Chair of the Harmony Alliance Nyadol Nyuon has shared a vision for a reimagined Australia, where racism is not tolerated and women feel safe in the streets, in parliament and at home.
In a speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Nyuon gave a first-hand account of her lived experience in Australia, having arrived here as a young adult after growing up in refugee camps in Kenya. She spoke about the brutal racism and discrimination she and her family have faced, and said it is possible for us to reimagine multiculturalism in this country.
Nyuon’s speech on Wednesday coincided with the launch of a landmark national report by the Harmony Alliance and the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre, of migrant and refugee women in Australia, the first large-scale study of its kind. The survey, which heard the experiences of 1400 migrant and refugee women, revealed that one-third had experienced family and domestic violence.
Of these women who had experienced domestic violence, 91 per cent experienced controlling behaviours, while 42 per cent experienced physical or sexual violence.
The survey also found that for migrant and refugee women who had experienced victimisation that was not domestic violence, 40 per cent reported that the crime was motivated by bias and/or prejudice. Just 30 per cent of those surveyed reported they trusted their neighbours “a great deal” or “a lot”.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Nyuon said: “It tells you some part of our story, our lived experiences here, how we move and feel and live in this country, that is now our country, too”.
Nyuon told the story of when Australia first felt like home to her, when she arrived in Melbourne in 2005.
“I had landed at Melbourne Tullamarine airport with an Australian passport in hand and I handed that passport to the immigration officer. She inspected it and turned to me, and said: ‘Welcome home’,” Nyuon said.
“Welcome home. These were the words that marked for me the end of a search for a physical home, but the beginning of a sense of an emerging identity.”
Nyuon said she had been racially attacked by a police officer online, an experience that left her unable to feel safe in this country.
“A serving police officer wrote to me on Facebook and called me an ‘ignorant c***’, who should ‘f*** off back to the war-torn shithole country I came from’. I know that sounds like a rap number, so I’m gonna let the rest of you decode it,” she said.
“After reading violent abuse directed at me online, I could no longer take my security for granted. Since then, I have never felt fully safe in that innocent way I felt when I first landed in Australia from Kakuma refugee camp.
“The truth is, I am afraid to even mention this incident, because many people expect that because of what Australia has given me, I should simply be grateful. Discussions about race, or racism, are seen as biting the hand that fed you.”
Despite this incident, and facing other merciless, racist, online trolling for speaking up, Nyuon said she thinks it’s possible for Australia to reimagine itself as a place where racism and misogyny is not tolerated.
“Multiculturalism is a grand and revolutionary concept. But I think its purpose is really simple. It is to live with each other without the fear of each other,” she explained.
“This means a country where we have a common bond and where racism is not tolerated, where women feel safe on the street and in parliament, where they feel safe in their homes, a country where a visa status is not a tool for coercive control.
“I know I sound a little bit aspirational, and maybe, as my reading suggests, there is little appetite or tradition in Australia for grand statements.
“But I stand here as a young refugee who once had big and impossible dreams, and who arrived here with no money, and who, with the generosity of this nation – when they were willing to – and a vision of multiculturalism created before she was born, made many of her impossible dreams seem real today.
“I want us to reimagine this country.”