“Bedding with the Australian Department of Home Affairs, who tortures and abuses us, makes you a white supremacist” – eX-detainee Refugees about “Queer Displacement conference”
While queers were parading with politicians, military, police, and detention profiteers at the Mardi Gras, in so-called Sydney, Australia, an organisation established by white queer refugees called “Forcibly Displaced People Network” held a “Queer Displacement Conference”. One of their sponsors was the Australian Department of Home Affairs. In addition to this, the Department of Home Affairs funded parts of their research on queer refugee settlement in Australia.
What is comical here, is that their white saviour privilege and colonial approach cannot be hidden. The organisers of this event are clearly collaborators with our torturers. Thousands of refugees who came by boats, all of whom are people of colour, have been and are still being indefinitely detained, tortured, murdered, abused, and deported under the direction of the Australian Department of Home Affairs – headed by Senator Claire O’Neal. eX-detainees who are subjected to torture and abuse by the Australian Department of Home Affairs include people of all genders, sexualities, and sex characteristics. There are an unaccountable number of queerphobic practises and incidents of sexual abuse, torture, and murder faced by the refugees in Australian-run detention centres for over 30 years.
In addition to overseeing detention torture and refugee boat pushbacks of black and brown refugees, the Australian Department of Home Affairs is also involved in ongoing espionage and “border security” operations with overseas military dictatorships and other corrupt money hungry officials in the Asia Pacific through the “Bali process” to “stop the boats” and keep so called Australia white. Many of us eX-detainees and detainees have sought protection from these very same military dictatorships and perpetrators of genocide.
The eX-detainee and detainee community is arguably ONE of the poorest, racially profiled, and systematically discriminated against community groups in Australia as well as around the world. Reducing our ongoing systemic oppression and cancelling our lives in Australia is white supremacy – Bedding with the Australian Department of Home Affairs, who tortures and abuses us, makes you a white supremacist. You are likely to know this, if you are an eX-detainee or person of colour who has experienced abuse from the Department of Home Affairs.
It doesn’t matter who you are, how big or small your organisation is, what you do, etc., if you are getting sponsored or have any relationship with the Australian Department of Home Affairs, you are one of our oppressors, a white supremacist, or part of the tortuous detention supply chains.
Shame and Blood on your Hands!
RISE eX-detainees.