Trying to put it all into words
As I look over my scribbled notes and quotes from the Freedom from Torture Exhibition at Platform, I find I don’t know what to write. Any words I write turn to ashes and I start over, and over, and over, trying to formulate what I want to impart about this event. But I just can’t, so I’ll begin by asking you the same questions that one of the asylum seekers asked one of the presenter’s at the event:
‘Where do asylum seekers come from?
Are they even of this world?
Do they fall from the sky? Wash up from the sea?
Are they manufactured in factories?
Or do the world’s politicians create them?
The politicians over there don’t let us live;
the politicians over here don’t let us stay.
Where do asylum seekers come from?’
One attendee praised the event, feeling it ‘Gives people a chance to speak out… [about] what happens [to asylum seekers] here is as bad or worse than what they left… It needs to be known.’
Knowing isn’t enough – the system has to improve
But, is ‘knowing’ really the problem here? Perhaps on the side of the public, but not on the politicians, because as another attendee lamented ‘evidence [of torture] is provided and discarded,’ while yet another agreed that ‘proof of torture does not mean a granted status.’
As a concluding remark, I can only encourage you to go see this exhibition, read the stories and see the faces, and then spread them, tell them over, and over, and over, until something happens to make this system better.
