"In late September, a vessel came apart shortly after leaving Indonesia, and dozens of asylum seekers — from Lebanon, Iran and Iraq — drowned. That people are willing to hazard death at sea despite Australia’s vow to send them to places like Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Nauru would seem illogical — or just plain crazy. The Australian government ascribes their persistence partly to misinformation propagated by the smugglers. But every asylum seeker who believes those lies believes them because he chooses to. Their doing so, and continuing to brave the Indian Ocean, and continuing to die, only illustrates their desperation in a new, disturbing kind of light. This is the subtext to the plight of every refugee: Whatever hardship he endures, he endures because it beats the hardship he escaped. Every story of exile implies the sadder story of a homeland."
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Well, this is just devastating. Two other details stand out in this incredible NYT magazine story about asylum-seekers braving horrific conditions to escape from their homes in Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere to try for a good life in Australia.
1. Writer Luke Mogelson describes that one way to measure the success of the US-led war in Afghanistan is by the current exodus of citizens from the country, pointing out “the first “boat people” to seek asylum in Australia were Vietnamese, in the mid-1970s, driven to the ocean by the fallout from that American withdrawal.” So there’s another unintended consequence of another war in the name of freedom and liberty. Nice one.
2. The detail of an Iranian father who is hesitant to destroy his son’s passport just about finished me off. "When the scissors came his way, he carefully cut out the photo on the first page and slipped it in his wallet.“ Damn.