Boat People - One man's journey to safety.

Thank you Ruby Blumer for this link to the Area News. Politicians, (or their spin doctors) create and build campaigns based on suspects fears of a population, or create bogeyman so the focus shifts from the real Job politicians are there for.

It has been very easy to demonise refugees as Boat People, because its far removed from the real lives of most people. Most of us have never been exposed to what these people have had to survive through, day in and day out for much of their lives and indeed for some its generational. We don't know what it is like to flee the place you love and grew up in, to leave family, friends and everything familiar and just run. We don't know what its like to languish in a "refugee camps" for years on end, no job, no education, nothing nothing nothing util even the hope in your eyes dies and fades.

The UNHCR refugee camps scattered across Africa, the Middle East and through South East Asia do not house all the refugees who are seeking safety and asylum and a place to call home.

At the end of 2015 the UNHCR reports that refugees or those seeking asylum were 16,796,426 in the Middle East and North Africa, 9,694,535 in Asia and the Pacific, 8,451,275 in the East and Horn of Africa, 7,726,594 in the Americas, 7,585,581 in Europe, 3,580,181 in Central Africa, 2,754,893 in Souther Africa, 1,370,217 in Souther Africa. Thats 57,959,702 falling under the UNDCR mandate as " people of concern", in 2007 it was 21,018,589.  This week tree number of displaced people had increased to 65.3 million.

Figures at a glance - June 2016

Fairfax Media Stock Image

Less than a fifth of these "people of concern" which includes, refugees, pending asylum cases, displaced people, stateless people are living in Refugee Camps. Most are living in shanties on the edge of cities, living hand to mouth each and everyday. They don't exist, they are invisible to even the people they live amongst. No job, no home, no school, no health care - absolutely nothing at all, Yet we demonise the very people who have decided to find away to to what appears to one the furthest place to go to escape the lunacy and religious dogma that created the mess they are leaving.

Our response is tell them to go back and wait like every other refugee, wait your turn it will come. What a crock of cow manure we are sold each and everyday. No one can find you of you don't exist, if there are not enough resources to feed the millions on your doorstep each and everyday. Remember its not the rich first world countries where refugee camps are set ups its almost always the poor countries. The countries that have been stripped poor by the old colonial powers.

Our community is built on the work of generations of immigrants who have arrived by boat, as did all our forebears, if you don't have Aboriginal Ancestry. People who escaped the world they lived in as it was obliterated by the Hate and Propaganda spewed out by Hitler and Mussolini. People who escaped the gulags of Russia, the Eastern Bloc Countries, the Cold War and the unrest through central and South America.

Our community is built on the blood sweat and tears of people escaping persecution and we have all benefitted by the decision they made to settle here. Yet even those of us who have recent refugees in our family tree, demonise the "boat people". So much for a nation who thought it presented a kind, open and generous nature to the "world". Instead we have become Scrooge like, mean spirited and heartless.

Thank you Hannah Higgins and the Area News for this enlightening story of one young mans incredible journey. To Zahid Hussein I extend a welcome also, thank you for telling your story and contributing to our community. I hope that your future is less painful than your journey to now.

We, collectively all of us, have too find our heart and also some commonsense, we can't let the decision by the hate mongers to rule our lives with fear. We have to find ways to be generous and open our arms to those who ask for help.