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A review by namakurhea
No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani
4.0
"No Friend but the Mountains" by Behrouz Boochani. Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction. The book is an autobiography of Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist who sought asylum in Australia only to be held in Manus Island Detention Centre in Papua New Guinea from 2013 until its closure in 2017. The whole entire book was written on a mobile phone (using WhatsApp) and smuggled out of Manus island as thousands of PDF files.
Article 1 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
In the case of Manus Island Detention Center, refugees are prisoners. On what grounds? Well, no one knows. The system is designed to erase the human faces of these brothers and sisters. To highlight the gap between us vs them. The farther and deeper the gap, the stronger the system becomes. What is scary is system can become the norm. And once it is the norm, how can we say we are human?
It is definitely a thought provoking read... Though the events happened in Australia, refugee crisis is also something that is happening in Indonesia, USA, Germany, all over the world. As conflicts and warfare brew, many humans are displaced and forced to flee tonother countries. Where do we stand as a nation? Def not an easy book to read but one that has an important message.
*UPDATE* As of July 2020, Behrouz Boochani has been granted refugee status in New Zealand.
Article 1 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
In the case of Manus Island Detention Center, refugees are prisoners. On what grounds? Well, no one knows. The system is designed to erase the human faces of these brothers and sisters. To highlight the gap between us vs them. The farther and deeper the gap, the stronger the system becomes. What is scary is system can become the norm. And once it is the norm, how can we say we are human?
It is definitely a thought provoking read... Though the events happened in Australia, refugee crisis is also something that is happening in Indonesia, USA, Germany, all over the world. As conflicts and warfare brew, many humans are displaced and forced to flee tonother countries. Where do we stand as a nation? Def not an easy book to read but one that has an important message.
*UPDATE* As of July 2020, Behrouz Boochani has been granted refugee status in New Zealand.