In the quiet of his room in NSW’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, Carlos, an Ecuadorian asylum seeker, found a respite from the daily drudgery of “waiting for results, waiting for a visa, or just for information” - playing songs on a donated guitar.
Carlos, 51, who asked his surname not be used while he awaits permanent protection visa approval, spent several years in Villawood following an earlier visa cancellation, after a criminal conviction saw him serve jail time.
Philip Feinstein says guitars remain the most popular instrument among detainees, although there are often requests for regional instruments, especially from asylum seekers from the Middle East.Credit: Edwina Pickles
“The music for us was a way of escaping pressure…of feeling or expressing, actually, how we felt about the way we were living,” he said.
He’s one of many to benefit from instrument donations organised by Music for Refugees. The group’s CEO, Philip Feinstein, 76, has been running programs for asylum seekers since 2009 and is appealing for more donations.
Feinstein said he would like to see a more humane approach to Australia’s immigration detainees. It comes after the federal government passed tougher laws allowing former detainees to be re-detained if deemed to pose a risk of committing violent or sexual crimes, after a November High Court decision last November saw 153 people, many with serious convictions, released from indefinite detention. In May, this masthead reported at least 28 had been charged with new offences.
Music for Refugees’ donations have expanded to offshore centres including Christmas Island, where Feinstein helped establish a music program, and the now-closed Manus Island. It is organising another shipment of instruments, currently housed in Feinstein’s Rose Bay dining room, to Nauru. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office has offered to cover transportation costs.
Philip Feinstein has been organising music classes inside detention centres in Australia since 2009. Credit: Edwina Pickles
Although Feinstein said federal governments had supported his work, he remains critical of the detention centres.
“It’s like a huge, big jail,” he said. “The people in there are put in different sections, and they’re not allowed to mix with each other. [It’s a] cruel place, a very cruel place, all the detention centres work on that basis, in Melbourne, which is Broadmeadows, or Sydney, Villawood or Yongah Hill, WA.”
Requests for regional string instruments and drums are common for detainees from Middle Eastern countries, including Afghanistan. Guitars remain the most popular because of their universality among detainees’ many cultures. “You would not find a more diverse place than Villawood,” said Carlos.
Carlos said he got the most joy out of communal sessions, which Philip and his musical partner Adrian Mees would organise weekly, leading them in Western songs, such as Ain’t no Sunshine or Let it Be. Outside visiting times, detainees would organise their own jams, starting with a Middle Eastern, or Latin rhythm.
Carlos said the music would transport the performers from an environment that could be “challenging and cruel” to “a peaceful place”.
“You don’t have to think of anything besides the song or the instrument that you’re playing.”
“You just kind of focus on that, and everything else disappears from your mind.”