the Melbourne Cricket states will try to disguise their weakness by strategist’ stated to the embassy that the The impact of domestic politics is likely to Ground, more than a quarter of the seats demonising the unregulated ‘outsider’, and issue was “fantastic” and “the more boats be most dangerous when populist currents would be vacant. Policymakers throughout the by seeking to create an illusion of effective that come the better”. This is not, of course, emerge to challenge centrist parties and Asia Pacific region have become very cynical control of the public space. One way of doing to say that the issue of refugees and boats movements. Populism has been defined in about Australia’s claims to be threatened by so is to assert the centrality of border control is necessarily an enormously salient one various ways, but there is much value in the refugee movements. The ‘burden’ of refugees to meaningful counterterrorism policies. with the wider public. The 2013 Australian analysis offered by Jan-Werner Müller in his in the modern world is carried mainly by poor election, won by the Liberal-Nationals Refugee policy is a classic example of a 2016 book What is Populism?, in which he points countries rather than rich countries, and often coalition, witnessed vociferous promises sphere of international relations profoundly to three characteristic elements of populism: by countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, by Liberal leader Tony Abbott to ‘stop the influenced by domestic considerations. Whilst it is critical of elites, it is antipluralist, and it is a Malaysia, and Indonesia that are not parties to boats’. At the end of the day, however, the realist theories of international relations often form of identity politics. Expanding on this last the 1951 Refugee Convention. A country such Australian Election Study conducted by ANU depict ‘national interests’ as driving forces point, Müller argues that for a “political actor as Australia – girt by sea and thereby insulated showed that for more than three-quarters of behind foreign policy, political leaders can or movement to be populist, it must claim that from large refugee movement of the kind that the electorate, refugees and asylum seekers easily be driven by cruder calculations about a part of the people is the people – and that regularly occur in Africa, and briefly affected constituted at most a third-order issue, and only the populist authentically identifies and Europe in 2015 – does not have a large-scale represents this real or true people”. In extreme problem of unregulated population movements form this manifests in total dehumanisation, by any reasonable measure. But among some for example through the Nazis’ description Australians, there is something close to panic of Jews and various other people as about the idea of freer movements of people. As
Untermenschen (sub-humans) but it can surface long as this remains the case, and party leaders William Maley Professor in less obvious but more insidious forms as and strategists see this panic as something that well, as in the attempt to paint those seeking can be exploited, Australia will be incapable asylum as somehow criminal. The inclination of credibly positioning itself as a leader in to paint refugees as sub-human or criminal international policy discussions on refugees. is very much on display, not only in countries from which refugees have recently been fleeing, such as Myanmar, but in countries to which refugees have fled, with certain politicians in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic going to great lengths to denounce, denigrate and deride refugees from places such as Syria and Afghanistan. The danger of populism lies in its ideological character: it can obtain a tight grip on the minds of at least some of the public, even if to give effect to a populist agenda might not rationally be even in their own interest. It can also lock the domestic politics of states into a nasty straitjacket. Courageous political leadership can offer a roadmap away from the abyss
Paintings/Shutterstock.com of populism, but with the notable exception
12 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Refugees, security and populism 13 Autumn 2018
Dr Cecilia Jacob Dr Cecilia Jacob is a Fellow at the Department Fleeing persecution and seeking asylum in a of International Relations at ANU. Her work host country has historically been one of the focuses on civilian protection, mass atrocity most effective forms of self-protection and prevention and international human protection survival for populations at threat of violent norms. Cecilia has a geographic focus on 03 conflict. Today, vulnerable populations face Forced migration, early armed conflict and political violence in many barriers to fleeing violence due to South and Southeast Asia and has conducted global pressures to contain large population extensive overseas field research. Her flows within origin countries. However, books include Child Security in Asia: The large-scale population flows can be a strong warning and the prevention Impact of Armed Conflict in Cambodia and indicator of atrocity crimes within origin Myanmar (Routledge, 2014) and (edited with countries, and more attention needs to be Alistair D. B. Cook) Civilian Protection in paid to the intricate links between forced of mass atrocities the Twenty‑First Century: Governance and displacement and atrocity crimes to improve Responsibility in a Fragmented World (Oxford prevention and response in instances of University Press, 2016). Her research has been widespread and systematic atrocity. published in journals such as Security Dialogue, Global Governance, and Global Responsibility to Protect. Prior to completing her PhD, she The international refugee worked for non-government organisations regime under stress in France, Thailand and Cambodia, and for an Advisory Group of AusAID, Australia. The international refugee regime has its contemporary origins in the post‑First World War period with the first High Commissioner for Refugees established by the League of Nations. In the wake of the Second World War, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), now also commonly known as the UN Refugee Agency, originally Jacob Dr Cecilia had a temporary three-year mandate to resettle persons living outside their country of origin as refugees due to events that occurred in Europe before 1 January 1951. The Refugee Protocol came into force in 1967, lifting both these temporal and geographic limitations on the definition of a refugee to address the persistent need for refugee protection in the decades following the original convention.
The significance of local strategies as the Continues on next page primary recourse for survival by threatened civilian populations before international assistance arrives is still under-researched and largely overlooked in international civilian protection policy and programming.
Forced migration, early warning and the prevention of mass atrocities 15 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
The principle of asylum rests at the heart of the with 11,000 staff worldwide. According to However, in the 1980s, the growing demand Despite the generous intake of Holocaust international refugee regime. Asylum refers UNHCR, 20 people are displaced by conflict for refugee protection generated growing survivors around the world after the war, and to the totality of protection offered by a state or persecution every minute. In 2017, the resistance to increased resettlement the creation of Israel as a Jewish homeland, to a refugee who is living on its territory. The number of people displaced worldwide needs in the Global North, and to local the lessons of the Holocaust remain highly
03 principle of non-refoulement, or not forcing reached a historic high at 65.6 million, and integration solutions in the Global South. salient today. Early openness and genuine people to return to the frontiers of a territory by far the majority of those displaced compassion by states to grant entry could The role and mandate of the UNHCR have where their life or freedom are threatened, (40 million) remain within their own have prevented a much greater loss of life. therefore adapted to these global pressures, is the most basic level of protection a state country in situations of vulnerability as and it has assumed a more political role in the A growing number of scholars are can offer a refugee. However, states can offer internally displaced persons (IDPs). The domestic affairs of conflict-affected countries documenting effective strategies that civilians much more comprehensive protections to significant rise in the number of IDPs to prioritise early repatriation, rehabilitation have used in periods of targeted killings refugees claiming asylum on its territory, globally (from 1.2 million in 1982 when first and reintegration of refugees in their countries to escape and survive violence. Civilian should it choose. The 1967 UN Declaration counted to 40 million in 2018) is a worrisome of origin. Michael Barnett argues in his populations use local knowledge and networks on Territorial Asylum, the 1969 Organisation trend, given that access to international 2001 International Migration Review article to devise strategies for self‑protection, as for African Unity (OAU) Convention, protection from state and non-state violence ‘Humanitarianism with a Sovereign Face’ that Erica Baines and Emily Paddon have shown and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration all is restricted by government access. these strategies of ‘containment’ developed in a unique study of civilian self-survival acknowledge that granting asylum is There are several reasons populations during the 1990s are used as a humanitarian strategies in Uganda published in 2014. Other a humanitarian and apolitical act. may be unable to cross territorial borders justification to mask the political and security studies have shown how strategies such These protections, however, are afforded only to flee persecution; these may be physical concerns of wealthy states. Such containment as the use of cell phones or ringing church to persons who have crossed an international barriers due to geographic isolation, difficult strategies have exacerbated the steep increase bells, for example, are used by populations border and are able to claim asylum in a terrain or maritime borders, or the closed in numbers of IDPs worldwide and raised as early warning of imminent attacks by host country. Most of the world’s population borders of neighbouring states. However, concerns that early repatriation violates the militia between villages that give populations displaced by violent conflict and persecution a final reason that bears on international basic rights of populations to seek asylum time to flee. While Baines and Paddon remain within their own states, where only politics is the increased opposition by many from persecution, as outlined in the Universal show that local populations seek to appear the non-binding UN Guiding Principles on states in the international community, Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14(1),1948. neutral, to avoid or accommodate militia Internal Displacement, established in 2004, to receiving large numbers of refugees groups and ensure their survival, fleeing apply. Although consistent with international arriving on their doorsteps. The UNHCR Civilian self-protection strategies violence remains a crucial mode of survival humanitarian, human rights and refugee law, was originally established as a purely and atrocity crime prevention when these strategies are ineffective. Jacob Dr Cecilia these principles cannot be legally enforced. humanitarian organisation, designed to The significance of local strategies as the facilitate the protection and resettlement Fleeing persecution has historically proved to With the number of violent conflicts on the primary recourse for survival by threatened of refugees. Throughout the Cold War, the be one of the most successful forms of atrocity rise, the international refugee system today civilian populations before international UNHCR pursued ‘durable solutions’ for prevention for populations. For example, the has become institutionalised and massive. assistance arrives is still under-researched and refugee populations through voluntary United States Holocaust Memorial Museum In 2017, the annual budget of the UNHCR largely overlooked in international civilian repatriation, local integration in host countries, states that 240,000 Jews living in Germany and rose to an unprecedented US$7.7 billion, protection policy and programming. Policy or resettlement in a third country. Austria had emigrated by 1939 to countries communities should consider further the where they were safe from German invasion relationship between forced migration, and and the Holocaust. While many lives were the significance of self-protection strategies saved due to immigration, visa restrictions that include fleeing sites of persecution tightened across Europe, Britain and the and targeted killing in the context of their US during the Second World War, even as atrocity prevention strategies. Central to reports of the horrors of the Holocaust became There are several reasons populations may these strategies is the need to better protect known. Many more asylum seekers were populations that have uprooted and fled be unable to cross territorial borders to flee denied protection at a time where the granting their homes to survive, and to prevent or of asylum was the only means of survival persecution; these may be physical barriers resolve violent conflicts much earlier. for hundreds of thousands of Jews queuing due to geographic isolation, difficult terrain up for small numbers of visa placements, or those detained trying to enter Palestine. or maritime borders, or the closed borders of neighbouring states.
16 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Forced migration, early warning and the prevention of mass atrocities 17 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
Forced migration and Given the interrelationship between these atrocity crimes critical areas of international policymaking, where are the opportunities for national and Nearly 700,000 refugees have fled Myanmar international policymakers to respond? Three
03 since its government’s security forces launched areas are highlighted here briefly. First, there ‘clearing operations’ in the region on 25 August is still a need for showing greater generosity 2017. Military operations were a response towards forcibly displaced populations, to attacks by the Rohingya Salvation Army including support for the countries that are on an army base and police posts, yet the carrying the heaviest burden. The international systematic violence against the minority community has been pressed to increase Rohingya population compounds decades funding and resettlement capacity, yet the of racial and religious discrimination, and scale of the global refugee crisis and the neighbouring Bangladesh has accommodated heavy economic and social burden being hundreds of thousands of refugees in camps placed on poorer host countries mean that and as unregistered migrants for many years. much more giving and burden-sharing is The violence against the minority population urgently needed to alleviate these pressures, rapidly escalated, with an estimated 325 particularly by the world’s wealthiest states. villages burnt, thousands killed through brutal violence and mass graves discovered after the Secondly, there is a need to recognise sudden commencement of the military campaign. onset and largescale population flows as early warning signs of pending mass atrocities that
While international investigations are still require an urgent response. In the case of Owen_Holdaway/Shutterstock.com being called for, the UN High Commissioner Myanmar, population flows coincided with for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein rapid and systematic destruction of villages and UN Special Rapporteur on human and brutal torture and killings. Young babies rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, have were ruthlessly killed in front of their mothers. Addressing the international refugee crisis Yet, despite these commitments, the granting both publicly stated that the situation in Women were raped on mass, and many were Myanmar may constitute genocide. The must not just alleviate the back-end of the of asylum continues to be viewed by states burnt or killed afterwards. Efforts at diplomacy, Jacob Dr Cecilia problem, but also needs to deliver on the as a security concern and a political process, rapid displacement of such large numbers of refugee protection and international front end – by preventing new situations of rather than a humanitarian and apolitical people illustrate the severity of the atrocity, condemnation were simply too little, too forcible displacement from taking place. act, particularly by the world’s wealthiest the urgent requirement to make intricate late to halt the atrocity crimes committed. states. Globally, the resettlement places connections between situations of forced States and the international community Governments worldwide, including those in available to refugees have doubled since 2012, migration, and the need for concerted and must have appropriate mechanisms to the West, have expressed greater willingness effective interventions to prevent imminent, yet the annual intake of 160,000 refugees respond to clear warning signs of atrocity and commitment to investing in the or indeed halt ongoing atrocity crimes. worldwide pales to the millions left in limbo. crimes, sufficient resources and capacity to prevention of violent conflict and atrocity Meanwhile, middle and low-income countries make this possible and the political will to crimes. International commitments include According to Phil Orchard in the bear the greatest burden, hosting most of make difficult choices when necessary. participation in global and regional networks Oxford Handbook on the Responsibility to Protect the world’s displaced population, and the in 2016, there are three ways to understand like the Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Finally, much greater political priority and heaviest economic burden falls to many of the the relationship between forced displacement Crimes, the Latin American Network for effort need to be directed towards prevention. world’s poorest states, such as South Sudan and mass violence. The first is that forced Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, and We now have much more systematic and Chad, and their local communities. displacement can be a product of mass the Regional Committee on the Prevention knowledge and understanding of the stages atrocities as people flee from widespread and Punishment of Genocide, War Crimes Not only is greater compassion and of violence escalation and the tools needed and systematic violence. Secondly, forced and Crimes against Humanity and all generosity required of the international to prevent violent conflict and atrocity displacement can be a form of mass atrocity, forms of Discrimination of the International community to help alleviate the current crimes. While this is not – and may never where involuntary deportation and transfers Conference on the Great Lakes Region. Fifty- global refugee crisis, but it has a responsibility be – a perfect science, there is much more that constitute crimes against humanity and nine countries and the European Union to deliver on its commitments to conflict can and should be done to prevent violent war crimes. Thirdly and finally, where have appointed Responsibility to Protect resolution, conflict prevention and atrocity conflict and atrocity crimes much earlier on. international interventions to halt mass focal points, tasked with implementing prevention. This help to reduce the number atrocities occur, such interventions will atrocity prevention institutions and of new refugees and IDPs being added invariably drive further displacement. legal reform in the domestic contexts. daily is needed more than ever before.
18 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Forced migration, early warning and the prevention of mass atrocities 19 Autumn 2018
Dr Cynthia Banham Dr Cynthia Banham is a Sydney-based writer Apathy in the face of human suffering: when and visitor at the School of Regulation and it is close to home it is most confounding, Global Governance based at ANU. She is a even if it does concern the mistreatment lawyer, a former foreign affairs and defence of non-citizens. Why don’t we care more correspondent for the Sydney Morning about the suffering of others, especially Apathy, the mistreatment Herald and was, until recently, a Research when it is within our power to end it? Fellow at the University of Queensland in the School of Political Science and International Like the story of the mother, an Iranian Studies. Dr Banham obtained her PhD from asylum seeker, who needed heart surgery. of non-citizens, and the ANU in 2015. She has published two books: Without it, she could die, but she was 04 Liberal Democracies and the Torture of unwilling to leave her son – a minor with Their Citizens (Hart Publishing, 2017) and acute mental health issues – behind, alone, problem with public A Certain Light (Allen & Unwin, 2018). on Nauru, an island northeast of Australia in Micronesia. Would not any mother, or father for that matter, sympathise with accountability this woman’s position? For 18 months, the Federal Government refused to let her bring her son with her to Australia, where doctors recommended she come to have the operation. Instead, she remained in a hot mouldy tent with her son in the isolated detention camp, her life-threatening condition going untreated. Eventually, the woman was flown to Taiwan with her son for surgery. Stories detailing her plight were published in sympathetic media outlets like The Guardian. But the screaming headlines about Australia’s asylum seeker Dr Cynthia Banham Dr Cynthia policies were not about the mother. They were instead about the Australian Border Force Commissioner, Roman Quaedvlieg, who had been on paid leave since May 2017 while he was investigated over his personal conduct and allegations he abused his power to help his girlfriend get a job. In March 2018 – the same week it was reported the Iranian mother was flown to Taiwan – the government terminated Quaedvlieg’s appointment for alleged misbehaviour. It is a clear, if sometimes awkward
truth, that important social connections Continues on next page exist not only between the citizens of a liberal democracy, but also between citizens and those non-citizens affected by their governments’ actions that are carried out for their benefit.
Apathy, the mistreatment of non-citizens, and the problem with public accountability 21 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
The asylum seeker issue in Australia – The government’s attempts to avoid scrutiny Accountability mechanisms can be understood of these policies have included diffusing to operate horizontally and vertically. That the government’s policies and the public’s and obscuring its exercise of power over is, horizontally within government, through the individual asylum seekers and refugees the separation of powers and public agencies responses – demonstrate both the fragility affected by its policies in two major ways. empowered to restrain the political executive, of our public accountability systems and The first involves outsourcing the running and vertically, imposed by citizens and civil of detention centres to private contractors, society from outside government. Again, the the consequences for individual rights that and the second is by detaining individuals government has tried to thwart horizontal offshore in countries with less robust accountability of its treatment of asylum
04 can ensue. accountability systems, where asylum seekers by, for example, minimising the seekers and refugees are removed from courts’ powers to scrutinise its decisions. supportive advocacy networks and the It also punished the Australian Human Australian public is less conscious of their Rights Commission for issuing a report that presence. The government’s efforts to prevent exposed the abuse and harm being done to accountability have been both direct and children inside offshore detention centres, These two examples send conflicting messages Australian Public Service, Martin Parkinson. indirect. For example, it has directly sought by cutting funding and trying to discredit about public accountability in Australia in There has also been intense questioning to limit the investigative power of national the agency’s former head Gillian Triggs. a field that has immense consequences for in Senate Estimates hearings of public agencies and parliamentary committees as The government’s attempts to shut down individual rights and liberties. To understand officials over the status of the investigations well as international human rights monitors by the effectiveness of vertical mechanisms why Australians don’t care more about and Quaedvlieg’s ongoing position. preventing visits to offshore detention centres. of accountability have been no less severe. the wellbeing of the almost 2,000 asylum Why so much scrutiny of the Border Force Indirectly, it has militarised the language They have included passing laws making seekers and refugees currently detained at Commissioner? There are no doubt multiple around the handling of asylum seekers, so it a criminal offence punishable by jail for the behest of our government in miserable reasons. Foremost among them, however, must that ‘on-water’ matters have become beyond current or former immigration detention conditions on Nauru and Manus Island, be how embarrassing it looks for a government challenge, just like ‘operational security’ centre staff to publicly raise concerns about Papua New Guinea – some for over four years that stakes its credentials on its tough stance on matters are for the defence force: which matters they witness inside the centres. – it helps to examine the issue in the context of Australian border security to have the future of readily bats journalists’ questions away. the common public accountability challenges its top uniformed official under such a cloud. that liberal democracies face today. The asylum Dr Cynthia Banham Dr Cynthia seeker issue in Australia – the government’s Lest one conclude from the Quaedvlieg case policies and the public’s responses – that public accountability in Australia is in demonstrate both the fragility of our public a healthy state, we can consider the diverse accountability systems and the consequences ways in which the Federal Government has for individual rights that can ensue. sought to avoid accountability for the human impact its harsh border security policies On the one hand, the level of interest have had on individual asylum seekers and in the inquiries into the actions of the refugees. Briefly, these policies, known today Border Force Commissioner suggest there as ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, have evolved are robust checks in place for challenging over the last 17 years and are supported the questionable exercise of public power. by both major Australian political parties. According to its website, this is the agency Asylum seekers are mandatorily detained and responsible for “facilitating the lawful passage assessed offshore, and are unable to resettle of people and goods”, for “investigations, in Australia ever, even after obtaining refugee compliance and enforcement in relation to status. They are also held in conditions so illicit goods and immigration malpractice”, and unbearable as to act as a disincentive for for offshore detention. There was not one but others seeking asylum to attempt the same two official investigations into the Quaedvlieg passage to Australia. Meanwhile, new boats controversy: one by the Federal Government’s are intercepted and turned back by Australian Australian Commission for Law Enforcement authorities to the country they departed from. Integrity, the other by the Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet and head of the Kate Ausburn/Flickr Kate
22 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Apathy, the mistreatment of non-citizens, and the problem with public accountability 23 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
This time, we might ask why the government looking for a clue. Public accountability is a What can we say about ethics in the context has put so much effort into avoiding two‑sided relationship between governors and accountability for its treatment of refugees in the governed that entails responsibilities on of public accountability? Ethics has an offshore detention? A possible answer is that both sides. Sifting through the literature with if the Australian public does not know the fellow contributor, Kirsty Anantharajah, we inherent social quality. As Jean-Marc Coicaud upsetting details of the suffering of individuals were struck by the lack of close examination and Daniel Warner write, it is about feeling inside the centres – the toxic accommodation of the responsibilities of the governed to tents, the suicide attempts, what the actual day demand accountability; most of the focus is that our individual lives extend to the lives of a child kept in offshore detention looks like – on the governors. Flowing from this, there
04 it will not question the humanity of the actions is minimal exploration around the question of others. the government takes to prevent asylum of what underpins the responsibilities of seekers arriving in Australia by boat. Pursuing the governed in the public accountability such policies would make Australians relationship. This led us to explore the ethical uncomfortable, but would be accepted by the dimension of accountability which, while majority as a necessary evil. Or, as the former sometimes (if infrequently) discussed in prime minister, Tony Abbott, explained to the the literature, is most often considered in To take one example of where a social Australians don’t often talk about this, but ‘countries of Europe’ in 2015, it would ‘gnaw relation to the motives of account givers connection between citizens and non-citizens globalisation and internationalisation connect at our consciences’ but it was ‘the only way to in serving the people who elected them. affected by the Australian Government’s all of humanity, and renders the ethical prevent a tide of humanity surging through actions has been largely overlooked in public obligation to have regard for the rights of What can we say about ethics in the context of Europe and quite possibly changing it forever’. discourse, consider the issue of arms exports. others in assessing the acceptability of their public accountability? Ethics has an inherent Earlier this year the Federal Government government’s conduct inescapable. There is Something else is going on, aside from the social quality. As Jean-Marc Coicaud and announced it was creating more jobs by a clear deficiency in the way we understand government obscuring the full picture of how Daniel Warner write, it is about feeling that our increasing the manufacture and export of and practice public accountability around the asylum seekers are deterred from coming by individual lives extend to the lives of others. arms for warfare. Religious-based justice obligations of citizens to make accountability boat so that, while the public’s conscience We recognise that others have rights and groups pointed out the ethical issues implicit demands of their government, where the is gnawed at, it will still accept the measures acknowledge that there exists a duty to respect in pursuing national prosperity by growing an rights of others (non-citizens) are concerned. are necessary and justified. What of the them. Proponents of accountability argue it will industry whose existence depends on ensuring It was the Iranian journalist and refugee on public’s obligation to demand to see the full become more effective when it is understood to the continuation of wars that terrorise, maim Manus Island, Behrouz Boochani, who pointed Banham Dr Cynthia picture, in all its ugliness, to insist on robust encompass an ethics of doing what is right and and kill civilians and cause them to flee their out that Australian citizens have a stake accountability of its elected representatives having a regard for others. However, must this homes and countries. There are obvious social in holding their government to account for policies that damage the physical and regard for others be limited to fellow citizens? connections between Australian citizens for its treatment of others. In The Saturday mental wellbeing of a minority of others, When a public official’s actions encompass profiting from the manufacture and export of Paper he wrote that by failing to do this, the among them children? Of course, there are harm to a non-citizen, is there no ethical such weapons and the populations overseas Australian public risked the future of its own many examples of civil society actors in obligation on the part of the citizens who elect where these wars will be fought – between democracy. The resistance of refugees on Australia challenging the government over that government to demand accountability? us and them. They are connections the Manus Island against their treatment was: its treatment of asylum seekers. They include government would have voters overlook. It is a clear, if sometimes awkward truth, that refugee advocacy groups, human rights important social connections exist not only “in order to return something valuable to the NGO’s, sections of the media, religious groups I link the issues of jobs from arms exports between the citizens of a liberal democracy, but majority of the Australian public, to return what and some medical professionals. But the to the cruel treatment of refugees because at also between citizens and those non-citizens it has lost, or what it is in the process of losing”. offshore detention regime remains in place the core of the ethical case against both is a affected by their governments’ actions that and, while there have been small victories dimension that is so often missing from public The apathy we have seen with regards to are carried out for their benefit. Citizens for advocates, the calls for change have not and political discourse in the fields of security, offshore detention is only possible because and non-citizens are linked not only by a coalesced into a force strong enough to be of immigration, defence and foreign policy. of a widespread denial by the public of common humanity, but also by the fact that concern to the government at the ballot box. the social connections that exist between the world is thoroughly internationalised citizens and non-citizens affected by its The question posed at the start of the essay – and globalised. The policies pursued, and government’s policies. Were such connections why don’t we care more about the suffering privileges enjoyed, in wealthy countries are acknowledged, it would be much harder to of others, especially when it is within our not without consequence for those in distant, be so dismissive of the wellbeing of others. power to end it – led me to examine the less prosperous or more troubled, places. existing scholarship on public accountability,
24 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Apathy, the mistreatment of non-citizens, and the problem with public accountability 25 Autumn 2018
Susanna Price Susanna Price is an Honorary Lecturer in Law can be a powerful instrument for change. the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU. There are compelling reasons for enhanced She previously worked for AusAID, as an national legislation to protect the forcibly evaluation specialist; and for the Asian displaced. Their numbers have reached Development Bank (ADB), in Manila, as Senior record levels, but these people are currently Legislative paradigm shifts Social Development Specialist in Involuntary little recognised or protected in national Resettlement. From 2015-2016, she was law. Despite the increasingly protracted Resettlement Specialist for an ADB Thematic nature of displacement for those forcibly Evaluation Study on Safeguards. She regularly uprooted by conflicts and disasters, there is for involuntary people publishes on displacement, resettlement and little attention in law to durable solutions. social impact assessment. Recent publications In other cases of forced displacement, laws include: Responses to Displacement across exist but are inappropriate. Recent calls for movement: an update Asia–Pacific: Strategies for Development, a “legislative paradigm shift” in national Disasters and Climate Change, edited legislation (Lindsay et al 2017) focus on those with Associate Professor Jane Singer of
05 forcibly displaced by development projects. Kyoto University (Routledge, 2015). She Development-forced displacement is, in all is currently co-editing another book on but a few pioneering countries, conducted legal options for forced displacement. through property and expropriation laws that focus on cash compensation to legal owners, omit resettlement and rehabilitation, and substantively and procedurally fail to address the risks to people displaced. Development investments, therefore, risk further marginalising and impoverishing people who are already vulnerable, and especially those without legal title to
the land on which they depend for food Price Susanna security, income and other needs.
This paper briefly examines the definition of forced displacement, its human costs, its projected dimensions in the Asia Pacific region, and it’s possible solutions, based on compelling research findings of the sociological processes of reconstruction. It suggests some directions based on international standards and conventions and several cases of pioneering country laws.
Development-forced displacement presents an opportunity to review Continues on next page decades of experience in the processes of rebuilding lives and livelihoods through resettlement and rehabilitation.
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New records for forced young, the elderly, the disabled, may suffer Protracted displacement from a civil conflict displacement – and their disproportionately – UNHCR, for example, finds that children comprise a disproportionate may necessitate resettlement, whilst a climate human costs share of those who are forcibly displaced. Global forced, or involuntary, population change adaptation project intended to Beyond these images, forced displacement displacement doubled to a record 65 million raises deeper questions of stability, livelihoods, protect vulnerable communities, or a climate people between 1997 and 2016. The Office social and political risk, culture and identity, of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees change mitigation project intended to reduce both for people moving, and for people staying. (UNHCR) has found that internal displacees The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre – those people who remain within their emissions, may mimic development-forced (IDMC) conceptualises a set of underlying national boundaries – outnumber refugees drivers, which trigger displacement and displacement and resettlement. crossing their own national boundaries magnify its risks and impacts – poverty and by two to one, reinforcing the case for inequality, fragile and weak governance, national law. This total does not include rapid unplanned urbanisation, climate
05 people forcibly displaced by development change and environmental degradation. projects, by disasters, nor by emerging The extent to which vulnerable people environmental changes nor by climate. are impacted depends on sociological Forced displacement may look similar in displaced and remediation if the outcome is The Asia-Pacific region contains several variables and systems rather than physical its impacts, whatever the cause: disasters, not ‘just’ or ‘fair’. This premeditation has an refugee hotspots and experiences frequent forces, in this view. Disasters reflect deeper environmental change, including climate upside, however. It opens a timeframe for disasters. It faces emerging environment and intersections between social and physical change, conflict and development. planning and consultation with the people climate change risks for forced displacement, domains. Record numbers are overwhelming Environmental factors raise risks of affected; it assigns a responsibility to project especially in the low-lying parts of the Pacific; UNHCR’s traditional solutions for refugees temperature rise, soil erosion, water scarcity sponsors and those benefitting to finance the and, in Asia, the arid zones, and densely – repatriation, local integration and third and extreme weather events that will re-establishment of those who lost out so that settled low-lying megacities and deltas of country resettlement. New approaches must forcibly displace more people, especially in the development can proceed. It may allow, Asia. Growing investment between countries address protracted displacement. Whether fragile contexts. The World Economic Forum in some circumstances, for negotiation of within Asia, and from two new multilateral they are internally displaced or refugees, awarded top billing to ‘large scale involuntary settlements with the people affected, thereby Susanna Price Susanna development banks, are accelerating the pace all people forcibly displaced urgently need migration’ in its 29 most likely global risks bypassing the need for formal expropriation. of development investment in the region, an injection of innovative approaches to for the first time ever, in its Global Risks On closer inspection, however, causes especially for land intensive infrastructure reach durable, sustainable solutions. 2016 report. This global risk came second in increasingly converge: a disaster may seem projects which trigger displacement. 2017 due to the likely continued impact. indistinguishable from sudden onset climate Forced displacement stands out from What is forced displacement – Different normative frameworks of guidelines, change. Protracted displacement from a civil general migration flows. Daily news media and how should it be addressed? laws, and regulations, together with conflict may necessitate resettlement, whilst a timeframes, budgets, actors and agents, apply climate change adaptation project, intended to capture the moments: a bewildered child The difference between voluntary and depending on the triggers; and those displaced protect vulnerable communities, or a climate surveying a disaster-wrecked house; a forced displacement is best conceptualised face difficulty in exercising choice within a change mitigation project intended to reduce crowded refugee boat, bound for oblivion; as a continuum rather than an immutable framework of overall compulsion. Development emissions, may mimic development‑forced lines of civilians escaping conflict hotspots divide. ‘Voluntary’ displacement allows displacement, for example, results from displacement and resettlement. with a few meagre possessions; dazed choice between realistic options. The term premeditated, planned investments intended householders evicted from their homes by a ‘forced’ or ‘involuntary’, in contrast, signals for the public good. Constitutions typically development project; bulldozers standing by. less scope for choice; and a certain measure of What does it take to rebuild lives give governments power to exercise eminent compulsion, but there may still be elements of and livelihoods? Shock, anger, disorientation, loss, fear and domain, expropriation or land transfers – choice that apply, depending on circumstances; grief predominate, as familiar surroundings ’land takings’ – in the public interest or public Reconstructing living standards and where to go, how long to stay away, whether fall away, or are catastrophically destroyed. purpose, providing that there is ‘just’ or productive livelihoods can be more to return; or, if return is no longer possible, The immediate losses may be bad enough: ‘fair’ or ‘equitable’ compensation paid to the complex than providing post-disaster what resettlement and rehabilitation loss of family providers, shelter, belongings, people in the way, who must suffer – typically, emergency humanitarian feeding, health options may be feasible and acceptable. food security, fuel for cooking and heating, in law, the legally recognised owners of care and shelter, necessary though they income sources and access to services. property. Few such laws require assessment may be to keeping people alive. The poor, the least food secure, the very of outcomes or impacts on those forcibly
28 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Legislative paradigm shifts for involuntary people movement: an update 29 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
It augments human rights protections advised may undercut the household’s wellbeing Recognising and addressing climate ÝÝ Resettlement and rehabilitation: India’s in the UN’s 2004 Guiding Principles on Internal and entire productive base, but these change displacement LARR aims to improve the socio-economic Displacement and its 2007 Guidelines on processes are, again, difficult to quantify status of those displaced. Resettlement Development Forced Evictions. It generally and value for compensation purposes. With the Nansen Initiative focusing on data as and rehabilitation are integral steps in the exceeds simple cash compensation to property a basis for formulating policy and law on cross- Act – but little is yet known of how the border refugee displacements, assisting most owners, as legally required in many countries’ Reorienting the legal frameworks LARR will be implemented. The Laotian property and expropriation laws, that may people who are forcibly displaced internally Prime Minister’s Decree on Compensation apply in development displacement. What is Recognising human rights within country borders remains challenging. and Resettlement of 2016 recognises and necessary and sufficient to rebuild the lives Fiji has developed national guidelines compensates loss of incomes, including for The UN’s Guiding Principles on Internal and livelihoods of the forcibly displaced? on planned relocations as a response the non-titled households and provides Displacement provide a pathway for to climate change. McAdam and Ferris transitional assistance for re‑establishment. Development-forced displacement presents protecting internal displacees before, during recommend developing guidelines that It requires special measures to improve an opportunity to review decades of and after displacement from a human cover a wide range of domestic laws on land, the livelihoods of the affected people experience in the processes of rebuilding rights perspective. Some countries have housing, property, insurance, employment, who are poor and vulnerable. lives and livelihoods through resettlement approved or are writing their own such laws anti‑discrimination, minorities and restitution, 05 ÝÝ and rehabilitation. Deeper processes may be coalescing around these guidelines. The with an emphasis on preventing forced Participation, consultation, grievance triggered: a common pattern emerges – what Kampala Convention adopted in 2009 and evictions. Policies and guidelines may help, redress, appeals: Whereas traditional anthropologists such as Downing and Garcia since signed by many African countries, but laws would provide better protection. expropriation laws provide only for call loss of primary, or routine culture, to a new covers all forms of displacement in a common notification and, perhaps, appeal, several dissonant culture, that disturbs generations document, setting out state responsibilities and Some new national laws in the Asia Pacific Asia Pacific countries such as Indonesia of negotiations between community members international coordination mechanisms. The address critical issues: and India offer new legislation that over the organisation of production and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous improves prospects for consultation and ÝÝ Compensating for all losses in community life. Forced displacement, at its Peoples (2007) requires free, prior informed negotiation with people in the way to expropriation law: The new India most intensive, in longstanding communities: consent (FPIC) before indigenous peoples avoid forced displacement, and, where Land Acquisition, Resettlement and dismantles and redefines productive systems are displaced or resettled. Such documents displacement is unavoidable, identify Rehabilitation Act (LARR 2013) requires and spatial-temporal and social landscapes, could form a basis for new laws, by adding rights, understand land and livelihood Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in threatening the displaced with a multiplicity reconstruction of livelihoods and living impacts; and presents avenues for the
many cases and a solatium to redress Price Susanna of interconnected social and economic standards and addressing governance issues. forcibly displaced to secure fair pay. non‑tangible – including emotional – risks (Downing, 2015). To avoid further loss costs of displacement. The Indonesian Laws are made effective and implemented and impoverishment, these risks must be Conceptualising forced displacement, data Law 2/2012 on Land Acquisition in through political will, capacities, budgets and painstakingly addressed, and those social, collection, monitoring and evaluation the Public Interest also requires socio- planning cycles – but legal texts are an essential cultural and productive systems carefully Better global record-keeping would alert economic survey and assessment of first step. Drawing on these pioneering steps, rebuilt, through new negotiations which decision-makers to the distribution of social impact of land acquisition and a legislative paradigm shift could formalise take account of underlying cultural values. displaced peoples globally, nationally and construction. It recognises some non- social compact making and bring visibility Cernea’s Impoverishment Risk and locally, as well as their condition. It would tangible losses for compensation purposes. and rights protection in law for all people who Reconstruction Model maps social and help to craft effective preventive measures are forcibly displaced. This could legislate ÝÝ Recognising the non-titled and special economic risks of development displacement and responses. UNHCR notes, with their rights to full rehabilitation; increase needs of vulnerable groups: India’s LARR and the means to address them. In addition to concern, that it’s disaggregated data system the cost of noncompliance; open human 2013 recognises compensation claims the obvious risks of landlessness, homelessness has recently deteriorated. Disaggregated rights and equitable bargaining spaces; foster of people affected without legal title if and joblessness, that may be partially data on the numbers, the distribution accountability and governance and assign they have cultivated or otherwise drawn compensated in current expropriation and and characteristics of forcibly displaced roles to international, national and local income from the proposed acquired land property law, forced displacement may also people allows better understanding of their agents. Conceptualising ‘missing’ groups for the prior three years. The Lao People’s carry risks of food insecurity, health and risks, vulnerabilities and priority solutions. such as climate change internal displacees, Democratic Republic Prime Minister’s psychological problems, which are more Development-forced displacement data are international conventions and standards, and Decree on Compensation and Resettlement difficult to value and compensate – as may be rarely aggregated at a national level. Climate rare new expropriation laws, such as India’s of 2016 recognises and compensates compensation for loss of common property change displacement currently lacks legal LARR, may create opportunities for serious losses, including for the non‑titled resources which may provide households or bureaucratic categories to enumerate co-ordination of types of forced displacement households; it also requires special with critical subsistence and cash. Finally, mobility – but laws can make it more visible. that have, until now, been treated very efforts to address the needs of vulnerable social marginalisation and disarticulation differently – if at all – in law and practice. groups to improve their livelihoods.
30 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Legislative paradigm shifts for involuntary people movement: an update 31 Autumn 2018
Dr Luke Bearup Dr Luke Bearup is an Honorary Lecturer in Whether one is shopping, banking, or the College of the Arts and Social Sciences borrowing a book, either in person or and a Research Officer in the School of online, it is routinely necessary to produce Regulation and Global Governance at ANU. various forms of identification, or to enter Dr Bearup specialises in child protection one’s PIN code, network key or password. Migrating to the blockchain: and gender-based violence. Over the past To exercise our freedoms and access social decade, he has been researching social goods, therefore, we require recognition integration in the context of migration by others, and frequently, centralised and social policies aimed at promoting authorities. The aggravations associated exploring the implications the protection and reintegration of human with being required to produce one’s trafficking victims, vulnerable children, and identification are greatly exacerbated, of other marginalised sub-populations. He course, for those who are routinely denied for the recognition of Others also consults as an independent recognition within contemporary social life. researcher and consultant on development Such denials are exemplified, for example, in assistance, protection and social policy. the inequalities between the Global North and the Global South, and in the enduring hardships and insecurities experienced by asylum seekers, stateless persons and undocumented migrants. We inhabit a gated
06 world whose physical and digital borders reflect inequitable systems of governance and trade. Recently, however, a range of disruptive interventions have emerged which aim to facilitate access to social goods and recognition between discrete parties, without recourse to centralised authorities. Drawing on blockchain or Dr Luke Bearup Dr Luke distributed ledger technology (DLT), these digital developments have transformative implications for migration, economic markets and the burgeoning global public sphere. This essay aims to explore these developments, in relation to struggles for recognition, freedom and social justice.
A host of technology driven start-ups have developed which aim to disrupt sectors as diverse as banking and finance, insurance, manufacturing, domestic services and humanitarian assistance. Whilst related to developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and automation, these interventions are generally powered by blockchain technology, whose transformative potential In its most elementary form, recognition is often compared to that of the Internet. relates to one’s re-identification by another, or otherwise the acknowledgment Continues on next page of another as a human being.
Migrating to the blockchain: exploring the implications for the recognition of Others 33 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
Yet, whereas the Internet serves to reduce space and landlords, and debtors and creditors. As and time between human beings by facilitating a result, decentralised online platforms are far-flung connections and near-instantaneous appearing which allow for the trading of goods communication, the blockchain makes it and services directly through the blockchain. possible for discrete parties to invest greater Individuals – without prior relations and trust in these interactions and in a single, limited financial history – can agree on the verifiable version of the truth. Best known terms of loans, including the collateral to as the underlying technology for Bitcoin, a be forfeited in the case of a default, all of blockchain is literally comprised of a chain which can be facilitated by a decentralised of blocks that each contain information held platform and smart contracts. Similarly, this on a distributed ledger amongst many nodes technology is being developed in relation to in a network. As the information stored is manufacturing and agriculture, with the aim immutable, and blockchains are decentralised of promoting efficiencies and enabling factory and not located on a central server, they are owners and farmers to practice commerce less vulnerable to hacking and fraud. Given the without relying on the large corporates development of blockchains which can store who monopolise the supply chain. Even additional data, such as biometric information self‑employed domestic workers, it seems, and executable smart contracts, this technology may one day be empowered to connect with allows for a broader suite of peer-to-peer prospective employers via decentralised Words/Shutterstock.com 1000
06 transactions to be performed without reliance applications (Dapps) that will allow for the on trusted intermediaries or centralised execution of smart contracts on the blockchain sources of authority. Moreover, given the between them and their employers. In each democratic processes (as trialled with identification, recipients of blockchain‑based proliferation of smartphone technology, the of these examples, the potential of blockchain expatriates who voted via the blockchain identification may potentially be further necessary hardware is already in the hands of a technology is demonstrated in its capacity to within Colombia’s referendum on the peace enabled to be recognised and to participate substantial proportion of the global population. allow direct transactions between peers in process in October 2016). Yet, it also raises more broadly, within the global economic a network, without recourse to mutual trust serious concerns about the expedition of market and the emerging global public The disruptive potential of DLT is evidenced or reliance on established intermediaries. processes of automation that threaten existing sphere, as discussed further below. in the ability of peers in the Bitcoin network to Bearup Dr Luke industries and forms of employment, the engage in international financial transactions Given these developments, the prospect Given these potentialities, identity-related weakening of centralised authorities, and the outside the purview of traditional banking of mainstream adoption of DLT signals questions are quickly emerging as a key potential for criminal misuse and tax evasion. institutions. Through the possession of unique a potential paradigm shift in processes governance issue. Foremost amongst those These developments raise fascinating and wallet addresses (which consist of a string of of recognition, away from reliance upon working on these issues are groups such alarming questions, particularly in relation unique identifiers), peers can send and receive centralised authorities; posing a daunting mix as Web of Trust 2.0 and ID2020, who aim to to processes of gatekeeping and recognition. Bitcoin, or an alternative cryptocurrency of of regulatory challenges and opportunities. promote consensus around the principles For example, interventions being considered their choice (there are now more than 1,500 This technology raises high hopes, concerning and the next steps towards developing the by the United Nations, which relate to the on offer). Blockchain technology is gradually its potential for realising free market ideals, necessary preconditions for promoting the gathering of biometric information from being adapted, moreover, to connect disparate promoting financial inclusion, challenging emergence of digital self-sovereign identity refugees, heighten concerns about the risks buyers and sellers of a broad array of goods global economic inequalities, and encouraging (see their work at www.github.com). These of control and coercion. Yet simultaneously, and services, thereby linking employees and greater accountability and transparency efforts to promote self-sovereign identity stand the technology promises to augment existing employers, consumers and producers, tenants in governance and public confidence in in stark contrast to our present digital lives. efforts to promote universal access to a legal identity (as, for example, within Goal 16.9 of Right now, on the Internet we are highly The disruptive potential of distributed ledger the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals). reliant on centralised powers who preside over the recognition of our identities and trade Traditional development projects aim technology is evidenced in the ability of peers our personal information as a commodity. to promote legal identity through birth Proponents of self-sovereign identity, registration and the promotion of identification in the Bitcoin network to engage in international however, are user-centric and individualistic for poor and marginalised populations. in emphasis, whilst acknowledging that financial transactions outside the purview of The application of blockchain technology, the realisation of self-sovereignty depends however, significantly raises the stakes: rather upon a supportive social environment. traditional banking institutions. than merely establishing national forms of
34 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Migrating to the blockchain: exploring the implications for the recognition of Others 35 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
Towards this aim, there is a broad consensus These above-described developments, intimate relationships. It is through reciprocal to develop cultural norms that are supportive around the need for developing a thoughtful related to both the application of blockchain recognitional encounters, in the light of of self-sovereign identities, arguably signal set of guiding principles. Such an attempt technology and the promotion of self‑sovereign shared norms, that human beings may be an expansion of the public sphere – and is reflected in the ten principles outlined online identities, have significant implications affirmed in their identities and common of the corresponding social norms. by the group Web of Trust. These affirm for the global poor, asylum seekers humanity, and thereafter develop self-respect, As observed by Robert Ackland, in his 2013 the notion of an enduring I, or the self (1); and stateless persons, and the world’s self‑esteem, and self-confidence. For Honneth, book Web Social Science, at the turn of the and the importance of: maintaining control “excess population” that Zygmunt Bauman it is our struggles for recognition that serve to 21st century there emerged two contrasting over the expression of one’s identity (2); attributes to processes of modernisation. advance human freedom and social justice. perspectives on the impact of the Internet. having complete access to one’s own data Moreover, the shift away from reliance on Honneth’s framework of recognition The first, associated with Castells, hoped for (3); transparency, in regards to the systems centralised authorities can be productively sheds light on these developments related a rejuvenated participatory democracy. The in which an identity is constructed (4); the interpreted, drawing on Axel Honneth’s theory to DLT and collaboration towards the second, associated with Putnam and Sunstein, persistence of identities over time (whilst of recognition, freedom and social justice. establishment of shared social norms warned of increasing isolation, the erosion maintaining a distinction between an identity In its most elementary form, recognition that will foster self-sovereign identities. of a common political discourse and an and its claims, allowing for mutability, and relates to one’s re-identification by another, or Marginalised subpopulations such as the increasing experience of cyberbalkanisation. maintaining a ‘right to be forgotten’) (5); otherwise the acknowledgment of another as global poor, asylum seekers and so-called Given the present challenges associated with the portability of services and information a human being. This seems to equate with the “economic refugees” have been persistently the centralisation of power on the Internet about one’s identity (6); interoperability – or first principle proposed by the Web of Trust, denied basic recognition and legal recognition. (for example, with Google and Facebook), the importance of developing identities which relates to re-identification or the Accordingly, pushbacks, arbitrary detention it may appear that it was the latter more that can travel and are widely usable across mutual recognition of one’s enduring ‘I’, and instances of refoulment, constitute cautionary perspective that foreshadowed
06 boundaries (7); consent, in regard to the which is the basis of self-sovereign identity. the denial of basic recognition and access our present circumstances. Our preference for sharing of all personal information (8); Beyond this, however, Honneth theorises that to human rights. By contrast, the denial of convenience has led to greater centralisation. minimalisation, in terms of the amount recognition is reciprocally communicated protective status and residency after due Nevertheless, with the narrowing of the digital of personal information that must be through the expression of respect, esteem, process, represents the lawful withholding and biological divide, blockchain technology divulged in order to access a service (9); and and love, in accordance with local norms, of legal recognition within the public sphere, appears to provide us with a second finally, the protection of users through the within social institutions such as the which in modern liberal democracies has opportunity to embrace an open decentralised decentralisation of their information (10). public sphere, the marketplace and within been traditionally constructed as a national web, and a broadened global public sphere.
space reserved for citizens, primarily based These developments, related to blockchain Bearup Dr Luke on their place of birth. Citizens, therefore, technology and the ideal of self-sovereign traditionally afford each other recognition identity, have significant implications for as equal legal subjects under national laws. contemporary relations of recognition, established boundaries, and centralised Through processes of globalisation, however, sources of authority. While the implications of including global market capitalism, the these developments remain difficult to foresee, penetration of the Internet and smartphones, they raise a host of sociological questions about and now blockchain technology, the the implications of this technology, cultural opportunities for relations of recognition are norms related to self-sovereignty, and the expanding well beyond national boundaries. emergence of a global public sphere, with For example, when the organisation known significant regulatory implications for the as Bitnation intervened within the Syrian development of public policy, governance, migration crisis, they did more than provide and the pursuit of global social justice. humanitarian assistance. Through providing refugees with blockchain backed IDs and bitcoin debit cards, they symbolically affirmed the status of these refugees as global citizens, entitled to recognition in the global public and economic spheres. Their global forms of identification were issued without the approval or endorsement of any nation state. These developments, and the intentional efforts Trocaire/Flickr
36 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Migrating to the blockchain: exploring the implications for the recognition of Others 37 Autumn 2018
Professor Helen James Professor Helen James is a specialist in Everywhere across Asia, rural populations mainland Southeast Asia, especially Thailand are ‘On the Move’, to borrow a phrase from and Myanmar. She is currently an Honorary the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2011. Professor in the Department of Anthropology, They leave behind impoverished agricultural School of Culture, History and Language, in communities to seek better economic and Urbanisation and rural the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU. educational opportunities in large urban She has also been a Director of several conurbations. These are often in coastal Australian government departments. She areas which have been able to benefit from has over 120 publications including 10 books, the advantages of the globally integrated development: interrogating and many chapters, articles and conference economic order over the past several decades. papers. In 1997, Professor James was awarded Such movement is contributing to the urban the Order of Benchamabhorn, Member of the congestion experienced in many large changing socio-economic Most Noble Order of the Kingdom of Thailand cities. The ADB has estimated that right now by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej for almost 50 per cent of the global population services to Thai history, language, education lives in cities. The longer term impacts of realities in contemporary and culture. Her current research interests these significant population movements are in disaster risk and resilience, civil society, are still to be defined, although researchers and sustainable development. Since 1995 have already identified the consequences Myanmar she has taken a leading role in fostering the engagement policy with Burma/Myanmar for resources consumption, health and of successive Australian governments. lifestyle impacts, water quality, transport gridlock and communications strategies.
Myanmar is no exception to the emerging policy imperatives deriving from this mass movement of people. According to the 2014 07 Myanmar Census, around 70 per cent of its 52 million people still call the countryside ‘home’ and the ADB estimates agriculture
still accounts for around 62 per cent of the James Helen Professor national economy. This movement of people nonetheless raises critical questions about the sustainability of rural communities.
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In the very poor area of Northern Pakokku, where climate change is resulting in arid lands crisscrossed by gullies down which flash floods occur in the monsoon season or when there is a cloud burst, a novel approach is seeking to stem the tide of people movement to the urban areas.
Urbanisation and rural development: interrogating changing socio-economic realities in contemporary Myanmar 39 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
In the villages of the Delta, rising sea levels are resulting in soil salination which cannot sustain the crops of rice and legumes that provide the staple income for small farmers.
It also raises concerns about how these 3D in Thailand – for being dangerous, dirty communities will adapt to the socio-economic and demeaning) among people who barely imperatives of climate change, and how they tolerate their presence, to put aside funds will interface with rapid industrialisation as for the next tranche of investments in their transitional political landscapes encourage home villages. Domestic migrants are similar, greater personal freedoms. While the but they can access lower amounts of funds. countryside may be home, as set out in These are often the younger people, male and official residential documentation, often this female, below 30 years of age, who move to the data overlooks the fact that many of these larger cities to work on construction sites or in people have left to go elsewhere in search factories in the newly industrialising estates. of employment and better opportunities. People movements are thus changing the face of rural communities in terms of availability Rural-urban migration in Myanmar is of 07 of, and access to a more modern lifestyle. three types. The first is internal, including domestic movements from countryside spaces But there are many emerging downsides to to cityscapes in Yangon, Mandalay and the this narrative of apparent increased prosperity smaller regional towns such as Pathein, arising from rural-urban migration. In the James Helen Professor Monywa, Taunggyi and Kengtung. The second villages of the Delta, rising sea levels are is international movement around the Asian resulting in soil salination which cannot region to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, sustain the crops of rice and legumes that Taiwan or even India. In some cases, this kind provide the staple income for small farmers. of migration takes in destinations even further Their plants grow, then wither and die leaving afield such as Europe, the United Kingdom, the farmers without a crop for food or income. the United States and Australia. The third Increasing poverty means that they must seek type is what is called ‘circular migration’; alternate sources of income such as fishing, that is, return migration which involves making thatch from nipa palm, and weaving. Myanmar people who have gone abroad for a Families separate as the young adults leave for limited time, before returning to their home the construction jobs in Yangon. Those family villages. On return, they often invest their members remaining behind continuously seek savings in building better, more substantial alternate income generation opportunities. homes; equipping them with modern electrical The movement of young adults, both male and conveniences (where electricity is available); female away from such rural communities is and even buying cars. Once expended, these resulting in depletion of workforce capacity circular migrants then often return abroad to support the productivity of agricultural to work remotely from their homes in low communities. As the local workforce decreases, paid jobs (this kind of work is known as day wages for casual labor increase; this,
40 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Urbanisation and rural development: interrogating changing socio-economic realities in contemporary Myanmar 41 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
in turn, is attracting a different socio‑economic democratically elected government largely and social change. It is not probable that political openness which fosters this capacity group of casual farm labour to marginal remain unrealised. NGO’s, aware of these such an approach could be replicated in for individual endeavour. People movement areas to fill these shortages. Similar critical socio-economic issues, seek through many other areas of the country. However, is part of necessary engagement with the developments are seen in villages around development approaches to install integrated the basic principle of seeking to develop global community and Myanmar’s people Pantanaw in the Maubin district; however, rural development programs, although these alternate industries through innovative are ‘On the Move’ as shown in the heavily circular migration here is having the effect can only meet some of the population needs. approaches which appeal to young patronised airlines in and out of Asia and to of keeping the overall population relatively people in rural communities could be Europe. The energy on display in Myanmar as In the very poor area of Northern Pakokku, stable, according to the 2014 Myanmar Census, worthwhile for local and provincial office it comes to grips with the many socio-economic where climate change is resulting in arid lands and additional funds coming in to the area holders, if it is considered necessary to and political issues arising from the democratic crisscrossed by gullies down which flash are assisting with livelihood options. stem the tide of rural-urban migration. transition will eventually generate innovative floods occur in the monsoon season or when solutions to some of the societal issues arising In the central dry zone around the there is a cloud burst, a novel approach is This of course may be a Sisyphean task. The from these significant rural-urban population Bagan‑Nyaung-Oo area, income generating seeking to stem the tide of people movement state may prefer not to inhibit this movement movements and their consequences. In an activities benefit from tourism and new to the urban areas. Villages in this area were of people, given that much of this mobility uncanny way, urbanisation may eventually agricultural developments arising from first provided with reticulated water to each contributes to the cheap labor available for be the key to some of Myanmar’s people non‑government organisation capacity household from a large horizontal earthen Myanmar’s newly industrialising sectors movements as economic opportunities building schemes, particularly in the provision dam set in a niche between gullies. The water and its increasing urbanisation. Circular increase in peri-urban areas closer to the larger of water drawn from wells and irrigation. freed the women of the villages from the migration is particularly valuable for the cities. These in turn develop diverse types New market gardens and fruit orchards back-breaking task of physically carrying water additional funds and remittances it generates. of rural-urban mixed economies which may suggest increased vitality in this traditionally each day for their family’s needs. Secondly, As with many other developing countries, the sustain their population groups in desired arid area. However, not all benefit. Movements irrigation from the dam enabled the people to movement of people into the global labour lifestyles without the need to move elsewhere. of adults to cities or overseas often leave generate two rice crops per year instead of only market is an indicator not only of changing children with elderly grandparents. In some one, thus increasing their food security. Thirdly, social and economic circumstances in the cases, indigent parents neglect their offspring goats – animals that can survive in these arid transitional state, but also of the greater or force them to leave school early to work conditions with little vegetation – were brought 07 in menial activities to earn a meagre income in to provide meat and increase people’s to support the remaining adults. A famous protein intake. Integrated health, education monk in the area has developed an early and income generation schemes such as craft
intervention scheme which keeps children work, weaving and pottery then addressed James Helen Professor in school and facilitates their employment as some of the socio-economic needs of apprentices, for example as mechanics, when women in the villages. The most innovative they complete their studies. His program part of the project was to build eco-tourism includes a focus on compelling the parents facilities in the hills around the dam site. to allow the children to remain in school. It These now attract large numbers of visitors recognises that for many people in rural from Europe, Japan and other parts of Asia. areas, education and the opportunities it may In its first year of operation in 2016, the generate, offer not only an important path scheme brought in US$100,000 to these to a better life but may also assist in curbing villages. In its next year of operation, the the population loss from rural communities. scheme netted US$1million. This approach is Such an approach, however can only be now being applied to other aspects of village effective if there are indeed employment development, for example, training villagers as and income-generating opportunities in tourist guides, to enhance the self-sufficiency rural communities to meet the growing of the villages of Northern Pakokku and expectations of Myanmar’s population. alleviate the need for their young people Significant impoverishment of large sectors to move away to the larger urban areas. of the population since the socialist era, has not yet been substantially ameliorated in The Northern Pakokku projects may be an the age of democratic transition. Frustration anomaly in the overall complex environment with this situation has been increasing as of Myanmar undergoing political, economic the high expectations people have of their
42 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Urbanisation and rural development: interrogating changing socio-economic realities in contemporary Myanmar 43 Autumn 2018
Dr John Funston Dr John Funston is a Visiting Fellow in the Malaysia has been an outspoken critic of Department of Political and Social Change, Myanmar’s persecution of its Rohingya College of Asia and the Pacific, at ANU. He minority. During a public demonstration has worked on Southeast Asian politics, in Kuala Lumpur on 4 December 2016, particularly Malaysia and Thailand, for Prime Minister Najib Razak set aside the Malaysia and the Rohingya over four decades, including 14 years in the customary Association of Southeast Asian region, at the National University of Malaysia Nations (ASEAN) policy of non-intervention (1972-1976), Brunei University (1986-1989), in internal affairs of neighbours, describing and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Myanmar’s policy as ‘genocide’. He called – humanitarianism and Singapore (1997-2001). He has published on Asian neighbours and the world to extensively on the region, including: an step up pressure to stop the violence. He edited volume on Government and Politics described the persecution of the Rohingya domestic imperatives in Southeast Asia (ISEAS, Singapore as an insult to Islam and stated; “I will and Zedbooks, London, 2001) including not close my eyes and shut my mouth”. chapters contributed on Malaysia and Thailand; Southern Thailand: The Dynamics Malaysia has a long history of diplomatic of Conflict. (Policy Studies 50. East-West involvement with Myanmar and the Center, Washington; Institute of Southeast Rohingya. During the 1990s, it was a staunch Asian Studies, Singapore, 2008); and Malay supporter of Myanmar joining ASEAN Politics in Malaysia: A Study of UMNO and (which it achieved in 1997), rejecting the PAS (Heinemann, Kuala Lumpur, 1980). arguments of those opposed to the country’s human rights record by emphasising support for the doctrine of non-intervention in the internal affairs of others. Malaysian diplomat Tan Sri Razali Ismail was the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Myanmar between 2000 and
2005, concerned mainly with supporting Funston Dr John the political rights of Aung San Suu Kyi. Malaysia’s focus on Rohingya matters
08 became more pronounced when the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs Syed Hamid Albar (1999-2008) a Special Envoy for Myanmar from 1999 to 2016.
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The plight of the Rohingya refugees has attracted widespread sympathy in Malaysia, from non‑Muslims as well as Muslims. But policy has often been driven by an attempt to enhance Malaysia’s international standing, and obtain domestic benefit.
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Since Najib’s outspoken criticisms, Malaysia Najib had also raised this issue in Domestic concerns also seem to have been has pursued a high-profile international role discussions with United States President in defence of the Rohingya, particularly to Donald Trump a week earlier, although the at the forefront on three further issues – the the OIC, ASEAN and the UN. It convened communique made no direct reference to a special meeting of OIC foreign ministers Rohingya, referring only to the need to end treatment of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur in January 2017. Opening violence against “civilian populations”. policies against accepting Rohingya boat the meeting, Najib urged Myanmar to stop Malaysia has mobilised several relief efforts all discrimination and attacks and repeated refugees in May 2015, and action against mass to help the Rohingya, often in concert with calls for the free delivery of aid and safe local non-government organisations. A return of refugees. He also declared the graves found in January 2015. ‘Food Flotilla’ mission in February 2017 conflict no longer Myanmar’s internal affair, delivered 2,300 tonnes of food and other as it had fuelled an exodus of refugees that essential goods for the Rohingya in Myanmar could destabilise the region, and warned and Bangladesh. In September, 12 tonnes that if the violence continued, militants, of food aid and other necessities were sent in support of moderate Islam as recently as Abdul Hadi Awang to present a private including the Islamic State group, could to Chittagong, Bangladesh using two air December 2017. And a notable aspect of field members bill to parliament to amend Act 355 infiltrate and radicalise the Rohingya. force aircraft. Malaysia also began planning hospital aid has been cooperation with the – a crucial step towards hudud. In December On 24 September 2017, Malaysian Foreign a 50-bed field hospital in Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, 2015, Najib and Hadi, dressed in identical pink Minister Anifah Aman took the highly commenced operating it in November. two countries at the forefront of Malaysia’s clothing, jointly headed an Al-Azhar Alumni unusual step of dissociating his nation recent Middle Eastern diplomacy. Saudi Arabia Regional Seminar, during which both pledged from an ASEAN Chair’s statement on the Seeking Islamic leadership – in particular has become a major focus of to work towards Muslim unity. Almost one Malaysian interest, with a flurry of high‑level year later, Najib and Hadi, and all top UMNO situation in Rakhine state, following a international and domestic meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers on the visits, joint participation in high profile Islamic and PAS leaders, participated in a 10,000-strong sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The These diplomatic and aid activities were no conferences, Malaysian participation in rally in which Najib made the emotional Chair’s statement, Anifah declared, failed doubt motivated by genuine concern over the Saudi-sponsored military exercises, and the remarks mentioned above. Such megaphone to specifically mention the Rohingya, over plight of the Rohingya. But they would also establishment of the King Salman Centre for diplomacy suggests that domestic concerns 430,000 of whom had fled since the military’s have been influenced by Malaysian interest in International Peace in Kuala Lumpur following were at least as important as diplomacy in this
‘clearance operations’ in late August. Malaysia projecting its role as an international Islamic the visit of the Saudi ruler in early 2017. exercise. PAS formally withdrew from the Funston Dr John called on the Myanmar government “to end leader and ally of Middle Eastern Islamic opposition coalition in 2017, has since reiterated International promotion of Islamic causes the violence, stop the destruction to lives countries. Malaysia has long presented itself its support for UMNO on the Rohingya has also long been used to appeal to 08 and properties, allow immediate unimpeded as a leading proponent of moderate Islam – and other issues, and was a defacto ally of Malaysia’s politically dominant Malay access for the delivery of humanitarian aid to a position sometimes at odds with domestic UMNO in the May 2018 general election. Muslim community. In the past, the ruling the Rohingya and all affected communities, support for a rigid, conservative Islam. It United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and to resolve the Rohingya refugee problem”. sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution used this to enhance its position against the Politics over compassion? Islamist Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), Domestic concerns also seem to have been but in this case its aim was to secure PAS at the forefront on three further issues – the support and wean it away from the opposition treatment of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, coalition. While part of the opposition in policies against accepting Rohingya boat On 24 September 2017, Malaysian Foreign general elections in 2008 and 2013 PAS had refugees in May 2015, and action against taken away important support from UMNO, mass graves found in January 2015. Minister Anifah Aman took the highly causing UMNO and coalition partners in unusual step of dissociating his nation the National Front to lose their customary Rohingya refugees began making their two thirds majority in 2008 (required for way to Malaysia from the 1990s. They are from an ASEAN Chair’s statement on the parliamentary votes to amend the constitution), not officially recognised as refugees but and to lose even more seats in 2013 and the as illegal immigrants. Malaysia is not a situation in Rakhine state, following a popular vote (47-51%). Since 2013, UMNO signatory to the UN Convention relating to meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers on has wooed PAS by promising sympathetic the Status of Refugees, but it has allowed consideration of its plans to introduce Islamic the UN High Commission for Refugees to the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. criminal law (hudud) and allowing PAS leader register Rohingya refugees for resettlement
46 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Malaysia and the Rohingya – humanitarianism and domestic imperatives 47 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
were stranded in seas adjacent to Malaysia been arrested. Why authorities had delayed and Indonesia. Both countries declared so long before making these details clear, and they would no longer accept new arrivals. why the camps had been destroyed before Malaysia said it would use tough measures, forensic investigation had been conducted, including turning back the boats to send the remains a mystery. But analysts agreed that “right message”. The ones who had already such activities could not have been carried out arrived would be sent home. Media reports without official complicity. Police investigations confirm that some 800 refugees were turned – which have been highly efficient in dealing away from Penang and Langkawi on 13 May. with the like of communists and Muslim In response to international condemnation extremists – have made no progress. To date, and domestic criticisms, Malaysia and only four people have been prosecuted, all of Indonesia said in a joint statement on 20 May them non-Malaysians. Remarkably, however, that they would offer resettlement and the US found that Malaysia had made progress repatriation, a process that the international in anti-trafficking efforts and upgraded it community must complete within a year. from a category of ‘Tier 3’ to ‘Tier 2’ in the Malaysia eventually agreed to accept 1,100 State Department’s Trafficking in Persons people, of which around 400 were identified (TIP) report, in June 2015. (Many noted the US as Rohingya (the rest were Bangladeshi, was at the time wooing Malaysia to join the presumed victims of human trafficking). Trans-Pacific Partnership trade organisation, The Rohingya were placed in detention under and that this required Tier 2 status.) extraordinarily harsh conditions. A year The plight of the Rohingya refugees has later, around 50 refugees had been ‘put attracted widespread sympathy in Malaysia, forward’ for resettlement to third countries. from non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Shortly after Malaysia agreed to accept The government response has in part been ArliftAtoz2205/Shutterstock.com limited numbers of boat refugees, police a reaction to this humanitarian disaster. announced the discovery of 139 mass graves But the crisis has also been used to project
in third countries. More than 35,000 had done for refugees from Aceh in Indonesia and 28 temporary camps at Wang Kelian, Malaysia’s image as a leader of the Islamic Funston Dr John been registered by 2014, but the number and the southern Philippines, but these have some 500 metres from Malaysia’s northern world. And the use of this crisis to strengthen had escalated to 67,000 by January 2018. never been implemented. In 2017, Malaysia border with Thailand. The revelation UMNO‑PAS ties, the harsh conditions imposed
08 Unregistered numbers are larger, perhaps announced a plan for three year working followed the discovery of mass graves on on Rohingya refugees in the country, the some 100,000. Illegal immigrants in total visas, but this will be confined to only 300 the Thai side of the border on 1 May. Victims initial rejection of Rohingya boat refugees, number between 2.5 and 4 million. Although people. A second purpose is that they can had clearly been tortured, and most were and an inadequate response to the discovery better off than some non-Muslim refugees, be made scapegoats for other problems like understood to be Rohingya people trafficked of mass Rohingya graves in Malaysia, conditions are harsh. The Rohingya do not crime and assorted social problems, and for by organised syndicates. Prime Minister Najib suggest that domestic politics has also been have a secure status in the country and taking the jobs of Malaysians during times and police head Khalid Abu Bakar declared an influential driver of Rohingya policy. cannot access government education. By of economic slowdown. Mass arrests and their absolute determination to find and Postscript: The ruling UMNO-led coalition contrast, 3,000 Syrian refugees, invited deportations often follow. Third, researchers punish whoever was responsible. was defeated by Pakatan Harapan by Najib at a speech to the UN in October have noted some Rohingya were given In fact, the situation was even worse than the (Alliance of Hope) in the 9 May election. 2015, have been provided with temporary temporary identity cards, valid only for a few initial reports suggested. On 20 December 2017, No pronouncements on Rohingya matters residence status, along with permission months, to enable them to vote in the 2013 the UMNO-linked New Straits Times published have been made at the time of writing, but to work and attend government schools. election. It is not clear how widespread this a detailed exposé, drawing on a confidential Harapan’s manifesto promised it would was, but such practices have been common The Rohingya – and other migrants – serve briefing given by now-retired police head lead international efforts to resolve the for Filipino Muslim refugees in Sabah state. several useful purposes. First, as cheap labour. Khalid, revealing police had known about Rohingya problem, instead of inflaming Although officially not allowed to work, they In response to yet harsher Myanmar policies the mass graves as early as 19 January 2015 false emotions for short term political can find employment in the informal sector, against the Rohingya in Myanmar, and – not 25 May – and had destroyed the camps gain. Unravelling the circumstances of the such as on plantations and in restaurants. Thailand’s closing of the overland trafficking before they could be processed by forensic mass graves could well be an early focus. Promises have regularly been made to issue route, the number of boat refugees surged. experts. Another camp had been discovered one year employment visas, as was earlier By early May 2015, some 8,000 refugees in March and in a police raid, five people had
48 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific Malaysia and the Rohingya – humanitarianism and domestic imperatives 49 Autumn 2018
Dr Rizwana Shamshad Dr Rizwana Shamshad is a Research Affiliate Melbourne hosted approximately in the School of Culture, History and 500 Rohingya asylum seekers, as of Language at ANU. She completed her PhD 5 March 2018. The majority live in the at Monash University. Her book, Bangladeshi Springvale and Dandenong areas in Migrants in India. Foreigners, Refugees Melbourne’s south-east, while a few are From persecution to safe or Infiltrators?, which is a revised edition scattered in other parts of the city. Rohingya of her PhD dissertation, was published by are a relatively new community in the Oxford University Press in 2017. Rizwana city of Melbourne. They typically arrived works with the Victorian Government in in 2013 or before. Often described as haven? Rohingya asylum research and policy. Previously, she has the world’s most persecuted community, worked with universities, policy institutes, Rohingya people from Myanmar have and development organisations in Australia, been on the run, seeking asylum in seekers in Melbourne India and Bangladesh. She writes regularly for other countries, for over four decades. peer-reviewed publications and news media. This essay is based on interviews conducted between 3 and 9 March this year with a small number of Rohingya in Melbourne who have been living in the city for three years or more. The aim of the interviews was to understand the settlement experiences of the Rohingya, including their education, employment situation and social lives. I interviewed five Rohingya in Melbourne – four males and one female. I used pseudonyms for the interviewees for confidentiality.
For those people who come by boat (known as illegal maritime arrivals), there are two visa options initially available to them. The Dr Rizwana Shamshad first is the Temporary Protection Visa (TPV), a three-year visa which allows people who arrived illegally in Australia to live, work and study in the country. The applicant needs to apply for another TPV or a second visa I will describe below before the first TPV expires. TPV does not now allow the 09 applicant to apply for permanent residency. Special Benefits and monetary assistance are paid to the applicant under this visa. The settlement process of the Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne is complex and ongoing. Continues on next page Further research is required to understand the settlement issues confronting the Rohingya in Melbourne and in other parts of Australia, leading to constructive policies and practices that can foster positive outcomes.
From persecution to safe haven? Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne 51 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
The second option is the Safe Haven Enterprise She could not continue further study after the Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne Visa (SHEV) a five-year visa which allows marriage despite her willingness to pursue applicants to live here and work or study – or higher education in nursing. She is now a on TPVs do not receive any government do both. SHEV holders must live in regional mother of two children (a six-year-old and a Australia. They are required to work without four-year-old). She moved to Melbourne three funding or fee waivers for vocational or accessing Special Benefit payments and/or years ago but relocated again to a regional tertiary education because of the current study in regional Australia. SHEV holders Victorian town with her family. The main subsequently can apply for certain other reasons for moving to regional Victoria visa regulations. visas but not Permanent Protection Visas were affordability and to buy a house. Her (PPVs) if they meet the SHEV pathway husband is also a Rohingya. He does not requirement for at least three-and-a-half have any formal education and works as years (42 months) while on a SHEV. a lawn mower operator. Munira continues to work occasionally as an interpreter and there ever since. Moreover, he is a registered English Program (AMEP), which provides The settlement experiences of the people plans to open a grocery store with her interpreter and works in this capacity up to 510 hours of English language tuition I interviewed varied greatly according to brother this year in her area of residence. occasionally. Although Hafiz has permanent to eligible migrants and humanitarian their visa status. Of the interviewees, three All of her family members are in Australia; residency, local education and a job, he still entrants to help them learn foundation have PPVs, and are therefore permanent feels unsettled without a family in Melbourne. English language and settlement skills. mainly in Brisbane and Melbourne. residents. The other two are on TPVs. Only He thinks he would feel more settled if he got Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne one interviewee came by plane; the rest Anowar currently manages a restaurant married and started a family. However, it is on TPVs do not receive any government came by boat. The usual route by boat was owned by a Rohingya in Springvale. He lived difficult for him to get married as, traditionally, funding or fee waivers for vocational or from Myanmar to Bangladesh and then from in Bangladesh for three years before and can arranged marriage formalities are initiated and tertiary education because of the current visa Malaysia or Indonesia to Christmas Island in speak Bengali. Anowar came to Australia from performed by parents or other family members regulations. They mostly work as labourers Australia. All of those who arrived by boat Malaysia by boat in 2012. Although he does – but he does not have any family in Melbourne. were in the detention centres for between not have any formal education, he considers in construction, agricultural, packaging and six months and two years. Prior to moving himself proficient in building design and Naser arrived in Australia in 2009 and Shahed farming industries. Many have more than to Melbourne, all the interviewees initially worked in building design and construction came in 2013. They both came by boat and have one job to support their families. A few are lived in other Australian cities, including for 25 years in Myanmar, Bangladesh been on TPVs since their arrivals. Shahed’s entrepreneurs, some starting their own small Brisbane, Darwin and Sydney. The main and Malaysia. However, he could not use family lives in Myanmar. He has a son and the businesses such as restaurants and grocery
reason for moving to Melbourne was the these skills in Australia and worked as a last time he saw him was five years ago. He stores. Only those who have permanent visas Dr Rizwana Shamshad desire for community connection with fellow construction worker before his current job. lived in a detention centre for three-and-a-half or can afford to pay tuition fees are able to Rohingya. In this respect, four interviewees months after coming to Australia. Naser also enrol and get a local qualification. This small Hafiz came to Australia from Indonesia by came because they felt isolated in other lived in a detention centre for two years after number of educated Rohingya with local boat in 2009. He holds a bachelor’s degree in cities, while one moved after marriage. coming to Australia. Both Shahed and Naser qualifications and proficiency in English work accounting from a northeast Indian university. have tertiary qualifications and are proficient in professional occupations as interpreters Interviewees on PPVs are Munira (female, He was held in a detention centre in Indonesia in English. They hid their Rohingya identity to and community guides at local community 24 years), Anowar (male, 43 years) and for a year and on Christmas Island for six 09 study in Myanmar; Shahed holds a bachelor in service organisations. Generally, Rohingya Hafiz (male, 35 years). The interviewees months prior to receiving his PPV in 2011. He philosophy from a university in Yangon, while men are the breadwinners of their families. on TPVs are Shahed (male, 30 years) lived in Sydney for a year, but was unable to Naser has a bachelor in electrical engineering Women largely stay at home and look after the and Naser (male, 36 years). find a job, before finding employment in a from Myanmar. Both are now working in the children and households. The researcher met meat factory in Wagga Wagga, a regional town Munira, came to Australia when she was 14. informal sector and hold more than one job to a Rohingya woman who came to Australia in New South Wales. Hafiz claimed that he She was born in a Rohingya refugee camp make ends meet. They are actively engaged with her three children and without a husband. and other workers were exploited in the meat in Bangladesh and came to Australia in 2009 with the Rohingya community in Melbourne. She started a restaurant business in Springvale factory – they would work for eight hours with her mother, grandmother and two sisters, and is the breadwinner of her family. but were only paid for three hours of work. Most Rohingya did not have access to while her brother came later. She went to a He also felt isolated without other Rohingya school in Myanmar or as refugees in other The interviews revealed that the level of high school in Brisbane for three years and there. He then relocated to Melbourne in countries, so the majority do not have connection and solidarity within the Rohingya speaks fluent English. She initially worked 2012 and pursued a diploma in community any formal education and speak limited community in Melbourne is strong, with as an interpreter. She relocated to Melbourne services. He eventually found employment English. Nevertheless, in Australia they have members supporting each other in their after her arranged marriage with her husband. as a client support officer with a non-for- had access to a small number of English vulnerability. They regularly interact with profit organisation and has been working language classes through the Adult Migrant their country fellows, and their social lives
52 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific From persecution to safe haven? Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne 53 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
are restricted to other Rohingya because Australian society. Similarly, Anowar, a Rohingya youth like Shahed and Naser on boat people, they are insecure, lacking of cultural and language barriers. This is restaurant manager in Springvale, experiences TPVs would like to participate in Australian formal education and technical skills, yet particularly the case for women. Organisations a culture of respect and equal opportunity in higher education and widen their employment manifesting strong community solidarity. like the Australian Burmese Rohingya Australia that he has never experienced before. options. Shahed talked about vocational All the interviewees have immediate or Organization (ABRO) and Arakan Rohingya training and skills development courses for Anowar’s experience of settling in Australia extended family members in Bangladesh Community of Australia (ARCA) regularly Rohingya. Earlier this year, a corporate body has been positive. His children are going and Myanmar. Everyone had one or more organise social and religious events for the sponsored a skill learning and enhancement to school, and he dreams of a stable and immediate or extended family member who whole community. They collect small sums workshop for the Rohingya community. secure future for them. He also mentioned had been killed by the Myanmar army or in of money to fund community celebrations According to Shahed, a community leader and that he had lived in fear throughout his conflict with other ethnic Burmese during such as Eid, the largest Muslim festival. one of the workshop organisers, such programs life, but he no longer feels this way after the past two decades. Fear and persecution benefit the community, particularly the youth The social lives of the Rohingya in regional coming to Australia. In the words of are still very much a part of the narrative of who felt more integrated with the wider society Australia are rather limited. Munira who Anowar in his interview on 5 March: the Rohingya in Melbourne. According to and Australia through attending the workshop. recently moved to a regional Victorian Hafiz, many Rohingya women still are not “When I was in Burma, I was always fearful town from Melbourne mentioned that there Naser talked about the stigma around able to go outside of their home on their own that the military or someone would kill me. were only six other Rohingya families in Rohingya in Melbourne. He and other and work because of the trauma and torture When I was in Malaysia, I lived in fear, scared the same town and they engage with each Rohingya people face stigma in their daily inflicted on them by the military in Myanmar. of the police, but when I came to Australia, my other socially and help each other when lives when seeking jobs and accessing fear was gone. I do not live in fear anymore.” This research explored settlement experiences needed. Her son goes to the local primary assorted services. He mentioned that people of the Rohingya in Melbourne through school. Munira finds the local community in For Munira, who was born in a refugee camp outside of their community often call interviews with a small number of people, the town warm, welcoming and friendly. in Bangladesh, Australia has given her hope them ‘boat people’ in a derogatory way. but their experiences are indicative of the for a new life and future. She aspires to Rohingya typically come from a traditional Given the temporary nature of their visas predicament others facing in their wider study nursing when her kids grow up and and conservative society. Munira, wears and a perception of uncertainty about their community. What transpired from the become a nurse, thereby pursuing her earlier a hijab (traditional head covering). It took futures, Shahed and Naser, who are on interviews is that when a visa status is stable, dreams from before her marriage. Hafiz her some time to understand and adjust to TPVs, and many other Rohingya like them the settlement outcomes and experience are found freedom in Australia after he was Australian culture. She eventually realised in Melbourne do not feel settled in their new more positive. The restrictions of TPVs make released from the detention centre, saying: that everyone can practice their individual surroundings yet. Some feel that they are the status of those visa holders ambiguous, faith and cultural activities in Australia in still living in some form of virtual detention leading to uncertainty. While SHEVs can be
“All other countries before coming to Sydney Dr Rizwana Shamshad a culture of mutual respect. She respects were like detention centres. I feel free now.” or in limbo. Many do not feel confident to a more stable visa option, the provision of and appreciates this attitude of the wider apply for a SHEV because of their deficiency living in regional Australia is challenging in English, lack of (or unrecognised) skills for this community, because of the language and education, inadequate support in finding and education barriers, lack of confidence employment and anxiety about social in finding employment and fear of isolation. isolation in regional Australia. They prefer If the Rohingya (and other newly arrived to live in Melbourne on TPVs, close to other refugee communities) are to be settled 09 community members instead of in relative in regional Australia under SHEVs, clear isolation and insecurity in regional towns. policies and services, including help finding jobs, gaining English proficiency, education The majority of Rohingya in Melbourne came and community support are necessary. to Australia in or before 2013. They arrived in the country before the world recognised The settlement process of the Rohingya that Rohingya were subjected to ongoing asylum seekers in Melbourne is complex persecution and violence in Myanmar, and ongoing. Further research is required to possibly tantamount to genocide after the understand the settlement issues confronting recent spate of violence since 2016. After the Rohingya in Melbourne and in other parts fleeing extreme persecution and engaging of Australia, leading to constructive policies in a precarious sea journey seeking haven and practices that can foster positive outcomes. in Australia, the Rohingya in Melbourne remain vulnerable. Commonly known as Abd. Halim Hadi/Shutterstock.com Abd. Halim
54 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific From persecution to safe haven? Rohingya asylum seekers in Melbourne 55 Autumn 2018
Assistant Professor Yasuko Hassall Kobayashi Dr Yasuko Hassall Kobayashi is Assistant Japan is known as a proverbial Professor at the Graduate School of Letters, non‑immigrant country, and the Shinzo Abe Osaka University, and Honorary Senior government has also been denying that Lecturer at the School of Culture, History Japan has turned into an immigrant and Language, ANU College of Asia and the country. Contrary to this denial, Japanese From non-immigrant Pacific. Her main research field is inter-Asian demographic change has begun to reveal migration/mobilities in both a historical and a visible shifts on various fronts. The number contemporary context. Her current research of non-Japanese residents has continued to projects are ‘Involvement of immigrants in climb since 2012. The Ministry of Justice country to de facto community planning for disaster resilience (MOJ) revealed the total population of in Japan’ (with Associate Professor Hitomi non-Japanese residents in Japan reached Nakanishi, University of Canberra) and a high of over 2.47 million as of October immigrant country: ‘Soldiers as mobile subjects: Japanese POWs’ 2017, with an increase of approximately experiences through ATIS interrogation reports’ 80,000 from 2016 according to the MOJ. (part of a collaborative project with Associate Tokyo, the Japanese capital, has 21 per cent recent shifts in Japanese Professor Christine Winter, Flinders University). of its population as non-Japanese residents, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) in 2017. MHLW also immigration policy stated in 2017 that the Japanese labour market also reveals growing numbers of non-Japanese workers. In 2017 the figure climbed to a total of 1,278,670, which is 18 per cent higher than in 2017 and the highest record since 2008). At university level, the number of international students enrolled in Japanese universities reached a record high of 267,042 as of May 2017, according to the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO). These recent phenomena are not happenstance but are results of a shift in Japanese immigration policy, and a set of
laws that was revised around the turn of Kobayashi Hassall Yasuko Assistant Professor the 21st century to promote an influx of high skilled and low skilled migrants to Japan. This policy trend will continue in 2018.
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Although the Japanese government carefully avoids the term ‘immigrant’ and uses the terms ‘human resources/human capital’ instead to maintain a façade, these imported resources live amid Japanese society alongside Japanese.
From non-immigrant country to de facto immigrant country: recent shifts in Japanese immigration policy 57 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
Like in other advanced countries, the information technology (IT) nation within immigration policy, for example, doubling five years”. The actual target was four-fold: 1) the number of highly skilled migrants Japanese Government also strategically building an ultra-high-speed Internet network and raising the number of international and providing constant Internet access at students from 200,000 to 300,000 by 2020. manipulates migration governance (or control) the earliest date possible, 2) establishing In 2012, a point system for highly skilled rules on electronic commerce, 3) realising to enhance Japanese economic productivity foreign workers (known as High Skilled an electronic government and 4) nurturing Professionals) was introduced for the first time and competitiveness in the global market. high-quality human resources for the new to attract global talent to enhance Japanese era. In 2001, the Council for the Promotion competitiveness on various fronts. Occupations of Regulatory Reform (CPRR) recommended in this visa category are researcher, engineer, reviewing the admission rules for IT engineers investor and business manager. Applicants to hasten Japan’s transition into a digital who manage to score 70 points or more qualify era. In 2003, a national policy to improve On 20 February 2018, the Prime Minister for this visa scheme and can bring family and Japan’s migration governance technology development in Japan’s IT sector Shinzo Abe held the second meeting maids. Their spouse is allowed to work, and (the E-Japan Strategy II) was implemented, of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Bringing immigrants in to cope with the they may apply for permanent residence after including the acceptance of 30,000 IT workers Policy at the Prime Minister’s Office and double assault of super-ageing and the five years in Japan, Akashi outlined in 2014. as highly skilled migrants by 2005 to roll out during this meeting he stated that the world’s lowest birth-rate sounds a logical Despite this state endeavour, the pace was the IT network in Japan. To enable Japan to government will be promptly conducting solution, as suggested to Japan by Lee Kuan slow in increasing the number of immigrants receive high-skilled migrants, immigration studies of system reform to accept foreign Yew, the founding father of Singapore about under this category. To attract further global law was revised in 2006. This was the first personnel with specialised and technical a decade ago in the Sydney Morning Herald on talent, an extra incentive was added to this policy attempt by Japan to increase its skills, to fill the shortage of labour. Yet, 11 Dec 2009. Singapore has strategically and scheme. The waiting period to apply for number of highly skilled migrants (Oishi in the same statement, he pronounced successfully engineered its migration policies permanent residence was cut radically from 2012). This trend then was continued to create that “the Abe Cabinet has no intention to enhance its economic competitiveness in five years to one year. Anda government- further influxes of highly skilled migrants. of implementing so-called ‘immigration a neoliberal global order since the beginning funded advertisement was released outside policies’. We stand firm on this point”. of the century. Now Japan is following in In 2008, a proposal for a Japanese Style Japan by Bloomberg entitled “Japan: The the footsteps of that predecessor in the Immigration Policy was submitted by the Rising Magnet for Foreign Talent”, to attract A question to be asked is how the Japanese region and instigating influxes of migrants members of Parliament Alliance of the Liberal these high skilled professionals to Japan. Government makes sense of this contradiction: through various types of visa categories. Democratic Party to the then prime minister, declaring Japan to be a non-immigration Low-skilled migration is also on the rise. The long-held common view about Japan Yasuo Fukuda. This policy proposal suggested country, while promoting flows of migration? Low-skilled immigrant workers increased as a non‑immigrant country and hence a that Japan should utilise immigrants and This article will attempt to investigate recent 22 per cent in 2017, states the MHLW. This mono‑ethnic country needs to be contested. develop them as a human resource, and hence migration policy shifts and disentangle this category of immigration is tricky as the Kobayashi Hassall Yasuko Assistant Professor Like in other advanced countries, the Japanese should accept international students and contradiction. First it will explore the recent Japanese Government does not, in theory, Government also strategically manipulates young professionals. The proposal included migration policy changes to demonstrate accept low skilled migrants or ‘simple labour’ migration governance (or control) to enhance measures to help them integrate into Japanese that Japanese immigration control is neither (tanjun rodo 単純労働 ), and the Abe government Japanese economic productivity and society. In actual terms, the proposed target strict nor closed but, rather, strategically makes this point unwaveringly. Also, legally competitiveness in the global market. The was to accept 10 million migrants by 2050, manoeuvred to suit Japan’s economic and there are no visa categories to accept low recent policy shifts in various categories of and this direction was endorsed by the Japan social needs and demands. Then it will skilled migrants or simple labour (tanjun rodo) migration governance has created pull-factors. Business Federation, Onishi outlines. In the show how the Japanese Government justifies in Japan. However, foreign workers have following year, the Japanese Ministry of Justice this reality against its simultaneous claim Regarding high-skilled migrants, a portent already been working in specific sectors in 10 (MOJ) expressed similar views. A report to have “no intention of implementing of changes in the policy appeared around Japan, such as construction, shipping, and published by the Fifth Immigration Control so-called ‘immigration policies’”. the turn of the century. In 1999, the Economic care-giving (for example, aged-care nursing). Policy Council of the Japanese MOJ discussed Planning Agency and the Ministry of Labour The trick is that the Japanese Government proactive immigration policies to attract high reiterated a greater emphasis on the need strategically brings in the necessary human skilled migrants and international students. for skilled migration. A need for skilled resources by using other visa categories. There Under the then prime minister Naoto Kan, the migrants became clearer in a concrete sense are two side-door categories to supply such New Growth Strategy was inaugurated, which in 2001 when a new IT strategy for the a labour force: the Technical Intern Training st included Japan’s most open and aggressive 21 century was announced. Its aim was Programme (TITP) and Designated Activities. to “make Japan the world’s most advanced
58 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific From non-immigrant country to de facto immigrant country: recent shifts in Japanese immigration policy 59 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
The official purpose of the intern training The other side-door category for visas, Care-workers from the Global South are now Through Technical Intern Training Programme program is to provide opportunities for Designated Activities, is to allow intern taking care of Japanese elderly people like they (TITP) visas and Designated Activities visas, trainees from developing countries to learn trainee visa holders to continue to stay and do Singapore and elsewhere. This legal change much-needed labour forces are imported to technologies from the advanced country, Japan, work on specifically designated activities has spurred a rapid enrolment of international take up 3D jobs (meaning dangerous, dirty and and transfer such knowledge and skills back after the expiration of their trainee visa. In students in Japanese nursing schools. demeaning) in Japan, including the massive to their home countries and subsequently practice, this is a way to prolong the duration construction work for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. to contribute to the economic development of the trainee visa for specifically selected Why are they not immigrants? The bottom line is that they are mobile and of those countries. However, this scheme (designated) types of work. The ‘designator’ disposable resources/capitals. Hence when is not open to every industry, but limited is the Japanese Government and designated A riddle to be untangled is how then the the government’s aims have been met, it is to selected industries such as construction, areas are predictably ones suffering from Japanese Government manages to state that technically possible to send them back to shipping, care-giving and agriculture that face a pressing labour shortage, such as the Japan is not an immigrant country. What is where they come from without regret or a severe shortage of labour supply in Japan. construction and care-giving sectors. In the the logic behind this contradiction? The Japan remorse. To reinforce this point, the visa The beauty of this visa category for Japanese face of the 2020 Olympics, the government Revitalization Strategy under the Abe schemes as a border-control tool are designed employers is that these ‘trainees’ need to approved the inclusion of construction government aims to reinvigorate Japan by to prevent these people establishing roots be trained but at the same time are legally work under this category and therefore, strategically utilising immigrants where and in Japan. Most visa categories don’t allow allowed to work as part of their ‘training’, at after construction trainees complete their when needed. One of Abe’s key phrases, when immigrants to bring their families and allow a ‘trainee’ salary. Various industries suffering training in Japan, they can continuously he makes public announcements regarding them to stay in Japan only for a limited time from a labour shortage have requested the stay on and work in Japan until 2020. A immigration policy changes, is “to ensure that with little prospect of changing their status government to enable their industries to accept similar modification was also applied to the these (policy) changes are not regarded/mixed from immigrant through denizen to citizen. trainees and the latest example, in 2017, was care‑giving sector in 2016 and came into effect up as immigration policy”, and this phrase has Less protection and benefits are provided the agricultural industry. The government in 2017. International students of care-giving repeatedly been used in government official for low-skilled visa holders than for high- approved the acceptance of trainees only in training schools will be able to obtain resident materials created and publicised by various skill visa holders, to keep resources/capitals selected prefectures called National Strategic status in Japan after being certified as care ministries. But if the increasing number of exploitable and to save the state ‘distribution Special Zones. Another industry also workers by the Japanese Government. non-Japanese residents in Japan through costs’ (costs for family members of immigrants suffering from a shortage of labour supply, different visa schemes are not immigrants, such as education and health) – similar to other the 24-hour convenience store industry, also what are they? The Japanese term for global migration governance ploys in today’s 移民 移 recently requested government approval to immigration is ‘i-min’ ( ). The term ‘( )’ neoliberal world. And Japan is no exception in 民 accept foreign trainees, in December 2017. is mobility and ‘min’ ( ) means people. this policy landscape. Japan as the latecomer 移民 ‘I-min’ ( ) means those who have moved in this landscape presents no false hopes to elsewhere to settle down or stay in a immigrants but a clear-cut message: we are destination place for a sustained period. In neither letting you stay nor letting you become
contrast to this term, the different term used part of Japanese society but rather utilising Kobayashi Hassall Yasuko Assistant Professor by the Japanese Government to represent you as a resource/capital in the manner 人材 immigrants is ‘jin-zai’ ( ), meaning that serves Japanese economic priorities. human (人) resources/capital (材). Although the Japanese Government The logic of the Japanese Government is that carefully avoids the term ‘immigrant’ and 民 these immigrants are not people (mi= ) uses the terms ‘human resources/human 材 but resources or capital (zai= ) to enhance capital’ instead to maintain a façade, these Japanese global competitiveness and to imported resources live amid Japanese
10 revitalise Japan. These commodified human society alongside Japanese. They might wish beings are resources and hence are mobile for more beyond being resources or capital, and tradable like goods and other forms of like the well-known Swiss playwright and capital. They are brought to Japan when needed novelist Max Frisch’s quip in 1965 about to fulfil various needs of Japan. For instance, guest workers, “We wanted workers, but we Japanese global university rankings are got people instead”. This question awaits declining, and non-Japanese foreign human further exploration in the near future. resources/capital in the form of foreign talent are imported to halt this decline. Ned Snowman/Shutterstock.com
60 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific From non-immigrant country to de facto immigrant country: recent shifts in Japanese immigration policy 61 Autumn 2018
Associate Professor Katerina Teaiwa Associate Professor Katerina Teaiwa was born The wayfinders and raised in Fiji and is of Banaban, I-Kiribati and African American descent. She is an The Pacific has always been characterised by Associate Professor in the School of Culture, movement. From the ancient peoples who History and Language at ANU. Associate crossed the continent of Sahul that once Moving people, Professor Teaiwa has been a consultant with connected mainland Australia, Tasmania, the the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea and the United Nations Education, Scientific (PNG) over 8,000 years ago, to the moving islands in Oceania and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on Austronesians of East and Southeast Asia who cultural policy, intercultural dialogue and travelled from around 6,000 years ago and sustainable development, and Austraining eventually settled the whole island region, International and ANU Enterprise on people have been on the move in Oceania for cross-cultural and development training millennia. As archaeologist Matthew Spriggs for the Australian Youth Ambassadors has argued about ocean travel and exchange for Development. in deep time, even during the Ice Age and up till 6,000 years ago, materials such as obsidian were traded across what are now PNG and the Solomon Islands. About 3,000 years ago, Spriggs says, the Lapita cultures, whose distinct pottery appeared across island Melanesia and central Polynesia, took just eight to 10 generations to settle islands covering over 4,500 kilometres of ocean. This took significant navigational and voyaging skill. But while movement is an inherent part of the Pacific way, simultaneously there are values and practices that ground and embed Pacific peoples deeply in their ancestral landscapes and seascapes. Diaspora and indigeneity are both important in
Oceania. In this essay, I discuss historical Teaiwa Katerina Professor Associate and contemporary features of Pacific migration and how these illustrate certain dimensions of Pacific agency and resilience.
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Over thousands of years, most island groups were settled and complex cultures that Europeans classified as ‘Melanesian’, ‘Micronesian’ and ‘Polynesian’ arose speaking over a thousand different 11 languages. Together with Aboriginal Australian languages, these constitute almost twenty percent of all the world’s languages.
Moving people, moving islands in Oceania 63 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
In a 2008 lecture for the Australian Association over Micronesians and Melanesians. Across for Pacific Studies, Spriggs stated that, and between these areas, islanders had moved “all Pacific Island cultures derived from two regularly for marriage, trade, exploration, to great population streams; from that of the visit kin, or due to war. The practice of circular Papuan speakers some 40,000 to 50,000 years migration – where people spent long periods e
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h n POLYNESIA PA LAU a in Sumatra – and Sahul shelves, would have territorial claims. In her article ‘Imagining FEDERATED STATES Kosrae Kiritimati O F MICRONESIA GILBERT ISLANDS L in e
NAURU KIRIBATI Is Galapagos led to further population movements. Oceania’, Margaret Jolly has written that in hoenix la P n Islands d Islands s SOLOMON PNG ISLANDS TUVALU TOKELAU Marquesas these stories and genealogies, “the relation Santa Cruz Islands EAST Islands FRENCH POLYNESIA Wallis AMERICAN COOK Scholars such as the late Professor Greg Dening S Futuna SAMOA Tu SAMOA ISLANDS o am ELANESIA c ot between people and place is posited not M ie u A ty rc ANUATU I Tahiti hi V NIUE sla pe nd lag described the islanders who crossed thousands Lo s o ya FIJI lty Is Rarotonga as ‘ownership’ or human possession but as NEW TONGA A G PITCAIRN ALEDONIA ustr am ISLA C al Isl bie NDS ands r Is of kilometres of ocean as ‘wayfinders’. Unlike lands Rapa Nui mutual possession. The land is seen as active Kermadec (Easter Islands I) Europeans who came to the region much later South Pacic Ocean NEW not inert, as possessed of people, living and ZEALAND and used navigational instruments, wayfinders E L Chatham I dead. This imbrication of body and land is H Islands © Australian National University C were explorers who could read the position of CartoGIS CAP 10-059 palpable in language and in corporeal practice”. stars in a changing night sky, the wind, waves, currents, clouds and the flight of seabirds to So, while the ancestors of Pacific Islanders locate small pieces of land in a massive ocean may have come from somewhere else, they that covers one third of the planet. This history developed cultures and communities was the basis for the animated Disney film that were deeply integrated with Pacific Moana. The filmmakers travelled to French lands and waterways. So much so that Polynesia, Hawai‘i, Samoa, New Zealand and islands, including the flora and fauna, were Figure 1: Contemporary Pacific map showing cultural sub-regions based on the work of French explorer Dumont D’Urville in 1832. Map by CartoGIS Services, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University. Fiji to consult scholars, artists and communities experienced and described as kin. Such on their past and present seafaring practices. integration provided the basis for cultural, While these communities did not gain any political and environmental resilience over to work in mines in South America, as Christianity. Change was accelerated by the significant financial rewards from the US$150 thousands of years until Europeans arrived well as the displacement of Chamorro by Second World War, which affected islands
million production (it earned US$643 million), and dramatically changed Pacific life through Teaiwa Katerina Professor Associate the Spanish, the Marshallese because of in most parts of the region, but particularly along with revitalised sailing practices the introduction of Christianity, capitalism, American nuclear testing, and the Banabans the western and northern Pacific. Towns, across most Pacific countries, stories of colonial governance and devastating diseases to Fiji as a result of British, Australian and seaports and airports were established that Pacific maritime prowess and skill have now that greatly impacted island populations. New Zealand phosphate mining. Other became the coastal metropolitan hubs and entered the space of global popular culture. By the early 1900s, most of the Pacific was communities were moved because of actual capital cities of the contemporary Pacific. An carved up between France, Britain, Japan, or imminent overpopulation, such as the influx of cargo and canned food dramatically the United States and the Netherlands with Moving between islands Tuvaluans from Vaitupu who now live in Fiji, altered diets. Except for the French territories, New Zealand and Australia often taking on and the Gilbertese in the Solomon Islands. decolonisation of many islands followed the Over thousands of years, most island administration on behalf of the British. war and indigenous bureaucracies developed groups were settled and complex cultures Unlike pre-European circular migration, Colonial administrators, missionaries and other in place of colonial centres of administration. that Europeans classified as ‘Melanesian’, the new contexts and agendas shaping European settlers created additional pathways ‘Micronesian’ and ‘Polynesian’ arose speaking population movement unraveled some key While the circuits travelled by populations for movement that were shaped by new over a thousand different languages. Together cultural, political, economic and spiritual became shaped primarily by employment economic and political schedules and priorities with Aboriginal Australian languages, these practices and values that had significant and educational needs, indigenous land as mission stations, towns, plantations constitute almost twenty percent of all the impacts including on gender relations and the tenure systems that were, for the most part, and mines were established. The Pacific 11 world’s languages. The cultural divisions did agency of women and girls. While a gendered retained, even under colonial rule, ensured experienced great labour mobility, some of not represent how islanders saw themselves division of labour and roles was customary that communities continued to have and which was forced, in the form of blackbirding on the ground and added to a problematic throughout Oceania, women’s political agency access land and other natural resources that of Melanesians (South Sea Islanders) to work ranking of racialised status that privileged the particularly changed with the introduction and were linked to their ancestral roots. However, in Australia; Polynesians and Micronesians more hierarchically organised Polynesians eventual widespread adoption of patriarchal contemporary land grabbing by way of
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conferring long term leases, particularly to Hawaiians, Chamorro and American Samoans investors, expatriates, tourism developers, who are all residents of US territories, mining and other extractive industrial and in Australia the cross-Tasman travel companies, has now alienated many arrangement which allows for citizens to move indigenous Pacific populations from their freely between the nations, as well as along thousands-year-old resource base. This reality sport, education and employment pathways. has changed the nature and some capabilities Polynesian males feature significantly of once sustainable and resilient populations in American football, and rugby sevens, and environments. But while modern nation- rugby union and rugby league codes in all state boundaries have limited certain kinds three countries. The seasonal worker scheme of mobility across the region, Pacific Islanders that links islanders in certain countries have still found ways to keep moving while to short term employment in Australian remaining connected to their homelands. and New Zealand agricultural sectors, provides limited economic and resettlement The contemporary Pacific diaspora opportunities. Migration pathways exist for residents of countries under a Compact of Due to the nature of post-colonial migration Free Association (COFA) with the US including agreements, opportunities and restrictions, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of migration is experienced quite differently Micronesia and Palau. In exchange, the US by Melanesians compared with Polynesians maintains full defence authority over those and Micronesians. There are similar levels countries and their waters. The agreement of intra‑Pacific travel by Melanesians, also allows for service in the US military Micronesians and Polynesians across and which has resulted in disproportionately between islands, and far more migration high rates of Micronesian recruitment and by Polynesians and Micronesians to centres casualties. The flow of COFA residents outside the islands, particularly to the into Hawai‘i has created large homeless US, New Zealand and Australia. This table Micronesian populations which the state is Figure 3: Image by Jeff Tan and courtesy of 350 Pacific. shows estimates for Pacific populations ill-equipped to understand and support. in the respective countries (excluding Indo‑Fijian populations). Most migrants Amongst all these communities are unique in some countries such as Samoa, Tonga those countries most urgently threatened. At in the US are Hawaiians, followed by methods of maintaining Pacific cultural Teaiwa Katerina Professor Associate and Fiji have become a critical dimension the same time, Pacific countries have pushed Samoans and Chamorro. In Australia, it identities and values through the building of of cultural identities in the 21st century. back against discourses of victimhood and is Maori followed by Samoans and Fijians, new communication networks, establishment vulnerability and called for countries that and in New Zealand the largest groups are of proxy institutions such as church, dance consume large amounts of fossil fuels, such Samoans followed by Cook Islanders. or language learning communities that Environmental displacement become new ‘villages’, and the remittance as Australia, to reduce carbon emissions The impact of climate change in Oceania The motivations for migration include of income and material goods to home and better understand the need for support, has been severe, with rising sea levels, employment pathways, most commonly for communities, which helps maintain kinship agency and dignity for Pacific populations. A floods, droughts, and the pollution of fresh New Zealand, territorial access in the case of links and land rights. Indeed, migration slogan of climate movements across Oceania, water sources particularly threatening the particularly amongst those supported residents of coastal areas and atoll islands. It by global activist network 350.org, is is widely accepted amongst Pacific leaders, “We’re not drowning, we’re fighting”. United States Australia New Zealand policymakers and many scientists that climate Migrant Population (incl. Hawaiians) (incl. Maori) (excl. Maori) change will result in future environmental While thinking about such a future migration, particularly from those in low‑lying characterised by increased environmental Pacific Islanders 1.3 million (2015) 331,103 (2016) 295, 941 (2013) countries such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the displacement between and beyond Pacific 11 Islands, it is important for policymakers to look % of total population 0.4% 1.3% 6.9% Marshall Islands. To prevent forced migration, institutions such as the World Bank have back at previous incidences of mass relocation called upon Australia and New Zealand to or migration and learn from historical Figure 2: Estimates of Pacific migrants in three major destination countries. Source: US Dept. of Health and Human Services, office of Minority Health, National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, 2016 Australian Census. plan for and allow open access migration from experiences. The Banaban and Tuvaluan
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populations in Fiji, and the Gilbertese in the What European explorers such as the Spanish Solomons, for example, represent a variety of in the 1500s and the British in the 1700s policy mistakes and successes which need to saw as small, limited and isolated islands be studied and understood if any planning in a far sea, was rather, what one of the for future movement is successful. Similarly, Australian National University’s most famous policymakers and politicians need to engage Pacific Islander graduates, the late Professor with and pay attention to the experiences, and Epeli Hau‘ofa, called in 1993, “a Sea of Islands”. the cultural, political and economic strategies In spite of many challenges including of Pacific diasporic populations in centres urbanisation, unemployment, affordability like Honolulu, California, Utah, Auckland, and quality of health and education, and a Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. brain and labour drain of many Micronesian In Australia, most Pacific research is funded and Polynesian citizens to centres in Australia, by the Australian Research Council, focused New Zealand and the US, the spirit of exchange, on discipline-specific approaches (such as kinship, creativity, migration and indigeneity linguistics or anthropology), and through that characterised ancient Pacific cultures the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, endures in contemporary populations. focused on policy, aid, governance and For the Banabans, for example, who are a development for the Pacific ‘out there’ in the minority Micronesian population in Fiji, islands. The business of understanding Pacific identity is now a multi-sited affair. Our communities here in Australia is left to states ancestors are from Banaba (Ocean Island) in and little knowledge is transferred to the Kiribati, our relatives are mainly on Rabi in Fiji, federal level. Research on the Pacific diaspora as well as other parts of Fiji and Kiribati, and in Australia is low, even though they constitute as a result of 80 years of phosphate mining that an important segment of our culturally and removed up to 50 metres of rock in some parts linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. of the six-square kilometre island, our lands The lack of in-depth understanding of the were spread as superphosphate fertiliser across Pacific diaspora in Australia must change Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. Neither if the World Bank’s call for structured the displacement of land nor people has migration is to become a viable option. reduced the attachment of Banabans to their
Furthermore, such researchers and policy Teaiwa Katerina Professor Associate ancestral home. Banaban identity has expanded advisors should – like in New Zealand which to encompass a ’Fiji Islander’ identity and thus has a more robust and targeted system of become more complex as it has for other Pacific support, and the US where tertiary education migrants across and beyond Oceania. Islanders participation rates are higher compared with have always been resilient. They’ve survived Australia – be Pacific Islanders themselves. for thousands of years in a challenging oceanic environment. Contemporary Routes and roots challenges such as climate change are The migration and travel patterns of further expanding our cultural, political contemporary islanders continue to reflect the and economic tools for creative survival. spirit of their ancestors. Anthropologist James Clifford described how islander identities and values are shaped by both “routes and roots”. These are the pathways, networks and
11 circuits of economic, political and cultural activities and kinship articulated across terrestrial and oceanic spaces in combination Figure 4: My cousin Temanarara Teruamwi Teaiwa fishing in an outrigger canoe off the coast of Rabi Island in Fiji. with deep attachment or ‘roots’ in specific The Banabans were relocated en masse from Kiribati to Fiji in 1945 and constitute a minority population there. Photo by Katerina Teaiwa. indigenous landscapes and seascapes.
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Dr Sverre Molland Dr Sverre Molland’s overarching research Human trafficking – the non-consensual interests examine the intersections between recruitment of a person for exploitation – has migration, development and security in a become a central policy concern for Australia comparative perspective, with specific focus and its regional neighbours. The Mekong on governance regimes and intervention region is frequently singled out as a ‘hotspot’ Beyond anti-trafficking? modalities in mainland Southeast Asia. He for trafficking, but it is also where many has close to two decades of research anti-trafficking initiatives originated in the and programme experience on human 1990s. This year marks the 20th anniversary trafficking, development and mobility of regional anti-trafficking, which invites Rethinking migration in the Mekong region. He has published reflection on the status of these initiatives. widely on human trafficking responses and Despite the commonly held belief that human migration governance, and is the author trafficking constitutes an emerging challenge, management in Asia of The Perfect Business? Anti‑Trafficking anti-trafficking interventions within the and the Sex Trade along the Mekong Mekong region are in decline. This essay (University of Hawaii Press, 2012). explicates the reasons this is so. Considering the decline in anti-trafficking in relation to a range of emerging nomenclature, such as ‘modern slavery’ and ‘safe migration’ points to a paradigm shift in how migration is addressed within the development aid sector.
The end of anti-trafficking? Anyone who follows media reporting would be forgiven for thinking human trafficking is a hot policy issue. However, a closer look at the Mekong region reveals
a complex picture. In the early 2000s, no Molland Dr Sverre less than six United Nations agencies implemented regional projects specifically targeting human trafficking. In addition, several non-government organisations and government agencies implemented anti-trafficking activities. Today, none of these six regional projects exist and only two UN agencies implement projects with a specific anti-trafficking focus. In some Mekong countries, aid projects specifically A central tenet of law enforcement strategy is targeting human trafficking have halved.
deterrence: the idea that if enough traffickers are Continues on next page prosecuted it becomes too risky for them, resulting in an overall decline. Yet, experience to date shows that even with abundant anti-trafficking resourcing and relatively efficient and non-corrupt police, translating this strategy into reality is difficult. 12
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This is not to say that anti-trafficking has For example, linking workplace conditions Research in Cambodia suggests that police disappeared. Several organisations maintain to immigration regulations has proven a focus on trafficking, but they do so under to be a powerful weapon for scrupulous corruption as well as an overrepresentation the auspices of broader migration programs employers to subjugate migrant workers, as which address a range of challenges beyond complaints regarding employment conditions of poor people in jails may be one of several a trafficking focus. The United States can result in deportations. This has also unintended consequences of anti-trafficking State Department’s annual Trafficking in made trafficking hotlines ambiguous, as Persons (TIP) report, which ranks countries such ‘helplines’ can result in deportations. efforts with a law enforcement focus. on their anti-trafficking efforts, remains a Similarly, despite the rhetoric of putting powerful – yet highly unpopular – political traffickers ‘out of business’ anti-trafficking influence on Mekong governments. Several practitioners and academics alike have raised NGO’s remain committed to anti-trafficking concerns that strengthened border controls and bilateral donors do at times provide create markets for migrant brokerage where Law enforcement and most well-known case, which resulted in a renewed injections of funding into the sector. risk and cost is passed onto migrants thereby damaging front-page exposé in Newsweek. For example, USAID recently launched a increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. ‘convenience targeting’ Similarly, Australia’s The Grey Man is trafficking initiative in the Mekong region – Law enforcement efforts are linked to another NGO comprising of ex-commandos though with considerable reduced funding Protection as social control concerns regarding the harm of vulnerable undertaking covert rescue operations, which compared to initial plans. Australia maintains Although repatriation services and shelters migrants. For example, although it may well has been subject to similar scrutiny. a strong financial commitment to funding for victims may sound like laudable initiatives, be that certain traffickers present themselves anti-trafficking activities, in contrast with they have proven problematic. At times, as ‘guardians’ to traffic Cambodian children Impact? several other donors who have moved away. trafficked victims have ended up in shelters – for begging, Thai street children NGO’s It has proven extremely difficult to measure against their will – for long periods. Ironically, profess frustration at how poverty-stricken Despite these ongoing efforts, current anti- impact and success. After two decades of in the shelters that are meant to assist Khmer parents who beg with their children trafficking efforts appear lacklustre compared anti-trafficking efforts, practitioners trafficked victims overcoming their trafficking, on Bangkok streets get arrested under to the 2000s. Key donors have discontinued and academics are still struggling to peoples’ experiences sometimes replicate their anti-trafficking laws. Such interventions their funding of large regional efforts. define the trafficking concept – let captivity. Similar critiques have been made sometimes result in the separation of parent In addition to a noted ‘loss of steam’, open alone agree on appropriate responses regarding rescues of trafficked victims, which and children. Such ‘convenience-targeting’ self-criticism occurs within the sector. As a and measure program success. Molland Dr Sverre senior International Organization for Migration sometimes exacerbate the troubles they face. may be an easy way to influence trafficking (IOM) official put it: “the anti-trafficking statistics but can also be linked to rent-seeking Individuation, reductionism and Law enforcement and deterrence? practices. Training and resourcing of police to candle is burning down”. What explains de-politicisation this apparent anti-trafficking meltdown? A central tenet of law enforcement strategy is investigate crime can be a two-edged sword: deterrence: the idea that if enough traffickers give a police officer a law to enforce and you Anti-trafficking tends to individuate and be are also providing opportunities for bribery. reductionist: one must fit into the category Reasons for the decline of are prosecuted it becomes too risky for them, Research in Cambodia suggests that police of either a ‘trafficked victim’ or ‘trafficker’ to anti-trafficking interventions resulting in an overall decline. Yet, experience to date shows that even with abundant anti- corruption as well as an overrepresentation trigger a policy response. A key lesson over There appears to be at least eight trafficking resourcing and relatively efficient of poor people in jails may be one of several the years has been that a lot of exploitative notable challenges that have emerged and non-corrupt police, translating this unintended consequences of anti-trafficking practices relating to labour migration fall over the years within the Mekong- strategy into reality is difficult. For example, as efforts with a law enforcement focus. outside these legal categories. Hence, anti- based anti-trafficking sector: the Australian Government’s Seventh Report trafficking interventions may contribute to Anti-trafficking scandals of the Interdepartmental Committee on Human maintaining the status quo, as the structural The blurring of immigration and Trafficking and Slavery shows, the Australian Closely related to law enforcement efforts reasons for abuse are left unaddressed labour policies Federal Police received 588 referrals between have been the actions of a range of NGO’s because labour exploitation often falls 2004 and 2015, which resulted in only 17 who have engaged in a ‘raid and rescue’ outside the remit of policy interventions. Despite the official claim of aiming to successful prosecutions (i.e. 2.8 per cent of approach. Some of these organisations assist trafficked migrants, anti-trafficking cases). Although recent legal amendments have gotten into hot water due to the interventions – which combine migration may improve this statistic, one would be fabrication of stories relating to alleged with labour exploitation – have often worked hard-stretched to suggest that a strike-rate of rescued victims in their care. Cambodia’s against the very people they claim to assist. less than three per cent constitutes ‘success’. Somaly Mam Foundation is perhaps the 12
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Donor architecture (border control, law enforcement, bilateral to the need for creating easier pathways depend on being labelled a trafficking victim funding), modern slavery places emphasis for legal migration, coupled with a range or modern slave. Current migrant assistance Since the advent of regional anti-trafficking on the private sector. Rather than an explicit of assistance mechanisms for migrants. efforts in Thailand are quite remarkable in programs in the 1990s, there have been critical focus on border control and law enforcement, As with trafficking and modern slavery, the that regard, as compensation claims, and wage changes to donor funding. Today, donors are modern slavery echoes an older corporate safe migration approach also comes with dispute cases can involve dozens, sometimes more likely to support systems-strengthening social responsibly discourse through a renewed its problems. For example, the Mekong hundreds of labour migrants. This is in stark interventions as opposed to small-scale, focus on supply chain governance. Australian governments have established various contrast to trafficking cases which typically stand-alone projects. Sometimes practitioners mining-baron, Andrew Forrest, and eBay memorandum of understandings to create only involve a few individuals. Safe migration caustically refer to trafficking interventions founder Pierre Omidyar exemplify corporate legal pathways for labour migrants. The shares some of the state-centrism of trafficking as ‘boutique projects’. Relatedly, concerns are donors who are committed to eradicating resulting costs, however, remain prohibitive but is less preoccupied with a carceral raised that trafficking only constitutes a small modern slavery. This does not mean that the for migrants, which may result in significant humanitarianism and instead tries to introduce fraction of a much broader policy challenge state is absent (both Australia and the UK are upfront costs creating debt-bondage systems and networks that prevent abuse. which relates to migrant health, remittances, at the forefront of introducing modern slavery arrangements. Consequently, migrants often and structural changes to labour markets. legislation). Yet, it constitutes an interesting simply choose to go around these legal but Within this environment, anti-trafficking A paradigm shift? move away from the state towards the market, expensive pathways. Nor do safe migration appears even less appealing than in the past. both in terms of discourse and actors. approaches necessarily escape some of the So, are we seeing a paradigm shift where Given all of this, there appears to be few problems that have been described above. modern slavery and perhaps safe migration Modern slavery has also been subject to positives, or clear instances of overarching will replace trafficking? Evidence to date fierce critique. For example, Anne Gallagher Although it is important to maintain healthy success, derived from anti-trafficking suggests that they may continue to coexist – a central advocate for an anti-trafficking scepticism regarding many of these approaches, interventions. The anti-trafficking agenda, within the increasingly complex policy approach – has convincingly critiqued new certain characteristics are worth attention therefore, has arguably been a disappointment vernacular, as they do within the UN’s initiatives, such as the Global Slavery Index in the context of the Mekong region. The for activists and aid workers who thought newly adopted Sustainable Development not only for being sloppy and dilettantish move from ’state’ to ‘market’ has fascinating that anti-trafficking constituted a promising Goals. Placed in a broader perspective, all on scientific grounds, but also for having political implications. For example, whereas platform to advocate for the advancement of the nomenclature developed around labour depoliticising effects (yet, one may note Thailand has for years been troubled by the migrant workers’ rights and work conditions. migration are comprised of a myriad of her critique can just as easily be applied to US TIP report due to its harsh criticism of the competing policy imperatives. Aid programs anti-trafficking). Although giving lip-service to country, the main political cost for Thailand always have to face uphill battles: how do you Beyond anti-trafficking? addressing structural reasons for why labour has been loss of face. When anti-trafficking advocate for policies which support migrants Molland Dr Sverre abuse takes place, ultimately modern slavery efforts are linked to a discourse of supply chain Given these challenges and shortcomings, in a policy environment that is generally – critics say – has more to do with a self- governance, however, then this has much more it is perhaps no surprise that alternative hostile to migration, despite the dependence congratulatory ethos which equates capitalist serious economic consequences for Thailand terminology has emerged. Although a of national economies on migration? Whereas entrepreneurialism with morals. Combating (for example, potential consumer boycotts). discourse of ‘slavery’ has always been modern slavery and trafficking transform modern slavery, it is claimed, is ‘good business’. Currently, the European Union and others part of anti-trafficking vernacular, and labour migration into moral sentiment (it is are threatening a boycott of Thai seafood due sometimes employed interchangeably, an Alongside human trafficking and modern easier to have empathy with a slave than an to alleged ‘slavery at sea’ coupled with grave accentuated focus on ‘modern slavery’ has slavery, agencies also refer to ‘safe migration’ illegal migrant), safe migration appeals to a environmental concerns due to overfishing. gained momentum over the years. Whereas and migration governance. Safe migration is discourse of order (regular migration), without Thai authorities seem unsure of how to respond anti‑trafficking has arguably been state-centric itself a vague term, but in most cases refers causing offence to neighbouring countries that to such market-based political pressure. are sources of ‘illegal migrants’. As such, the Safe migration may be similarly illusive to decline of anti-trafficking must be understood trafficking and modern slavery terminology within this tension between economic, political (safety is after all defined through its absence), as well as humanitarian arguments for and Rather than an explicit focus on border yet has important scalar implications. In against migration. Although the proliferation contrast to anti-trafficking’s tendency to of terminology may contribute to increased control and law enforcement, modern produce individuated responses, safe obfuscation, it may have the positive effect migration does not depend on any category of broadening debates regarding how abuse slavery echoes an older corporate social of ascription. If, say, you want to request of labour migration might be addressed. responsibly discourse through a renewed assistance from an NGO for unpaid overtime in the prawn-peeling factory, you don’t focus on supply chain governance. 12
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Kirsty Anantharajah Kirsty Anantharajah is a researcher and a “The refugees have been able to reconfigure lawyer, who completed her practical legal the images of themselves as passive actors training in refugee law. She has a research and weak subjects into active agents and background in human rights and rule of fierce resistors. The concept of the refugee law challenges facing post-war Sri Lanka. as a passive actor was an ideal instrument The achievements of the She has particular expertise in the field in the hands of power and could be exploited of gender-based violence and impunity in by Australia’s political machinations; it South Asia. Kirsty is currently undertaking formed the refugees into something that research with Professor Neil Gunningham could be manipulated and leveraged for the Manus Island resistance on transitioning to a low carbon Australian government’s own purpose.” economy in the Asia-Pacific region. These are the words of Behrouz Boochani a Kurdish Iranian refugee, in an article in The Saturday Paper on 9 December 2017 titled ‘A letter from Manus Island’. At the time of publication, Boochani, a journalist, human rights defender and film maker, had been held at Australia’s Regional Processing Centre (RPC) on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea (PNG), for four years.
It has now been six months since the conclusion of the onsite resistance by refugees at the RPC on Manus. While the cohort consists of those with processed claims for refugee status, as well as those who have claims yet to be determined, this essay adopts the terminology often used
by the resistance and identifies this group Kirsty Anantharajah as refugees. The resistance, existing in some form since the reopening of Manus RPC, and enduring in various loci since its formal closure, is arguably one of the most powerful examples of non-violent resistance in Australia’s recent history.
On superficial assessment, the resistance did not achieve their objectives; none of the refugees have been resettled in Australia, and the refugees in Manus RPC are currently enduring a situation of exile and indeterminacy, as described by Boochani Manus and Nauru represent the frontiers in his article. This essay challenges this of Australia’s hardline immigration policy. perception and explores how the Manus resistance reconfigured certain power Since 2013, people seeking asylum through dynamics underpinning Australia’s unauthorised maritime journeys to Australia deterrent policy of offshore detention. have been repatriated or forcibly transferred to Continues on next page the detention centres on Manus and Nauru.
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Manus and offshore detention: detainees by their names, they would generally The men in Manus have not been willing together, kneel and cross their wrists above deterrent politics be referred to by their boat identification participants in this political framing of their heads, refusing to leave or be moved. number. She also alleged that refugees and their lives: they chose a path of resistance. Following the official closure date, 31 October, Manus and Nauru represent the frontiers asylum seekers would be taunted, provoked They have undermined this policy at its a siege situation developed, with officials of Australia’s hardline immigration policy. and humiliated by Australian staff, pushed and most critical points: they have reclaimed preventing food or water entering the Since 2013, people seeking asylum through subjected to verbal abuse … and physically their agency, refused to be silenced, and compound, though local Manusians did unauthorised maritime journeys to Australia crowded by guards and sexually assaulted.” transformed powerlessness into power. manage to smuggle some supplies in. have been repatriated or forcibly transferred In 2015, the United Nations Commission on This lasted just over three weeks, ending in to the detention centres on Manus and Nauru. Human Rights (UNHCR)-commissioned The Manus Island resistance police and immigration officials invading Locating the centres in PNG and Nauru, an Special Rapporteur on the Convention against the compound, beating the refugees and island country in Micronesia, represents In April 2016, the PNG Supreme Court torture, Juan Mendez, reported that Australia asylum seekers and violently loading them an extra-territorialisation of domestic delivered a ruling that the RPC was illegal and has violated the right of the asylum seekers, onto buses. They also killed a beloved dog. immigration functions. This complexity is must be closed. In August 2016, the Australian including children, to be free from torture heightened by privatisation; the centres government announced that the RPC would This violent end to the Manus resistance is or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. on Nauru and Manus are run by private indeed close, however, this announcement consistent with realist notions of power, which corporations contracted by the Australian Despite the lack of transparency surrounding came with the explicit declaration that largely see military might, and essentially state. The operations of these centres have Australia’s offshore detention facilities, the resettlement in Australia would not follow. violence, as a chief measure of power, as been shrouded in secrecy, facilitated by the government has been consistent and vocal There were no adequate settlement options outlined by Brian C. Schmidt. Non-violent legislative architecture of this policy. These about their purpose and political function: offered to the men on Manus. One option was resistance, exemplified by Gandhi’s Satyagraha factors, among others, have sought to engineer offshore detention is designed to deter that those determined to be refugees could and the US civil-rights movement, challenges a situation where the day-to-day lives of future asylum seekers from attempting the move to a temporary facility in Lorengau or to the hegemony of this type of power. While the men,women and children detained on journey to Australia. Harm is a component in the centre in Nauru. Many saw this as simply the lack of Australian resettlement and the Manus and Nauru are out of reach of public such a deterrent policy, as noted by Michael being moved from one prison to another. continuation of harm in Manus RPC might scrutiny. However, the little information Grewcock in his 2017 article, ‘‘Our lives is Another option – settlement in the PNG lead us to see the resistance as a failure, we have access to, in large part from leaks, in danger’: Manus Island and the end of community – was also met with reluctance, from a closer look at some of the events and has shown us something of the disturbing asylum’, physiological harm experienced by considering the often-violent interactions practices of the resistance, it is apparent reality of asylum seeker and refugees’ lives. the men on Manus, augments the deterrent between locals and the refugees, such as the that the successes of the resistance were in
According to the Melbourne‑based policy quality, and thus, the success of the policy. riot that led to the death of Reza Barati. The fact significant. These successes, essentially Kirsty Anantharajah information hub Asylum Insight, eight men He cites a survey conducted in 2016 by the Australian Government began to cut off power subversions of realist power embodied in have died in Australia’s care in Manus and UNHCR on Manus of 181 asylum seekers and water to the centre. On 1 August 2017, a deterrent policy, will be briefly outlined here. Nauru RPCs. One of these men, Reza Behrati, and refugees (most of whom did not have targeted resistance by hundreds of refugees 24-years-old, was murdered in February pre-existing psychiatric issues) that after on Manus began, consisting in part of peaceful 2014 when PNG police and locals stormed entering Australia’s care, “88 percent were protests where the resistance would gather the RPC in a violent riot. At least two men suffering from a depressive or anxiety disorder on Manus have committed suicide. The and/or post-traumatic stress disorder…”. cache of leaks to The Guardian newspaper, termed the ‘Nauru files’, reports extensive In creating a deterrent narrative, the Australian The Australian Government began to incidence of abuse, sexual abuse and Government has attempted to take the agency self‑harm. Jessica Bloom, a former worker at of these men; some had spent around five cut off power and water to the centre. the RPC made a submission to an April 2017 years in detention. The Turnbull government Senate Inquiry, documenting the culture even refused an offer made by New Zealand On 1 August 2017, a targeted resistance by and institutional policy of dehumanisation late in 2017 to resettle 150 asylum seekers. hundreds of refugees on Manus began, in the RPC and it was recorded that: This was a particularly telling political move. The men on Manus have a political function; consisting in part of peaceful protests “any staff members who deviated from using and that is to be in Australia’s power, and for language which dehumanised the detainees was their powerless bodies to convey a message where the resistance would gather together, ‘instantly suspect’ and would be questioned and of hopelessness to the rest of the world. monitored by others for not having ‘professional kneel and cross their wrists above their boundaries’. She stated that despite attempts by management to ensure that staff referred to heads, refusing to leave or be moved.
78 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific The achievements of the Manus Island resistance 79 13 paradigm_shift — Edition 03 Autumn 2018
Refusal to be passive actors The refugees interrogated the totality of The Messenger, a hugely successful podcast. of the risk and the hardship: by resisting state power in their resistance and found The Messenger was a winner at the New York they were “risking their lives and bodies”. Power can be conceptualised as a relationship; opportunities for agency in situations designed Festival’s International Radio Program Awards. The question of morality has long been absent in expressions of power, there is a level of to create a sense of abject powerlessness. Many of the men detained in Manus from Australian political decision-making consent or subordination that occurs. In This was exhibited in large actions, such as contributed their stories to They Cannot Take vis-à-vis asylums seekers and refugees. Moral the 2009 work ‘Power as Subordination and continuing to protest in large numbers on site the Sky, an edited collection, managed by principles were, however, a key motivator Resistance as Disobedience: Nonviolent for weeks after food, water and services were oral history project Behind the Wire. Filled for the resistance. As noted by Boochani: Movements and the Management of cut off from the RPC. By protesting transfer with humour, sadness and humanity, it goes Power’, Stellen Vinthagen states that: during this period, they refused to let their “I think the only thing that helped us persevere some way to bringing the human cost of bodies and their futures become political for the long stretch of time was our dedication “Resistance is concerned with breaking up offshore detention to the consciousness of pawns, essentially moved from one prison to principles of humanity and human values…. the power relations where humans are made the mainland. It won the Australian Human to the next, or resettled somewhere their into ‘tools’ for external interests or servants in Rights Commission Media Award in 2017. security was threatened. This interrogation Feelings of friendship. oppressive hierarchies. Non-violent movements’ Feelings of compassion. was also exhibited in seemingly minor Beyond these highly successful projects, use of disobedience and noncooperation thus Feelings of companionship. events of the resistance; not least, when the individuals in the resistance connected attacks the very foundations of power.” Feelings of justice. power was cut off to the compound a with members of the Australian public, via The Manus resistance’s refusal to be detainee managed to rig a connection from social media, forming interpersonal bonds And feelings of love.” made a ‘tool’ in Australia’s policy of a neighbouring building so that the action and keeping the mainland informed. The The achievements of the Manus Island deterrence is made explicit by one of their could continue, proving that even the smallest resistance not only made their voices heard, resistance are profound. The resistance most vocal members, Behrouz Boochani. action could be declaration of agency. they ensured that the wrongs that occurred effectively challenged the foundations of In his Saturday Paper article, he writes: in the RPC could not exist in the shadows; the deterrent policy of offshore detention. “The concept of the refugee as a passive actor Refusal to be silenced they were brought into the public domain. A lack of agency, silence and powerlessness was an ideal instrument in the hands of were successfully resisted and replaced The policy of offshore detention has attempted power and could be exploited by Australia’s with a powerful declaration of humanity. to keep the voices of the refugees silent; this Reconfiguring powerlessness: political machinations; it formed the refugees is evidenced by the near impossibility of moral courage Another product of the resistance regards its into something that could be manipulated and members of the public accessing the centres, resonance on the mainland. The resistance leveraged for the Australian government’s own The question we are perhaps most
and the intended gag laws applicable to on Manus has no equal amongst the Kirsty Anantharajah purpose. The refugees have established that concerned with is how – how did the service providers working on Manus and Australian public in terms of mobilising they desire to exist only as free individuals. resistance find the strength to mobilise in Nauru. The refugees have refused silence, against Australia’s inhumane system of They desire only an honourable existence. such a seemingly hopeless scenario? they have told their stories, and their voices offshore detention. The public stance, with They have established this in confrontation have resonated globally – and spectacularly. Judith White’s exploration of the concept of some exceptions, is characterised by moral with the proliferation of violence in the moral courage in ‘A Model of Moral Courage: powerlessness and apathy in the face of detention centre, one that is implemented by Boochani, beyond writing regular articles A Study of Leadership for Human Rights deterrent refugee policy. The resistance has, a mighty power structure. Up against the for publications such as The Guardian from and Democracy in Myanmar’ is potentially however, proven to us that the most monolithic determination of this monolith, the refugees Manus, co-directed a documentary film that illuminative here. Moral courage, such as that and intractable models of power can be resisted, have, ultimately, vindicated themselves.” was released in 2017, Chauka, please tell us the exhibited on Manus, can have immense power: and must be resisted in the case of Australia’s time, with Arash Kamali Sarvestani. Boochani Here, Boochani poignantly describes the offshore detention regime. Whether or not the shot the footage in secret on Manus on his “Acts of moral courage, through confrontation, imbalance of realist power between the Manus resistance will influence the public mobile phone. This film was screened at resistance, and exposing truth and injustice, Australian state and the refugees. The consciousness, however, is yet to be seen. the international BFI London Film Festival can result in saving thousands of lives, operation of the RPC was designed to and nominated for a Grierson Award. preventing harm to thousands of people, and “Our resistance is the spirit that haunts convey this power: the lives of the refugees initiating major political and social change.” Australia. Our resistance is a new manifesto for were controlled on a day-to-day basis, often Abdul Aziz Muhamat, another key figure in humanity and love.” — Behrouz Boochani through expression of violence. To most, the the resistance, formed a relationship with Rushworth Kidder argues that there are three opportunities for asserting agency appear journalist Michael Green, and would send key motivators of moral courage: recognition non-existent. However, as Vinthagen states: Green voice messages about his struggles, of the danger or risk, the willingness to endure situation and the day-to-day events of the hardship and moral principles. We see all three “Even if power is everywhere, it is not RPC. Green, with Melbourne’s Wheeler expressed in Boochani’s ‘Letter from Manus everything. Power is not total”. Centre, pieced these together to form Island’. He expresses a deep understanding
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