The first episode in the three-part second series of Go Back To Where You Came From starts tonight. A group of six Australian identities Angry Anderson, Catherine Deveny, Michael Smith, Imogen Bailey, Allan Asher and Peter Reith will experience, first-hand, what it is like to be a refugee seeking asylum in Australia from the most dangerous cities in Somalia and Afghanistan.
The asylum seeker issue is one of the most contentious, complex and important in Australian politics, and it’ll be fascinating to see how both the outspoken pro-refugee liberals and those with a “fuck off we’re full” attitude among them cope going from their white bread worlds* to third world danger zones. Kicking off from 8.30pm, come join the discussion.
*Yes. That’s a quote from Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl”.
8:32pm: The following program is classified M for ‘Coarse Language’. Shortly thereafter is footage of kids getting blown of a rickety boat and families dying of famine. There is Angry Anderson too, it has to be said.
8:34pm: Immediately from the introduction to the different “personalities” taking part in the show Allan Asher makes a lovely point: “they aren’t boat people“, he says. “They are people in boats. They are PEOPLE.”
8:36pm: Angry says he wants to be involved to get a new experience. Mr Asher wants to get Australians engaged in a conversation about the real facts. Catherine Deveny who was sacked from The Age for tweeting at the Logies should be a good time!
8:38pm: The gang need to hand their wallets and purses to host and then, painfully and reluctantly, their mobile phones.
8:40pm: Deveny says “I reckon this’ll blow the cobwebs out of Peter Reith’s head”. Please let them have a punch up over a bowl of rice…
8:41pm: Angry Anderson has no time for boat people. They have no sense of respect he says. He isn’t showing much respect for anyone else with his ill-fitting black shirt with Rose Tattoo embroidered in a hideous font. Kidding! First World Problems will NOT be the focus of this blog. He says “stick your illegals up your arse!” ‘Illegals’ he calls them. He, Peter and Catherine arrive at the house of Hamid – an ‘illegal’ from Kabul.
8:45pm: Allan, Imogen and Michael head to another family on the other side of Melbourne. What will they do there, Michael asks the others as they travel to their destination by Tarrago, “smile and eat couscous and some shit?”
8:47pm: This three are staying with a man named Abdi, a “queue jumper” from Somalia. He fled from the country in the midst of a violent war and most of his family back there are missing.
8:50pm: Peter Reith played a major role in the ‘children overboard’ disaster when he worked as a Minister in the Howard government. He proceeds to shamelessly ask every staff member at Hamid’s local Halal butcher how they came to live in Australia and whether they’re legal citizens.
8:52pm: Hamid was threatened by the Taliban and fled in fear of his life. He paid a people smuggler to get him to Australia by boat. Angry tells him he is a criminal. You can imagine how cool Hamid feels about hearing that, after having lived in mortal danger in Afghanistan with the Taliban machine gunning and bombing his neighbourhood. He probably has a slightly different definition of ‘criminal’ than Angry.
8:55pm: Abdi breaks down while explaining the lengthy complicated journey fleeing Somalia (at age 13) and ultimately getting to Australia, which Michael Smith responds to like an infuriating d-bag, focusing on whether or not Abdi paid money for the passport that got him from Germany to Australia. In other news, hundreds of young men were shot and killed attempting to escape anti-Muslim militia in Mogadishu at the time a teenage Abdi miraculously managed to escape.
9:05pm: Now Catherine, Angry and Peter have just learned they are going to Kabul while Imogen, Michael and Allan are going to Mogadishu. They are leaving immediately and clearly shitting themselves, in fact I believe Michael Smith just said “I’m shitting myself” before saying he doesn’t know how he feels about visiting “a hell on earth like Mogadishu.” It’s going to be extremely dangerous and no one can guarantee that Michael won’t be shot – unfortunately. Kidding, kidding! I’m kidding everyone. I don’t wish him to be shot. Shot at, however…
9:11pm: Asher describes Somalia as “the most hopeless place on earth right now”. Smith continues to require a change of pants as he contemplates going to, what the narrator refers to as, the most dangerous city on earth.
9:14pm: As Imogen, Michael and Allan drive through lawless and government-free Mogadishu, they see the effects of daily gun fire, road side bombs and carjacking on the way to the compound where they stay. Meanwhile Angry, Peter and Catherine head to freezing Kabul where the guide describes the situation as “extremely volatile”, then proceeds to explain that several gun shots have gone off earlier and the danger of kidnapping is extreme. The only time they should leave the vehicle is if it is literally on fire. Real life shit.
9:20pm: Road side bombs go off almost daily in Kabul and Peter Reith is acting more paranoid than a stoned teenager driving through an RBT. It’s pretty spectacular viewing to watch him squirm in the bulletproof vest and his ridiculous multi-coloured beanie.
9:22pm: Back in Mogadishu Michael is getting some nice photos of him holding an automatic weapon with the compound security guards. Nick D’arcy knows what’s up. They visit a refugee camp which is devastatingly slum-like. The 3,500 families of the camp live in ragged makeshift tents and have had just four food drops in eight months. It’s disturbing and fucking confronting to think of this as their reality. Now I feel terrible for swearing into the ether just because the Internet connection was being slow before.
9:30pm: Angry, Peter and Catherine meet with a man living in Kabul who was on The Tampa, the boat that became the source of much controversy. The man describes being moved to Nauru – “the worst island” he calls it. His application for refugee status was rejected and he was forced to return to Kabul. He names the people who were also sent back with him that have since been killed. Catherine breaks down when she gets into the car. Peter Reith, the man who is basically responsible for sending the man and the others back to Kabul, clearly looks disturbed at having come face to face with the fruits of his handiwork. “Well… we don’t know all the circumstances,” he says uncertainly like a weasel with a psychedelic tea cosy on his head.
9:34pm: That’s it for tonight. Join us for episode 2 tomorrow at 8.30pm on SBS. And please feel free to share your comments, opinions and arguements below.
