beautiful!words!! fringe!season2016! educationresources ... · his feature length screenplay, the...
TRANSCRIPT
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Beautiful Words Fringe Season 2016 Education resources
for teachers and students
Thank you for booking to see Beautiful Words. We hope that you find the play and exhibition as transformative and worthwhile as the cast and crew have whilst making it.
• We look forward to welcoming school groups to the show! • Could you please arrive 30 minutes before the show (you can look at the
exhibition) • Seating is general admission and we ask that you fill the theatre from the
front rows to the back rows and from the centre of rows out to the aisle • Could you please make sure that teachers are placed amongst students to
reduce eating/talking/texting throughout the performance • School bags/lunch bags can be left in the Gallery area during the show. • Also, mobile phones need to be turned off and no pictures are to be taken
during the performance although if you have booked a Q&A we are happy for you to take pictures then!
• There will be an interval of 20 minutes duration between acts 1 and 2, where students can eat lunch/snacks in Bill’s Bar and Gallery or the Studio room.
• There is an exhibition attached to the show in the galleries at the theatre. Please make sure that students are respectful of the items on display. They can take pictures.
• Please let us know if you need disabled access to the venue so that we can accommodate this to the best of our ability.
Please call Creative Producer Bec Pannell should you have any questions: 0400 202 399
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Poster Concept: Sean Riley and Bec Pannell Poster design: Bec Lyons/ Stu Nankivell Photo: Alexander Robertson. Actor: Tom McCann (Ari)
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Contents:
1. Managing Director and Creative producer statement 2. Playwright statement 3. Playwright bio 4. Cast of characters and setting 5. Synopsis 6. Murray Bramwell’s introduction to the 2008 Currency Press edition 7. Notes on the exhibition and essays 8. Rev Dr Lynn Arnold – reflection 9. Dr Gillian Hicks – reflection 10. Elyas Alavi – some notes on Elyas 11. The poems from Adelaide Secondary School of English Students 12. Q&A with Lauren Dempsey (Viorica, Mrs Greenberg) 13. Discussion points, questions, themes
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Managing Director and Creative Producer’s Statement In 2015, I asked Sean Riley, our Artistic Director, to consider doing his well regarded and much loved play Beautiful Words with an all-‐youth cast for the 2016 Adelaide Fringe. Why? Because – unfortunately – the subject material is as relevant now as it was a decade ago when it was first staged. The news had been – as it was when Sean sat down to write the play in 2001-‐ full of children in detention, the crisis in Europe of displaced persons was growing, and our nation seemed to have forgotten the history of im/migration that forged our character. Then, in September 2015, long after we had begun preparation for the production -‐ after I had met and admired 20 students at Adelaide Secondary School of English, and heard their stories of survival and terror, their dreams for the future, and their belief in Australia -‐ a three year old boy, not unlike the character of Ari, washed up on a foreign shore. Aylan Kurdi was lifted into the arms of a Turkish police officer and the world gasped in shame and horror. Aylan, unlike Ari, did not survive. It seemed all too real, too close to home, and we knew the story was as relevant, as heart-‐wrenching and as truthful as ever. It is a joy to produce shows for the Fringe with these wonderful theatre students, led and mentored so ably by Sean Riley. The greatest delight is not only to see them perform and transform on stage, but to do so telling such an important story – a story that each week they have owned and championed as they have come to realise and celebrate what it all means. Perhaps some of their own concerns and struggles have faded away as they note the level of support, ease and love that they move forward with in life. The day poet and refugee Elyas Alavi spoke to the cast about his journey across miles and miles and miles of desert, roads, borders, wars and countries was the day the story of the Gypsies’ trek out of Auschwitz sank below words they were just saying and into their hearts. They know that this is not just a story about “back then” – it is a story, tragically, of “now”. And there are people their own age living with the fallout, the memories, and the trauma. The poems and artwork of these survivors are on display in the galleries around the theatre. Theatre brings us together through shared symbolism, imagery, empathy and learning. Beautiful Words plays with make-‐believe and reality, truth and perception, fear and love. This production, including the essays, poems, and artwork, speaks collectively about hope. And in turn, I hope that you can all find something to think on long after the curtain falls, and the doors are closed. I want to thank all of our cast, our crew, our production team, supporters, the teachers, the participants in visual art, poetry and essay writing – this is yours. And Sean, for putting on the stage such Beautiful Words that light the way for a better path down which we can travel together to a better place. Rebecca Pannell
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PLAYWRIGHT’S STATEMENT BEAUTIFUL WORDS was written over a four-‐year period, beginning in early 2001. Inspired by Australia's immigration debate, the growing conflict between east and west, and the mandatory detention laws enforced in Australia at the time, the work is (and continues to be) dramatised social documentation for young audiences and their families. Originally premiering in 2006, Beautiful Words is the umbrella title for this trilogy of interconnected plays that deal with the refugee experience. The work looks to racial disharmony and issues of persecution and displacement from historical and contemporary time-‐frames. Part One is set in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the final days of World War II. Parts Two and Three are both set in contemporary Australia. Of particular inspiration was the true-‐life story of twelve year Iraqi asylum-‐seeker Zaynab Alrimahi, who was one of only fifty survivors from a boat-‐load of over four hundred asylum seekers when it sank off the south west coast of Java in 2001. Zaynab lost both her parents and all four of her siblings. Though Zaynab was granted a temporary protection visa, it was noted in media copy that "her future remains uncertain". I found Zaynab's plight profoundly moving -‐ and frustrating -‐ given its treatment by the then current political climate. Zaynab’s story became the fire in my belly that spurred me on to write Beautiful Words. It has been ten years since the work’s premiere, but, in light of the overwhelming number of humans seeking refuge and asylum, it remains a relevant and powerful piece of theatre. It is a writer’s wish that their works endure, and are not rendered obsolete by changing social attitudes or political shifts. With Beautiful Words, I feel, to coin a phrase from Part Three "strange lucky" -‐ I feel blessed that my words touch the heart-‐strings imaginations of audiences, but I lament the fact that so little has changed in the world. It is my view that Australia is, from as far back as January 26 1788, a nation of boat people. A nation of survivors -‐ cast here from the far-‐flung (and not so far-‐flung) corners of an often hostile and unwelcoming world, all sharing the same and very human need for a better life. Becoming a refugee is NOT a lifestyle choice. It is an attempt at survival. We should welcome them with open arms. And open minds. Sean Riley 2016
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Who is Sean Riley? Sean Riley is an award-winning playwright & theatre director. His most recent works, Skip Miller’s Hit Songs, and Also a Mirror, were premiered by Brink Productions and Urban Myth Theatre respectively. His play The Angel & the Red Priest premiered as part of the 2008 Adelaide Festival of Arts. Originally written as a radio play, The Angel & the Red Priest, was first broadcast on ABC Radio National in October 2006. Sean’s play Beautiful Words was premiered by Oddbodies Theatre Company in 2006, winning the Adelaide Theatre Guide’s Curtain Call Award for Best Dramatic Production of the 2005/06 season and the Adelaide Theatre Critic’s Award for Best New Play, and received a 2007 AWGIE Nomination for Best Play for Young Audiences, and also won the Jill Blewett Playwrights Award in 2004 and was short-listed for the 2004 Patrick White Award. It was published by Currency Press in May 2008. In 2005, Oddbodies Theatre Company – of which he was a founding member and co-artistic director - presented Significant Others – short-listed for the Patrick White Playwright Award. Other plays as writer include The Sad Ballad of Penny Dreadful (Windmill Performing Arts), My Sister Violet, (Urban Myth Theatre of Youth) , The Last Acre, premiered by Oddbodies Theatre Company in 2003 and The Time of Ashes performed by UMTOY for Come Out 01. A much sought after workshop leader for young people and emerging artists, Sean is Artistic Director of South Australian Youth Arts Theatre Co, and regularly works as artist in residency at a wide variety of schools; most recently at Adelaide Secondary School of English, devising performance works with African immigrants. He also ran the drama component for Adelaide Festival Centre’s On Stage Summer School January 2016. His feature length screenplay, The Wife of Bedlam, was awarded Hopscotch Films inaugural Unproduced Screenplay Award. As part of this prize, Sean received a two week mentorship with triple Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Edward Albee. Sean is currently working on a play about the fallout from teenage suicide for SAYarts called Aftershocks, funded by SA Health; a production for SAYarts called Heavy Night, and another secret production is in the pipeline for Come Out 2017! SAYarts hopes to restage My Sister Violet for the 2018 Fringe.
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Cast of Characters & settings
Act 1 -‐ Zugang Characters Old Roman, late 60s Toby, 14 years old, Roman’s grandson, Helen’s son Jan, 14 years old, Papa and Mama’s son, sickly, Mama, early 30s Papa, early 40s, a musician and conductor conscripted to the concentration camp to provide musical entertainment for the Commandant Mrs Damrosch, early 50s, housekeeper, part German Viorica, a Gypsy, early 60s, leader of a band of Gypsy musicians in the camp Young Roman, 15 years old, a Gypsy-‐musician Ion, 40s, a Gypsy Kapo, late 30s. A kapo was a prisoner assigned by the SS Guards to supervise other prisoners in labour and tasks. They had access to privileges such as clothes and food. They sat between two worlds. Setting The action moves between the present, Australia, and 1945, Auschwitz Birkenau, a concentration camp in Poland Act 2 – Pantheon Characters Alf, late 60s,a resident at the nearby caravan park, from Manchester Trent/Trudy, 13, the local kid who visits the sisters Sheree Jefferies, early 40s, runs the post office and local store. She changed her name Victor, early 40s, a doctor, a migrant, sometimes works at the detention centre Pearl, early 50s, with her sister Lurl, runs the Pantheon Cinema Lurline, early 60s Ari, 14, a boy washed up from the beach, Afghani Saul Greenberg, 40s, a political activist and speechwriter Harry, 30s, a journalist Setting Australia
1. The present, a lecture hall 2. Three and a half years before. Interior of the Pantheon Cinema, Herring
Bay, north-‐western Australia 3. An open field 4. Same as 1 5. Three Months after 2. Interior of the Norton Detention Centre
Act 3 – Epiphany Characters Old Roman, late 60s Toby, now 15 years old, Roman’s grandson, Helen’s son
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Helen, Old Roman’s daughter, Harry’s partner, late 30s /early 40s Zaynab, late 30s/early 40s, Stella’s neighbour, a refugee Ari’s father, early 40s Ari’s mother, early 40s Theatre technician Mrs Greenberg, 60s, Saul’s mother Ari, now 17 Stella, 50s, Harry’s mother Setting The play takes place three and a half years since Part 2 Two months since Part 1 and moves between various locations. Beautiful Words SYNOPSIS Part 1 -‐ ZUGANG ZUGANG (“access” in German), straddles two time frames and locations; Australia in the Present, and Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp, 1945. It concerns Toby and his ailing Grandfather, Roman, whose arm bears the tattooed numbers B3606 -‐ evidence of a childhood spent in the Concentration Camp. For the first time ever, at Toby’s urging, his Grandfather opens up and tells him his story -‐ all about the friendship that existed between a gypsy boy called Roman, and a German boy, Jan, the son of a famed German Conductor, employed within the camp to teach music to the gypsies. For Jan, this is a place of mystery – its horrors hidden from him by his caring parents. Jan and Roman were from opposite sides of the wall, and friendship should not have been possible between them...but sometimes, magic happens...even in the darkest of places. As the story/friendship unfolds, we are drawn into the heart of the Camp and the Holocaust, the boys become best friends and soul-‐mates, despite the fact being cast in the roles of “enemies”. As the play climaxes, Toby’s Grandfather admits a truth which stuns Toby. It alters forever the way in which he views the old man, and the world. But what became of the other boy in the Camp? Is he still alive? And if so -‐ will they ever meet again? Part 2 -‐ PANTHEON It is the year 2003. International Human Rights Campaigner, Saul Greenberg, addresses the audience and draws us into the story of Ari. A young refugee from Kabul, Ari washes onto the beach of Herring Bay, a sleepy seaside town in Northern Australia, when the boat carrying his family and other refugees, sinks off the coast. He walks from the sea…and into the Pantheon Cinema! The cinema (closed for many years) is still inhabited by eccentric sisters Lurl and Pearl, who are surrounded by a motley and equally bizarre array of characters, who assemble nightly to watch classics from the golden years of Hollywood upon
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the tatty screen. When Ari wanders in, the sisters are smitten, and decide to keep the boy for themselves – a dangerous prospect, especially when there’s a Detention Centre only miles away…not to mention the prying eyes of Sherie Jefferies, Herring Bay’s very own Wicked Witch of the North! Present to witness the even are Saul and his journalist mate Harry (step-‐father of Toby from Part One) What follows is a mad-‐cap, screwball-‐inspired black comedy -‐ as the community play a tug o’war with Ari – leading to a devastating final scene, with Ari, in detention, his future uncertain… PART 3 – EPIPHANY The final chapter in this trilogy, Epiphany is the work in which the previous two stories collide and interconnect. The play begins in 2004, approximately one year after the second story has occurred, with Ari, still in detention, being informed of his imminent release into the care of Harry and his partner, refugee-‐worker Helen, the mother of Toby (from Part One). By using direct address, in his cell, Ari tells us the story of how he came to Australia – and we are transported to Taliban ruled Kabul to witness the tragic chain of events that saw him lose all of his family members in their bid for freedom. Harry introduces Helen and Toby to Saul Greenberg, who is in town (with his mother), for a series of lectures. When Toby discovers that Saul’s mother survived the Holocaust, he is eager for them to meet he Grandfather, with the hope that they may be able to help him deal with his haunted past. When they finally meet, major discoveries are made; thrilling coincidences are shared, and the chance for Old Roman’s redemption are offered and accepted. For Harry, life is made difficult by his opinionated mother, Stella. A widow, living alone in suburbia, she grows increasingly paranoid when an Iraqi woman moves in next door. Her racist streak is revealed, and challenged by Harry. She is destined for a life lived in isolation. But life is surprising, and when Stella finds herself in need of help, the hand that reaches out isn't the one she expected. Meanwhile, a riot erupts at the detention centre, and as the centre burns, Ari’s life hangs by a thread. EPIPHANY is a hopeful work; it seeks to fill its audience with the feeling that peace and harmony are still a possibility in a dark and dangerous world. Humanist, swinging between humor and drama, the work offers redemption and resolve for the characters whose journeys we witnessed in Parts 1 & 2.
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Introduction to Beautiful Words, 2008 Currency Press
September 09, 2008
Beautiful Words, Harsh Realities and Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Written by Murray Bramwell
In December 2001 a story was published in The Age newspaper about a young Afghan girl named Zaynab. Her photo shows a very typical looking twelve year old wearing a boldly patterned headscarf – but her expression is solemn, her eyes downcast. The report notes that although she is in the care of her uncle, a government spokesman says her future in Australia is uncertain.
Zaynab was one of only four children who survived the sinking of the infamous SIEV-‐X, a boat containing more than 400 refugees from Afghanistan via Jakarta, which capsized in international waters causing 65 men , 142 women and 146 children to drown. From Zaynab’s immediate family her mother, father and four siblings all lost their lives. Her six year old brother Mahmoud died beside her, as the report says, “choking on a deadly cocktail of fuel and seawater.”(1)
This article, says Sean Riley, was one of the triggers for his play for young people, Beautiful Words, written and developed over four years from late 2001. In that time a number of maritime emergencies occurred in addition to SIEV-‐X. There was also the Tampa crisis in August 2001 and the infamous “children overboard” incident just days prior to the December 2001 Federal Election.
“There was a whole lot of turmoil and press about children overboard, “Riley recalls, ”and it seriously took my breath away, this clinical, detached approach to children. How could the government provide so little certainty for a child ? And as I worked on the play I was able to observe how the world was changing, how borders were changing and how politics and public opinion were altering.”(2)
Much has been written (3) documenting the politicization of asylum seekers – the hardline policies against illegal immigrants, the use of the navy to turn boats away, the expansion of detention centres on the Australian mainland and the establishment (known as the Pacific Solution) of new detention centres on outlying islands such as Nauru. The slow processes of refugee verification, the arduous internment, including that of families and children, and the issuing of temporary visas created a climate of anxiety, uncertainty and despair. Some asylum seekers in custody resorted to violence and self-‐harm, sewing their lips together in silent protest and refusing food and medication.
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These events formed a continuing narrative in the first years of the 21th century, amplified by the fear and mistrust of the Middle East and the Muslim religion after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Australian society was divided about these questions. It became a major feature of political campaigns. In the lead-‐up to the election in November 2001 a defiant Prime Minister John Howard announced – ”We decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” Many Australians strongly supported punitive government action and policies, while others wrote letters of protest and formed support groups to assist refugees who were forbidden to work, yet expected to manage without support from the authorities.
These turbulent events form the background to Beautiful Words but they are not the subject of Sean Riley’s play. When the Afghan boy, Ari is miraculously washed up at Herring Bay in North Western Australia, it conjures up these recent occurrences – leaky boats, illegal entry, misery and death on the high sea – but the play is preoccupied with more personal imaginings and a larger timeframe also.
The contemporary events in the play are part of a larger wheel of history which goes back to 1945. In the first of its three sections, entitled Zugang, meaning “access”” in German, Riley begins his story in the Auschwitz Birkenau Camp in Poland in 1945, during the last weeks of the Second World War and prior to Germany’s surrender to the Allies.
Here the young gypsy boy, Roman Kansler, forms an unlikely, but very natural friendship with a German boy, Jan Klein-‐Rogge. They are in a terrible place, one interned, the other a child of the jailers. But they are also just boys who love to hang out together and go skating, doing normal things in a cruelly insane environment. Jan learns how myths are devised to justify fears – slanderous stories about Jews and Gypsies, providing reasons to exclude and dominate. But his own experience also contradicts that. When he meets a gypsy close up, and becomes friends with him, the stereotypes explode, the prejudice fades.
Something very similar happens in Section 2-‐ “Pantheon”, named for the magical movie house run by the zany Pearl and Lurline up at Herring Bay. When Ari arrives he is a strange and frightened figure. The impulse of those who find him is to offer kindness and sanctuary. But there is also apprehension and suspicion as exhibited by Sheree, who not only runs the post office but is the self-‐appointed border protection monitor. For her, issues are black and white and the power of exclusion is an important part of her sense of her own belonging. We learn that she was not always Sheree, but was once called Ottla Pavlukovic. She carries painful memories as a recently arrived migrant herself, of being ridiculed for eating salami and called racist names. Her situation reminds us that, apart from the first inhabitants, everyone is a boat person, that our Australian history is a succession of arrivals from somewhere else.
In Beautiful Words, Sean Riley is telling us that, generally, people don’t like other people. We love our own kind with clannish loyalty, but often fear and despise
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those who are strange or different. Until, of course, we get to know them – then preconceptions and abstract hatreds fall away.
Not only is this Riley’s theme, it also his strategy. As his audience we are encouraged to recognize familiar bonds with the young Ari as he hides out at the Pantheon watching old movies. As he learns English from the beautiful words of the cinema, we share the pizzazz of Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, the romance of Casablanca, the dark intensity of Cagney and Garbo, and those powerful stories of home and the separation from it – Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz (with her song of yearning : “Somewhere over the rainbow/skies are blue” ) and the forlorn ET, pining to phone home. As Ari soaks up this popular culture, his emotions and aspirations are no different from ours, and just as familiar as Zaynab, the young SIEV-‐X survivor in the newspaper article, whose one wish was to learn English and study to be a doctor.
The migration stories in Beautiful Words cross several generations and deal with both simple and complex truths. As Riley observes of those citizens close to the terrible events in the camps –“ I don’t think everyone who was there believed in what they were doing.” If atrocities occur when good people do nothing, then small positive actions have large meanings. When Jan takes on the identity of his friend Roman, he is also doing penance and redeeming his shame for his family. When, later, in Part 3, Saul Greenberg appears, he is the international voice for refugees and he is also speaking out in a way that few did when his own mother was interned and narrowly escaped death in the camp.
Sean Riley is careful not to draw comparisons between current events and the Holocaust. In fact, quite the reverse – “In some ways I wanted to put things into rational comparison, to make clear that the Holocaust and asylum seeker issues are quite different. I wanted to debunk that myth – but also to show what happens when people stand aside and do nothing.” (5)
Beautiful Words takes us in large sweeps from Europe to the United States to various parts of Australia. But the connections are always precise and poignantly human ones. Sean Riley has said he wanted to find a way to express big questions with a young voice, one that will speak directly – and not down – to school age audiences. And so he does with young Jan and Roman, Ari and Trent, and later, Ari and Toby. In the familiarity of their larking about, in the natural alliances they form – all other divisions, German and Gypsy, Afghan and backblocks Australian, dissolve.
Similarly for the older generations – Stella, the bitter widow of a Vietnam veteran is suspicious of her Muslim neighbour until a hospital emergency brings them together and barriers are broken down. Fittingly, Riley has named the young refugee mother Zaynab and the bond she forms with her fellow Australian is both credible and hopeful.
Beautiful Words is a play of symmetries and magical coincidences, tribulations and strongly affirmative resolution. In vibrant, strongly theatrical ways – with music in Part 1, with the giddy comedy of Pearl and Lurl and their tinsel
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Pantheon in Part 2, and in the vivid scenes of connection in the final section, Riley has created the credible conditions for reconciliation and understanding. In the memorable scene between Old Roman and Mrs Greenberg, rolling lemons under their toes to relieve their tired feet, a simple but powerful visual metaphor is established which typifies the play’s instinctive humanity. The title refers to the enticing, but deceptive words, of dictators, but it also refers to the hopeful lyrics of cinema musicals and the new words of a new language, experienced for the first time.
Sean Riley has said that he wanted Beautiful Words to be an epic play for young people – “ that challenged them about the world we live in. It came from speaking to my young friends about the concerns they have about migration, the Eastern world, the battle between Christian and Muslim. And it is asking -‐sympathetically and without fear – the question : if you had to leave your own country, would you want, would you expect, to be accepted somewhere else ? ”
Notes
1. Kelly Burke, “Orphaned survivor faces uncertain future”, The Age, Dec 21, 2001.
2. Personal interview with Sean Riley, Adelaide, 26 March, 2008. All subsequent quotes from this conversation.
3. Some relevant further reading includes : Marr, David and Marian Wilkinson, Dark Victory, Allen and Unwin, 2004. Peter Mares, Borderline: Australia’s Treatment of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the Wake of the Tampa, New South Wales University Press, 2003. Robert Manne with David Corlett, Sending Them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference, Quarterly Essay Issue 13, 2004.
Murray Bramwell is Associate Professor in Drama at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. He is also a theatre reviewer for The Australian and The Adelaide Review.
Published by Currency Press, Sydney, 2008.
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THE ESSAYS AND EXHIBITION A decade after it’s initial production, Beautiful Words still speaks the horror, the truth and the beauty of migration and displacement that members of our community deal with everyday, and so we felt that they should have a voice here, in the Adelaide Fringe. We invited two prominent South Australians who have been affected by, and dealt with, the fallout of global terrorism and international wars in their own ways -‐ Rev Dr Lynn Arnold AO and Dr Gillian Hicks AM -‐ to contribute reflections on the play. And we engaged former Afghani refugee and acclaimed poet and visual artist Elyas Alavi to work with refugees and asylum seekers through several organisations who deal everyday with the aftershocks of trauma and displacement and persecution: The Welcome Centre at Bowden, Adelaide Secondary School of English, and the Mercy House of Welcome at Kilburn. Rev Dr Lynn Arnold is an Anglican priest. For over a year (4 September 1992-‐14 December 1993) he served as Premier of South Australia as a Labour politician. He was CEO of World Vision for a decade, and then of Anglicare SA until 2012 when he began his consideration to the priesthood in earnest. He was ordained a priest in 2014. We asked Lynn because of his holistic understanding of the machinations of government, politics, human rights, and care of the other, to add his thoughts to our production in the form of a reflection – it could take any form he wanted. We are so grateful for this considered, poetic, political and deeply provocative piece below: Beautiful Words – A reflection by Rev Dr Lynn Arnold Having read Sean Riley’s play “Beautiful Words” I felt the need to construct a poem – not write one, mind; construct one from some of the play’s building blocks, its own words. As I was reading the play, I had marked various words, lines and sentences that impacted me on the way. So when I finished I thought I would weave those disparate highlightings into one. Here is the result:
It is up to you … to make up your own mind. But saying people are bad, without knowing the real story … well this is unfair. Don’t you think? How can anyone live so close to such misery, and not know of its existence? Look around you! Look at what you’ve protected me from! Look at what we’ve done! Everyone has a choice. Right or wrong. So many layers … of hate … and loss … and hope … I believe in hope … or perhaps I am just a silly old man. But now I have the movies! They are my doorways, now. My escape. They’re just people. Yeah. Weird people. Weird religion. Weird beliefs. People forget where they come from very quickly.
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The world sees these people, people on their television sets, behind bars, like criminals. But they don’t see them up close. Don’t see the sadness in their eyes. Life has to get pretty bad to leave your home. Your country. Friends. It’s an enormous leap of faith. Faith in the future. Faith in the notion that people will be welcoming and accepting. You’ve become one of ‘Them’. One of ‘Those People’. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! It’s supposed to be a happy ending. The world must see the face of our shame. Use it. Let it be seen. Let it be known that the child has a voice. My friend Victor say everyone have a story … And it true … No tears. Not now. Save them. For happiness. Go. This lucky. Strange lucky. Then they capture me and lock me away. And give me a number. She’s not good with change. It scares her. You’re someone else! You’re living a lie. I know. And I still love you. You’re still my granddad. Look at what you’ve become! You never used to be like this. I was so proud of you when I was a kid. You taught me … all of this! I see evidence of a battle that has gone on since time began. The battle for acceptance. They are why I do what I do. To prove my uncle wrong. And afterwards, she cried. Not because of the lies, or the shock, but because she lived her whole life with this man, her father, and didn’t know.
Sar whair ofer th ray bow-‐ Way a pie – Birs fie ofer th ray bow – Whythen o why carn die.
Except for the last, these extracts are recorded sequentially as they appear in the script. I allowed the last to be taken out of order, for it seemed that it spoke a beautiful language of hope that sounded so broken against the reality out of which it was spoken; and that reality was all the dialogue of the extracts that preceded it. Warm but complex; loving and hating simultaneously; reaching out and cringing back; seeing and being blind. Sean Riley has written a play that spans time and geography and in the end comes up with a humanity that painfully has woven itself together into a tapestry of potential or of disaster … our choice. The quotes that I have extracted above were all spoken by various of the characters in a range of quite separate settings – Auschwitz, Kabul, an urban Australian setting, a remote rural one or a detention centre. Yet any one of them could have been said in a quite different setting to that in which it was used in the play. Try it – take any one of the lines above and move it to a character in a different scene … does it still work in its new setting? Does it still speak to you? For example:
So many layers … of hate … and loss … and hope … I believe in hope … or perhaps I am just a silly old man.
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These words were spoken in an Australian city – but they were born in Auschwitz, they could just as easily have been put in the mouths of one of the characters in Kabul or the community of the detention centre or in the other detention centre. Thinking of my constructed poem from Sean Riley’s words, I thought of so much that has been said in recent years about the refugee debate in this country. So much has been said – so very much, but has the discussion enlightened or darkened what we believe we know? Consider these statements:
• Asylum Seekers receive more than Centrelink recipients. • Asylum Seekers are given $5,000 and free housing when they arrive in
this country. • Asylum Seekers who arrive by boat are illegal entrants to Australia. • Prior to 2014 more Asylum Seekers came to Australia by boat than by
plane. • Prior to 2015 Australia received more asylum seekers per 1,000 people
than any other country. • Australia is in breach of international conventions on refugees.
You have doubtless heard all of them, or variants. But of those six statements of ‘fact’, only one is actually true. The falsity of the other five has not, nevertheless, stopped them being repeated as ‘truth’ many times over even when evidence proves them to be false. As humans we all have the instinct to survive; sometimes the means we use to do that can be flawed inasmuch as we may feel they help us to survive in the face of the crisis of living, even if they do so at a cost to others. One such flawed survival technique can be the choice to persist in a state of misinformation. An American commentator, Anne Pluta, recently wrote of a study done in 2000 by a team of American academics led by James Kublinksi. She wrote that the study found that:
American citizens with incorrect information can be divided into two groups, the misinformed and the uninformed. The difference between the two is stark. Uninformed citizens don’t have any information at all, while those who are misinformed have information that conflicts with the best evidence and expert opinion. … the most misinformed citizens tend to be the most confident in their views and are also the strongest partisans. These folks fill the gaps in their knowledge base by using their existing belief systems. Once these inferences are stored into memory, they become “indistinguishable from hard data,” Kuklinski and his colleagues found.
This research was American, but it seems as if the difference between those who are uninformed and capable of listening to facts from those who resist facts in the face of their misinformation can exist anywhere and in any era – its echoes can be found in Sean Riley’s Auschwitz, Kabul, the Australian city, the country town, the detention centre. “Beautiful Words” was written in 2005, a time full of heated debate about asylum seekers, boat people, refugees, terrorism, threats and more. Here in 2016, we can see the power of this play speaking to us about those times. But is it like the movies that Lurline, Pearl, Alf and Trent watch in Part 2? In other words, do we treat the play as a retro escape into a past where we can now say we would have
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done better? Sean Riley asks more of us than that – he forces us into confronting the question of how we would cope in the here and now and as we face an unknown future. 2005 did not anticipate the flooding of humanity that took place in 2015 into Europe and all the dilemmas that this has caused. How would fearful Sheree and activist Saul have reacted in the Europe of 2015? What is Sean Riley asking of us in this same contemporary world of mass movements of peoples? And just as we might think we can establish for ourselves a comfortable script of response to the current flood of refugees, are we ready to confront ourselves about the a vast background movement of people that has been taking place for twenty five years now? Since the early 1990s, one million poor people a week have taken their poverty with them from the countryside of the Third World (or the South as we now call it) to the cities of those same countries. In 1990, the world was 30% urbanised, by 2020 it will be two thirds urbanised; and most of those new urban dwellers will be living in vast slum megalopolises. The slums of Mumbai exceed in population the combined number of people who live in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. There is a growing fragility to life in those settings that most likely, over the coming decades, will fuel increasing mass migrations of people seeking better lives. How will we confront such a future? Will “Beautiful Words” represent a helpful way in which we can view the “movie” of things past? Or will it be a lens through which we can look at ourselves and the future?
[photo by Gu Xiong]
A few years ago, I visited the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. At the time they had a special exhibition that included a piece entitled “Becoming Rivers” (of which the photo above was a part). The artist, Gu Xiong, had wanted to speak of his own life journey. He wrote these words about the installation:
As children we always loved to fold paper boats and float them down the stream. We believed that they carried our hopes for the future, especially for going out into the world, into unknown places. This work carries forward the idea of migrations, including my own from China to Canada, by bringing the Yangtze and Fraser rivers together across the Pacific. Both
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rivers are formed by smaller rivers joining together as they flow towards the ocean. In my experience, they signify the coming together of peoples and cultures.
For me, there were no bridges to help me cross these rivers. I learned that you have to jump into the river and swim a long distance to experience another culture, and to be open to benefiting from differences. There is conflict in that process. I have asked myself, How can I bring the two main rivers in my life together? The answer: I have to become like a river myself—a river of migration, a river of trans-‐cultural identities, a river of change and uncertainty—in order to bring these forces into a third space.
Through the progress of “Beautiful Words”, each of the characters is faced with bringing the rivers of their experience into a third space.
Carrying hopes into the future – Gu Xiong’s thought brought to mind those words of someone who was an asylum seeker himself. Back in 1977, our Governor, Hieu Van Le, landed in this country as what some would call “an illegal”, coming on a leaky boat, hoping to be allowed in, and with no other luggage than, to use his own words, “an invisible suitcase of dreams”.
Somewhere over the rainbow-‐ Way up high – Birds fly over the rainbow – Why then oh why can’t I.
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Dr Gill Hicks, MBE, FRSA is the founder of the London-‐based not-‐for-‐profit M.A.D for Peace. She is a motivational speaker author, curator, and trustee for several cultural organisations. She began her career as a speaker in the wake of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. She was the last living victim rescued. Both her legs were amputated below the knee, and her injuries were so severe that she was initially not expected to live. She was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital without a name, identified only as "One Unknown". Her first book, One Unknown, was shortlisted in 2008 for the Mind Book of the Year for 2007. The following year, in 2008, she carried the Olympic torch in Canberra. Hicks was named South Australian of the year in November 2014 and in January 2016 was awarded an AM.
In her essay, Gillian Hicks closes with the words “human first” – Beautiful Words is about just that – the horrors, the humour, the care and the tragedy of being human. It speaks to what we will all do to survive, to belong, to be.
Beautiful Words – a reflection by Dr Gillian Hicks People are Powerful. We have the ability to make, to create the most extraordinary solutions – from housing to healthcare. We are innovators, explorers, artists and scientists. We are remarkable, expertly designed beings who have the privilege and responsibility of being the species in ‘charge’ of the planet on which we all live. People are Powerful. Every thought, every word and every action or ‘in action’ holds an impact that can have such an effect it can be felt from generation to generation. People are the Same, and yet different. We identify with our ‘group’, our ‘kind’, we bond through our faith, our culture, our nationality – these defining elements matter to us because they help us make sense of Who we are, where we have been and importantly, where we are going. Our identity essentially gives us our history and our plausible future. Imagine what it would feel like to lose your sense of ‘place’ and of ‘self’. Imagine if your home was no longer a place of safety, but somewhere where your life was under threat. Imagine. Wonderfully, that is all many of us will ever do. Wonderfully many of us will never have to know a reality of deadly fear, of bloody conflict and war, of absolute distress and displacement. Many of us will never know what it means to cling to your identity because that’s literally all you have left.
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People are Powerful -‐ and the sharing of our story, our journey is one of human kind’s most beautiful and most ancient forms of communication. Our stories often demonstrate just how interconnected and interdependent we all are, how we rely on each other to survive and indeed to thrive. My own personal story captures the very essence of Humanity, for my life was saved by strangers, courageous people who were prepared to place their own lives at risk in order to save mine. In the aftermath of the bomb blast, my first memory of rescue was the gentle touch of a paramedic, then the careful and gentle manoeuvre of what remained of my body out of the train wreckage. It was only when I woke up in hospital and became ‘aware’ that I read the label given to me, it was a hospital bracelet that chillingly read, One Unknown, Estimated Female. Those four words changed my life and changed my understanding and connection to humanity. What those words said to me was that my life wasn’t saved because I was ‘Gill’ – ‘difference’ didn’t make a difference to my rescue. To those who entered that carriage looking for signs of life, it didn’t matter what colour my skin was, it didn’t matter if I had a faith, or no faith at all, it didn’t matter if I was rich or poor – nothing mattered other than I was a precious Human Life. Their example showed my how to live, their example showed me the brilliance of humanity – of unconditional love, of empathy and being ‘one’. People are Powerful. I am always mindful that Someone, somewhere is feeling the effects of something we have said or done – being conscious and empathetic, honouring our bond with respect – powerful actions that could change the way we live, powerful actions that could provide us all with a new hierarchy in understanding and describing our identity. Human first.
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The exhibition Elyas Alavi and Bec Pannell had the pleasure of working with a class of students at the Adelaide Secondary School of English in Croydon led by the indomitable Maggie Gordon. Together, we worked on poetry, collage and performance, creating some wonderful poetry – much of which you can see displayed around the galleries of the theatre, alongside the collages. The starting point of it all is the students: I am. Elyas took us through the process of writing poetry using the famous Rumi poem I am as a touchstone, I am a refugee but I am also… The wonderful irony of this: countries “fight” over who Rumi belongs too. It is not just land that people argue over. Week by week we built the poems and the collages, but more than that: Elyas helped to build their confidence, their self worth, their self-‐belief. In a world that values the nuclear family, that has clear ideas about loyalty, motherhood, duty, many of these children had lost their mothers, siblings, uncles, fathers. Those who still had photographs of loved ones, of home, brought them in to use in the collages and as inspiration. Others brought in cultural items of importance – a waistcoat, a cross, a scarf. All of them brought pieces of themselves – we are still blown away by what these people have endured – most of them at a time in their lives when many of us are making choices about what degree we might do, whether we should work at Myer or at Hungry Jacks. What dress to wear to the formal, what PS4 game to buy next, whether that boy/girl really likes us, when our little sister will stop being annoying… The students were able to perform their poems at a large international day assembly in front of the State Minister for Education, Susan Close, and invited guests. Their artwork was displayed in the school at the end of term 4. They have now all moved on to new schools, ready for new adventures. Creative Producer and Performance Coach Bec Pannell Exhibition Curator Elyas Alavi
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Elyas Alavi, poet, curator, visual artist, refugee, Australian Elyas Alavi is an emerging artist based in Adelaide, South Australia. Alavi was born in Daikundi province, Afghanistan, and moved to Iran as a child, following the intensification of war in his homeland. In 2005, he went back to Afghanistan and worked with a number of magazines as a writer and designer. In late 2007 he came to Australia as a refugee at risk. Alavi graduated from a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2012, specialising in painting, and is currently undertaking a Masters by Research (Visual Arts) at the University of South Australia and has exhibited in Australia and Afghanistan artspaces including Nexus Multicultural Gallery, SASA Gallery, CACSA Project Space, IFA (Kabul) and Fontanelle Gallery. Elyas Alavi also is best known as an internationally renowned poet.He published 3 poetry book in Iran and Afghanistan. His first poetry book "I'm a daydreamer wolf" was published in 2008 in Tehran, followed by "Some wounds" in 2012 in Kabul and "Hodood" in 2015 in Tehran. He visits many issues in his works, but mainly memory, displacement, exile, social justice, gender issues, separation and the human nature. An excerpt from an article about Elyas from The Messenger, by Sophie Perri, Oct 03, 2013. You can read the whole article here: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/sa-‐lifestyle/elyas-‐alavi-‐is-‐an-‐artist-‐without-‐borders/story-‐fnizi7vf-‐1226732220764
POET and visual artist Elyas Alavi has spent much of his 30 years questioning where he truly belongs.
After fleeing his home in Afghanistan during the Soviet War, Alavi and his family spent many years living in exile and this lack of a sturdy base -‐ both physically and emotionally -‐ took its toll.
"For a long time I felt I did not belong anywhere," Alavi says.
"And anywhere I'd go they'd see me as an outsider."
Alavi came to Adelaide in 2007 after being classified as a refugee at risk by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and became an Australian citizen in 2011.
The combination of revisiting Afghanistan -‐ where he was reunited with two of his siblings after 21 years -‐ and becoming an Australian citizen has helped him finally cement his identity.
He realised how much he loved Australia after he returned from Afghanistan.
"By the time I got to Sydney airport I just went out and walked for six hours in the street and I felt that, I know everyone in this street and I know these buildings, these trees.
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"I wrote six short poems that day and one of them is about calling Australia my home."
…
Alavi has had a life of frightening experiences and uncertainty, but these days, he is happy and settled.
Art and poetry has been his outlet and given him a voice when it seemed no one was listening.
His paintings, where he experiments with red wine as a medium, have been displayed in Adelaide galleries.
He's had poetry books published in Iran and Afghanistan, where he has gained accolades such as the Annual Reporters Poetry prize (2009) and Young Poets' Book of the Year (2008).
He's a visual arts graduate and is now doing his Masters degree on Hazara people (Persian-‐speaking people from Afghanistan) and the notions of memory and displacement.
Alavi feels proud to say the number of migrants from the Hazara community studying at university is increasing.
"There were difficulties even to go to primary school in Afghanistan but here, they're not only studying for themselves but for their community."
Alavi says art has "no borders", and the opportunity to perform at the World Music Series is a way of challenging stereotypes and sharing his story.
Elyas also has a blogspot you might like to visit: http://elyasart.blogspot.com.au/
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These poems are from Maggie Gordon’s Adelaide Secondary School of English Class 2016. Overall 20 students participated in the project. We thank them for their bravery and generosity and all the amazing amounts of laughter and fun. I am a good girl I come from India I’m funny & I like to make others laugh I am Varsha I pray everyone have a good life, happy J I love people I am love Varsha I’m a 17 year old boy I’m the light of the morning I’m the snow of mountain I’m a child of the Pashtun people I’m loyal I’m the hope of my family I’m not poor I have my mum at home I’m the future of my country Sediq I am Fariba I am the all that could be seen or could be heard I am all memories and all thoughts I’m a butterfly, flying around the world I’m a river, soft, shining & singing I am all memories and all thoughts I’m an angel, I’m a good friend Fariba I am lonely as the moon & also useful as the moon My shadow is my best friend I am an atom, a little particle that cannot be seen without a microscope I’m the tears; I’m the sad moment & also the great moment of life I’m the eggs of dinosaurs I’m a dragon but a kind one! I don’t hide myself I’m Mr Yanik Inkhlingli from Kongo My wonderful country makes me smile even if there is no peace there My world is invisible, a vapour that can evaporate then change into rain My words are faster than thunder I am the death, I am the life Yanik
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I am a bird, a special bird I’m the Hope bird that can fly everywhere I’m an ocean full of beautiful fishes -‐ whales and sharks too I’m the future of my country I’m the dreams of my parents I am Latifa Soltni I am the past and I am the present Latifa I am a cute boy I’m funny I’m smaller than the sun I’m uglier than an angel! J Through many journeys I learned that Life is full of struggles and also happy moments Every decision we make leads us to a different road. I’m Ellen My mum is my life She is my sun, She is my world, my sea, my sky She is my light in the darkness I hope I’m always standing next to you & can fall sleep with you in my heart Ellen I am the earth that is giving you life I am the spirit I am the music that you feel, the mirror you watch I am the clothes that you have had I am a shirt that keeps you warm I am I am I am everything and I am you Tong I am the son of generosity I’m the son of the mighty Equestrian & the pure bred horse I am the past of the historic Babylonian nation I am a desert seeking for water, new hope I am an Arab I am the war & I am the peace Yousif I am Mohammad I’m the one who you can see all the seasons in my eyes I’m the heat of the sun I’m as big as Jupiter
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I am the galaxy I can be the pencil and you can be the paper U can be my favourite, I can be your housemate You, my admiral & I, your fallen soldier Mohammad I am April I’m hiding many secrets I am all things of past My family treated me like a cherry My brother protected me as a bodyguard! I come from my beloved country Rich in cultures and art My generation has just begun Racing as a marathon I am trying to catch the furthest star As the key to achieve my goal And this goal is me April I am Hasan I am far from home I am near home I look like Amir Khan! J This is the time to inspire This is the time to think, to work, be a friend, enjoy, This is the time to love This is the time to care, to dream Hasan I am Cung I am the leaves of pine trees in the Chin Hills I am a small town like Chin Hakha I am the Chin Mountain & Chin Mountain is me I am Myanmar Cung I’m a yawl of the wolves I’m the Persian sea, huge, vast I’m Narsis and I live outside the world with my own God I‘m shiny as sun, I’m the future of the future The world didn’t finish on 2012 because of me J Narsis
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She is the simple girl who goes on her own way She once cried, smiled and was sad but she has gone through it She once heard others gossip about her But a voice from the inside told her “Stay strong and never give up” That’s me and my heart Elizabeth I’m the sun in the day & the moon of the night I’m a super boy I am Burundian Sometimes I’m shivering as leaves in the strong wind I’m all wishes & dreams I’m the one who comes from dream time Beni I’m a river, always traveling I can’t stay at the same place I’m an emotional girl & also I’m strong girl like stone I’m the night, full of peace Australia is my new country Sima I’m a Rohingya boy I’m the one who had a long journey I was beaten by the Burmese government officers & came by boat to Australia Our boat broke & I swam for an hour to get to shore I’m the one who was kept in detention centre for one year I have no family here I had to escape from my beloved country Akram
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Q&A with Lauren Dempsey (Viorica, Mrs Greenberg) The most important thing/person/moment for your character/s: I think in my case with two characters there are a few different messages I could say but there is one message which they do share : 'Family always comes first' The take-‐home message of the play for you: It's a shame that the history of inequality in humanity seems to be a problem that repeats and destroys. There is a message in each act of this beautiful play which proves that, but if there is one way to sum up the heartache, love, laughter and history: 'We should learn from our past mistakes, so we may grow towards a brighter future together.' Why Theatre is important to youth: I believe theatre is important for kids that are looking to express themselves and learn skills not only in performance but to take with them in day to day life. Sayarts gives youth a place to grow, meet people like themselves and a safe place to fail, succeed, experiment, change and learn.
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Discussion questions: Symbolism & Imagery: Suitcases, shoes, water, mothers.
• What are the key symbols and imagery used in the play? • Which stood out for you? • How are they reflected in the exhibition and the essays? • What is curator Elyas Alavi’s key message in the exhibition?
The poster At a point in the play, we hear that Ari has sewn his lips together. This is a strategy used by some detainees. We used this image in the poster, which shows Tom McCann as Ari, with his lips sewn together.
• Why do you think detainees sew their lips together? • How do this image and this action reflect on the title “Beautiful Words”? • What other forms of protest have detainees used in other places and at
other times? Mis/information In his essay, Lynn Arnold says “As humans we all have the instinct to survive; sometimes the means we use to do that can be flawed inasmuch as we may feel they help us to survive in the face of the crisis of living, even if they do so at a cost to others. One such flawed survival technique can be the choice to persist in a state of misinformation” Where are the moments in the play when this is true? Time, generations, journeys Many of the characters in Beautiful Words go on a journey – describe some of the journeys you remember from it – physical, emotional, political, ideological. Who do you think goes on the most life-‐changing journey and why? Borders and containment – freedom and captivity are major themes in the play, the exhibition, and the essays. Discuss the various notions of borders and freedom seen in the exhibition, depicted in the essays, and present in the play. Belonging and identity Not all culture is material – what are some of the pieces of non material culture that characters in the play exhibit and hold onto The medium is the message: Beautiful words, film music Language, music, and film are key elements throughout Beautiful Words. The gypsies talk about music as “an inheritance”. Pearl and Lurl live their lives through the medium of iconic films.
• Why do you think Sean Riley chose the films that are mentioned and referenced in Beautiful Words? Can you identify most of them?
• “Beautiful Words” – in the play words are crucial to several characters. Reflect on the idea of beautiful words to the following characters: Old Roman, Ari, Saul, Victor.
Labels -‐ Human First
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The world loves to use labels – asylum seeker/refugee/displaced person/ queue jumper/ detainee/ people smuggler/illegal alien/illegal immigrant/migrant/ émigré/settler/colonizer -‐ what do they mean? Do you know the difference between these labels. Is there such a thing as an illegal immigrant? In her essay, Gill Hicks focuses on the notion of “human first” -‐ Below are four images (copyright undetectable) that surfaced in social media in September 2015. They are of Aylan Kurdi and his drowning. In a way that we had never seen before, these images “humanized” what was happening to refugees/asylum seekers out at sea. There are many other images of asylum seekers, displaced persons and refugees on social media and the internet. It might be interesting to discuss what connects you to them, what alienates you from them.
• Then contrast these to the character of Ari – how did you feel about Ari? • What connected you to him? • What did you feel and think about him? • Would you have been a Sheree or a Pearl?
End of education notes and study guide