Author tells young criminals: visit Sudan for a week

A writer who came to Australia from Sudan as a child has a message for criminals: visit Sudan for a week.

Majok Tulba with his wife Mary and their four children at their western Sydney home yesterday. Picture: James Croucher

Majok Tulba is a former child refugee from South Sudan, turned Australian poet and writer. He has one, poignant message for the young men of South Sudanese origin who have been rampaging through the streets of Melbourne: give up your Australian life.

Go to South Sudan, for just one week. Listen to the gunfire. Feel the hunger in your belly. Sweat through your malaria. Duck and weave in fear. ‘‘Never, never, never would they do the wrong thing again,’’ says the novelist, whose first book Beneath The Darkening Sky attracted the attention of every major publishing house in Australia.

“What I have seen on the TV, I can’t believe,” Mr Tulba says of the violence in Melbourne. “I have spoken to community leaders and I understand most of the young men are not child soldiers, they are not refugees, they are Australian born, and they regard what comes out of the mouths of their parents as history.

“Their parents talk to them about war, violence, gunfire, they think it was 100 years ago. I would like them to give up their lives in Australia for one week and experience South Sudan.

‘‘See how we suffered and what we endured. What it means to be a refugee who is given a second chance. They will never take their lives in Australia for granted again. ‘’They will know that by their parents’ sacrifice they have been given a miracle.”

Mr Tulba, 32, fled his village as a barefoot child, pursued by soldiers. He spent time in a refugee camp, and arrived in Australia in 2001 unable to read and write even in Dinka, the language of his village. In 2012, after learning ­English with the help of devoted teachers in Sydney’s west, he produced a work of fiction so lush and lyrical that it was sold at auction for more than $100,000.

Majok Tulba with his wife Mary and their four children. Picture: James Croucher.

Mr Tulba’s next book, to be published by Penguin this year, will be called When Elephants Fight. The title is taken from an old African saying: ‘‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” Mr Tulba sees parallels with what is happening in Melbourne: the grass — their new home, and the lives and reputations of others in the South Sudanese community — is damaged by the crime and fighting.

“The kids who do these things — steal and fight — they think it’s cool, but I would say to them, if you smash a window, and you make $10,000 damage for a shopkeeper, is that cool? Their excuse would be, they are torn between two cultures. But actually, our culture has respect for people, for other people’s belongings.”

Mr Tulba has returned to South Sudan several times since arriving in Australia, including once as a young adult to find a wife — he was smitten by Mary, whom he first saw riding an old ­bicycle down a dusty laneway — and now has four children. He is able to write full-time.

“I feel it is my duty to help ­people understand that your experience, what happens to you, can affect you in a negative way or a positive way,” he said. “It is important to try the positive way.”

Federal minister Greg Hunt, who represents the seat of Flinders in Melbourne’s southeast, said yesterday African gang crime was “out of control” in parts of Victoria and tougher sentencing laws were needed. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government was “very concerned’’.

In the lead-up to Christmas, rocks and metal poles were thrown at police who attended an out-of control party at an Airbnb house in Werribee. Neighbours reported 70 youths of African ­appearance, some thought to be linked to a gang known as Menace To Society, were involved in the riot in which a police officer was hurt.

A community centre in the western Melbourne suburb of Tarneit has been repeatedly vandalised, with louts leaving the letters MTS scrawled on walls, and there was a spate of jewellery store robberies in 2016 and last year.