Hold my hand
A Christmas Exhortation from Manus
Hold my hand
In this world, the situation is still so bad somewhere
Some people face difficulties
Inflicted by torment and nuisance
There is no safety somewhere
Somewhere everyone is cynical and careless
No one takes responsibility
Neither any organization nor institution
There is no follow-up or support
I’m worried about the future generations
The world is heading to a wrong point
The earth is a globe, orbiting with unfairness and tyranny toward inequality
Hatred and division arise among people
Metallic hearts are empty from emotion
A group of people provide support and compassion
Another group are just witnessing in silence
They don’t care about anything
And there is one more group who spread propaganda
naming us bad people, criminals
They aim to change people’s perspective towards us in a negative way
Creating unnecessary bias and inhuman thoughts
Generating division and distance in society
Emptying people’s hearts of love and compassion
This is not the correct and humane way of living, this is not support
No, this has led to a disaster for a group of helpless and defenceless people
Who sought asylum in your country
I am still asking the same question: why?
We are all innocent and same people
Why should we be still punished in this way?
The solution to this problem is not the unkind and inhumane treatment we are experiencing
Being illegally imprisoned for four and half years
Being illegally held in governmental offshore detention
We have been kept hostage and been stifled
With a law based on injustice
Australians! We need your support
To get the human rights that we deserve
To be able to live again and achieve freedom
We – all human beings – need a collective understanding and recognition
Let’s include love in our life
We are all passengers traversing the same route
We shouldn’t be taken apart
Remove the borders, we are all the same creature
We have the same blood in our vein
We are all connected to one another
With a strong tie called humanity
Let’s hold each other’s hands during difficult days
You are now more aware of our disastrous condition
And I am aware of your kind support from the media
Christmas is closing in, Merry Christmas in advance
It’s now the fifth year that we are stuck in your government’s prison camps
with no reason
After all these long years of misery
We need your attention, support and your hand
To achieve safety to build a new life in peace and freedom
Kaveh
Translation: Moones Mansoubi
Bio: My name is Kaveh. I write from within the Manus prison camps. I write to serve humanity with the hope of creating social change. I write to encourage people who care about humanity to be united and to help each other through these hard times. I write for those who know love.
With support from Writing Through Fences
6 comments
Login here Register hereWe’re here Kaveh, and doing what we can to help. Don’t give up.
Muslim’s don’t celebrate Christmas, and from what I have seen in recent times they hate us, driving cars into 18 people the other day, why should we feel sorry for people whose religion allows them to have more than one wife, and to take a bride of 14 years of age or younger. which our civilized society calls paeodophilia these customs are unAustralian, and we should find Muslim countries who will take them, but they should never be allowed to come to Australia we are already overstocked with their kind.
Editor’s note: Kaveh, we apologise that you should be subject to this after you have extended your Christmas wishes to us. This person does not speak for all at The AIMN. His views are not those of 99% of the people here. Those 99% are disgusted at the way our government is treating you.
Proverb : “What the eye doesn’t see,
The heart doesn’t grieve.”
Parable : ” I laugh now when I think of it”. The old lady chuckled, “But I was young then, about fourteen..or sixteen..but I was a ‘young’ sixteen….you know?..and I had gone to the millinery store in the town and bought a dress for the fair. The dress was pink floral with a blouse all in one and it had two pieces of material, like braces, with big buttons on the waistline and those two braces went over the shoulders down the back.”
“Ahh..I was young then….anyway at the fair there was the excitement of a merry-go-round and bucking horses and shearing contests and….and tug-of-war..an…an..horse races..you know, that sort of thing and everybody from the district and from beyond the bend of the river..and they’re dressed up to the nines, oh dear,ha!…the big day of the year for us then, ha!”
“Well, there was this aboriginal girl there and she had on EXACTLY the same dress that I had..exactly!…and we ran up to each other and laughed and became great friends that day…she worked, like me, at another station on the Murray….cooking, cleaning, looking after the children that sort of thing…..anyway, we were great friends that day an’ we walked all around that fair together arm in arm, laughing and having great fun and we’d tell everyone we met that we were twins!..ha! ha!…TWINS!….you’d laugh now, but we didn’t even think of her being black and me white then..some people smiled and others threw their heads back and laughed and we just thought they were as happy as we were, ha!”
“Oh, a jolly good time we had that day…..I can’t even remember her name now….ha!….Ah well….twins..twins!”
Speaking to old friend from High School, Farida, thank you for the warm welcome into your home to share your family’s Christmas with me all those many years ago. What a wonderful experience! It seemed to me that this extraordinary Muslim family knew far more about the Spirit of Christmas, love, hope and peace than many who would call themselves Christians. There were no quad bikes, no latest electronic gadgets but an atmosphere of being united as family, as friends and in a spirit of giving with each small gift exchanged. Thank you for sharing this with me.
Not in our name, we say, but our elected polical ‘servants’ with few exceptions continue to ignore our pleas to humanely end this barbarity. How can we compell these uncaring callous monsters to show compassion … do not all our cabinet members profess to be practising “christians” or “jews” , ie men and women of faith believing in a benevolent loving creator to whom they as individuals are personally answerable? yeah nah…
I’m so sorry that our disgraceful government continues to treat you in this appalling way.