As legal proceedings against the processing centre on Manus Island begin, and Sarah Hanson-Young prepares to visit to the detention centre, we’re asking a lot of questions about the terrible conditions people seeking asylum in Australia are now forced to face. As the evidence of repeated suicide attempts mounts, we keep hoping for lessons to be learnt. Is it possible that we have learned the lessons from past human rights abuses? Can we face the possibility that what we are seeing in action is not ignorance but well-rehearsed cruelty?
There is a recipe for suicide. The most recent research on the conditions that encourage people to kill themselves names a number of key factors that together create such despair and hopelessness that death becomes preferable to living. These conditions are created socially and interpersonally. In other words, we build them together.
The formula goes something like this. I need to see myself as a burden to my family and my community. I need to believe that people would be better off without me. If I then also suffer from alienation or isolation, if I feel apart and as if I don’t belong, life becomes harder to bear. If I then find myself in situations where terrible things happen so often that they become commonplace, then hurting myself becomes more imaginable.
The detention facility on Manus Island and the current changes to asylum seeker support create an environment that encourages the despair, isolation and habitual violence that lead to suicide. Like turning back the boats with the nonsensical explanation that they are unsafe, the current campaign of deterrence encourages deaths for which we can avoid direct responsibility. The message is clear. You may die trying to come here. When you get here you will be unwelcome, unwanted and uncared for. If you stay here, you will be isolated, destitute and of no value.
The message of “no advantage” really translates as a message that there’s no point. No point in asking, no point in trying, no point in living. Whenever your intention is to “send a message”, you can be sure you’re not communicating. Not in the two-way street version of shared conversation anyway. Sending a message is usually about not sending a clear message at all, but hoping that by your disinterest, avoidance, stonewalling or grandstanding the other person will somehow do what you want them to do. That they’ll do you the favour of taking responsibility for your actions.
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