Good Or Shit: Graphic Propaganda

18 February 2014 | 1:23 pm | Liz Galinovic

"No way. They will not make Australia home. They ... they ... top marks for dehumanising refugees, guys."

I intercepted some invaluable information last week when I was trawling through the Customs and Border Protection website – as everyone does, obvs – about Afghanistan. According to the Australian government's 18 page asylum-seeker-deterring graphic novel, Afghanistan is a pretty cruisy little joint. As opposed to say, an Australian government detention centre which, according to the same booklet, is where you're more likely to end up experiencing some form of torture.

Oh what an amazing little piece of propaganda this is. Nameless main protagonist, I'll call him Robbo, is working away under the hood of a car on a lovely sunny day. The village is quiet; there are no explosions, no arrests, no abductions, no international troops, Afghan security forces, military bases, militias, war lords, or Taliban. He's just a guy, working on a car.

As a reader, I wasn't quite sure why he bothered taking his parent's savings, making his way to Pakistan, flying to Indonesia, handing the cash over to some bloke who then piled him and others onto a boat before setting off into rough seas. His life didn't look that bad to me. Not until he got to an Australian detention centre anyway, that's when the story took a very dark turn. That's when Robbo found himself behind a fence, in a camp, being attacked by mosquitoes and weeping all over the Australian government logo.  

There are so many things a person could rant about regarding what is, essentially, yet another example of our government's idiocy and spinelessness. It not only simplifies but misrepresents the motives of a would-be asylum seeker, in this case a man who appears to have been drawn to look specifically like a Hazara – one of the most persecuted peoples in the world – but he hasn't been made to look like he's fleeing anything other than a boring job.

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I became suspicious – who exactly was this representation drawn for? Surely not for Hazaras who are unlikely to relate.

And then to admit that offshore detention centres are hellholes where you will inevitably fall to pieces for the mosquitoes to feed off?   

I'm so confused by the truths and the un-truths in all this. So, Afghanistan isn't unsafe for anyone? Right? But Australia is? Right? If you seek asylum in Australia you will be locked up on an Island and treated like a criminal for leaving a country you had no need to leave in the first place? Right?

I don't think this booklet was made for would-be asylum seekers; this is for the Australians who hate them. Who else gains from the impression that asylum seekers have nothing to run from? And that the Australian response to their attempt at finding peace, is to make them choke on the hardline, as if that's a good thing?

The proof lies in the slogan on the shiny new poster that goes with this campaign – No way. They will not make Australia home. They ... they ... top marks for dehumanising refugees, guys. Your booklet took away their horrific stories, your poster takes away their humanity. They, they, are just faceless forms, threatening shadows. Nothing we can relate to, nothing like us. Not even people.  

If this was really about saving lives at sea, refugee and Australian naval lives, if it was really about putting a stop to the people smugglers, why wasn't that the focus of the narrative?

Why didn't the story go something like this – Robbo arrives in Indonesia where he meets the dreaded People Smugglers. “Yessssss,” the smuggler hisses in Robbo's ear. “Step onto my boat. It's safe. It's state-of-the-art. Australia will take you in; they will greet you on the shores with chilled cordial and towels.”

Or perhaps – Robbo the Hazara lives in a war torn country where he is routinely persecuted by the Taliban. It's awful, truly awful. He is desperate to get out and, his parents, recognising he's the only one with any hope of obtaining a better life, give him all their savings and wave goodbye to him with one hand while wiping away their tears with the other. On the way to Pakistan he meets someone who warns him against such a perilous journey. “Don't go to Australia,” says a person who routinely Googles the Australian Customs and Border Protection website, just for Lols. “They're terrible over there. You'll get ripped off by some dodgy people smuggler in Indonesia and then, when you get there, if your boat doesn't sink on the way, or smash to smithereens on a rocky shore, the Australians will lock you up in an outdoor prison.”

“Trust me, I know people who've been locked up for years. There's pretty much no hope for you, deal with it. The world hates immigration. Well, unless you're a wealthy person. People only care about money and power. You think the Taliban thinks they're superior to you? Wait until you meet white westerners, they don't come much more superior, heartless and selfish than that lot.”

Done. Problem solved. Robbo gets to keep his humanity, his shitty-life back story, the Australian government gets to continue being a massive prick, no one except rich white people will continue to have the freedom to choose where they live their lives and always get what they want, and no one has obfuscated or misrepresented any of the truth.  

Better yet, the portion of Australians who are frightened of people who aren't white Anglos, who rant in the comments sections of news articles, slur in pubs, and squeal on public transport, that they're not like us, they're security threats who want to make us all Muslim while scrounging benefits and/or our jobs, might actually learn something real.

“Afghan food's alright,” my flatmate said, casually, stretched out on the sofa eating a roll he'd just made out of everybody else's food. “The only problem is it might blow up in your mouth.”

“What?”

“Or the delivery guy might blow himself up.”

“What?!”

“The delivery guy might blow himself up. That's what Afghani people do, Liz, they blow themselves up. You need to stop being so politically correct. Know what ah mean, yeah. They come here, they get on benefits, they take our jobs...” he stopped, the sarcastic piss-take of the scared, the greedy and the ignorant petered out. He was bored with it himself.