In the dark of a Melbourne winter evening
I am driving home from work
It’s rush hour without the rush
The roads are bare of lights and cars
Driving through suburban streets, I see tall, bare trees
Without their leaves the trees are bereft of colour or warmth
Stripped of any feeling of life or connection
The naked trees are like society under lockdown
Everything feels dark under a blanket of clouds
Natural life has fallen and withered like the leaves on the ground
Everything feels numb
The COVID mind is numb and cold and mirrors
The feeling of waking to a dark sky full of clouds
It is a deeper mirror of this society that no one wants to look at
—
Tracking between my car and house
Scuffing through the flotsam of dry leaves withering on the ground
I kick against an old wristwatch
The type that I only see on old men with walking sticks who still huddle near the shops, queuing outside the bank with no masks, smoking outside the cafes where they used to sit
The watch face is broken, but I try winding it, just to hear the sound I remember
The tick-tick-tick reminds me of my childhood
In my country two types of people wore that kind of watch
Gleaming metallic wristbands reflecting the white gleam of business shirts and saarams[i]
If they were wealthy landowners in the country
While in the city, the wristwatch matched the belt-buckled trousers and cufflinks of government administrators or ‘educated’ people
The watch designated their power
My grandfather wore that kind of watch
I used to love it when he showed it to me
And I could just hear
the tick-tick-tick-katikaram-tick-tick-tick
Katikaram means clockwork in my language
Reminding me of the mechanism driving time
—
One night when I couldn’t sleep
I tried to relax by counting my breaths and then
I started thinking about wristwatches
And the lives of our communities
Still governed by the logic of clockwork
—
I was created by colonialism and the system that invaded two countries
It merged them into a single colony and turned many people into slaves
Slaves, peasants, Dalits who worked for this system did not wear watches or know of any time beyond their next meal
This Empire also created a middle class of colonised people who wore wristwatches to show the time they believed in and how close they were to the Imperial centres of power
Each year, my country celebrates independence but it is still a colony, with laws, ideas and time created by the Empire
It calls itself one country, ignoring that it had two kings and still has two languages
The countries called ‘third world’ are still shackled by colonisation
The buildings that once flew the flags of European states now bear the signage of multinational corporations or large NGOs
They claim these places as their own
Colonial law is called common law
Some people live for a long time, others have short lives
When I saw that this system wanted to end my time, I fled
This is how this colonial system created me as a refugee
I was in a detention centre for six and a half years
Apparently because I am a dark-skinned refugee
Or maybe it was because I arrived on a boat and not a plane
But that is not the real reason
My life in detention was the basis for a business model
My lost time was a commodity
For each day I was in detention the Australian government gave $655 to a multinational security company[ii]
The company spent less than $100 per day to cover the housing, food and medical expenses of keeping me in detention; including the wages of the officers locking the fences
My lost time earned them a lot of money
My six and a half years in detention gave $1.3 million dollars to their shareholders
—
I think deeply about my time in detention, and the system of stealing time
When you open up a clock you will see one big wheel and a cascade of smaller wheels surrounding a tightly wound coil of metal
That coil, the main spring, is very strong and is constantly under pressure
It can never fully release its tension or the whole clockwork collapses
It needs to be rewound on a regular basis to keep its tension
In Australia media stories and politicians do this work
Refugees are the mainspring of the whole detention economy
Even outside of detention we are still restrained by temporary visas
Never free to release or show our true feelings for fear of being locked up for ‘bad character’
We remain like the mainspring; tightly coiled
If we were ever truly released from this tension we would no longer exist
The detention system creates us as people who are always bound by fear
We cannot know any time beyond the expiry date of our visa
After six and a half years I left the detention centre with a three-month temporary visa
I became a small cog wheel turning next to the mainspring
I thought that now I could start my life again, free
But the mainspring remains coiled and is still pushing me
After keeping me locked up for so long
I wondered why the government only gave me a short-term visa
Then I realised it was to crush my hope
With my temporary visa I can only get short-term casual work
Usually as a manual labourer in a warehouse or factory
I want to move forward, but I am spinning in a small circuit between work and home
The crick of my joints tick-tick-ticking in the endless repetitive labour that is my life
Five years on temporary visas keeps me running
Keeps me scared for my life, terrified of the future, too scared to look past the daily workload, the weekly paycheck, the cans of energy drink during meal breaks
I am registered with an agency that manages my short-term contracts with the warehouses where I work, in exchange for 12% of my pay
Running frantically, sweating out my fear in adrenaline-fuelled work
I am trapped next to the mainspring
I cannot separate the clockwork of my job from the clockwork of my bridging visa
—
Now in these empty, rush-hour streets I drive to my current workplace
This system is designed to make us scared of losing our jobs
Every week new people start on the floor and other people leave
Because of COVID, all workers with PR (permanent residency) or permanent jobs, have been stood down or told to take leave
There are no union members here
Most of the workers who remain are refugees or international students
We have been split into two 12-hour shifts
After driving home from work I collapse into bed
My body throbs with pain
I can manage this pain
But I can never manage the fear of losing my job
If I lose the job
What do I do?
I can’t get government support on a temporary visa
A red cross food package won’t pay for my car expenses
I work with another man from my country
Each shift we are expected to unload six entire shipping containers full of boxes
Writing on the outside of the container says they are 40 feet and carrying 35 tonnes
Each hour I lift thousands of boxes weighing between 16 and 23 kilos onto a conveyer belt
Each hour the employment agency earns $3.70 and I earn $26.30
After unloading fifteen containers each week, I receive $802 before tax
Each week $100 of my earnings goes to the government, which pays private companies to lock up hundreds of my refugee brothers
Friends with PR tell me about contractors who earn $500 to unload one container.
In the first week, we watched a safety video telling us not to lift more than 15 kilograms without assistance
But in the warehouse things are different
Our supervisor tells us to work harder and faster
He boasts about the pair of workers who emptied seven containers in a single shift
When stage 4 lockdown started, he suggested that workers could camp in the warehouse between shifts
—
I breathe deeply, thinking of clockwork
Thinking of how we are pushed to work more, more, more, or lose our jobs
Management, the central wheel, being pushed by the slow movements of our team leaders
The middle wheels are always pushing us; telling us we need to work harder.
And the next day they return and push us to do even more work.
When we work harder, they get a bonus
But we never get a pay increase
Their bonus comes from our sweat, pain and fear
We spin faster, scared of losing our jobs
We can’t get any government support or benefits
and have no hope of gaining a permanent visa
In such conditions I have no idea how to build my life or plan for the future
I am in pain but I don’t want to show it
I don’t want to lose my job
I don’t want to damage my body so I can’t work anywhere
I can’t sleep by the roadside or beg or I will be sent back to detention
So I need to do more, more hard work
Keep ticking and spinning and sweating and proving myself
And thinking of each day’s target, the next meal, the next night’s sleep, the next repairs on my car, the interest on my loan, next month’s rent…
—
This is how we lose time and lose our lives
Refugees are not the only people trapped in this clockwork
Many international students are from Asian countries
They live in the same outer suburbs as we do
They work alongside us, logging into online classes from their phones, while they work
Migrants from the former British colonies share the slave-like exploitation of our ancestors
Without a permanent visa none of us can ask for any rights or assistance
Working hard, sweating and aching as we struggle for the next meal, hoping our visa is renewed or extended for another few months or years
We are the parts driving an expanding clockwork of agencies, managers, bureaucrats, NGOs, lawyers, and investors
As the shutdowns continue, we continue to find work where we can, working harder and faster under our masks, hoping we don’t get sick, wondering when we will see our families
We only know this time of running and whirling and wondering where it will end
I know that leaves will return to the trees, that blossoms and sun will return
One day they might even find a vaccine for COVID
But I will never forget the grey naked truth of this society.
[i] Saaram/chaaram is a Tamil word for a sarong worn by men.
[ii] This is an estimate of the costs of onshore detention while Sriharan was incarcerated. This estimate comes from https://idcoalition.org/publication/there-are-alternatives-revised-edition/, © International Detention Coalition, 2015, there are alternatives: A handbook for preventing unnecessary immigration detention, Table 1, p11. Derived from estimate of the annual cost of detaining an asylum seeker in Australia was $239,000 in 2013-14: by Australian National Commission of Audit, The Report of the National Commission of Audit (Canberra: NCOA, 2014) 10.14, <http://www.ncoa.gov.au/report/ appendix-vol-2/10-14-illegal-maritime-arrivalcosts.html>. According to John Kaldor centre at UNSW and the Refugee Council of Australia these costs in 2018–2019 were more than $346,000 per annum or $948.00 per day. < https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/cost-australias-asylum-policy>.
Written by GK Shiva
Edited by Margaret Mejhju