Boy Soldier
Page 23
I love Australia and am a proud citizen. When I first came here nearly all the Sudanese I knew were supporters of John Howard. We were grateful to him because we had been let into Australia while he was prime minister. But this all changed in 2007, when the then immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, made some comments about Sudanese. Some Sudanese had got into a fight in Adelaide, and one of them, a teenager called Liep Gony, was bashed to death. Andrews said that Sudanese were naturally warlike people who had brought their violent ways to Australia. He said that the Government had cut down on African refugees because ‘some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life’. He meant us – but it emerged that Liep Gony’s attackers were not African at all!
We couldn’t believe a government minister would say such a prejudiced and incorrect thing, just to win votes. From then on, we all changed our minds and supported Labor in the 2007 election.
The truth is that relationships between Sudanese tribal groups get better the longer we are in Australia. The changes in southern Sudan, where our people are no longer pitted against one another, have helped. But more importantly, now I am in Australia, I am Australian first, Sudanese second, and not really Dinka at all. We don’t see ourselves as Dinka, Nuer or Nubian. Our dream is to see a Sudanese kid play cricket for Australia.
We all live under the one law here: Australian law. Sudanese kids are mixing with Australian kids, Sudanese have Australian boyfriends and girlfriends, and everyone is getting mixed up, in a good way.
Andrews was only manipulating the fact that many Australians don’t know much about where we have come from, or the lives we have lived. It’s up to us to create more of a link, to let Australians know more about us. We should tell Australians what it was like for us back in Sudan. I think that when we do, Australians will respect us more. I hope this book can do something to help.
When I walk around and look at people in the streets of Sydney or Melbourne or Adelaide, I know that few of them have suffered in the way I have. I don’t resent this. Suffering is always relative, and I can’t judge the suffering of others. Someone worried about their finances in Australia can be suffering more deeply than someone who is homeless in Sudan. Sometimes I even feel sorry for Australians, because if you are in trouble here, the bills just pile up and pile up until you have no way out. At least in Sudan, once you are poor, you don’t keep getting poorer.
The only time I feel resentment is when I see kids who take their lives for granted. They think their mum and dad will be there forever, they will always have a nice home and will always be looked after. I get mad when I see these kids who think they don’t have to work to maintain this. Life is never so certain, and you must always be prepared to work your way out of whatever troubles fall on you.
When will I be ready to go home? I have so much more I want to do in Australia. I have never held snow or ice in my hands. Maybe one day I can go to Mount Kosciuzko. I didn’t even go to the beach until Christmas 2007, when I went to Kiama on the NSW south coast.
I first went to a Sydney beach on 20 January 2008. It was an incredible day. I went with some friends to Maroubra and we lost one of our group, my housemate Biar Deng. We reported it to the lifesavers and police. Nobody had seen him, and it was terrible: we thought he had drowned. Helicopters came in and were searching for him.
I will never forget the kindness of the people at the beach. They came up and offered us comfort, food and coffee. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to help find our friend. But he was nowhere to be found.
We went home to western Sydney thinking he had drowned. We were terribly upset. We got home and opened the door . . . and I nearly fainted in surprise. He was lying there, asleep!
We screamed and laughed and woke him up to ask what had happened.
When Biar had become separated from us in Maroubra, he had asked a local woman for help. They looked around for us, but couldn’t find us anywhere. So she had driven him all the way home, more than an hour from one side of Sydney to the other, from the coast to the western suburbs. Then she drove herself back again.
That is the country I am in now.