Refugee values: safety, freedom and a chance

REFUGEES often flee precisely because they don’t agree with the values of brutal dictatorships, and do agree with the values of Australia. That’s certainly my story, writes Fiori Giovanni.

IT was a shock to hear the Prime Minister, someone whom I have always thought of as a decent man, signalling out a specific minority within our community as trouble makers.

He was not alone, with the Minister for Citizenship, Alan Tudge calling for a ‘values’ test on migrants and joining in claims from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton that Melburnians are too scared to leave their homes for fear at being beset upon by marauding gangs of African youth.

Why should such commentary concern a proud Australian, loving partner and a new mum?

Well let me share a little of my own personal story. My name is Fiori Giovanni and I am a refugee from the African continent.

Someone who narrowly escaped being a child bride at 12, who at 15 made the heartbreaking decision to leave my family and my home to avoid being drafted as a child soldier who would have been killed fighting for the Eritrean army.

As a teenage girl I crossed multiple countries that had been torn apart by war and poverty, before making the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to safety, the same journey that cost my teenage brother his life.

Aluel Kuol with her sons (L-R) Bolis Daw (18), Aleu Deng (3) and Deng Daw (23). She arrived in Australia from South Sudan in 2008 and is a leader in the local Sudanese Dinka community. (Pic: Aaron Francis/The Australian)

In my pursuit of safety I gave no thought to wanting to bring sharia law or female genitalia mutilation, as Minister Tudge put it, to my new home, as I, like the vast majority of refugees, was a little busy trying to find somewhere to live without the daily fear of being murdered, raped, assaulted or imprisoned.

I arrived in the west as a frightened young girl, completely alone. Someone who did not speak the language, faced with the daunting task of building a new life without the assistance of any family or friends.

When you are fleeing danger, action has to happen first. Contemplation and theorising comes later, so Mr Tudge, when you do speak of value tests, keep in mind that in many cases refugees are fleeing dictatorships because their own values do not fit with the often brutal regime they are leaving behind.

In fact, it is barbaric things such as female genital mutilation, child marriage and strict implementation of religious laws that refugees are fleeing from. So sitting some kind of values test does seem somewhat irrelevant.

The meaningless nature of such a test hit home when I heard the champion former AFL player and Collingwood captain Tony Shaw being asked to the name these values on radio. He came up with 4 responses, which all equated to honesty.

South Sudanese migrant Dr Juma Abuyi with his wife Jane Juma graduating from South Australia’s community constable program last year. (Pic: Tait Schmaal)

My favourite part was when Mr Shaw then qualified his honesty value by adding “except when dobbing in a mate,” as that would be un-Australian.

This is not to overtly criticise Mr Shaw, who seems a fine man, as determining values can be tricky as they tend to live in the world of shades as both he and psychometric testers have discovered.

Such testing is not only a waste of taxpayer’s money, it also sends a message to those who are emigrating to this wonderful nation that their values do not equate to our own.

Australia is a beacon to the world of inclusion, yet calls for such testing and the behaviour of our political leaders suddenly seems all about division. Case in point is the generic statement that all gang members in Melbourne are of African heritage.

Now as someone who came from Africa to settle in Australia, I can assure you that neither I, nor any of my many friends with African heritage, are now, or have ever, been in the past the member of any gang.

What we are, as proud Australians, is angered and upset that the continent of our birth is being used to explain why youths are behaving inappropriately.

Such judgment is insulting and completely ignores the socio-economic and substance abuse issues that underline the vast majority of crime and anti-social behaviour in Victoria.

Looking at the statistics in which 99 per cent of crime that is committed is done so by citizens not linked to people of African origin, it should seem obvious that such issues do not discriminate on race.

That is not to say that people should not be made responsible for their actions, regardless of their heritage, and on that point I could not agree more.

My concern is that the more we point at one community as being the problem, then the deep seated issues that sit behind crime go unaddressed.

So I ask Mr Turnbull, Dutton, Tudge and a range of loud voices in the community, do you really believe that pointing at one set of the community responsible for 1 per cent of the crime will achieve the ‘social cohesion’ you claim to seek?

Before you answer, may I ask that you place yourself into the shoes of an African youth, or anyone of African descent in this nation?

Now, do a Google search on Australian news typing in the word ‘African.’

Once the coverage has washed over you, ask yourself how you would feel if every time you walked down the street people stared and whispered to each other about you, whilst others crossed to the other side.

If when you walked into a store security followed you, or you regularly had police pull you over in your car, or in public you are yelled at and told to go back to where you came from.

Now ask yourself again, is it fair to point to one set of the community as being the cause of crime?

If you are still answering yes, well with all due respect, perhaps it is you that needs the values test.

Fiori Giovanni is a proud Australian, keynote speaker and executive coach.