This is the text of a talk I gave at a Refugee Forum organised for the launch of Voice magazine's refugee issue, from 2-4 pm on Sunday 1st June 2003 at Gorman House, Canberra. (June 2003)
When I was invited earlier this week to speak in this forum, I was a bit concerned. My focus in the last couple of years, other than my work, has been on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and on the war on Iraq. I haven't spoken about the refugee issue publicly before, although I have always felt strongly about it, and so I was concerned that I wasn't qualified for the job. Then I thought about my Jewish/Israeli background and about the Palestinian issue, and realised that my life and my history have been marked by the experience of refugees. Also, as a psychotherapist working with people with trauma I am aware of the central role that trauma has been playing in the refugee policy in Australia both in the refugee groups and in our own government. So perhaps I do have something to contribute on this issue.
I am a former Israeli from Jewish background. I left Israel 11 years ago and a year and a half ago I gave up my Israeli citizenship in protest against the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. My mother's parents were Holocaust survivors who somehow managed to survive the horrors of forced labour camps in Romania. My grandmother lost two young children to hunger and disease in the camp and was apparently just skin and bone when they were released.
After their release my grandparents didn't go back to Romania. The war wasn't over yet and I don't know whether they didn't go back because they felt scared or betrayed or because they weren't allowed to. But whatever the reason, from being ordinary middle-class people living an ordinary life in Bucharest, they turned into homeless refugees wandering around Europe, relying on the charity of others and the help of aid agencies. Like many Jews at the time they attempted to go to Palestine illegally as boat people. The British authorities captured the boat and sent the refugees to a detention camp in Cyprus. This was part of a policy to limit Jewish migration into Palestine. My grandparents and their three children spent two years in the camp where my mother's younger brother was born. Then in 1948 after Israel declared independence they went there. In Israel they were given an apartment in Jaffa that used to belong to a Palestinian family. The people of that family had themselves been made refugees shortly before.
As a child I wasn't very close to my grandparents. I always thought that they were a bit strange. My grandfather was always angry and ignored all his grandchildren. My mother used to tell me strange stories about him. For example, that when she was a child he used to hide food in the cupboards of his barber shop. What I didn't understand then was that both my grandparents suffered from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. My mother who was raised by them was also traumatised and she passed the trauma down to me. I needed years of therapy in order to heal.
When the terrible saga with the refugees began in Australia I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand the harshness of the Australian government. The asylum seekers just like my grandparents, and that unknown Palestinian family whose house they occupied, became refugees for no fault of their own, victims of forces far beyond their control.
When I looked more closely at what our government was doing and saying it started to dawn on me that what I was seeing was a behaviour which is consistent with the behaviour of traumatised people. Most people can understand it when mental health professionals talk about the trauma of the refugees, but I don't know if anyone has thought of members of our own government as traumatised. I believe that members of the Howard government responsible for the refugee policy are acting out of trauma. This is not to say that everyone who suffers from trauma will necessarily behave like the Howard government, but anyone who already behaves like this is definitely traumatised.
Now I am going to give you a minute crash course in trauma psychology. Trauma is a serious condition that affects the person's whole being, their philosophy of life, their values and belief system and their very identity. Trauma can make people untrusting, hypervigilant, chronically anxious, rigid, aggressive and controlling, arrogant, critical and competitive. They tend to see any criticism of them as a personal attack and are usually defensive and emotionally reactive. They are poorly differentiated, which means that their sense of self is not strong enough and they are emotionally immature. In fact when people suffer from trauma in adulthood they tend to regress emotionally to an earlier stage of development. If trauma is suffered in childhood, it interferes with emotional development and people often remain emotionally very young.
Traumatised people tend to focus on what is negative in life and always anticipate negative outcomes. As with young children life for the traumatised individual is focused almost entirely on survival. Traumatised people often live from one crisis to another and periods of calm and peace are always viewed with suspicion and are seen as temporary. For them danger is always around the corner.
The world of traumatised people is tragically narrow. Because they are dominated by fear it is difficult for them to have a global view of humanity as a race that shares one planet and one fate. Like young children the are deeply tribal in their social outlook and are unable to see that all human beings have the same value.
People who suffer from trauma can have great difficulty empathising with the suffering of others. They can be extremely self-centred and they often have a tendency to perceive others as a threat. They are consumed by fear and their fears often become focused on the 'other' . Since they think like young children their logic is that if a person looks after them, then he or she is good. But if a person wants something from them, they can develop intense fear or hatred towards that person. What is normal behaviour for young children though, is a pathology in adulthood.
Many traumatised people can become preoccupied by the danger that they believe the 'other' represents. The phenomenon of scapegoating for example, is a manifestation of trauma. In all cases of genocide or other violations of human rights the perpetrator group presents the victim group as the 'other'. Since the other is dangerous the world becomes polarised between 'us' the innocent good guys, and 'them' the bad guys. The other is dehumanised and demonised and it is not long before we must realise that we have to rid ourselves of the other or of the danger they represent. By using language like 'queue jumpers' and illegals our government was attempting to rob the asylum seekers of their humanity, and by presenting them as potential terrorists and opportunists who are trying to sneak into Australia to enjoy what we have, it demonised them. The severity of the treatment that is consequently given to the other is in direct proportion to the degree of fear experienced by the perpetrator group. This is not exact science but perhaps we can make some assumptions about how fearful our leaders are by looking at the way they treat the refugees.
The Nazi government felt that German society could not be healthy while the Jews were alive, Israelis feel that they cannot be safe while the Palestinians are alive and the Australian government has been telling us that the refugees coming to our shores are dangerous to us in some way. It is a very short road from this kind of outlook to a violation of human rights. It is always through acts that are in violation of the rights of others that trauma is passed on. It is trauma that caused our leadership to create the detention centres and it is through this policy that the trauma is now being passed on to the refugees.
The extent of trauma and emotional suffering experienced by the people in detention centres is being documented and discussed by mental health professionals like Zachary Steel who are doing excellent work bringing this to the attention of the public. It is clear that the Australian government is now responsible for the suffering of generations of people for many years to come. Trauma is passed on in families through the generations even if the parents mean well and have no intention of hurting their children. Many will continue to suffer the legacy of what Australia has done to their parents and grandparents for a long time. Some of the refugees may well have been traumatised before coming here but the treatment they received here could just make their trauma incurable. Those who are deported back to their countries will almost certainly suffer further abuse. They wouldn't have escaped their homes, their cultures and their countries if they were safe there.
I believe that right-wing politics in all its variations is created by traumatised people. The deeper the trauma the more oppressive, uncaring and bigoted the politics. Right wing thinking is not a reasonable political alternative but an expression of a sickness. I am deeply concerned when people who are evidently not healthy occupy positions of power. Ordinary individuals who are traumatised can only have an effect on a small number of people around them. But when people with trauma have a great deal of political power they can do damage on a very large scale indeed. Adolf Hitler is a good example of this but he could not achieve anything without the help of others like him who were drawn to his character and leadership.
Traumatised people can be very well presented, function extremely well in many areas of life and they can be very intelligent and persuasive. It is only on close examination that their trauma will become apparent. It is very likely that arguments and policies that we try to engage with rationally and logically are nothing more than the irrational thinking process and actions of traumatised people. I strongly believe that people like Ruddock suffer from trauma and need professional help. As citizens of a democratic country it is our duty to question how well equipped to rule our political leaders really are. The emotional soundness of their decisions and actions must be questioned and examined. We have to be careful to not be conned by what might appear to be rational policies but are in fact based on the fearful delusions of someone suffering from trauma. In my field we know a lot about this and I think that it is time for this knowledge to play a part in how we are governed and in the way our society functions.
Saying that some of our leaders may be suffering from trauma is not an excuse for what they are doing, it is an explanation. In our society people are still accountable for their actions even if they are traumatised. For example, we do not excuse child abuse just because the perpetrator was abused as a child. I believe that in its refugee policy the Australian government has committed a crime on a grand scale for which they are accountable morally and legally.
The worst thing for me is the realisation that Australia intended to inflict this kind of suffering on these people. The intent from the onset was to treat the refugees who arrived here so badly that it would deter others from coming here to look for asylum. The crime inflicted on these people was intentional and well calculated, which I believe makes it all the more monstrous. The Australian government consciously and deliberately set out to destroy the lives of these people, as part of its long term policy of 'protecting' Australia from asylum seekers. The Australian government has objectified these people and refused to see them as human beings. They are insignificant pawns used to teach others a lesson. People sick enough to do what this government is doing to the refugees are capable of anything.
It is not inconceivable that the people who were hurt by our country will one day file a group law suit against the Australian government in the international court of law, and will demand some form of compensation for their suffering. If they do so they will be fully justified. I hope with all my heart that the members of the Howard government and in particular the people who are directly responsible for the refugee policy and its implementation will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and punished accordingly. As for the rest of us, we must ensure that our political system attracts and encourages only healthy people to assume positions of power and responsibility. The current system seems to attract too many who are unwell and therefore dangerous.
Thank you.
Page content last modified: 29 Jun 2003
