Mount Athos is in north eastern Greece, east of Salonika and only accessible by boat from Ouranopolis (ouranos means sky so Ouranopolis means Sky Town). The Holy Mountain is located on the red peninsular of Halchidi.
When are true beginnings of events, births and resurrections? I ask this question because I’ve been asked when did the “Flotillas of Hope” begin? Common sense answers that it was the day and time the boats set off for Nauru. “Eureka” left Sydney on 15 May and “One Off” and “Eureka” left Brisbane for Nauru on 23 May, 2004. However, before the boats even existed, “Flotillas of Hope” was an email sent at a particular date and time from somewhere. Was this email “Call to Action” the real beginning of the project? A feeling anchored in my heart for a few months before the “Call to Action” email was sent over the internet. Was this feeling the real beginning that only needed my fear of ridicule to disappear to express itself? Where did this feeling arise from?
I believe the real beginning happened four years before we set sail for Nauru. My father died in December, 1999 and being the eldest son of a Greek family it was my duty to go to Greece and check out some property stuff. I hadn’t been back to Greece since I left when I was four years old. I couldn’t afford to return to my birthplace, my roots, until I was 48. Over the years I dreamt about returning and all the special places I would visit. One was Dodona which is about 5 kilometres from Anatoli, the village where I was born. It is the oldest oracle in Greece, older than the Delphic Oracle. Legend has it that Jason, before he sailed off with the Argonauts searching for the Golden Fleece, visited the oracle of Dodona. The miraculous priam that spoke in prophecies from the front of the Argonauts’ boat, was carved from wood of Dodona’s sacred grove.
Dodona, oldest oracle in Greece. I sat on one of the rocks and listened to Zeus speak through the rustling leaves before I left for the Holy Mountain.
This is near the spot where Mary, Mother of God (Theotokos) shipwrecked on Holy Mountain’s beach.
One other place I dreamt of visiting was Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain as Greeks call it. The monks who live there consider themselves gardeners for the Mother of God’s Garden on Earth. When Mary and Saint John set sail from Cyprus their tiny boat was blown by strong winds off course to the north east coast of Greece where it shipwrecked. When Mary saw the beauty of this place she asked her son Jesus if she could have it as her garden. Soon after, seekers of truth arrived, some remained to become gardeners and others left after some respite. This is why it is called the Holy Mountain.
I was baptised as Greek Orthodox when I was a baby. In my late teens and early twenties I searched far and wide, behind book covers and the open roads of Australia and New Zealand looking for something. As part of that search I found that the Holy Mountain may have something of what I was looking for. I had sought answers in religions and philosophies alien to my heritage. Now was the chance to look into my own indigenous faith.
Ouranopolis – this is where you leave by boat to go to the Holy Mountain.
It was Easter, 2000, there I was sitting opposite Geronta Pavlo at the table with the wood oven heating some water behind me. I was inside a time bubble hugged by mud, stone and timber walls. Byzantium breathed in this small kitchen that has cooked meals and boiled water for over a millenium.
The tiny church next door to the room I stayed in at the old Byzantine house.
Of all the cats scampering for fish heads in the saucer near the door, two – the twins, Alpha and Omega ran towards Geronta, finding their way onto the table top. Geronta was quietly reading a newspaper. His hair, like small waterfalls of grey, fell over his shoulders and behind his back. Strands of his long white beard fell on the table. Gerontas, 90 years old, looked like a middle aged biker, with the full round belly of body armour and broad shoulders. Alpha and Omega tugged at his beard, he said, “Off with you,” and then smiled. I went to lift the boiling water off the stove and when I returned I saw Geronta folding a page of the newspaper. Over and over he folded. I wondered if this was some kind of Holy Mountain origami. When he finished folding he held it up.
He said, “Here Stavros, this is for you.”
I said, “What is it Gerontas?”
“It’s a boat. I don’t know why but my heart told my hands to make this for you.”
As I received the gift he said, shrugging his shoulders, “Who knows, it may mean that you return to the Holy Mountain sooner than you think. Or maybe something else. It is for you.”
The paper boat folded by Gerontas and given to Stavros.
What was interesting in retrospect is that he gave me the boat a day after we had a discussion about what is needed to alleviate suffering and injustice on Earth. I was thinking about the dispossessed, the homeless, the weak, the persecuted, the refugees of the world. I told Gerontas that the needs of the world are such that people who can do something should not hide on Holy Mountains but be in the world and try to change it for the better, Smiling, he said, “Our Christianity is esoteric, it is hidden. Here on the Holy Mountain you are no longer in the exoteric world. Our concerns are spiritual.”
“Gerontas, you appear not to care for the very ones Jesus tells us we should care for.”
“Stavros, from where you are it appears that way. You know, the Holy Mountain needs at least five monks to survive in caves and feed on light. Without these monks connecting Heaven and Earth through their sacrifice, the Mother of God’s Garden will wither and die. How do you know that this house, this monastery, this Holy Mountain does not play a similar role for the whole Earth? How much more pain and injustice would be on Earth now if the Holy Mountain did not exist? We, each of us has our calling, our vocation. My work is here while yours is in the exoteric.”
“Gerontas, do I need to become a monk to fulfil what is needed or is there another way?” I asked him.
Alpha or was it Omega, crawled softly towards his hand. He reached for the cat’s head and stroked it gently. He said, “This is what is needed from all…..the practice to bring the spiritual into the material, Heaven on Earth. You don’t need to be a monk or a nun to do this. All you need is pure intention. If your intent is pure, the way is open. Do what you have to do, follow your conscience and allow this particle of God,” he pointed to my heart,” your conscience, guide you.” He looked at me with soft eyes and added, “You must die before you die and then be reborn, this is what Easter is all about.”
A few days after I was on my way to Istanbul or Constantinople as Greeks call it with the paper boat and lots of material for thought. My journey over the next two months was along the ancient trade route from Istanbul to Cairo.
I took the paper boat with me on Eureka. I now believe that the beginning of the journey to Nauru was the moment when Gerontas gave me the paper boat. He, as a gardener, planted a seed.
St Paul at the base with Mount Athos in the background.
Entrance path to the house I stayed in with the two monks.
My heart is being stretched. I am sanctified after being petrified. I’ve lost everyone’s tomorrows and have found my own. The sky above is my sky. Never before have I owned the earth, never before has the sun burnt through my shadow to enlighten the crevices of my brain. I await no one and no one awaits me. I dip my finger into the Aegean Sea and taste its salt. This same salt is in my blood, and yours, yet my life had lost its savour, until now. Hidden eyes in my skull open like blossoming flowers to see my nakedness.
Kiss my eyes, kiss my mouth, kiss my hands, kiss my feet, kiss my heart, for I am now sanctified. I’ve leapt into the abyss and it’s nothing, like tomorrow is nothing, like yesterday is nothing. The abyss is none other than this moment, the Today of my life. I’ve let go my fears, my hopes, my wishes, I only breathe and feel the pulse of here and now. This here and now is not limited by a circumference of a clock and hands that tick and cut like a knife each moment. No, this now is the Present of my whole life. In this Now, I am being conceived, I am being buried in my grave, I love, I hate, I cry, I laugh, every moment of existence is here and now.
I no longer need to believe, I’ve crossed the threshold of belief.
Rimbaud: “I dreamed of crusades, senseless voyages of discovery, republics without a history, moral revolution, displacement of races and continents: I believed in all the magics.”
A few months ago I was stuck like a shipwreck on my bed in my living room. I was stuck there, 24/7 for two months. I was there because of an accidental fall at work. I broke my leg and tore a cartilage in my hand. This means that I wasn’t able to use crutches to get around and when I visited the doctor and the physiotherapist I used a wheel chair. So, my “senseless voyages of discovery” had become mundane wheelies on a chair. I was not down and in fact time seemed to buzz by quicker than ever. Yes, alone on a bed, stuck in one place for two months and all seemed well. Of course, being shipwrecked with a beautiful, caring wife helps a lot. I couldn’t ask for more in a woman who shares my life. Jane is totally giving, loving, warm and has a natural joyousness which lightens my life – even while I was stuck there.
So much for my body. Yep, it was immobile but my mind wasn’t. I began doing some amazing time travelling while I was in this space. Time travelling? Let me explain. I was surfing the net and buying music from eBay. I found a seller who offloads very cheaply, CD’s without covers and art work. More often than not they are CD’s of LP’s I already own but because vinyl is so 20th Century and I couldn’t be bothered trying to find a new needle so that I can play them on my turntable, getting “Exile on Main Street ” by the Rolling Stones on CD for 50 cents is fantastic. I bought some music I
haven’t heard for decades which I could listen to.
Each time I listened to these songs, reminiscences flowed unchecked – memories, dreams, faces, body entanglements, old acid trips and dope hazed twilights, smiles and tears, hellos and goodbyes…all streamed by as the music played. Each favourite song became a lane, a street, sometimes a highway to the past. I listened and watched the thoughts that arose and watching the thoughts, sometimes I felt. Felt what? It didn’t really matter, a feeling arose, then a smile bent its way across my face or a tear traced its way down my cheek. Old friends appeared and then I wondered, “Where are they now? Are they still alive? Are they happy?” Old lovers appeared and I remembered our embraces and promises we made to each other. My heart broke and then healed with another song. I loved all. I love all.
Time travelling with my ears.
Below are lyrics of a song I wrote about remembering a long lost lover:
Do You Remember?
Do you remember the time,
our paths first crossed the line?
Composing phone numbers
on the palms of our hands.
Do you remember the hour,
when we first made the vow?
During reason’s truancy, without sorcery.
The gypsy keeper’s hand of fate
undid the knot of empty space.
A circle and a sphere can’t trace
the shape of a falling tear.
The comfort and the fear can’t chase
the cape of another year.
Do you remember?
Do you remember the moment
rumour’s arrow pierced your intent?
Through the line between your eyes
a flame kindles your alibis.
It burns through precious flesh and bone,
the memories you wish to disown, by and by.
We sacked the empires of illusion
to save the key to eternal union.
A circle and a sphere can’t trace
the shape of a falling tear.
The comfort and the fear can’t chase
the cape of another year.
Do you remember . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . me?
This comes from an email newsletter I published between 2001 and 2004 called Imaginepeace Update. The newsletter was born due to the frustration and anger I felt towards the conservative Howard Government of Australia which was demonising asylum seekers and refugees. The climax came for me when John Howard, the Prime Minister, told the Australian people that the asylum seekers were throwing children overboard and the whole shameful Tampa boat incident. Just click on the links to get the historical picture.
Just after I started sending out the Imaginepeace Updates I heard from a friend that some people were organising to go to Woomera to support those behind the razor wire. I then organised a group of people in the Hunter region of NSW to go at Easter, 2002.
This was a social experiment as well because it was one of the first Actions in the world which was organised by using the Internet.
The Woomera Action to support the innocent refugees caged behind the razor wire in the desert was one of the world’s first social action protest to use the incredible organising facility of the Internet. Way back in 2002 when we were preparing the desert action the authorities did not think it was possible to organise a national protest action in the inhospitable Australian desert. The concept of a flat, non hierarchical matrix with networks which had no “leader”, no Central Control Commission (CCC) was a foreign concept to them. Ideas like “clusters” and “affinity groups” born in action by anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, yes the one that George Orwell went to fight in, were also foreign and did not compute in their strategic mindset. These early 20th Century ideas translated into the 21st Century Internet have proved incredibly powerful in the struggle by grass roots groups against authoritarianism.
The government thought the whole idea was crazy and doomed to failure. It is because they didn’t know the possibilities of organising using this new technology that the Woomera Action was so successful. Successful? Apart from the breakout of the refugees, the Woomera Detention Camp was closed down soon after the Action.
I believe that because the Festival of Freedoms was organised by the net, we took the authorities by surprise and this is why they weren’t prepared for us. The government did not think it was possible to organise a protest action out in the inhospitable desert. It had not factored in the logistical and organising matrix of the world wide web. Indeed, the concept of affinity groups and decentralised organic action with no centralised leaders also derailed their expectations. Another term for the organising principle we used is Segmented Polycentric Integrated Networks (SPINs). It was this experience which made the Flotillas of Hope Action to Nauru possible.
The Woomera2002 “logo”. The circles represent affinity groups, joined to the Spokes Council.
I remember talking with journalists, who just didn’t get it. They kept saying, “Take us to your Leader”. They didn’t comprehend a leaderless organising principle using a non – hierarchical web to facilitate Action. I kept humming to myself the song by Bob Dylan, “Ballad of a Thin Man” with its chorus “Something is going on and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Jones?” whenever a journalist would try to work out who was the leader. We obviously had the “Megaphones” who were trying to take away the anarchic spirit manifesting in the moment and to channel it into a “Socialist” box, but the Action and the Freedom energy was too big for the “Megaphones” to control.
The events at Woomera Concentration Camp, Easter, 2002 where refugees escaped and we looked after the escapees in our tents meant that those present had to look deep into their conscience and act from their hearts. The Howard government threatened to put us all in gaol for 25 years and labelled us “terrorists”. Woomera was closed down soon after the Woomera Festival of Freedoms Action. I am proud of being there.
Anyway, go back in time and read an email I wrote in 2002.
stavros
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hard copy flyer for the Festival of Freedoms. Very few of these were made because the Action was web based. Flyer displayed in sections here and below.
This is the original Woomera 2002 “logo” for the website which helped create the Festival of Freedoms Action. The Flotillas of Hope, 2004 can be seen as a child of Woomera 2002.
Good Friday at Woomera, 2002
Only now do I feel that I can write my account of what happened on Good Friday at Woomera. The last couple of weeks I’ve been in another mental and emotional state. It is only now that I can see it was due to the life transforming events at the razor wire of the Woomera Concentration Camp.
I and ten others from Newcastle and Sydney travelled together on the HOPE Caravan. The HOPE Caravaners – Jane, Ruth, Norman, Sabrina, Dave, Ross, Melanie, Margaret, Paul, Elizabeth and myself set off from Newcastle to go to Woomera at Easter. Woomera is a desert town in South Australia about 500 kms north west from Adelaide. It is a town in a huge, what the Times Atlas calls, Military Prohibited Area which covers about 200,000 square kilometers. Woomera is also near Maralinga, the only place in Australia which has had a nuclear bomb drop on it, wounding our country and releasing radiation which has killed many Aboriginal people and others.
Free the refugees!
Woomera is the place where Australia houses one of six concentration camps for innocent asylum seekers. Woomera,Curtin and Port Hedland because of their isolation can also be seen as gulags. So, the smiling hospitable face of Australia, with its beautiful fireworks and eternity on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the Olympic Games, 2000 now in 2002, has razor wire braces with tear gas and capsicum spray replacing the fireworks. Eternity is now a leaking boat carrying desperate people seeking asylum…which we, as a country deter and deny. The open harbour is now a gulag in some inhospitable desert. Is this Australia? Which face is ours? Was the smiling, welcoming face shown to over 2 billion people across the globe during the Olympics just a public relations act? Whatever it was, our Prime Minister ensured that his smiling face would like wall paper blend into the Big Olympic Welcome Smile. In two years the self image of Australia and the image seen across the globe have undergone a transformation, like watching a movie – Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Dorian Gray and Time, where the prince is now a toad – transformation in reverse.
A local Broken Hill newspaper article about us “spreading the word” as to why we were going to Woomera. The night at the pub was an amzing experience of open discussion and almost fist fighting then concluding with hugs. Talking beats fighting ALWAYS!
Funny thing happened along the way with our name. Hunter Organisation for Peace and Equity took on new skin and became Hunter Organism for Peace and Equity. The transformation from an organisation to an organism became complete when we arrived at Woomera on Good Friday. There we saw and felt what it was like to be part of a living Organism. An organisation is too structured, it smells of committees and hierarchy, in fact, in the context of HOPE it can be nuanced as corporate. The cry of FREEDOM from the detainees at Woomera Concentration Camp, resonated with our empathic and sympathetic cry of FREEDOM on the other side of the razor wire. We cried with them as they cried with us – real tears, wet ones. The detainees freed themselves – we have footage to show this and will be available on the new hopecaravan website. We freed ourselves by our presence, actions and awareness. Whether it was a balls up by ACM and the State to allow the detainees to escape or whether it was a miracle, the fact is detainees now know that there are people, Australians, that care and don’t want innocent asylum seekers caged like animals.
Sign on our bus, on the way to Woomera.
The living reality of travelling together for days to participate in a festival of freedoms precluded an “organisation” but allowed the living practice of inclusion and a trust that whatever a member did or said as part of HOPE Caravan was speaking and acting on all of our behalfs. One for all and all for one! HOPE has many tongues, arms, legs, hearts and minds. I saw that we, ordinary people, together with a common intent can achieve wonders without hierarchy, without leaders. Working from a matrix of networks whose diversity reflects the diversity within each affinity group achieved more than we dreamed was possible.
Broken Hill supporters made kites to fly when we passed through their town.
The combined presence by all woomera2002 activists gave hope to those without papers behind the razor wire.
The first razor wire fence to fall on the way to supporting the refugees.
Two members of HOPE Caravan, are maintaining a presence at Woomera having established the Woomera Refugee Embassy. By their presence the detainees have some hope and a clearing house for their voices. Other members of HOPE will be visiting the Refugee Embassy at Woomera. If you are interested in visiting and supporting HOPE’s efforts in Woomera become a member of the hopecaravan email group hopecaravan-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hopecaravan/
A hand painted message by local Newcastle people to the refugees.
Perhaps Woomera2002 at Easter will only be a short footnote in some Australian history text book in the years to come. Perhaps it won’t be recorded at all in any official version of history. As we all know, footnotes don’t tell the whole story. And, “History” as catalogued in the State’s book shelf has great need of revision to include herstory and ourstory to reflect the diversity of time bodies and experiences of all Australians….better still as Earthlings. One Earth under One Sky.
Stavros
One of several tennis balls we wrote AZADI – (FREEDOM in Farsi) on them and threw them to the refugees.
imaginepeace update April 2, 2002
hi everyone,
some desert dust must have gone into my laptop so the shift key don’t work. spoke to dave last night just after returning to morpeth. He told me everything he said on the email. so, yes dave and ross obviously have all our support. we must now consider ongoing support for both re money etc. julian burnside qc will be defending the arrested ones in may along with dave…this is great news.
yesterday i had an interview with sbs world news and this morning i’m waiting on a call from darwin abc. sbs was particularly interested in the stories about the viloent protest. i made it very clear that the whole event was peaceful and that none of us expected the detainees to escape. they wanted info on our weapons….weapons indeed…all we had were our sympathetic hearts, open arms to receive the freed ones. the only rock thrown was one by our fellow hope memebr, paul, who wrapped a 50 dollar note around it and a detainee caught it like a good cricketer.
———————————
i just finished the interview with darwin abc and the reporter said that it will more than likely be broadcast nationally on abc radio, probably lunch time today. all journos are interested in the so called violence and planned actions to free the detainees. i have made it clear to everyone who has spoken with me that there were no weapons, that we did not plan to liberate the detainees ..that we were thrilled with the outcome, that the freed detainees came to the woomera2002 camp where we gave support and hid them from the authorities, that as far as i knew thru telephone contact that the detainees freed had in some way been spirited away from woomera were safe and being looked after by fellow protesters, that i don’t know where they are, that yes, we realise that to support escaped detainees carries a jail sentence, that as far as i am concerned the detainees should be free because they are innocent asylum seekers who should never be incarcerated in a concentration camp, that the concentration camps are illegal from a global human rights perspective, that as far as i know, no escapees went wandering into the desert.
we have now entered the propaganda war phase. i told both sbs and abc that the whole thing could have been a set up to allow us to enter the area, to pull down the first fence with no resistance from police, that sand bags were left on the ground which we used to keep the razor wire covered so that our brothers and sisters could walk on the fallen fence without any fear of being cut. when the detainees wriggled and squeezed through the iron bars of the cage, no police tried to stop tyhem. i believe that the authorities who knew about the woomera2002 event beforehand moved a whole bunch of detainees before we arrived and had kept only 300 there, the detainees that could not be processed, “the ones who more than likely were criminals etc”, funny about that because there many children still in detention…criminal kids! So, I think that the authorities made it easy for us and the detainees whoescaped so that they could then orchestrate stories using one off pictures to “prove” their point that we are a bunch of “soccer hooligans”. In other words, the demonisation of asylum seekers is now being perpetrated on australian citizens, peaceful protesters. But, they will not get away with this…we have our own footage, we have our own voices, we have our own support and we are articulate – we speak english and we have our own alternative media thru the internet.
The propaganda wars have begun. Truth will prevail! thanks to all of you who have shown support in every conceivable way. We now have to write letters to newspapers, write articles, talk with the media. I will work on the HOPE Website today and see if i can upload images etc . i have hundreds and Paul has great video footage which I will pick up on saturday which I will transform into didgital images to be uploaded.
See you all soon. peace, love and joy steve g AKA stavros
“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis” – Dante
This picture was adapted from an original pencil drawing done by an inmate of Woomera. He gave us permission to use this image on our Hope Caravan Group Homepage.
We brought along a giant kite which flew the FREEDOM banner in the sky! Refugees who escaped told us in our tent that they could see it flying high in the sky above their razor wired prison.
We met, as affinity groups, to discuss and strategise during the Spokescouncils. Democracy – in – Action!
We had to bring our own water because we were in the desert. The water tank was organised by Melbourne groups and is here draped over by HOPE Caravan’s FREEDOM Banner.
Flyer distributed by No One Is Illegal group in Melbourne.
Woomera – Saturday Night is the loneliest night ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a buzz around the camp after a successfull 48 hours of direct action. People believe that we are now able to permantly close down the concentration camp. 2000 people at Easter, 10,000 at Christmas. Live gigs have started and the party is begining to rock. http://melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=24300&group=webca st
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A protester’s account of being arrested for being ‘suspected of being a detainee’ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s not easy being brown. But it can be a lot of fun. Late last night we found our campsite completely surrounded by cops and APS officers waiting to nab the friends that we had rescued from Woomera. I thought it would be both amusing and a good waste of their time and resources if they did catch a detainee — if that `detainee’ was me.
So I headed for the police roadblock where I was surrounded by seven or eight cops who grabbed me sneering “You’re one of those escaped detainees, aren’tcha?”
I denied this (in a very bad, stereotypically Middle-Eastern accent), and then started yelling that I wanted a lawyer, that I was a citizen, I had rights, etc. etc. These morons actually fell for what was becoming the most pathetic impersonation of a detainee ever performed and decided to search me, removing lethal weapons such as tic tacs, extra shoelaces and my toothbrush.
I was freaking out that such a ridiculous plan was actually working, so I dropped my silly accent and told the cops that I was in fact an Australian citizen with identification back at camp. Not good enough – this little darkie got arrested. They forced me into the back of their van, locked me in and drove me to the station.
When I was removed from the van I was photographed and then had all my stuff — beanie, shoes, necklaces — confiscated. A religious necklace that I couldn’t remove was cut from my neck. I colourfully told the cops how badly they had screwed up their arrest and about my rights, to which one of them responded that I was suspected of being a detainee AND HAD NO RIGHTS. Well, that’s just fucking dandy, isn’t it? If you happen to be brown and near a detention centre, some pigs in a van can rock up and do whatever they like to you because you happen to be the right colour. Never mind that I was a Bangladeshi immigrant speaking fluent English — I could just as easily have been one of those damn Afghani terrorists who escaped and are a threat to society at large.
So I was handcuffed and put in a cell with 12 detainees who told me about how they had been beaten when they were captured. Among them was a 12 year-old boy who we had seen bashed earlier as well as a 14 year-old and a man who had been savaged by APS pigs.
All the detainees had scars and bruising either from beatings or suicide attempts. They told me about how they would rather fight to stay in the jail cell — a bare concrete floor with an open ceiling — than be taken back to Woomera. The men told me about the `jobs’ they have (toilet cleaning, dishwashing and maintenance) which pay around a dollar an hour. The money they earn goes towards buying things like shoes and thongs from a `shop’ in the camp.
Finally, an APS official called `Mr Dan’ came in. I can’t think of anything about Woomera that made it seem like a concentration camp more than watching a group of men call out serial numbers instead of their own names.
When the police realised their mistake, I was driven back to camp. I don’t know what will happen to my friends who were in the cell with me. But being arrested for being brown reflects what is driving the entire refugee debate: ignorance. People too culturally ignorant to tell one kind of person from another, people too stupid to recognise diversity and people too stubborn to accept others. It scares me that we live in a country where you can be arrested for the colour of your skin. But it scares me more that you can be locked away indefinitely for it while a nation turns its back on you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Desert Spectacle – there’s neither violence or non-violence out here — it’s pure spectacle ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amid all the talk and text, and among all the hype and hyperbole surrounding the actions of the last two days, the poles of “violent” and “non-violent” have, as is typical, been the ends we are supposed to have swung between. But I beg to differ.
Pure SPECTACLE has been the master of our desert existence.
We all came here spurred by the image of spectacle, and from the moment we arrived we assumed lead roles in its temporary show.
It was neither violence or non-violence that saw us march across the dusty span between us and them. Nor did the circus music we marched to, or the pink PVC clad activo-expressionists have anything to do with violence or non-violence — it was pure spectacle.
It was the spectacle of the absurd — absurd tactics countering absurd politics and policy. We were all moving pictures, media sluts once removed. The whole action was captured on film at every angle — spectacular fodder for the spectacle machine. I saw a guy asked to start drumming again — by a channel 7 cameraman! — of course he obliged.
So if we think of the intensity and degree of spectacle involved here I think it’s clear that we’re not trapped in the dichotomy of violence or non-violence, but willing actors in the spectacle of the desert — and, may I say, it’s working.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Solidarity at Woomera Jail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A small, peaceful support group spent today in front of Woomera police station, offering our support (and bail sureties) to the people inside as best we could. Protestors from inside and outside the detention centre fences were held there, and could often be heard singing between negotiations with the police. The police were friendly, letting us pass in cigarettes, food and legal contact numbers and treating those inside the jail with respect as negotiations around bail conditions went on.
In the afternoon, our crew walked closer to the fence and yelled ‘We’re still here’ to make sure they knew they had support. We realised we could see some of the people inside if we angled our heads around a few tarps, and waved and exchanged hellos with the people inside. After a few minutes an officer politely asked us to move away, and we did, happy to have seen our friends and comrades smiling back at us.
The town was quiet, but a few locals walked by, some offering words of support. One offered to get us some fresh water from his house if we needed it, and joked that the locals understood it had all been an accident and that the wind had knocked down the fence. His friends offered elaborate advice on how we could fold newspapers to channel that wind power at future protests. It was very encouraging to be reminded that some people in town are supportive of our presence and our actions. We are proud of the fact that we’ve maintained a nonviolent presence outside the prison all day, and we hope for the speedy release of all the incarcerated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ comments to a post: “Summing up the Damage” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What has happened at Woomera is a huge morale boost for the refugees, who now know that there ARE many Australians who care about them. The secrecy around detention of refugees has finally been broken down in the last few months, and the refugees have finally been given a human face and voice and more truth is coming out.
Ruddock/Howard and co. will have a lot of brainstorming to do for their public image.
If anything… consider this. The detainees have consistently been told that no-one in australia cares about them, even been told they are there for their own protection from an australia that hates them… their plight. Well now they at least can sleep at night with hope. Hope knowing that they aren’t alone. Aren’t totally isolated. That there ARE people on the outside who care … and maybe just maybe those of us on the outside can see what a group of determined people can achieve. Shut em all down!!! Lets finish the job at Woomera and move on to the next one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another red-dust dawn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was strange spending a night in a camp surrounded on all sides by a police line. Even at midnight, when the shifts changed and there were very few cops on the ground, it was an eerie feeling. It must have been worse for the detainees that were with us, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, by a line of cops that wanted to put them back in a cage, and finally by the desert. But this is not some white-urban activist grief session — they knew that any chance was better than no chance. And we had worked together to make the escapes happen (spontaneous as it was). They told us during the night of the beatings and the suffering inside the camp. They told us of the endless wait — 24 months, 26 months,… – just to know whether they could stay in Australia on a temporary visa or whether they would be deported back to face persecution, imprisonment or death.
All wanted to get out of the camp and to Adelaide or some major city. Some struck out on their own, others went with drivers from the camp to see how far they could get. We knew of the road block down at Pt Augusta, but some figured that there would be back ways around the town. The police say they have over 20 in custody, and 17 people who were helping them, but we also know that the detainees within the camp have been protesting all night so they couldn’t do a head count. Inside and out, we were doing what we could.
Dawn was quiet. The police sweep we expected didn’t happen. The police presence around the camp was light. The rumored truckloads of federal police didn’t appear. And we had all heard the talk of a fall out between the SA police and the APS. But the morning turned into afternoon, set-up continued, and (yet more) meetings happened. The direct action planned for the afternoon turned into a peaceful ‘colour and movement’ march through the prohibited area check point. And we are taking it slowly through the rest of the weekend, trying to keep clear and focused on why we are here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Personal Account ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t know were to start except that I am still left with this strong feeling of responsibility out of my depth. Having people in my care, having no idea how to deal with it.
I never expected this to happen. Suddenly we have these people half way out, and what seems like a hopeless situation, theres only so much you can disguise someone, we’re trapped in the desert, everywhere to run, but no were to go.
We were so tired, the campsite surrounded by riot police, road blocks.
All you want to do with this big secret is divulge, tell everyone and share the burden, but you can’t. There were people more involved than me, people willing to drive out.
One of my friends was arrested with detainees, – today he’s on bail, apparently there is some tension between the south australian police who want to press charges, and the Federals who want to press on. It’s a serious offence, aiding and abetting, my friend faces 4 years in jail. It seems so unfair.
What would you do, if a refuge arrived on your doorstep? Suddenly we had people in our tents, and amongst the crowd. People with bruises and scars, with pleading eyes, and their own long stories. There is no choice, like the guys who helped the Jews in Germany said, – it was not a question of whether to help but how.
This guy was from Afghanistan; he has a sister my age and 3 brothers, he is hardly older than me, and hasn’t seen or heard from his family for a year and a half. He’s been in Woomera for a year. We wanted him to decide what he wanted to do.
His quiet unreadable face is suddenly tense, `Please, I don’t want to go back, I can’t go back inside.’ I asked what it is like – `it is like prison, we are not allowed to sleep at night, all we do is walk around [the room,] there is nothing to do, no work to fill up the time, all we do is eat and sleep, eat and sleep.’
He was there, sitting, expecting me to help, to know what to do, I have no idea, I try to be honest that his chances aren’t good, to find out what all the best options are, I want to go to bed and pretend it will all go away.
It seemed that for him this was just more of the same, the hiding, fleeing, the persecution and the fear…. I asked if he had to fight in Afghanistan, he said no, asked if I knew there had been 24 years of fighting in Afghanistan, that the Taliban were persecuting people. He said that there were many people who did not want to fight, but that they had ways of taking people and making them fight.
This morning he is gone, It is not clear that he’s been caught I don’t know what happened, perhaps he might get away.
No one expected this to happen, I don’t have very much in the way of analysis right now, all I have is a very strong sense of the real and human side of what is happening. But that there are some people amongst my friends and the people here who were much braver and selfless than I was, that there is a lot of suffering in the world, and when it landed on my doorstep, I didn’t know how to deal with it.
———————————- And someone posted this comment in response:
we all share the same anguish – the story of those who were asked to help the refugees escape is a mirror to the question each australian must ask themselves shall i allow others to suffer when i can prevent it. all the protesters did a great job fought for something a lot of australians strongly believe in ‘free the refugees’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STATEMENT BY 16 ARRESTED WOOMERA REFUGEES FROM FRIDAY 29th MARCH’S BREAKOUT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We have made the world hell with racism, colours, religionism, ethnics and so on. Businesses and wrong diplomacy. ACM is bad, Australian Government is bad, Australian people are good. Detention centre still continues day by day. You will see what is going on.”
This statement was given to my friend from the refugees on a piece of paper. They have told my friend who was locked up in the same cell today that “ACM are evil” and that they called them “the Mafia”. They all said that they are beaten every day and never get let outside. They also said that they are not fed properly. They say that if they escape 3 times they get deported, and they said that some of them will commit suicide before they get deported.
My friend talked to the police and saw the police books and said that 47 refugees escaped the compound of which 37 have been arrested. 10 refugees are still unaccounted for. 9 protesters have been charged with harbouring.
In jail my friends said the refugees danced and sang for them. In return my friend rapped a rhyme about refugees to them which they all danced to. They thank us for all our support.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WOOMERA LEGAL SUPPORT GROUP PRESS RELEASE by Mick Lumsden & Sarah Nicholson 8:22pm Sat Mar 30 ’02 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Woomera Legal support group expresses its concern over the statements and actions of the Australian Protective Services and the South Australian Police over the last two days.
The legal support group is supporting the 16 protestors that have been charged with Harbouring Escapees under the Criminal Law Consolidation Act.
The Woomera Legal support group understands that the only violence perpetrated has been initiated by the police. The police have a lawful right to use reasonable force to arrest people, but they have to accept the moral responsibility for violence they initiate — they cannot shift that blame onto non-violent protestors. Again we are witnessing breaches of the fundamental right to protest.
We strongly dispute the police’s assertion that the behaviour of the protestors has caused injury to the Asylum Seekers and to themselves. Reports of what is occurring inside the detention centre describe gross injustices. The detainees themselves have stated that there are reprisal beatings for those taken back to the detention centre after escape. Not only is their detention a breach of international refugee and human rights law, but the conditions in which they are being detained are inhumane.
We are extremely concerned about the lack of legal and other support for the detainees, particularly those in police custody. The Woomera Lawyers have already been refused access to those inside the detention centre over the long weekend. The detainees being held by the South Australian Police have none of the usual rights accorded to Australian citizens on arrest.
The Legal Support Group believes that the actions of the nonviolent protestors during this demonstration at Woomera contribute to destroying the veil of secrecy and silence that surrounds the detention centre by publicising and making transparent the conditions inside the centre.
We believe the existence of the detention centre is a disruption to the peace and security of the community of Woomera and the rest of Australia and until it is closed this situation will continue.
Are we “rats” living in a maze, a labyrinth in which we do our thing as sleep walking voyagers in a multidimensional maze of flesh, bone, muscle, life, thought and soul energy which has as its determining edges and surface – ordinary life, consensus reality? We get lost in this labyrinth, this maze through our habitual reactions and our mind’s tendency to reduce everything to the familiar. Is the “world a vampire” as the Smashing Pumpkins put it? I believe it is, when we live our lives as robots giving food of our being to the forces around us rather than making the extra effort to BE. The big question is HOW to be and I believe an approach to this answer may lie in the fact that the “rat in the maze behaviour” may be the habits of our biological destiny locked in the “mind forged manacles” (William Blake) of our attitudes.
If we acknowledge this then we may be open to the possibility for help from another level of existence, a level above the maze of consensus reality. Consensus reality, to me, is the wall to wall world of the labyrinth that appears automatically to our senses five in this culture. It is the reality that statistics places under a Bell Curve and measures standards and their many deviations. Consensus reality is the “common sense world” where Newton‘s Laws hold sway though we may know of Einstein‘s relativity and quantum physics. Consensus reality bases itself fundamentally on the dichotomy between I – and – the – world, I the knower and the world – the known. In this consensus world we do our shopping, we make love, we learn, we walk, we talk, we climb mountains, we give birth and we bury our dead. This consensus reality is what we naturally know, this is the world which Blake’s “Vegetative Eye” beholds.
Blake’s Newton (1795) demonstrates his opposition to the “single-vision” of scientific materialism: Newton fixes his eye on a compass (recalling Proverbs 8:27)
It is difficult to speak of consensus reality because the language used to speak of it can be seen to be the guiding parameters of the / this world. Each language, thus each culture has its own consensus reality. The Inuit people who can discern over 20 different types of snow and white hues, the Aboriginal people of Central Australia who discern many different types of sand demonstrate different consensus realities which have “facts” that the western positivistic consensus reality does not acknowledge. We can go further and say that one consensus reality (a reality consented to by the participants) may include events and actions which through the window of another consensus reality would appear to be miraculous or impossible. To one reality this piece of ground means an energy resource and dollars, to another the same piece of ground may be sacred and the navel (Omphalos) of the world. Of course we have the Common Ground on which we stand and live within the Common Maze and thus communicate with our diverse languages and translations of same.
I’m interested in the realm outside the maze, the a – maze. This is where the allegory of Plato’s Cave makes amazing sense. Check out this diagram it “tells” Plato’s story in few words. The cave is the maze, is the world of senses five, the beholden of the Vegetative Eye.
Plato's Cave - the sunlight is the Light of the Real World, the shadow world is the world seen through the Vegetative Eye.
What I’m saying in a round about way is that there are as many realities as there are consensual agreements. These realities have their own maps and means of orientation. The western positivistic reality is just one. It may be possible to change channels and tune into other frequencies…using the language of the net – we may be able to browse other patterns of meaning and thus participate in another reality. The trick is to be able to shift.
In terms of futures – each consensus reality will create its own consensus future. If enough people believe and act as if the future they want will be and is perhaps the consensus reality of these people will make it happen.
Having said all that, I use the above as my departure point when I attempt to manifest events which may assist in reducing the suffering of sentient existence – both my own and others.
The next question that arises from this is HOW? Traditionally, the work which makes the HOW possible, the “technology” has been known as Magic. Later posts will explore this.
Below is something I wrote a few years ago after bumping into a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time. The feelings expressed, I think, are just as relevant today as they were then, when I, along with others, was preparing for the Woomera Action in Easter, 2002 with Hope Caravan.
When I saw him yesterday, he seemed so at peace with himself. He was sitting in a half lotus, his bare feet crossing over each other on his sofa. The mandala tattoo above his ankle balanced the diamond-shaped crystal dangling from his neck. We shared some green tea, and he smiled as he closed the book before him. His calm demeanor was a stark contrast to my inner turmoil.
He was an old friend, someone I hadn’t seen for a long while, and in that time, our paths had diverged. He found spiritual bliss, and I found more reasons to struggle for peace. He found inner peace, so he told me, whereas I found inner warfare, so I told him. His holy war had been won, while mine had just started, as it had done so continuously for a long time.
“You are caught up in a duality,” he said, smiling with calculated humility, “You think that you can change the world, but all that you can change is yourself.”
He was referring to the fact that I had asked him to join me in action, an action to support those who cannot speak or act for themselves because of their current circumstances. I asked him to join me and others to act in support of the refugees imprisoned in the concentration camps of Australia. In particular, to join others in the Festival of Freedoms at Woomera in Easter 2002.
I replied, “But what if my self is larger than that circumscribed by my skin? What if I include the whole planet? When I see suffering and injustice outside my body, it is still within me.”
He laughed, “Well, in that case, your ego is bigger than mine!”
He adjusted his posture by letting go of his half lotus and allowing his leg to fall straight down over the side of the sofa. He leant forward, placing his elbows on his knees, and his dangling crystal swayed like a pendulum between us. Incense smoke spiralled upwards from the joss stick on the coffee table before us.
I could see his point, but it still didn’t feel right. I said, “Big or small, ego will always be here. Tell me, what do you do if you see your neighbour’s house burning down? Do you say your house is OK, so why worry about your neighbour?”
“I would immediately help extinguish the fire. For me, the plight of refugees and wars on the other side of the planet are things I can’t do anything about. I aim for inner peace through my meditation, and this in itself will do far more for the refugees and war than anything your protests and actions will ever do. Why? Because I am changing myself, I recognise that all true change must start with myself. Your protests and actions add more ‘noise’ to the whole situation. Create an oasis of silence and peace within yourself. This will have far more impact than going out on the street or facing the razor wire of the camps. Change yourself – that’s all you need to do!”
He took another sip of his tea and stared me in the eyes. Or was he staring at the point between my eyes on my forehead, the so-called third eye? I couldn’t tell, except that I felt a certain intensity of effort from his gaze, that he was trying to change my perspective by using subliminal energies directed at me. Of course, he was kidding himself if he tried to do this.
Yes, our paths had diverged. While I saw that it is essential to work on oneself and recognise that what goes on inside, behind one’s eyes, affects what goes on outside oneself, I also felt that one could not just rest in one’s relaxed navel and allow others to suffer. Can one carry the “oasis of silence” found within to external places of sorrow and injustice to share the peace? I asked myself.
I met his gaze and then wondered if it was within or without me as I walked away.
Ouraboros resting on a relaxed navel.
stavros
“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.” – Dante
The Flotillas of Hope was a voyage by two yachts carried out in 2004 by protesters critical of the Australian government’s asylum policy. The boats sailed to Nauru, a Pacific island nation which was host to Australia’s offshore immigrant detention center until the new Labor government came to power in 2007. They intended to deliver goods to those interned (most detainees are families who fled conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq), but not surprisingly were not allowed to land by the Nauruan government. Under an agreement put into effect earlier that year, Australia had taken responsibility for the island’s finances and civilian police force. John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister at the time, forced the Nauru government to take armed Australian Police Force to “protect” the island nation from the Flotillas of Hope flying Teddy Bear flags. The Flotillas of Hope project had two intentions 1) to give the refugees caged on the Island of Shame – Nauru, hope – that they have not been forgotten by people, that the Pacific Solution – out of sight, out of mind, did not work and 2) to bring the world media spotlight on Nauru on World Refugee Day, 20 June 2004. This the project achieved and it saw the granting of asylum to over half the refugees on Nauru and the release of Aladdin Sisalem who was in solitary confinement on Manus Island, New Guinea while we were sailing to Nauru.
Hand made flags with messages of hope and love made by the people of Australia flew on Eureka and One Off.
The way the Flotillas grew from an idea, a dream that manifested at first as an email Call to Action using the internet as a nervous system which then as an organsim, gathered into the Flotillas intention – satellite mobile phones, life rafts, high frequency radios, laptops, generators, sun power inverters, flags painted by community hands, dolls and teddy bears in handmade clothes, knitted sweaters, a large canvas sail painted by local Sydney artists along with other paintings expressly made and auctioned to raise money for the safe passage of the Flotillas of Hope, all of this and more occurred during the event.. From the finer embedded world of qualities, the realm of hope, love, justice, freedom – the realm of the spirits, the realm of creation, the Flotillas sparked into the internet. It was Art – in – Action using the world wide web to manifest. Hope was generated in not only the refugees caged on Nauru, but also in all people of good will who felt despondent that nothing will change the government’s heartless policy.
Trade Union Choir singing at the launch of the Flotillas of Hope in Sydney, 15 May, 2004.
Along the way, to the launch of the Flotillas, musicians performed live gigs to raise money for the project. There was a theme song written, performed and recorded along with poems about the Action. Check out Ernesto Presente’s poem on Poetry for Change website here. The lyrics of the Flotillas of Hope Theme Song is below. You can download the song here. You can also check out Joanna Leigh’s myspace profile here.
University students made videos. At the send – offs from Sydney, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and Brisbane, the Flotillas of Hope gathered the communities wishes and intentions to bring Hope to the refugees in the concentration camp of Nauru. The Flotillas did this by accepting hand made toys, hand made clothes for the dolls and teddy bears, the drawings and paintings of love and hope by Australian children, hand made flags with hand written words of love and hope from the people of Australia and overseas who sent gifts by post. Communities made beautiful flags – one with a Mandala made under the direction of a Buddhist priest, another of a Teddy Bear made by people who cared.
Poster promoting the departure of the flotillas from Brisbane.
On route to Nauru, the Flotillas docked at Santa Cruz Island, a far flung island of the Solomon Islands. The local indigenous people were so touched by our intention and by how far we had sailed and were sailing that they carved a beautiful wooden oar and gave it us to symbolize that they were rowing all the way with us to Nauru. They gave us the gift on the day we departed Santa Cruz with a send off that included singing, dancing, eating and words of power and encouragement.
The Flotillas carried the cargo of hope through the 12 mile No Go Zone and got to within 500 metres of Nauru coast until they were chased out by 6 Nauruan boats. The boats, Eureka and One Off became living talismans of peaceful and compassionate energies from Australians.
On the way to Nauru, refugees were freed and the websites designed to be the communications hub of the project informed the world about what was happening. There were live interviews with ABC, SBS, BBC, NZBC, Houston Radio, USA along with commercial radio and TV in Australia. A filmmaker, Angela van Boxtel made a Lucid Launch Flotillas of Hope website where artists contributed their art on the website. The Flotillas of Hope was an idea that touched people from across the world and it was an effective art action in all its levels of manifestation.
Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands locals dancing at the departure ceremony.
Santa Cruz, Solomon Island dancers at the departure ceremony wishing us luck and grace.
Various artists painted sections of this canvas sail which was auctioned off along with other original works of art in Gallery 179, Darlinghurst to raise funds for the Flotillas of Hope..
It was also an expression of the newly coined word “Noopolitics” which encompasses Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the noosphere of knowledge / information (Teilhard is often called the patron saint of the Internet) because we not only made the news, we also reported the news which was transmitted across the world wide web and TV, radio and text media through our logs and the live satellite phone hookups with global media. The narrative of the journey was transmitted live by the logs of the crew.
The crew received messages of hope – poems and passionate prose from people all over the world who sent text messages from the web directly to our sat – phone in the middle of the deep blue sea. People following the journey on the web were informed as to the exact location of the boats by maps updated by satellite phone to the communications cluster. The project has been archived at the Australian Maritime Museum.
Artists that contributed the sections on the Sail are in order from the top to the bottom, left to right: Dale Dean, Euan Macleod, Mareia Brozky, Angelica Greening, Ingrid Skirkia, John Bell, Lorna Grear, Neil Mallard, Euan Macleod (one more section), Leo Robbia and Martin Sharp.
The first poster to promote the Flotillas of Hope by Matt Hamon, who was also the computer wizkid for Hope Caravan and Ground Crew for the project.
TheFlotillas of Hope was a Journey of Hope, to bring hope to the innocent people imprisoned on Nauru by John Howard’s Australian government. Please note that most of the time the plural “Flotillas” is used instead of Flotilla even though on the surface there was only one flotilla of two boats that sailed to Nauru. The reason that Flotillas is used is because all the actions, the ceremonies, the prayers, the chants, the letters, the songs, the rituals, every action, are ALL flotillas of inner and outer vessels used to bring hope to the refugees imprisoned on Nauru.
The Woomera @ Easter 2002, Baxter @ Easter 2003 and the Flotillas of Hope Actions were not part of an organisation and in fact the websites which supported the Actions have virtually disappeared. The Actions were organic institutes – of – the – moment and like a Tibetan Buddhist sand painting, once the Actions were completed, the organisations like sand grains were blown by the wind to the four corners of the earth. They remain in peoples’ lives that have been transformed by the granting of freedom from the Australian gulags of shame.
When I sent the Call to Action for the human rights social action groups to unite to shame John Howard and highlight the plight of innocent refugees caged on the so called “Pacific Solution” – Nauru, it was deemed an incredibly audacious and unrealistic call. Why? Because Nauru is 4000 kms from Australia and when the call went out, we had no boats, no technology, no crew, no money, indeed, for me – no sailing experience. Well, within 2 weeks of the Call to Action over 250 people from around the planet had joined the new Internet group “Flotillas of Hope”. Within the first two weeks, the creators of the Woomera 2002 website contacted me and created the Flotilla2004 website. Another website was created for digital artists by a film maker and our own Hope Caravan website was the “hub”. A theme song for the project was recorded by Joanna Leigh, “HOPE”. You can download the mp3 version of the song here .. “HOPE…We Bring You Hope” .
Within a short time 2 boats appeared and in the weeks and months before we took off on our journey to Nauru we had received satellite telephones, solar energy inverters, radios, life rafts, money and the incredible creative output of artists and communities across Australia which gave our Cargo of Hope, toys and Teddy Bears for the kids in the gulag.
The Flotillas of Hope Mascot – Azadi Koala. The script on the koala’s shirt says “AZADI” which means Freedom in the Farsi language. The koala is steering Eureka to Nauru 🙂
Following the action, asylum was granted to over half the refugees on Nauru and Aladdin Salanin who was in solitary confinement on Manus Island, New Guinea was released.
Along the way to Nauru, the Flotillas docked at Santa Cruz, a far flung island of the Solomon Islands Where they were met by the local indigenous people. The Flotillas carried their cargo through the 12 mile No Go Zone
Below the map is an article written by a close friend who was a member of the Ground Crew. It gives you the background to the Journey. Lynda, along with some others, made sure that our messages sent by the satellite phone would get out to our website people and so to the world. Lynda was based in Far North NSW. After this article you will find the links I mentioned earlier. After the links and photos of the boats, there is an article by another friend and member of the Ground Crew, Angela. She looked after one of the websites for the project and was based in Melbourne.
Route taken by Flotilla of Hope to Nauru to reach Nauru on 20 June, 2004 – World Refugee Day.
Back in Easter 2002, a group of concerned people from the Hunter region of NSW, Australia, appalled by the Australian Government’s attitude and policy on asylum seekers, joined the actions of the Festival of Freedoms in the South Australian desert. This became Hope Caravan. Along the way, the ‘O’ in Hope transformed from an organisation to an organism.
In 2003, Hope Caravan went to the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia. Many strong bonds and friendships were formed with some of those people initiating the Flotillas of Hope project, which in association with Hope Caravan, sails to Nauru this month to arrive on the tiny impoverished Pacific island of Nauru.
This diverse group of people include a research scientist, an award winning film maker, teachers of maritime studies and multicultural education, a shipwright as well as a soccer coach from the Brisbane based, Tigers Refugee team.
NAURU
Nauru is the smallest republic in the world with a population of only 12,000. It not only faces an environmental catastrophe but also economic bankruptcy.
The exploitation of Nauru’s rich source of phosphate began in the early 1900s. After World War l, the Australian, British and New Zealand governments took over the original mining company that had been previously German owned. It was called the British Phosphate Company. As demands grew for fertiliser, so did their profits. However, only 2% of the revenue went to the Nauru people. At the time of Nauru’s independence in 1968, mining had destroyed over one-third of the tiny island. In 1991, Nauru took the Australian Government to the International Court of Justice for the exploitation of its economy and environment. In 1993, Australia settled out-of-court for $57 million with an additional $2.5 million per annum for the next 20 years. By the late 1990’s, the money had all but dried up.
During the Australian federal election in 2001, the Howard government seized the opportunity to pressure Nauru into taking asylum seekers from the shores of Australia in return for many millions of dollars. These refugees were removed by the Australian military in violation of the International Refugee Convention. This was the beginning of “The Pacific Solution”. Many of these people were initially rescued by the now infamous Tampa, a Norwegian Freighter off the Western Australian coast. In denying the Tampa refugees access to the Australian mainland, and their rights under Australian law, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, said, “whilst this is a humanitarian decent country, we are not a soft touch and we are not a nation whose sovereign rights in relation to who comes here are going to be trampled on”.
Nauru continues to deny entry to all lawyers, journalists and representatives of human rights groups as well as independent doctors and psychiatrists from assessing the health of the refugees.
Nauru has since been called Australia’s Guantanamo Bay.
These refugees merely sought to flee life-threatening persecution and repression, economic deprivation and poverty and to bring themselves and their families to a safe and secure environment. This must be surely the most basic right of any individual, yet in seeking to exercise it, they have come face to face with the Australian army.
In the last week, three Australian lawyers were ordered off Nauru before they had a chance to appear in a court case challenging the legality of the island’s detention centre for asylum seekers. Their visas were revoked by Nauru’s Minister for Justice, Russell Kun. On April 27, he appointed his uncle, former Finance Minister and paralegal “pleader”, Reuben Kun, to present the detainees’ case.
MANUS ISLAND
There are approximately 21 million refugees worldwide, yet there is only one who is on a remote island in solitary confinement. The Australian government pays $23,000 per day to detain Aladdin Sisalem, a 25 year old man who has suffered persecution most of his life. The son of a Palestinian refugee (his father) and an Egyptian mother, Aladdin was born in Kuwait. Persecuted in his home country, he began a perilous journey in search of a country that would accept him, travelling via West Papua, Papua New Guinea, finally arriving in the Torres Straight Islands, where he was seized by the Australian Police before being taken to Thursday Island. When he asked Australian authorities for asylum, he was removed and taken to a detention centre set up by the Australian Government on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Even if he wanted to return, Kuwait will not take Aladdin back after his period of absence. Egypt does not want him. Israel does not consider his “right of return” as a Palestinian.
It is noted that the 1948 Universal Declaration Human Rights, Article 14, states “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”. Ongoing, indefinite suffering by asylum seekers both here and on the offshore detention centres is a clear indication that these basic human rights are being violated.
On 15th May, Flotillas of Hope departs Sydney Harbour, sailing up the east coast of Australia, converging in Brisbane, before departing for Nauru on 23rd May. The boats should arrive at Nauru on 20th June (World Refugee Day) with their “Cargo of Hope” which will include toys, educational, recreational items and a generator for the country’s hospital.
The voyage of this Flotilla recalls the old law of the sea – which obliges us to give assistance to anyone in peril, without regard for flags – and seeks to open a multitude of flows toward a new world for which maps are yet to be created.
Therefore, the Flotilla will use a diversity of tactics: boats converging to Australia’s north in mid-2004 crewed by autonomous affinity groups ; media streams and online protests; radio waves and OpenFlow events.
The view from Eureka’s porthole, somewhere between Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands and Nauru.
Yacht Eureka
The Eureka is a yacht sailing from Sydney in May 2004 for Nauru, in the Pacific Ocean. Together with other vessels, the Eureka will make a Flotilla of Hope to visit people held in the Nauru Detention Centre and draw attention to the plight of people who come to Australia without the right papers. She is being crewed by people from Sydney, Newcastle (Aust.) and London.
Eureka is a sloop-rigged Swanson 42. Sloop rig means she has one mast, and one headsail. She was designed by Ron Swanson and is 12m / 42 feet long. She is fibreglass construction, and heavily built for cruising rather than racing. She is a double-ender, which means she has two ‘sharp ends’, which is for the purpose of breaking a following sea. She was lovingly built by Rob D and Roger C, and they intended to call her Imagine. Bought by Michael C, ex-Hydrographer (chart-maker) of the Australian Navy, launched in 1981 as Eureka, she sailed around the world. Eureka is now owned by Lance, who has sailed her for the last 10 years up and down the Australian east coast and into the Pacific.
The One Off
One Off is a gaff rigged timber vessel, 34 feet long and although launched in 1974 she is a much older style of boat. She is sound and sails well for her type. She was built by Authur and Agnes Pitt for use as both professional fishing and enjoyment. She has a 65HP BMC diesel engine.
Flotillas of Hope
by Angela Mitropoulos Melbourne, June 3, 2004.
There are currently boats travelling 4,000 kilometres to Australia’s internment camp on Nauru. This is the most recent culmination of a series of protests against successive Australian governments’ policies of interning undocumented migrants. The boats are presently at the halfway mark and, weather permitting, expected to reach Nauru by June 20. The crews have been threatened with imprisonment for crossing borders without the proper papers. The importance of the internet to the communication and character of noborder protests is here amplified by distance, threats of violence and the risks of sea travel.
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Some background
It is well known that since 1989, successive Australian Governments have administered a notorious policy subsequently referred to the ‘mandatory and non-reviewable detention’ of all those who arrive by boat and without papers. This was a response to the (by international comparison) extremely small rise in undocumented boat arrivals after 1989 – many from the Middle East, Vietnam and Cambodia – whose internment was often successfully challenged through legal action.
The post-1989 regime of border policing effectively and over time legislated that the refugee determination process exist outside the rule of law in the form of ministerial and administrative dictate and be discharged through concentration camps and military intervention.
It is also well known that in 2002, protesters on both sides of the barbed wire scaled the fences at the Woomera internment camp in South Australia and a number of escapes occurred. www.woomera2002.antimedia.net Woomera, which closed shortly after this, was emblematic of the Australian Government’s strategy of interning undocumented migrants in remote, rural camps as a means of containment and control. Woomera was located 1,000 kilometres from the nearest capital city (Adelaide) and, for a time, held the largest number of detainees.
2002 was the culmination of four years of protests by detainees in Australia’s internment camps, including hunger strikes, the destruction of buildings, and mass escapes. Many of those protests were met with tear gas, riot police and the use of chemical restraints. www.antimedia.net/xborder
Following this, the Australian Government shifted its strategy toward a combination of ‘dislocation’ and electrification in an attempt to decompose the protests against the post-1989 regime of the camps. The so-called ‘Pacific Solution’ was introduced which established camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea (Manus Island) funded by the Australian Government and managed by the International Organisation for Migration. Australian military vessels would forcibly remove undocumented boat arrivals from territorial waters and Australian islands, and transport them to those camps in the Pacific.
In Australia, a new technology of internment was constructed (such as at Baxter) which replaced the grim (but scalable) coils of barbed wire and steel fences with hi-tech, refined systems of electronic barriers, surveillance and a greater reliance on technological and chemical restraint. (The Government has also budgeted for another of these hi-tech camps in Broadmeadows, Melbourne to replace the current, smaller one in Maribyrnong.)
The result of these changes to the architecture of the camps were immediate: the protesters outside Baxter in 2003 were unable to get close to or even within sight of any of those imprisoned there, many of whom had been relocated from Woomera. www.baxter2003.com Whereas Woomera2002 had managed to break with the symbolic character of protests by those outside the camps; Baxter2003 signalled the restoration of such, and subsequently ushered in a decline in the impetus of the movements against the camps.
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Flotilla 2004
Having circulated as an audacious, but regarded as impractical, strategy after Woomera2002, the idea of shifting the protests against the camps to the northern waters of Australia became an imperative with the inauguration of the ‘Pacific Solution.’ After Baxter, Hopecaravan distributed a call for boats to travel to the internment camp on Nauru. That voyage is currently underway, with boats presently located at the halfway mark, and expecting to reach Nauru by June 20.
The Nauru Government which – given its current fiscal woes and recent economic bankruptcy – relies on the continuing funding of the camp as a source of revenue and employment, has threatened to suspend maritime convention (the Law of the Sea) and forcibly seize the boats. They have also threatened to imprison the Flotilla crews as undocumented boat arrivals. This has not deterred the crews, who nevertheless require ongoing support and communication.
Regular updates are available at flotilla2004.com, as are crew b-logs, instructions on sending text messages to the crews, and detailed background reports.
The Australian Government, for its part, has adopted the pose of detached benevolence – an echo of its previous, farcical contention that it was not legally liable for the treatment and internment of those in the camps because they were outside Australian jurisdiction. Facing with an upcoming election, and as the Flotilla boats were cheered off from eastern coastal cities, the Government announced that under half of those detained on Nauru would be granted visas, and recently granted a visa to the remaining detainee, Aladdin Sisalem, on Manus Island. www.freealaddin.com
These shifts follow a determined hunger strike last year on Nauru, after which the Government promised that it would review its rejection of the applications for asylum by those imprisoned on Nauru. www.noborder.org/press/display.php?id=3 The Government has, nevertheless, insisted that its camps in the Pacific will remain, at a cost of around $300, 000 per month.
Previously, the Government had refused to grant visas to those taken hostage from the MV Tampa and forcibly transported to Nauru. At the time, the Government insisted that ‘not one of those would set foot on Australian soil.’ It is abundantly clear that the definition of who is a refugee and who is not (or: who is subject to the regime of the camps in order to classify people along this axis) is defined by what the Australian Government imagines to be politically advantageous at any given time.
Those released from Nauru and PNG have expressed concern for the fate and safety of those who remain interned there. The voyage continues until the camps are closed.
Angela Mitropoulos Melbourne, June 3, 2004.
The Flotillas of Hope Sailing Crew
Keith Davies, Skipper of One Off, pointing to the sticker from Rainbow Power who donated a solar power inverter to the project.
Australian Democrats Leader Andrew Bartlett called on the Nauru government to issue visas to human right advocates who plan to arrive on the island.
The NSW Refugee Action Coalition’s “Flotilla of Hope” is due to arrive on the island carrying teddy bears for children detained on the tiny Pacific nation.
The activists aboard the two yachts – the Eureka and the One Off – planned their arrival to coincide with World Refugee Day, following a 4000km journey from Australia.
Senator Bartlett said the crew have been refused visas.
He said the Flotilla of Hope was a “peaceful protest and should be given visas”.
A spokeswoman for the small Pacific nation said on Sunday it was unlikely the human rights advocates will be allowed onshore.
“At this point it would seem that the president [of Nauru] has not given his permission for visas to be granted,” she said.
“I believe that the boats will be met at sea.
“A peaceful exchange will take place allowing the members of the two boats of the Flotilla to offer their greetings, and hand over the gifts for the children in the camps.”
But a spokesman and a crew member of the two Australian yachts, Stavros Georgopoulos, said the flotilla wanted to make their presence felt on land.
“We’ve got piles and piles of toys and gifts to give to the refugees and personal messages from people from Australia to give to the refugees,” he told ABC Radio.
“There’s a lot of people counting on us to deliver the messages.
“We haven’t travelled 4,000 kilometres just to be fobbed off.”
Back in Easter 2002, a group of concerned people from the Hunter region of NSW, Australia, appalled by the Australian Government’s attitude and policy on asylum seekers, joined the actions of the Festival of Freedoms in the South Australian desert. This became Hope Caravan. Along the way, the ‘O’ in Hope transformed from an organisation to an organism.
In 2003, Hope Caravan went to the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia. Many strong bonds and friendships were formed with some of those people initiating the Flotillas of Hope project, which in association with Hope Caravan, sails to Nauru this month to arrive on the tiny impoverished Pacific island of Nauru.
This diverse group of people include a research scientist, an award winning film maker, teachers of maritime studies and multicultural education, a shipwright as well as a soccer coach from the Brisbane based, Tigers Refugee team.
Nauru
Nauru is the smallest republic in the world with a population of only 12,000. It not only faces an environmental catastrophe but also economic bankruptcy.
The exploitation of Nauru’s rich source of phosphate began in the early 1900s. After World War l, the Australian, British and New Zealand governments took over the original mining company that had been previously German owned. It was called the British Phosphate Company. As demands grew for fertiliser, so did their profits. However, only 2% of the revenue went to the Nauru people. At the time of Nauru’s independence in 1968, mining had destroyed over one-third of the tiny island. In 1991, Nauru took the Australian Government to the International Court of Justice for the exploitation of its economy and environment. In 1993, Australia settled out-of-court for $57 million with an additional $2.5 million per annum for the next 20 years. By the late 1990’s, the money had all but dried up.
During the Australian federal election in 2001, the Howard government seized the opportunity to pressure Nauru into taking asylum seekers from the shores of Australia in return for many millions of dollars. These refugees were removed by the Australian military in violation of the International Refugee Convention. This was the beginning of “The Pacific Solution”. Many of these people were initially rescued by the now infamous Tampa, a Norwegian Freighter off the Western Australian coast. In denying the Tampa refugees access to the Australian mainland, and their rights under Australian law, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, said, “whilst this is a humanitarian decent country, we are not a soft touch and we are not a nation whose sovereign rights in relation to who comes here are going to be trampled on”.
Nauru continues to deny entry to all lawyers, journalists and representatives of human rights groups as well as independent doctors and psychiatrists from assessing the health of the refugees.
Nauru has since been called Australia’s Guantanamo Bay.
These refugees merely sought to flee life-threatening persecution and repression, economic deprivation and poverty and to bring themselves and their families to a safe and secure environment. This must be surely the most basic right of any individual, yet in seeking to exercise it, they have come face to face with the Australian army.
In the last week, three Australian lawyers were ordered off Nauru before they had a chance to appear in a court case challenging the legality of the island’s detention centre for asylum seekers. Their visas were revoked by Nauru’s Minister for Justice, Russell Kun. On April 27, he appointed his uncle, former Finance Minister and paralegal “pleader”, Reuben Kun, to present the detainees’ case.
Manus Island
There are approximately 21 million refugees worldwide, yet there is only one who is on a remote island in solitary confinement. The Australian government pays $23,000 per day to detain Aladdin Sisalem, a 25 year old man who has suffered persecution most of his life. The son of a Palestinian refugee (his father) and an Egyptian mother, Aladdin was born in Kuwait. Persecuted in his home country, he began a perilous journey in search of a country that would accept him, travelling via West Papua, Papua New Guinea, finally arriving in the Torres Straight Islands, where he was seized by the Australian Police before being taken to Thursday Island. When he asked Australian authorities for asylum, he was removed and taken to a detention centre set up by the Australian Government on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Even if he wanted to return, Kuwait will not take Aladdin back after his period of absence. Egypt does not want him. Israel does not consider his “right of return” as a Palestinian.
It is noted that the 1948 Universal Declaration Human Rights, Article 14, states “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”. Ongoing, indefinite suffering by asylum seekers both here and on the offshore detention centres is a clear indication that these basic human rights are being violated.
On 15th May, Flotillas of Hope departs Sydney Harbour, sailing up the east coast of Australia, converging in Brisbane, before departing for Nauru on 23rd May. The boats should arrive at Nauru on 20th June (World Refugee Day) with their “Cargo of Hope” which will include toys, educational, recreational items and a generator for the country’s hospital.
The voyage of this Flotilla recalls the old law of the sea – which obliges us to give assistance to anyone in peril, without regard for flags – and seeks to open a multitude of flows toward a new world for which maps are yet to be created.
Therefore, the Flotilla will use a diversity of tactics: boats converging to Australia’s north in mid-2004 crewed by autonomous affinity groups; media streams and online protests; radio waves and OpenFlow events.
Flotilla of Hope
ZNet | Asia by Lynda Smith May 10, 2004
Back in Easter 2002, a group of concerned people from the Hunter region of NSW, Australia, appalled by the Australian Government’s attitude and policy on asylum seekers, joined the actions of the Festival of Freedoms in the South Australian desert. This became Hope Caravan. Along the way, the ‘O’ in Hope transformed from an organisation to an organism.
In 2003, Hope Caravan went to the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia. Many strong bonds and friendships were formed with some of those people initiating the Flotillas of Hope project, which in association with Hope Caravan, sails to Nauru this month to arrive on the tiny impoverished Pacific island of Nauru.
This diverse group of people include a research scientist, an award winning film maker, teachers of maritime studies and multicultural education, a shipwright as well as a soccer coach from the Brisbane based, Tigers Refugee team.
Nauru
Nauru is the smallest republic in the world with a population of only 12,000. It not only faces an environmental catastrophe but also economic bankruptcy.
The exploitation of Nauru’s rich source of phosphate began in the early 1900s. After World War l, the Australian, British and New Zealand governments took over the original mining company that had been previously German owned. It was called the British Phosphate Company. As demands grew for fertiliser, so did their profits. However, only 2% of the revenue went to the Nauru people. At the time of Nauru’s independence in 1968, mining had destroyed over one-third of the tiny island. In 1991, Nauru took the Australian Government to the International Court of Justice for the exploitation of its economy and environment. In 1993, Australia settled out-of-court for $57 million with an additional $2.5 million per annum for the next 20 years. By the late 1990’s, the money had all but dried up.
During the Australian federal election in 2001, the Howard government seized the opportunity to pressure Nauru into taking asylum seekers from the shores of Australia in return for many millions of dollars. These refugees were removed by the Australian military in violation of the International Refugee Convention. This was the beginning of “The Pacific Solution”. Many of these people were initially rescued by the now infamous Tampa, a Norwegian Freighter off the Western Australian coast. In denying the Tampa refugees access to the Australian mainland, and their rights under Australian law, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, said, “whilst this is a humanitarian decent country, we are not a soft touch and we are not a nation whose sovereign rights in relation to who comes here are going to be trampled on”.
Nauru continues to deny entry to all lawyers, journalists and representatives of human rights groups as well as independent doctors and psychiatrists from assessing the health of the refugees.
Nauru has since been called Australia’s Guantanamo Bay.
These refugees merely sought to flee life-threatening persecution and repression, economic deprivation and poverty and to bring themselves and their families to a safe and secure environment. This must be surely the most basic right of any individual, yet in seeking to exercise it, they have come face to face with the Australian army.
In the last week, three Australian lawyers were ordered off Nauru before they had a chance to appear in a court case challenging the legality of the island’s detention centre for asylum seekers. Their visas were revoked by Nauru’s Minister for Justice, Russell Kun. On April 27, he appointed his uncle, former Finance Minister and paralegal “pleader”, Reuben Kun, to present the detainees’ case.
Manus Island
There are approximately 21 million refugees worldwide, yet there is only one who is on a remote island in solitary confinement. The Australian government pays $23,000 per day to detain Aladdin Sisalem, a 25 year old man who has suffered persecution most of his life. The son of a Palestinian refugee (his father) and an Egyptian mother, Aladdin was born in Kuwait. Persecuted in his home country, he began a perilous journey in search of a country that would accept him, travelling via West Papua, Papua New Guinea, finally arriving in the Torres Straight Islands, where he was seized by the Australian Police before being taken to Thursday Island. When he asked Australian authorities for asylum, he was removed and taken to a detention centre set up by the Australian Government on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Even if he wanted to return, Kuwait will not take Aladdin back after his period of absence. Egypt does not want him. Israel does not consider his “right of return” as a Palestinian.
It is noted that the 1948 Universal Declaration Human Rights, Article 14, states “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”. Ongoing, indefinite suffering by asylum seekers both here and on the offshore detention centres is a clear indication that these basic human rights are being violated.
On 15th May, Flotillas of Hope departs Sydney Harbour, sailing up the east coast of Australia, converging in Brisbane, before departing for Nauru on 23rd May. The boats should arrive at Nauru on 20th June (World Refugee Day) with their “Cargo of Hope” which will include toys, educational, recreational items and a generator for the country’s hospital.
The voyage of this Flotilla recalls the old law of the sea – which obliges us to give assistance to anyone in peril, without regard for flags – and seeks to open a multitude of flows toward a new world for which maps are yet to be created.
Therefore, the Flotilla will use a diversity of tactics: boats converging to Australia’s north in mid-2004 crewed by autonomous affinity groups; media streams and online protests; radio waves and OpenFlow events.
Human rights activists on mission of mercy to Nauru
Sydney Morning Herald By Sarah Price May 9, 2004 The Sun-Herald
Human rights activists are embarking on a 4000-kilometre trip to Nauru to draw attention to the “innocent” asylum seekers on the island republic.
“We’re going to give them hope and highlight the plight of these innocent people,” crew member Stavros Georgopoulos said.
The nine activists who will be sailing in two boats, the Eureka and the One Off, under the banner Flotillas of Hope, will go armed with teddy bears and toys for the detained children and an electricity generator for a hospital on the island “as a gesture of goodwill from ordinary Australian people to the Nauruans”.
But Mr Georgopoulos is unsure of whether they will even be able to land on Nauru to deliver their gifts to the asylum seekers.
Their applications for tourist visas have been knocked back and he is doubtful they will be able to get on to the island.
But that is not going to stop them trying and Mr Georgopoulos says they will be “Australian citizens who will be illegal boat people” in Nauru.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs said last week that 260 people were still being held in the processing centre on Nauru, 74 of whom are children.
A spokeswoman said the department was currently examining the files of the Afghan asylum seekers at the facility against the updated country information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and decisions were expected to be handed down shortly.
Decisions on the applications from the other asylum seekers were also pending, she said.
A spokeswoman for the Nauru government, Helen Bogdan, said the activists would be likely to be turned away from the island just like anyone would be turned away from any country if they did not have the appropriate visas.
Ms Bogdan also said she would caution anyone travelling to Nauru in a small boat because it was isolated and surrounded by a dangerous reef.
The activists will leave Sydney on May 15 and hope to reach Nauru on June 20, which is World Refugee Day.
The trip follows others Mr Georgopoulos has made to the Woomera detention centre at Easter in 2002 and the Baxter detention centre in 2003 to visit detainees.
“One of the reasons we went to these particular camps is because they are isolated in the desert, they didn’t get very many visitors,” he said.
Mr Georgopoulos said the Federal Government’s Pacific solution was keeping the issue of asylum seekers “out of sight and out of mind”.
“We’re going to make sure we bring it in sight and in mind,” he said.
“It’s a problem, a big problem from a human rights angle.”
One of the crew members, a British man, is flying out from England to take part in the trip.
Mr Georgopoulos said the crew member, Timothy Perkins, found out about Flotillas of Hope on the internet.
The activists have raised $20,000 to help fund the trip and to buy the gifts for the asylum seekers.
Refugee advocates are planning to sail to Nauru to highlight the plight of asylum seekers.
Supporter Stavros Georgopoulos today said the plan, dubbed Flotillas of Hope, would be similar to Easter protests held over the last few years at South Australia’s Baxter and Woomera detention centres, but promised it would be peaceful.
“We’re not going there to liberate them (detainees) and break them out – that’s stupid, where would we go?” Mr Georgopoulos said.
“We’re just going there to be with them. Just this action itself is radical enough. “Instead of going to the desert, we’re going to the ocean.”
Mr Georgopoulos said since raising the Flotilla of Hope idea two weeks ago, at least 35 refugee advocates had confirmed they would sail to Nauru and he was now in the process of securing boats.
Interest had also been shown by supporters in the US, England and New Zealand, he said. “Personally, I would love to see 353 boats, with each boat symbolising one of the deaths on the SIEV X (which sank during its voyage to Australia in October 2001),” Mr Georgopoulos said.
“We want to give hope to the refugees at Nauru and shame (Prime Minister John) Howard by putting the spotlight on the issue and showing that these island prisoners do exist.
“My deeper, deeper vision is to raise enough money to buy a boat so, just like there’s the Greenpeace Warrior, we could have the Hope Warrior sailing around permanently.”
Mr Georgopoulos said the trip to Nauru was planned for June or August next year and would take two months, including one week on the island. Last Easter at Baxter 32 protesters were arrested during clashes with police.
The previous year at the now-mothballed Woomera centre, 50 detainees escaped en masse, aided by protesters who tore down perimeter fences.
Act Elemental, Jim Allen, Anarchist Action, Tobias Andreasson, Jack Aschmann, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Atlantis Ecological Community, Australian Education Union, Julie Bailey, Wolfgang Bauer, John Bell, Andrew Blanckensee, boat-people.org, Nigel Boettiger, Bonny Pirates, Cyndi Boste, M.Christine Boulan-Smit, Boundless Plains to Share, Peter Bouquet, Ruth Boydell, Reverend Dr Brian Brown, Dave Brown, Alison Buchanan, Sue Christopherson, Deepchild, The Australian Democrats, DJ Dreadful, Pat Drummond, Drummond family @ MacMasters, Ecumenical Social Justice Group, Allan El-Khad, Elissa Elvidge, Eowynne Feeny-Scott, John Foley, Bettina Frankham, Peter C Friis, Lee Frost, Stavros Georgopoulos, Hasan Ghulam, Girruwaa Yarrundanginya Dance Group, Great Lakes RAR, Anne Goddard, Grandmaster Monk, Greens Queensland, Greens NSW, Marty Greig, Caroline Greville, Kim Grierson, Sandra Griffin, Rachel Hannan, Matt Hamon, Duncan Harty, Daniel Harvey, Jennifer Harwood, Craig Hendry, Bishop Roger Herft, Hinkler Burnett Greens, Hemp Embassy, Nonie Hodgson, HOPE Caravan, Annie Hughes, Bernadette Jameson, James Jarvis, Tony Kevin, Saeed Khan, Kill your tv, Peter Kingston, Helena Kitely, Vivien Langford, Mary La Rosa, Ezra Lee, Joanna Leigh, Le Minibus, Last-First Networks, Launceston Peace Action Network, Lebanese Muslims Association, Lesbian & Gay Solidarity, A & J Lloyd, Sarah Love, Lily Ma, Euan Macloud, Mahesh, Neil Mallard, Bishop Michael Mallone, Jennene Marum, Beth Mackenzie, Cherie McCosker, Reg Mombazza, Marty Morrison, Daniel Moss, Muel, Peter Murphy, Muslim Women’s National Network, National Tertiary Education Union NSW, Nauru Wire, Newcastle Action for Refugee Rights, Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Greens, Newcastle Uni Students’ Assoc, Nimbin Museum, No One Is Illegal, NSW Teachers’ Federation, Octapod, Michael Organ MP, Pacific Connections, Jane Paterson, Peace Boat, Peace Movement Aotearoa, Power Box Productions, Project Missing Link/Fri, Project SafeCom Inc, Queensland Peace Network, Chris Raab, Random Crew, Reclaim the Streets Syd, Refugee Action Coalition Sydney, Refugee Action Collective Victoria, Refugee Action Collective Qld, Refugee Rights Action Network, Lillian Reilly, Resistance, Liesel Rickerby, Dr & Mrs Romney Newman, Lisa Rosenberg, David Ross, Gillian Ross, Arif Ruhani, Rural Australians for Refugees, Barry Rutherford, Salarium, S-A-V-E Australia Inc, Martin Sharp, Roslyn Sharp, Search Foundation, Lynda Smith, Socialist Alliance, Danielle Storey, Rachael Stacy, Starhawk, Tierranostra, John Tomlinson, Treason, TPV Legal Centre, Paul Troyano, Paul Tully, Maureen Turner, Saif Uddin, Uniting Church Adelaide, Anousha Victoire, Denise Vietch, Voices from the Vacant Lot, Volunteers for Tawo, Jody Warren, Ronald Webb, Nick Wood, xborder, Young Christian Workers.
What do I mean by journeys? And what do I mean by Star Gazing?
Recently I started to walk again, with a limp, after having broken my leg and being immobile for a long time. The physiotherapist told me that a walk of about 1 kilometre per day would be good exercise for me, especially to get my foot, ankle and leg muscles flexible again. She said to treat my walk as a physiotherapy exercise. Since I walk very slowly now without a crutch, I’m starting to become aware of a whole new world which appears in the slow pace I take. I become aware of my breath and the sensation of each step on the ground. As I do this I become aware of a silence within me which makes space and allows the sounds of birds singing , the sensation of the breeze touching my skin, the smell of recently mowed grass to enter.
Of course my “monkey mind” is still climbing and jumping around in the space within my skull but somehow because of the slow walk and the effort to “be” in the moment of the walk makes the monkey appear like a distant shadow puppet. Yes, my walk is a Zen like exercise and the fall I had which broke my leg was Life-as- Zen-Master, wacking me into a state of mind that may prioritise what is essential in my life.
My walk to the newsagent in the morning is a journey both on the road and its side gutters and beneathe my skin between breaths and sighs of wonder at what is around me.
A journey, for me is going from point A to point B via the whole alphabet of being. The Alpha and Omega. the beginning and the end of a journey is where the snake bites its own tail, a gentle ouraboros.
It all depends on one’s awareness. So, one can make a journey from one’s lounge room and go across the borders marked by a door into a kitchen. It is no different to travelling in time by simply dipping a biscuit in a cup of tea as Proust did in his “Remembrence of Things Past”. A journey can also be a trip across the planet on a boat or a plane, a train or a bus, on foot or a bicycle. It can also be a journey to the Moon or to Mars in a space ship, or a trip to Saturn and Jupiter or Andromeda in one’s mind.
Star Gazing is not only looking up at the night sky and seeing how small we genuinely are in the midst of all these galaxies and stars, pinpricks of Light escaping through Heaven’s cape. It is also seeing into the meaning of those star gazing moments, those moments that coincide with a particular configuration of planets, Sun, Moon and stars. Yes, Star Gazing for me exists in that space between Astronomy and Astrology. I look up into the night heavens and I see the stars above and I wonder why am I here looking and living. My wife got me a telescope for Christmas this year and I hope to be able to take some photos of what I gaze at.
I look at a horoscope ( I also call it a Sky Map) and I see the symbolic language of these same stars. When I say Stars I also mean the planets and the Sun and Moon. It is an easy shorthand. Star gazing becomes communing….communicating in star language. Astrology for me is a language, a way of communicating with the deeper parts of my and your nature for I believe that we all are ultimately made of star matter. While I look up at the Stars and gaze at the light that departed from its source billions of years ago, I recognise that I gaze at old, old light. The youngest light, including sunlight is only 8 minutes old when it touches my skin, Alpha Centauri light, the closest star to us, is only about 4 years old. Star light has journeyed a long time to arrive through my eyes into me and you.
However, strange as it may sound, when I speak of astrology, I’m not really talking about the balls of rock and gas that orbit our Sun – Sol as planets or about the physical stars and galaxies that surround us. The stars and planets I speak of astrologically have nothing to do with those we know astronomically and through a telescope. The only connection astrology has with the astronomical stars is the coincident time of happening. Carl Jung coined a term to explain events that happen with no apparent physical causal connection – synchronicity. This word is made of two Greek words syn – same and chronos – time...synchronicity…things that happen at the same time. The important addition that Jung makes with this is that the connection between events is subjectively meaningful for the person. I think of a person and I hear a song with the person’s name in it and then almost simultaneously, the person rings me on the phone. This is very meaningful for me because I haven’t seen or heard from this person in a long time. The song, the thinking of the person and the telephone call are not connected in any physical scientifc way, but they do connect in a very meaningful way in my mind and heart. This is synchronicity. Astrology for me is synchronicity written in Sky Script. The physical stars are connected to the stars within my inner universe, my deeper intuitions and feelings that struggle to find a way to speak. The star language of astrology gives these promptings a voice.
In Journeys and Star Gazing you may read posts that include both a journey and an astrological reading of the journey. Sometimes, you will come across a life’s moment navigated by the stars or a journey planned by the use of astrology.
It would be great to hear from you.
You can connect with me at Twitter. Here’s my handle @dodona777
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Welcome
Welcome — I’m glad you’re here.
On this blog I share the paths I’ve walked: outward journeys across places and causes, and inward journeys through reflection and creativity. Expect stories, poems, photos, quotes, and occasional star-gazing — astrology, I Ching, alchemy, and other ways of seeing.
You’ll also find traces of the human rights campaigns I’ve been part of, offered here as part memory, part witness.
Above all, this space is for connection — I hope you enjoy exploring, and I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I also share thoughts on politics and ideas on X (Twitter) @dodona777
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Flotillas of Hope
Welcome — I’m glad you’re here.
Journeys and Star Gazing 