The story of peaceful community activism to prevent baby Asha from being returned to detention on Manus Island has been celebrated. It is right and good that the outpouring of community — and professional — goodwill has at least delayed the return of the infant to what are reported to be the terrible conditions of the detention centre on Nauru.
Despite individual 'wins' — such as the baby Asha decision — Australia's asylum seeker laws (and policies) involve unresolved systemic issues. As happy as I am for the temporary reprieve for the infant Asha and her family I cannot help but wonder if wins for individual cases, as important as they are, fail to gain any traction on the central issues.
Refugee campaigners have, for example, increased the profile of individual asylum seekers, lately exemplified by the release of names and photos of babies due to return to Nauru.
This is an important strategy, to humanise the people who are being harmed or are likely to be harmed by the Australian government's policy of detention. And, by all accounts, it has been successful in garnering public support for these small children.
My concern however is that this strategy is indicative of a fragmentation of asylum seeker debate in Australia.
Lowy Institute polls indicate that six out of ten of Australians support mandatory detention. It is difficult for refugee campaigners to get public support for a broader campaign about asylum seekers or mandatory detention, and the support for the named infants, including baby Asha, may indicate a threshold of suffering beyond which the Australian public is unwilling to accept.
There are however multiple layers to the plight of asylum seekers in Australia, and a reprieve for Asha cannot fix the system. It is almost as if there is what I might describe as a 'pyramid of suffering' of those who imperil their lives to save their lives.
At the base is war and persecution in the asylum seekers' homeland. They run the risk of drowning at sea, and find themselves in detention in Australia.
But Australia has shifted these people offshore, where the island detention offers them no escape — and is coupled with institutional cruelty. Women face sexual violence, children face forced removal and severe mental health issues, and babies likewise are in an inappropriate and unhealthy environment.
The discourse in Australia has struggled to find its level in this pyramid, and there is a lot of talking at cross-purposes.
The government speaks