A moving portrayal of refugees
By Tamara Desiatov and Gillian Hector
PERTH — Refugee Week, sponsored by Austcare and the Refugee Council of Australia, ended with the multi-media production In Search of Peace at the Artists Club on June 25. Workshops, forums, storytelling and dinners during the week, focussed on the plight of refugees.
The term "refugee" has become synonomous with a social/political problem of epidemic proportions. There are more than 20 million refugees in the world today, more than half of which are children.
The 1951 United Nations Convention defines a refugee as any person who, because of his or her race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, experience or fear persecution and, unable to obtain protection, is forced to leave their country of origin.
In Search of Peace was organised by the Multicultural Arts Centre of WA. The style was good, combining facts about the refugee crisis with details about people's origins, music and culture.
The artists included: the Burmese Association Cultural Group who performed their story through dance; Meri Mustajbegovic who related a story from the former Yugoslavia; Ramin Ahmad-Panahi on flute and sitar; Walter Sello, a South African refugee; Malembe who played music from South America and Passport Theatre Company which did a piece on the interrogation of political dissidents.
In Search of Peace invited us to travel through continents and countries from which many have been forced to flee — Latin America, South Africa, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
We learned about the people who have been made victims of civil wars and human rights abuses; we met economic refugees, unregistered refugees and asylum seekers.
In Search of Peace made the point that, while it is essential to provide emergency food and shelter to refugees, it s also important to acknowledge that, in the safety of a new homeland, these people are keen to contribute their knowledge and skills.
It showed the courage and determination of refugees in their struggle for survival. While a lot more could have been said about the federal government's detention policy of "illegal" refugees, In Search of Peace did raise many important issues.