1. ‘The People Smuggler’: Ali Al Jenabi – ‘Villain or Hero’
Date: Thursday 22 November 2012
Time: 6pm – 7.30pm
Venue: Monash University Law Chambers, 555 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
RSVP: castan.centre@monash.edu or 03 9905 3327
Full details can be found here
Robin de Crespigny has spent three years working with Ali Al Jenabi to write his story. She is a film maker and lives in Sydney. The People Smuggler is her first book.
While both our major political parties try to out-do each other on who can be the toughest on refugees, one thing they are aligned on is deflecting the public’s attention to people smugglers as the cause of the problem, and convincing the majority of Australians that the few thousand people these smugglers bring here, is one of the most significant electoral issues we face.
Their determination to apportion blame and difficulty recognizing how desperate these people must be to get on leaky boats removes the human element allowing them to demonize the smugglers and to let the asylum seekers become simply faceless numbers.
The People Smuggler provides an alternative voice. It puts a human face on this highly inflammatory issue and tries to stand the reader in the shoes of Al Al Jenabi, an Iraqi refugee who became a people smuggler to get his family out of danger, and in the process smuggled over 500 others to safety.
Robin will talk about wrestling with the epic breadth of Ali AL Jenabi’s journey; with its uprisings, repressions, military conflicts and imprisonments, desperate escapes via mountain treks and ships on high seas; from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq across two continents and at least six countries, to his trial and jail in Darwin, detention in Villawood, plus his personal life of family, loves, and losses.
She will look at how Ali’s story is touching people who had previously never asked themselves what they would do if they were in the same situation, encouraging them to see that it is not all black and white, and to gain respect and compassion for asylum seekers as fellow human beings.
She will explore the myths that have grown up around this issue and discuss the current government policies of deterrence and excision, and the consequences these decisions will have on us as a society.
2. The Manipulation of Humanitarian Aid: Impact and Effectiveness
Date: Thursday 15 November 2012
Time: 5.30pm – 6.30pm followed by refreshments
Venue: Monash University Law Chambers, 555 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
RSVP: here
Full details can be found here
Book Launch ‘The Golden Fleece’ examines the impact of manipulation on the effectiveness of humanitarian action. The tension between fundamental humanitarian values – the prioritization of life-saving over all other considerations – and political or economic agendas is not new. Relief work has long been subject to manipulation by governments, warlords, public opinion, disembodied realpolitik, and to the calculations of humanitarians themselves.
The Golden Fleece asks whether saving lives is, by its very nature, prone to instrumentalization or whether humanitarianism can be transformed and made more immune to manipulation.