An asylum-seeker’s story

I have read several books this year. The pick of them could change anyone’s attitude to refugees. Walking Free (co-author Patrick Weaver), is the compelling story of Munjed Al Muderis, a young surgeon who escapes Iraqi with its murderous leader Saddam Hussein and arrives in Australia in a leaky overcrowded fishing boat as an asylum-seeker. He spends 10 months in Curtain Detention Centre in north-western Australia.  He describes his detention as inhuman. He has no name. His identity is a number, 982. Racism and cruelty are rife. Many detainees are children.

Munjed is frequently in solidarity confinement and regularly told to go back to Iraq. The government would help if he elected to return to Iraq. Australia doesn’t want him.

 Munjed had to flee Iraq or face certain death owing to his refusal to comply with Hussein’s cruel demands.  

On his release on August 26, 2000, he finds work as an orthopaedic surgeon in various hospitals in the Australian State, Victoria. He specialised in osseontegration, then practiced by a small number of surgeons worldwide. He becomes recognised, internationally, as a leader in osseontegration techniques. Many patients travel to Australia for his treatment. He treated amputees from the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.

Professor Per -Ingvar Branemark, working in the US and Sweden during the 1950s, is credited with the innovative osseointegration discovery based on the ability of human bone cells to attach to a metal surface.  Since 2010 Munjed AL Muderis has further evolved the surgical technique utilising a high tensile strength titanium implant with a high prose plasma sprayed surface as an intramedullary prosthesis that is inserted into the bone residuum of amputees and then connected through an opening in the skin to a robotic limb. This allows amputees to mobilise with more comfort and less energy consumption. Al Muderis is also credited with combining osseointegration with joint replacement enabling below knee amputees with knee arthritis or short residual bone to mobilise without the need of a troublesome socket prosthesis.

At present AL Muderis has many roles including Associate professor at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney.

Regarding asylum-seekers he says he understands the raw popularity of `Stop the boats’ catchery.

`But I believe politicians should take a much more compassionate approach to asylum-seekers rather than attempt to portray them as evil enemies of the state. Mostly, they are not.’

Many people detained with him at Curtain are working in Australia as medical specialist, engineers and skilled trades people. 

`The current system alienates asylum-seekers. And if they are alienated at the start they’ll remain alienated. They end up on the fringes of society.’

He appeals to politicians of all persuasions to come up with better solutions.

`Every human being deserves something better than having their lives dismissed in a flood of simplistic rhetoric, posturing and crass political point-scoring.’

It would be great if Walking Free became required reading in the schools of many countries. Then future generations might implement change. The book is a real page turner. The title is a play on words. Firstly, Munjed Al Muderis has found a new life. Secondly, his work enables his patients to walk free and enjoy a cherished normal life.

 

 

 

 

   Christmas down my way 

I am thinking about a once-popular song we grew up with – I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. The lyrics were written by a Californian, Irving Berlin, in 1940. Another American, Bing Crosby, made it universal having put his voice to Berlin’s lyrics.  50 million copies of the song were sold widely.

Of course the song, recalling a cosy old-fashioned Christmas, was relevant to the Northern Hemisphere where snow is likely in December.

Recent Facebook posts have depicted a white Christmas. I agree they look enticing. Cosy even. But the images are clearly Northern Hemisphere.

In Aotearoa, New Zealand the seasons are reversed. Nevertheless, much of our Christmas musings and imagery curiously relates to the northern Hemisphere. Christmas cards frequently feature snow clinging to trees and tumbling from rooftops.  Father Christmas, mythology’s champion of the festival, travels in a reindeer-hauled sleigh designed to run over a snow surface. Even our Southern Hemisphere festive Christmas dining is unsuitably modelled on a cold white Christmas. Roast Turkey and hot plumb pudding are not suited to summer entertaining.

Just yesterday I joined a family pre-Christmas gathering. In place of stodgy Christmas pudding or traditional Christmas cake one of our group, Sharon, presented a magnificent cheese cake modification. It looked absolutely splendid and tasted even better.

Sharon and her scrumptious cake

The New Zealand Christmas tree is the spectacular Pohutukawa with its bright red flowers.

Northern winters are characterised by snow storms and short daylight hours.

In Aotearoa New Zealand Christmas is characterised by lighting up the Barbie (barbecue) cold beer and wine and heading for a holiday, preferably near a beach. We will likely be dreaming of long, warm, lazy, summer days enjoying nature in the outdoors, preferably where there is no mobile coverage. Kiwis (New Zealanders) are basically outdoors people. We enjoy relaxation close to a natural environment.  That does not mean a white Christmas is without appeal.

Life is on a beach

 Snow is also a feature of nature. I did spend a Christmas Season in Japan. Hokkaido was completely snow-bound. Even the locals said it was a particularly cold winter that year. It was minus 22 deg C. at Soya Misaki, Japan’s most northern point.  I enjoyed the extreme nature of the Hokkaido winter. Snow certainly beautifies landscapes but I did think about warmer places at home.

So what do I best associate with 77 Christmas seasons in Aotearoa? First would be the unmistakable perfume of Christmas lilies brought indoors. Without them it is simply not Christmas. The lilies cannot grow in snow.

 A special treat is newly-dug potatoes. Grown especially to be harvested at Christmas, new potatoes are smaller than usual and have a scrumptious taste. Then there are garden peas grown for Christmas feasting. I recall my father picking buckets of them. Then followed the laborious job of shelling them. That’s when we children were called in to lend a hand. It was never a fun job.

 As with northern Christmas festivities, the run-up to Christmas was (and still is) frenetic. In a summer climate preparing produce was in addition to purchasing and wrapping presents ready to be placed under the decorated tree. Before then there was the task of writing a Christmas message and sending Christmas cards to family and friends.

All the while preparations were also being made for the camping holiday escape to the beach or mountains. The journey in an overloaded car frequently followed straight after the busy Christmas Day when families had joined together for celebrating and catching up.

A Japanese friend once told me, in Japan Christmas is not so important. More so is the New Year with its Joya No Kane celebration. A Joya No Kane celebration is commemorated in Christchurch at the New Zealand World Peace Bell in Christchurch Botanic Gardens. (The World Peace Bell is essentially the same as a Japanese Temple Bell.)

The event is organised by the New Zealand World Peace Bell Association and Japanese groups. The bell is spectacularly surrounded by nature typically presented in a Botanic Garden’s environment. We ring the bell 108 times in accordance to Japanese tradition. The 108 represents the number of misdemeanours of Japanese people. They are cast aside at the end of the year to enable a fresh uncluttered beginning for the New Year.

I recall, in Japan one New Year’s eve, telling Japanese, `` Only 108 misdemeanours?

We Kiwis could add a few more.’’