No more dirt, germs, guns... and there is an unbelievable laundry room

December 22, 2017 7:49 PM

Since our previous commentary in February on Ali Dorani aka Eaten Fish, an Iranian refugee and cartoonist who was suffering a tortuous existence and near death in an Australian off-shore gulag on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, a secret cabal of international cartoonists and advocates have been on Ali's case. Last week friend and supporter Andrew Marlton, aka Australian cartoonist First Dog on the Moon, received a phone call. They'd done it. Ali was safe, free and in the air on his way to Stavanger, Norway.

I had a very long journey – it was very stressful and i have been through a lot. When I landed in Norway, I couldn’t believe all this suffering was finished. The past five years in my life I had lots of security-guards, ERT, big boys. But when I came to Stavanger, everything was different. I didn’t see security around me, everyone was so friendly. I wasn’t scared to talk to police and ask questions. I met a lot of lovely people who care for me and who worked hard so I could come to Norway. I am in a fairy-tale city. The safest place I’ve ever been in. My journey has just started. ~ Eaten Fish, 20. December 2017

Alluded to in the post title, Ali suffers from an obsessive-compulsive germ phobia and fear of violence no doubt due to the living hell in which he was detained. Poet and refugee advocate Janet Galbraith, who campaigned on Dorani’s behalf told the Guardian,

He arrived in Manus as a young man who was already quite a vulnerable person and I remember being told by some of the workers there that this guy just doesn’t fit here at all, it’s so dangerous for him. That has played out. He has severe OCD, he will wash his clothes or body for hours and still feel like it’s disgusting. He will wash himself until he’s bleeding.

Ali now has has a small comfortable apartment with his very own washing machine.

Since awarding him the 2016 Courage in Editorial Cartooning award, the Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) has been working behind the scenes on the hush hush with a range of NGOs, cartoonists and human rights advocates in partnership with the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), a network of cities and regions that offer long-term residencies to writers and artists who face persecution because of their work.

For us, this has been the most intractable and difficult cases of a client in grave danger that we have ever been involved with. In 2016 Ali received our Award For Courage In Editorial Cartooning at the annual convention of the AAEC. The international attention that the award brought to Ali’s situation has been a major influence on eventually turning a corner for Ali and all of his supporters.

As eatenfish.com says:

This page has been kept quiet for reasons that will be apparent to anyone who understands the political situation surrounding Australia’s immigration policy. Getting Eaten Fish off Manus has been a lot of work by a lot of people, a lot of work that should never have been needed. There is much gratitude to everyone involved, especially Eaten Fish who made it! We look forward to Eaten Fish taking over as admin of this page in the coming months.

As to the current situation on Manus Island, the detention centre was forcibly closed in October but alternative accommodation for the 300 male traumatised refugees remains unsafe due to violence and threats by locals. They have basically been abandoned by the majority of Australian politicians, and the UNHCR is calling on the Australian Government to "live up to its responsibility and urgently find humane and appropriate solutions."

posted by Thella (13 comments total)

To see how others are celebrating his release, #eatenfish
posted by Thella at 7:57 PM on December 22, 2017

What a disgrace we are. We could have had this amazing person here with us so easily but... we're assholes. I'm too ashamed to say much about it, so I'll just quote the president in one of his stopped clock moments:

Donald Trump told Malcolm Turnbull 'you are worse than I am' on refugees during call, leaked transcript reveals.

Mr Turnbull explained that even a "Nobel Prize-winning genius" who arrived by boat would not be resettled in Australia.

We are assholes.
posted by adept256 at 8:16 PM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Richard Cooke has an excellent article in last week's Saturday paper on the politics of Manus:

False Labor and the Birth of Manus

When Labor was in power, they carried out the policy of detaining asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea with reluctance rather than relish, but apart from some grotesquely cruel flourishes, nothing here is new. The moment asylum seekers were marooned on Manus, these outcomes were inevitable. As the refugee advocate Julian Burnside put it, “To an outsider, the only difference between the two major parties is this: the Coalition treat [sic] boat people and boasts about it; Labor would mistreat boat people, but is ashamed of it.”

Labor and their supporters tend to bristle at these comparisons, and, since Philip Ruddock, Liberals occupying the immigration portfolio have been painted as uniquely evil, a line of pure psychopathy broken only by Amanda Vanstone. This is as much a form of moral quarantining as genuine outrage, designed to keep culpability attached to demonic opponents rather than compromised allies. Before Dutton, perplexed commentators – usually of the “render unto Caesar” stripe – asked how Scott Morrison could call himself a man of faith and remain so pitiless. In contrast, Tony Burke or Kevin Rudd required no special theological explanations: conscience was written onto their furrowed brows. All three were sending desperate people to rot in the Pacific, but the Laborites did so from a posture of Deep Concern.

posted by Panthalassa at 8:36 PM on December 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

It is fantastic to hear Eaten Fish is out of harm's way and I hope he flourishes in Norway.
posted by Panthalassa at 8:40 PM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh, thank goodness! I'd wondered and wondered, and couldn't seem to find updates.
posted by Frowner at 9:03 PM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

We are a stinking pathetic trash fire of a country and I’m glad he’s safe, and hope he stays that way.
posted by Jimbob at 9:43 PM on December 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

I am not a Christian, but there are days I hope I'm wrong because I like imagining all these pollies who praise Jesus but lock refugees up in gulags -- from both sides of the aisle -- showing up at the pearly gates only for St Peter to laugh in their faces, like "Are you fucking kidding me? We were really clear about helping the poor and downtrodden!"

Anyway, Eaten Fish finally gaining freedom and safety is literally the best news I have heard in all of 2017. Australia's treatment of asylum seekers makes me so ashamed, but I'm so proud of the Aussies (and others) who made this happen and helped him hang in there for so long. I hope Ali gets everything he needs to live a happy life in his new country, and that all the others still stuck in those hellholes are also given the same opportunity.
posted by retrograde at 9:48 PM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

Yeah I'm stoked that Eaten Fish has got out but angry that it took this much time.

A bit bummed that New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern wasn't able to get some more of them out. It was made pretty clear by the Aussie government at Apec when they cold shouldered her that there was no wiggle room to be had and that any "meddling" would be severely punished. I mean the citizenship saga from earlier in the year can't have helped, but trans-Tasman relations are at a low.

Reaction in NZ has been about what you would expect and has aggravated the perception that Australia is not dealing fairly with NZers over there. See: Manus Island; Why We Can't Keep Our Noses Out Of It.
posted by Start with Dessert at 12:03 AM on December 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm glad to hear that he's free of Australia's gulags and safe in a civilised place. As for my country, I have only shame.

Do I hope that he can, with time, forgive Australia? Quite plainly, no. Given that Australia's cruel policy of deterrence is bipartisan, and enjoys majority support, Australia does not deserve forgiveness, at least at this point in history.

If Ali refuses to ever eat a Tim Tam, that would be as understandable as an Auschwitz survivor refusing to step into a Mercedes. Perhaps even more so, because Germany has learned its lessons, and Australia hasn't and almost certainly won't.
posted by acb at 6:31 AM on December 23, 2017

A bit bummed that New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern wasn't able to get some more of them out. It was made pretty clear by the Aussie government at Apec when they cold shouldered her that there was no wiggle room to be had and that any "meddling" would be severely punished.

That's because Australia didn't want to get rid of its detainees. It needs them, and it needs them to suffer, so that their suffering deters others. The reasoning goes, there are 1 billion Muslims in the world, and if we don't deter them aggressively, any number of them may jump into boats and head for our shores, bringing rape, terrorism, Sharia Law and pestilence. It is a logic of which Josef Stalin would have been proud.
posted by acb at 6:37 AM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm glad Norwegian authorities decided to do this, it's the decent thing. That said, Norway these days under a conservative slash populist rightwing government tends to have an immigration/asylum seeker/refugee policy that is far too... well, "strict" is maybe the nicest way of putting it. So while Australia might be even worse, my country is not behaving all that wonderfully either.
posted by Dumsnill at 7:22 AM on December 23, 2017

"Are you fucking kidding me? We were really clear about helping the poor and downtrodden!"

QFT.

Merry Christmas!
posted by chavenet at 7:36 AM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Marlton is a hero (and First Dog on the Moon is a genius).
posted by lipservant at 1:10 PM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]