ABSTRACT

Since 2001 Australia’s offshore processing regime has turned asylum seekers into one of the country’s main destitute groups. No asylum seeker trying to reach Australia by boat is allowed to settle in the country. If their boat is intercepted by the Australian Navy in Australian waters, they are forced to turn back, or are forcefully transferred and indefinitely held in Nauru and Papua New Guinea until their refuge applications are processed. This article focuses on the testimony of one of these asylum seekers who was held in one of the detention centres on Manus Island: Behrouz Boochani’s memoir No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018). It explores the author’s condemnation of the oppressive kyriarchal system on which the Australian detention regime is founded, and his embracement of the environment as a form of resistance against it. Contrary to the pejorative stereotyped images often used by governments and some mainstream media to justify their anti-immigration policies, Boochani’s first-person account reminds us that asylum seekers and refugees are not disposable objects, but active agents who should be treated in a more humane and ethical way all around the world.

摘要

自 2001 年以来，澳大利亚的离岸处理制度已将寻求庇护者变成了该国主要的贫困群体之一。试图乘船抵达澳大利亚的寻求庇护者不得在该国定居。如果他们的船在澳大利亚水域被澳大利亚海军拦截，他们将被迫返回，或被强行转移并无限期地关押在瑙鲁和巴布亚新几内亚，直到他们的避难申请得到处理。本文重点介绍其中一名被关押在马努斯岛拘留中心的寻求庇护者的证词：Behrouz Boochani 的回忆录《除了山没有朋友：来自马努斯监狱的写作》(2018)。它探讨了作者对澳大利亚拘留制度赖以建立的压迫性的 kyriarchal 制度的谴责，以及他对环境作为一种抵抗形式的拥抱。与政府和一些主流媒体经常用来证明其反移民政策合理性的刻板印象相反，Boochani 的第一人称叙述提醒我们，寻求庇护者和难民不是一次性物品，而是应该以更人道的方式对待的积极代理人。和道德的方式在世界各地。