In June 2024, I attended a conference titled ‘Camps, Carceral Imaginaries and Critical Interventions’ at Graz University in Austria alongside a variety of scholars and thinkers from across the world. We gathered to create a dialogue around prison camps and border politics, with a focus on how current border regimes impact human rights and, more broadly, political culture. At that time, the key focus was the shifting refugee policies in Europe to banish refugees to other countries: the main example was the deal to send refugees from Italy to Albania and from the UK to Rwanda.

Throughout the conference, Australia was referenced constantly. Wherever I went, I heard of the nation’s banishment of refugees to Manus Island and Nauru cited as a cruel example of the detention industry. Having experienced more than six years of imprisonment and banishment on Manus Island I represented the Australian version of border politics. This deal outlined Italy’s plans to build camps on Albanian soil and their intention to transfer hundreds adult refugees and subsequently process their cases there.

The detention model and industry that Australia established has been repeatedly cited as an international model and continues to be an exported industry.

In August 2016, Australia welcomed to Nauru Island six Danish politicians interested in the possibility of replicating the Australian detention system, before they met with Australian officials in Canberra. I was still imprisoned on Manus island. Martin Henriksen, a member of the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, was one of the six and explained that Denmark could maintain refugee camps in Kenya or Greenland: “Australia has found an interesting model. The government will continuously assess different migration policies by looking at the experiences of other countries, including Australia.”

In 2022, during a visit to the United Kingdom, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott actively promoted Australia’s detention regime. He urged UK ministers to change the law to establish something similar. In an interview with GB News, he said: “In the end, this is one of those situations where success creates popularity, and because the policies succeed, they are widely adopted. And I certainly think there’s a lesson there and a potential model for other countries such as the United Kingdom, who have a problem with illegal arrivals by boat.”

I recently received a book published in Italian called “New Boundaries” which exposes further details of the UK’s replication of the Australian system. Written by Italian journalists, the book details how, in October 2022, the UK appointed the former Australian minister Alexander Downer, known as an architect of the Australian offshore system, to serve on a government commission tasked with “independently” overseeing the famous agreement signed a few months earlier between UK prime minister and his Rwandan counterpart.

Australia is not the first country to establish such a regime: in fact, Australia has learnt from the previous versions throughout modern history and developed it.

Wealthier countries have historically treated other countries as open prisons to detain refugees, minorities or different ethnic groups. During World War II, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador positioned themselves as destinations for Jewish refugees. Another example is America’s detention of refugees from Haiti in Guantanamo in 1990.

Many say Australia has inspired other countries, this is true, but ‘inspiration’ is not the whole story. Australia has been active not only in developing the offshore model but actively introducing and exporting it. This exportation of violence is embedded in legitimised detention regimes through language, legal and political frameworks, and a new industrial network of security companies.

This model has been established on the base of colonial mentality, growing from the histories of colonialism. Indeed, this mentality has reproduced itself again and again - where richer countries exploit poorer countries, using their lands as a land of exile.

As we have seen in the Australian model, the deal between Italy and Albania is not a domestic issue, it has transcended the international level. The authors of the book “New Boundaries” deeply expose how an Italian surveillance system has developed in Albania, how the government has been trying to manipulate the legal system, and how this system violates human rights. This is again the creation of a human tragedy: we can see how the Italian model has obvious similarities to the Australian system.

At the Graz conference, I opened my speech with the sentence, “prisons learn from prisons.” This is the reality of the current world we live in.

Evin prison in Tehran is not the worst prison in Iran, but it is a symbol of the brutality of the Iranian government since the 1979 revolution. Over the past five decades, thousands of political prisoners have been executed in the early morning in Evin, but for me, Evin somehow reminds me of Kurdish political prisoner Shirin Alam Holi, who was executed there in 2009. Shirin wrote on her cell wall, "Women, Life, Freedom," which was a Kurdish manifesto that, more than a decade later, was adapted by Iranian women and turned into a remarkable movement which received global attention.

Iranian novelist Amir Ahmadi Arian wrote a novel called "Then the Fish Swallowed Him," in which the main protagonist is imprisoned in Evin. These days, when many in the West ignore the violation of human rights in Iran and romanticize the Iranian government in the war with Israel and the USA, I would like to share this conversation that I had with Amir about his book.

Amir Ahmadi Arian ◽️ Let me start with a prose poem from your book Freedom, Only Freedom, titled “Untitled”. It begins, “Here, in the neighbourhood of the people who stare for twenty-four hours solely at walls and metal, the presence of animals is a virtue.”

Then you describe a variety of animals an inmate in Manus observes day and night through the fences. This is a striking passage as it offers the idea of the animal world as the embodiment of freedom, and the inmate in commune with them experiencing freedom vicariously.

In our conversations, you have talked many times about the uncanny beauty of nature at Manus and how contemplating animal life helped you persevere through incessant brutality. I was wondering if you can talk more about that. What does nature mean for a refugee trapped in an offshore camp? How did animals make it easier for you to get through the day?

Behrouz Boochani ◽️ The prison camps in Manus are designed to dehumanise people and reduce them to mere numbers. In this context, for detainees, forming connections with animals and sometimes caring for them serves as a reminder of their humanity – it’s a way to reclaim their dignity. This also offers insight into the world of detainees and the profound loneliness they endure.

I noticed you describe this phenomenon in your book Then the Fish Swallowed Him, where the main character, Yunus, becomes aware of a fly and spends time with it while in Evin prison in Iran, where he is being punished for his involvement in union strikes. When discussing animals in this context, we are essentially talking about nature as a whole. Being in touch with nature, be it observing the moon above the prison, feeling the rain, hearing the sea, and watching the birds in flight, offers an opportunity for the detainees to find peace.

In Manus, we frequently observe instances where nature challenges the confines of the prison, constantly trying to assert its dominance. This may manifest in the form of innocent creatures like snakes or crabs inadvertently entering the prison camp.

I often wonder if the Manus prison camp had been situated in a location devoid of nature, our survival would have been significantly harder. Nature perpetually strives to maintain balance, even within the confines of a brutal and violent system such as a prison. This is one major difference between Manus and a closed facility like Evin. In that regard, a prisoner might have a harder time surviving than a refugee in an offshore camp.

AAA ◽️ This process of dehumanisation, which brings one closer to animals, was also on my mind when I wrote the chapter you brought up. Yunus meets the fly after being beaten up and humiliated in the interrogation room. He initially finds the insect abject, as many of us would do. Still, he soon realises that the presence of another living organism in the cell can make it easier for him to endure loneliness.

This idea has a long pedigree in the history of literature. I was recently re-reading Frederick Douglass’s autobiography and was struck by the abundance of parallels he draws between animals and the enslaved Black people in the US, beginning in the very first paragraph of the book: “The larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs.”

When you go back and read classical literature, that relationship is even more organic and not limited to the abused and the underdog. In many instances in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh animals have almost as much agency as humans.

Even the noble warriors are named after their horses (note the “asb”, meaning horse in Persian, at the end of names such as “Gashtasb” and “Grashasb”).

This connection is largely dropped off the radar in modern literature, and the narratives of the imprisoned and the detainee are great vehicles for putting it back on the map.

You mention the comparison between Evin and Manus. I think it is an important topic for us to discuss, as those places are the settings of our narratives and determine the fate of our characters. You touched on the main difference in terms of access to nature. I would like to focus on their similarities for now. What parallels do you see between Evin prison and Manus prison camp?

BB ◽️ I would like to add something to what you said about how classic literature approached animals, which I find interesting. In my book No Friend But the Mountains, I introduce a native bird called Chauka that appears throughout the story, singing its melody. This bird transcends its mere identity as a bird and becomes a character in the story.

Chauka appears on the book’s last page, flying above one of the detainees while singing. The chants of both the bird and the detainee blend into one. Here, human beings are integrated into nature, much like Chauka.

Regarding the similarity between Manus and Evin prisons, both prisons function as machines of violence, primarily through bureaucratic processes. Your character Yunus becomes trapped in this system as soon as he is arrested. He passes through numerous rooms, endures a complex and excruciating interrogation. Even when he is taken to court, he remains within this system as he observes the city from the car, and this process continues during the court proceedings.

We witness a similar bureaucratic system in Manus, especially for their healthcare needs. They are forced to stand in long queues and follow strict rules, often without receiving the proper medical treatment in the end.

I believe the violence in Evin is less complicated than in Manus but it is more obvious, whereas violence in Manus is more intricate and less visible.

Another notable similarity is that Yunus, like many refugees in Manus, is innocent and has committed no crime. Yunus is a Kafkaesque character, very much reminiscent of Joseph K. in The Trial. He is a bus driver who suddenly finds himself in a system he cannot comprehend, despite not being a political activist. Refugees in Manus seek asylum but find themselves jailed on a remote island. It’s an absurd situation that causes extreme violence.

Generally, we must remember that Manus was created by a liberal democracy, and it reveals a dark side of that ideology. Evin has been created by a religious dictatorship system. Each prison represents a different mentality.

AAA ◽️ This last point is extremely important. There is a tendency to flatten various forms of suffering around the world in the name of solidarity. I understand the sentiment, but the deployment of this rhetoric often comes at the cost of the nuances, and we end up with video-game politics in which the global oppressors are on one side and the global oppressed on the other. The experiences of a political prisoner in Iran, a Uighur Muslim in a concentration camp in China and a refugee in an offshore camp in Australia, while all three are victims of state brutality, are very different. I can only speak to the Iranian experience, the imprisonment by what you accurately call a religious dictatorship.

You touched on the degree of state visibility in both cases. The Australian government seems to want minimum visibility in a place like Manus. In Evin, by contrast, the Iranian government pursues maximum visibility, as they do in the society as a whole. They unleash hijab patrols in streets, raid people’s parties and openly discriminate against the non-religious, all to make you feel their presence round the clock wherever you are. I once heard from a former prisoner that in solitary confinement he missed his own solitude the most, as in the cell he always felt the weight of the state on his skin.

It is also important to keep in mind that Evin is the most famous prison in Iran, but it is not the worst by any measure. Places like the Fashafouyeh prison near Tehran or prisons in Mashhad and Shiraz and Urmia are far harsher than Evin, the state brutality in them far more visible and palpable.

I’d like to switch gears. Reading your book, I was struck by how much you have written about other people – your fellow detainees, the guards, the local people in Manus – and how unflattering some of it is. You avoid romanticising the refugees and give us a rather tragic portrait of the island, where most of the locals hate the detainees and the detainees constantly turn against one another. I was reminded of Frantz Fanon’s account of colonialism as a system that makes everyone hate everyone else. I wonder if you can talk to that a little more.

BB ◽️ You are right that we have different groups of people oppressed by different systems. However, oppression everywhere operates through the same mechanism of power, that’s why the concept of intersectionality is important.

Different minorities can understand each other better by sharing their stories – a Kurd in the Middle East, a Baha’i in Iran, an Aboriginal person in Australia. In my perspective, it’s crucial to recognise what these experiences have in common if we want to challenge the power structure that creates them.

Another point you raised is how colonisers create hate among people and divide communities. In the context of Manus, they not only divided refugees from the local community but they brought that division within the detainee community itself. The system in Manus fostered division by pitting individuals against each other in competition for access to necessities such as food and space. Detainees internalise the violence and humiliation they endure, which leads to self-hatred and hatred of others. However, in Manus, we had a culture of brotherhood at the same time. It is important to raise awareness about this internalisation process and empower people to challenge it.

This mechanism of internalisation is universal, although it reflects different degrees of violation. Additionally, we should recognise that Australia’s refugee policy reflects its history of colonialism, linked with its convict past and the colonisation of Indigenous peoples.

You are correct that I’ve tried to avoid romanticising refugees. It’s crucial to acknowledge that, for decades, humanitarian organisations and advocates have victimised refugees by romantically portraying them to gain sympathy. This approach is problematic as it undermines refugees’ identity and portrays them as passive people without agency.

I always try to challenge this narrative and portray refugees as equals, showing their complexity as human beings. I’m not sure about my success in remaining objective. When I read your book, the first thing that struck me was your objectivity and balance in portraying the dictatorship system you introduced.

AAA ◽️ I read quite a few books about Evin as I was researching this novel, and in many of them, especially those published in the West, I noted a simplified, good versus evil dichotomy. You have the innocent prisoner up against a crowd of monsters, all unimaginably brutal and markedly dumb.

That is far from the truth and quite unproductive. If you are serious about fighting a system, you highlight and explore its flaws, and show how the people organising and perpetuating it are just humans, manipulable and vulnerable like we all are. Only if you have that belief do you get to think about a strategy, and realistic ways of bringing about change. Otherwise, what is the point of activism if the other side is all absolute monsters?

So I think it wasn’t so much about neutrality as it was a matter of practicality. I care about the potential ways for effecting meaningful change in Iran, and the first step towards that is knowing your enemy, which for me is the people currently in charge of that country. Every interrogator in Evin follows a fairly strict protocol. Their questions and cross-questioning, their beating and feigned compassion, it’s all calculated. They are trained to read you closely, to notice the slightest changes in your body language, the pauses in your speech, everything they can use against you. And, at the end of the day, they all have to report to their superiors. It is a complex bureaucratic system, and if you really care about dismantling it, you first have to know it well. That was my mindset getting into writing this novel.

To wrap up our conversation, I think it is appropriate to talk about hope. The systems we discuss here are ones designed to obliterate the idea of the future, to inculcate the idea that this cell, this camp, is the end of the road and the inmates won’t see the open sky in Evin or the Australian mainland in Manus. In your book you talk quite a bit about hope for the future and ways of keeping it alive.

BB ◽️ The kind of hope I had in mind is one created by imagination and dreams. People, especially prisoners, strive to survive. When I say survival, I mean not only their release from prison but also safeguarding their mental and physical wellbeing. This often involves holding on to memories of past dreams and imagining future ones, as well as remaining creative to endure the harsh circumstances of prison life. In fact, it’s through the creative process that people can reclaim life within the confines of incarceration. People consistently fight for their dreams – dreams of freedom, dreams of love.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on April 20, 2024 as "Machines of violence".

(Above, on Manus Island after the prison was destroyed)

For the Kurdish sisters, everyday life is spent in front of a carpet loom – to pass the time, they share stories, discuss daily life and sometimes sing Kurdish folk songs. Around them, children play. They sing:

“Shamega Rezakhan Mayoo, Shamega Rezakhan Mayoo.

Shamega Rezakhan Mayoo, Shamega Rezakhan Mayoo,”

Translated to English, this means “Shamega Rezakhan will come, Shamega Rezakhan will come.”

One of the little boys who overheard these songs constantly wondered who Shamega was. The sisters did not know where the song came from, who “Shamega” was or the story behind the song: they simply knew the song as part of Kurdish oral tradition.

That little boy was my friend, Abbas.

He shared this story with me decades later, after launching his book, ‘Revolt of Ilam’. He said: “The melody and some words of the song stayed with me for years. Even now I imagine my sisters singing the song, but the most important question remained: who was ‘Shamega’?”

This question stayed in the back of his head for years until he reached university. From there, he decided to chase the song. He approached elders in different villages and finally an old man shared an important insight. As a child, the old man had heard that Shamega was related to a war that happened in the area.

Abbas traveled to the capital city, Tehran, and visited the national archive searching for the war. From there, he discovered some official documents about a war which happened in 1928. Most importantly, he discovered writings by a colonel who was involved in the war and had recorded these events in his personal notebooks and official letters. The colonel’s writing opened the door for Abass to explore the official documents and as result he wrote the book “Revolt of Ilam” published in 2011.

So, who was Shamega? During a revolt against the central government in 1928, Shamega united local tribes to push the central government forces out of the region, controlling Ilam for a few weeks. In the end, they lost the war and it ended with a massacre. The official narrative is that the central government was able to suppress local rebels across the country, thus restoring cohesion and unity to the fragmented country. In this account, there are no real details, and there is no mention of Shamega.

Abbas came to learn that Shamega’s contribution remained unrecognised in official histories, even compared to other “rebels”. His story was not important enough to be included in historical books or the education system. Though the memory of war was briefly recorded in the National Archive official narratives, for the local people of the region, these details were lost from collective memory though Shamega’s name remained in their folk songs.

This story is a great example of how, in a colonial context, history is erased. We know that colonial power structures try to control or reshape collective memory by introducing official history. To erase these histories is not simply to invisiblise an event, it means erasing collective resistance as well. In other words, it is to introduce a rupture that disconnects future generations from empowering narratives.

Since that war in 1928, Ilam has been through a politically passive and dark period, and has largely not participated in the Kurdistan movement. Ilam was neither included nor participated in the Kurdistan movement in 1945 when the Kurdistan Republic was founded in Mahabad city, lasting for a year. After the 1979 revolution, where Kurdistan went into a war against the central government for eight years, Ilam was also silent. The people of Ilam internalised shame and humiliation and largely stopped teaching Kurdish to children, with Farsi becoming the dominant language. For the people of Ilam, their identity, language, and culture have been significantly assimilated under Persian supremacy.

But in recent years, a resistance movement has been rising to embrace Kurdish culture and identity. People have started to write in Kurdish; the number of books in Kurdish increased from two to two hundred; a Kurdish dictionary was produced; Nowrooz, the new year celebrations, have increasingly been celebrated as a political ceremony; Kurdish dress has become fashionable again.

In this context, Abbas’s journey with Shamega is remarkable, starting from an unknown melody sung by sisters to an important book that revived and exposed a historically forgotten person. His book is not just exposing a forgotten war, it also plays a part in increasing our collective resistance. His book is a reminder to people of how their ancestors resisted against the central government. Now Shamega is not a totally forgotten person hidden in a folk melody: he has become a historical figure as a leader who pushed the government forces out of Ilam and heroically resisted. For the new generation such a figure is inspirational and they can rely on it.

Memories have their own journey, often subtle, oscillating and transforming. When it comes to collective memory, the relationship to power is more complicated. Collective memory is the most political space; that’s why oppressors aim to control it through institutions such as archives, museums and other platforms. Official history means freezing, diminishing, entirely excluding or specifically introducing versions of historical events as part of a certain and firm narrative.

But this attempt at top down control does not always succeed because memory is active, dynamic and continues in social life, and sometimes in ritual, performance and the body. In the case of Abbas, a folk song protected an alternative hidden history or counter archive. Oppressed people always have alternative ways of remembering that resist dominant narratives.

I have a simple definition of colonialism, and that is: colonialism is the ongoing and systemic application of mechanisms of power. It is a logic that reproduces itself and certainly it makes invisible the stories of those resistant and marginalized groups who are oppressed or dominated by power.

In many ways, the story of Abbas’s book and Shamega relates to my experience and work in Australia. There are similarities to Abbas’ methodology of chasing a melody: I am trying to understand the form of violence that I personally witnessed and experienced. I want to expose it. For me, this means following the traces of violence and stories in the past to understand and reveal the truth that power has hidden. Remember that official histories emerge in order to dominate the narrative and erase collective resistance.

Throughout my work, I want to push beyond questions such as “Where did this violence come from?” to understand how this violence reproduces. This is a kind of genealogical approach towards official history and alternative ways of collective memory and, most importantly, collective resistance. Any understanding of the violence in Australia requires an understanding of Australia’s colonial history, patterns and logic. Though I am indigenous Kurd who experienced colonialism first hand, in this case, the most important knowledge is with the First Nations of Australia who have been fighting for more than two hundred years. I always return to First Nations resistance knowledge to understand these mechanisms of power.

I myself witnessed how the physical infrastructure of Manus prison camp was completely demolished in 2018, after refugees were transferred to a new camp on the other side of the island. After demolition, the site was overcome by tropical trees in less than a year. I had a chance to visit the old prison camp in 2019 which had become unrecognisable under the forest. The demolition of Manus prison camp means erasing the materiality of our collective memory.

There are many examples of this kind of destruction on the Australian mainland, historical and present. For example, from the twelve original women’s factories during the convict time, only three of them remain with the rest demolished or erased. Sites of collective punishment have been repeatedly dismantled.

Memory is tied to space. When spaces disappear, memory becomes unstable, fragmented and fades away. As in the case of Shamega in Abbas’s research the most radical approach is not only excavating the past but reviving the history of resistance, a different puzzle of stories that are erased or largely invisible.

All groups who experience oppression, persecution and violence create their own knowledge. The different generations of refugees and migrants within Australia – from the Afghan cameleers in the 19th century to refugees held in Manus Island – have created their own stories that, for a large part, have been erased in official history or are invisible. This is important.

One of the short stories included in my forthcoming book (publishing Nov 2026 in Australia with PanMacmillan) follows an anthropologist professor whose main interest is studying cemeteries. He spends most of his days in his old jeep, searching for graveyards across Kurdistan. A good portion of his academic work is sitting in the silence of graveyards, listening and contemplating. He sums up his research philosophy to his students every semester in their first class:

“In a land ravaged by colonialism, the graveyard embodies forgotten history and identity. The graveyard embodies everything. Archives and museums and institutions like that are manifestations of colonialism, but this is our job: to draw out the radical ideas buried in those archives. Even in a pile of garbage, you can always find a gold coin.”

The professor is right: certainly, his approach is to introduce counter-memory, to unearth forgotten history and to understand it from bottom up.

In recognising, studying and archiving the stories of marginalised groups and communities across the history of Australia, including different generations of refugees and migrants, we can begin to understand the mechanisms of power through those suppressed perspectives which hold a unique knowledge of the dark side of Australia. By carefully connecting these puzzle pieces of resistance knowledge together, we can see more clearly the Australian psyche and where it is going.

I wrote this a year ago to my friend, writer Arnold Zable, as he was undergoing treatment for cancer. We exchanged letters about the value of life and friendship, recalling some of the good times we have spent together.

Dear Arnold, I don’t know if I have already told you about the place we live in or not. Sasha and I live in an old building called “Garrett,” which is located in Wellington city centre. Garrett has a long history of hosting underground art, literature, and radical events in Wellington. It is a great place for me to experience and observe Aotearoa New Zealand society. Garrett is a community centre, and many events take place here, especially on weekends, when a group of young musicians and their fans gather, bringing a buzz to the place. Garrett is an open and welcoming place, not only for people but for new ideas. If someone enters the building, walks up the stairs, goes to the kitchen, makes a coffee, and sits there, no one asks who you are or why you are here. Questioning people is not a part of Garrett culture. We don’t treat the building as a private place. There are fourteen rooms here, and Sasha and I live in a room in which the window looks out on a gas station. We are happy here and have made our room, the most beautiful room in Garrett. At least, we claim that title, though no one else has ever said that.

I have some boxes where I keep belongings that I don’t use, or have not opened for years: old clothes, some footballs, old shoes, bags, luggage, a hookah, and some other objects. I have kept my belongings from the time I spent in Manus in one of them. It contains a lot of paperwork, like the letters that detainees signed, and which I sent to the media, my notebooks, my awards, some artworks, and even my ID card from the prison: “Behrouz Boochani, MEG045.” I said to Sasha, “ I promise when you come back in the evening, the room will be even more beautiful than it was before.” Sasha said, “Let’s see. Remember, I know you better than anyone else. It is very possible you won’t do it, but let’s see.” She laughed, then left the room.

I immediately took some of the boxes upstairs. There is a little room there which we use for storage. I found a place for them there. I came down for the last box, which was the one filled with stuff from Manus. When I grabbed it, some of the objects spilled out — letters and paperwork. As I started to gather them, I noticed a beautiful card. It was sent to me by a member of PEN International. I have heaps of those letters. She was from Germany. The writing was not very interesting; it was clear that the person did not know me well but was asked by PEN to write a support letter to a prisoner. She wrote: “I’m thinking of you, and as a writer, I show my solidarity.” This short message on the card encouraged me to look at other letters. Moments later, I was sitting on the floor reading them. Most of them were the same, written in bureaucratic language, with no emotional touch. I was frustrated that these people were not creative, and said nothing or very little about themselves. I imagined that even if they had written one sentence about their daily life, their house, or their family, it would have been far more meaningful.

In that frustrating moment, I suddenly noticed a letter that was embellished with colourful feathers. It was written by “Janet Galbraith.” A few moments later, I was sitting beside the window, lighting a cigarette. I felt I needed time to digest it. Reading a letter written by Janet many years after it was written, was remarkable. Janet wrote about the feathers, the names of birds, her connection with them, and Australian nature. You know that Janet loves bird. That’s why I dedicated my book to her with these words: “For Janet Galbraith, who is a bird.”

In the second part, I saw your name. She mentioned that she is in touch with you and is trying to find a way to start a campaign, and get in touch with a range of human rights organisations. Seeing your name was captivating, not only because of you, but because of the time I spent in Manus and how we built our friendship. It was the second time I had seen your name in a text within a few weeks. As I have told you, I’m reading a book written by Nikos, about art and friendship. He mentioned your name in the introduction, as one of his friends.

I managed to find a place for the Manus box and cleaned the room in a way that would impress Sasha, but throughout the day I was thinking of you, our friendship, Janet, Nikos, and the texts. I have not only thought of you but have written about you. Nikos beautifully conceptualised the role of friendship in art and how the concept of “friendship” does not have a strong presence or space in intellectual life. In fact, friendship in intellectual life has not been valued or recognised. He framed the book on the basis of these concepts and also on his friendship with John Berger. Reading the book reminded me of Nikos as well.

I only spent a short time with him. The first time I visited Australia, I was hosted by the Greek Centre in Melbourne, and that was the first time I appeared in person in an Australian public space. The event focused on remembering John Berger. It even included a video that was sent by John’s daughter. After it ended, we had dinner together in a noisy restaurant. There were other people at the table. Nikos was funny, charming, and at the same time articulate in expressing his ideas. He and others from the Greek community shared many stories about Greek migrants in Australia and how they struggled to start a new life and build a community. At the table, your name was mentioned as a friend and writer who had written a book about the street where the Greek Centre was located.

I did not have the chance to see Nikos again. I had to visit other cities in Australia, but I still remember the conversation, the people, and the special moments we spent together. It is interesting that, in reading the book, I even imagined having a friendship with John Berger, though of course in reality it is an impossible dream. I think if John were alive, we could be good friends. He loved villagers, farmers, and rural landscapes. As a former villager, I could share a lot with him about villagers I have met — keepers of traditional knowledge, people who are practical, and wise, and have inspired me. I’m sure he would have loved those characters. I could learn a lot from John about art and how we understand and see beauty.

Nikos’ writing reminds me of you, me, and us. I have a simple definition of friendship: “A friend is someone who, when you suddenly run into them, evokes a smile. That moment when people spontaneously smile at each other is an expression of the joy of friendship.” While you might smile when you come across other people you know, when you see a true friend, you smile with your eyes.

Do you remember that time Sasha when and I were walking near the NGV in Melbourne and ran into you? We smiled at each other and hugged. You were the Arnold that we have come to know, curious and thoughtful — and carrying a bag. I was certain that there was, as always, a notebook in your bag, a notebook that you have been carrying for years. You were walking on a street in your city — the city where you were raised, and where you know many people. We, Sasha and I, strangers in this city, felt more settled, safer, and connected, having seen you. Yes, friendship is about connection too — connection through places and people.

You see, I’m connected to John Berger through Nikos and Manus prison was a place that connected Janet, me, and you. Friendship is about moments. In life, there are some moments that impact and shape us; true friendship happens in those moments. Manus, for me, was not only a place but a moment, and you appeared in that moment, and that was the beginning of our friendship. We wrote to each other. We shared ideas, happiness, sorrow, stories, and those moments. It was my journey, then it became our journey—that’s why, when I found freedom in Christchurch, you were there. That was another moment. You were there because my freedom was your freedom. We deserved to share that joy, and we did.

We hugged each other at the airport, then walked on the streets. Walking with you was special. It was like our overnight trip to Apollo Bay, watching the World Cup final in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere, and like many other places we have gone to before and since then. I’m sure you will agree that one of the most special moments we have shared, took place after attending an event with the Jewish community. We walked on a nearby beach, beside the bay. It was dark, silent, and a little windy. You shared the story of your mother, and how she arrived by boat in Australia, in this bay, before World War II. You said she was forced to leave Australia for New Zealand, and brought over her husband from Poland, just in time. They lived in Wellington for twelve years. After the war they arrived in this bay together, and settled in Melbourne. You called Wellington your city, because you were born here. And it is where I live now. Again, we were connected through places.

You said: ‘My father was a poet. When he arrived in New Zealand, he had nothing but a suitcase filled mainly with books of poetry. You once played me a recording of you reading some of his poetry as we were travelling in your car. I will never forget how your face glowed with pleasure as we listened. We are connected through places, special moments, or people; and we are connected through stories. Everyone has a story or carries stories. For us, as writers, we not only carry stories. We see them, recognise how important they are, value and celebrate them, create them, and explore them more deeply.

Your parents’ story is deeply connected to my story. We, as Jews and Kurds, have experienced persecution and marginalisation: I, as a poet; your father as a poet. I will never forget the moment I first stepped onto Christmas Island. I was shoeless and had nothing but a book of poetry in my hand. We were connected in that moment through the story of a poet who arrived in Australia more than seven decades ago. The same story was reproduced in my story. In fact, it was you, Arnold, who carried this story throughout your life and connected it with a new arrival, which was me. That’s how our story was born. It is powerful, profound, and meaningful. You and I have created and celebrated this ongoing story—a story that I’m sure will exist through other stories. It is beautiful. I love it.

When I was still held on Manus Island in 2018, Ai Weiwei stormed into the Australian art sector and, more broadly, the political spectrum. He participated in the 21st Sydney Biennale under the project, “Law of the Journey”.

In that project, he brought a boat all the way to Australia, and it was shown at Cockatoo Island. The work is a 60-metre-long, space-filling sculptural raft – an elongated and oversized inflatable boat with huge bodies of anonymous refugee figures (around 300). The boat and figures are made from black rubber and fabricated in a Chinese factory that also manufactures the vessels used by refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

The media were saying this work brings the monumental scale of the humanitarian crisis sharply into focus. This gigantic boat caught my attention, but due to a lack of internet and the circumstances, I missed the chance to write about it.

Even though I was supposed to talk to Ai Weiwei through a friend, he was inaccessible.

Fast forward many years later and this year, I have participated in the Sydney Biennale alongside Hoda Afshar and Vernon Ah Kee. During the festival, and in conversations with some artists, somehow the Ai Weiwei boat was mentioned, and my thoughts about it from those years ago resurfaced.

Probably the best description of this work is that the raft is a political statement disguised as a work of art… though even in a political context, it represents a superficial approach to the discourse around refugees.

This kind of work often hides behind the word “awareness.” I admit that I hate this word when it comes to marginalized people. Awareness makes sense when society is not aware of oppression, but in the case of refugees, society already is aware but actively chooses to ignore. As an artist or writer, raising awareness without creating ideas, concepts, or space for conversation undermines the discourse and reproduces the violence.

There are fundamental problems with Ai Weiwei’s raft and the approach it presents regarding issues with which refugees have an on-going existential struggle. As a refugee, the main challenge is the long history of dehumanization and criminalization surrounding the label ‘refugee’ and how society understands refugees. It is a common story: as you become a refugee, immediately you live under a title which makes you less human, and people do not see you as an equal individual who has an identity beyond being a refugee. People do not see or recognise your agency. People do not see or recognise your humanity. Ai Weiwei’s boat clearly feeds the dehumanization of refugees by reducing them to faceless people and erasing their stories.

Some might argue that the power of the work does not come from storytelling, but from how it visually organises bodies, space, and material into a single overwhelming image. It is not only about the absence of stories; it is about the absence of individuality and, most importantly, humanity. You cannot make political art that relies on activism without understanding the context. You cannot make people faceless in a context where they are already faceless under an image that has historically carried dehumanisation. This is paradoxical and exactly feeds the system that you claim to challenge.

If I compare Ai Weiwei’s boat to another famous artwork, probably the best example is ‘Angels Unawares’, a 20-foot bronze sculpture in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, depicting 140 migrants and refugees from diverse eras and cultures. This work was created by Timothy P. Schmalz. In this work, we see refugees whose bodies are not deformed or erased. These are clear details: bags, the faces of children, and different types of clothes, each detail representing refugees with different cultural and identity backgrounds.

The Ai Weiwei boat, again, is fundamentally problematic because the refugee figures are not only faceless but also identical. This is one of the most typical perspectives towards minorities and marginalized people: within power structures people are placed in the same category or in a box, and treated as a monolithic singular category, sidelining their diversities. This approach often happens in policymaking, as well as in theory and ideas. Ai Weiwei performs this visually, to significant impact on the image of refugees. The inflatable bodies are all the same.

In systems of colonisation, placing a whole group in the same category and treating them as if they share one fixed, simple essence is a form of oppression. The result involves essentialism. It is not simply generalization; its aim is to remove agency by simplifying people, which opens the door to classificatory violence.

Ai Weiwei’s boat is not set in the abstract art category, nor in conceptual art, or even symbolism either. The problem with these kinds of categories is that they offer something to hide behind, and provide language that can be used to justify the many fundamental and problematic layers I’ve mentioned above, such as removing agency, humanity, stories, and individuality.

Conceptual art redefines what an artwork is by arguing that the idea or concept matters more than the physical object. In other words, what matters is the thought, question, or proposition behind the work. In fact, materiality is secondary or even unnecessary, and conceptual art moves towards dematerialization.

In Ai Weiwei’s boat, the first impression or glimpse is the dominating materiality of the boat, its materiality imposing on the audience and space. Its physicality as a gigantic boat with minimal abstract elements takes the work far from conceptual art. In this case, the imaginary is absent, as the work is just a simple physical boat devoid of aesthetic elements.

Another important point is how the boat is suspended in the gallery space, interrupting the idea of movement or journey. It can be interpreted as pausing the journey of refugees and freezing it on the sea to represent the critical moment. I can imagine people might understand it as a symbolic boat, but in this context, this work has zero symbolic elements.

In symbolism, meaning is not fixed in the object itself but emerges through interpretation. Once again, we see the Ai Weiwei boat obsessing over the object and not creating a space for deeper interpretations. In symbolism, symbols are not stable, as the meaning always shifts or never fixes. Ai Weiwei’s work reveals nothing; it is just a boat and the meaning is exposed already. In general, symbolism rejects realism and tries to express dreams, inner states, and spirituality. In fact, it rejects realism to express unseen reality. In Ai Weiwei’s work, the boat is very real, though it presents itself in the superficial image of a real boat due to the shape, colour, and the fabric, and that comes from lack of life experience.

Ai Weiwei’s idea of a refugee boat is stupid. His boat does not have character, that’s why I call it stupid.