I am one of the organisers of the 100-day refugee encampment in front of the Department of Home Affairs office in Melbourne. I am a refugee from Sri Lanka, a mother of two, a disability support worker and a proud union member. My family and I are part of the community in every way, except for our visa status.
Our protest was to demand justice for the 8,500 people who, like us, have been failed by the former Coalition government’s “fast track” asylum process. We have suffered 12 years of uncertainty because of an unfair system that has now been abolished. As victims of that system, we deserve justice and visa equality.
Last Tuesday night, we packed up our encampment and held a final, peaceful rally through the streets of Melbourne. There were about 700 of us, our families, our friends and supporters.
Around 20 neo-Nazis attacked our rally. They were dressed all in black and had their faces covered. They held racist signs. They yelled out “Australia for the white man”. They filmed and jeered at us. It was a coordinated and organised attack.
The police stepped in and pepper sprayed both the protesters and the neo-Nazi group. Eventually, the neo-Nazis were pushed back. But they were allowed to walk away and held their meeting somewhere else, near the centre of the city.
This isn’t the first time that we have been attacked by neo-Nazis on the streets of the city we consider our home. A few weeks ago, a mob attacked our camp overnight yelling “fuck off we’re full”. One of the attackers dislocated the arm of one of our organisers, who had to be taken to hospital. He returned to the encampment and carried on to the hundredth day with his arm in a bandage.
Politicians and leaders have been quick to condemn the men who attacked us on Tuesday night. They have called neo-Nazis disgusting and cowards — and they are.
But they ignore the real reason for attacks like these. Politicians from all sides give a green light to far-right groups when they blame refugees and migrants for every problem in the country, from housing to the cost of living. We get blamed for raising the cost of living, even as we work two jobs and pay for everything from our medical care to our children’s schooling. We get blamed for taking up resources, even when many of the women in the encampment work day and night in aged care or as nurses.
We were forced onto the streets because for 12 years governments have failed us. They did not listen when a group of 22 women, including me, walked from Melbourne to Canberra last year to demand an end to our visa limbo and uncertainty. They have not listened for the past 100 days.
Refugees of all ages — most of them women — were left to sleep in the cold and rain for a hundred days just to demand our basic rights. We had to do all this just to be allowed to stay in the country where our children were born, and where we have made our lives for the past 12 years.
What neo-Nazis do to us is what they would do to others, if they had the power. The real reason for these attacks is the politics of fear and division.
We reject those politics, and so do our friends and allies who marched with us on Tuesday night. It is time for the government to reject them too.
