Les Miserables

The Park hotel in Melbourne has rarely been in the news until recently. In the last two weeks, however, news reporters, curious fans, bloggers and general public have been showing up in front of the hotel in droves. Not because it is a new property, or is the fanciest of locales, or a tourist hub. It was because of a particular resident, the number 1 Tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, who was detained there after his now-infamous visa issue. Curious reporters and tennis fans learned to their surprise Mr Djokovic was not the only person who had been detained there. There were dozens of other people, far less famous and infinitely poorer, who had been confined there as well. Most of these people had been confined there for well over a year — far longer than the length of Mr Djokovic’s total stay. These people were forced to live in rooms with windows sealed shut so that no fresh air could come. There have been reports of pests in the room and maggot-infested food served to these detainees. These people had been moved from their prior confinement location, the offshore detention centres (that resemble concentration camps) in Pacific Islands. Some had been in these camps for well over nine years.

While the superstar athlete has had access to elite lawyers, a day in court, and plenty of news coverage, others in the same hotel have gotten none of this. The problem is not just that the Australian system has treated Djokovic differently, and the local authorities in Victoria have demonstrated their willingness to bend and ignore their own rules for the privileged and the elite, it is also that all of us have been oblivious to the pain and suffering of people all around us.

With the exception of those who study global migration, asylum seekers and persecution of vulnerable groups, few have bothered to acknowledge the inhumane system of detention and confinement that successive Australian governments have used. The offshore detention centres are among the most inhumane asylum centres, and have led to suicides among the detainees. They have been routinely called out by human rights groups for the evil they represent, and even the government of Australia has acknowledged serious problems there. But that has mattered little to us. Park hotel was interesting because of Djokovic, and it is now a lot less relevant because the star athlete is no longer in Australia. Who cares about the plight of those miserable souls who do not know how long they will be forced to remain in their rooms?

Covid-19, across the world, has shown the huge disparity between the haves and the have-nots — not only in terms of their access to care and treatment, and their risk in losing their lives and livelihoods, but also in how the system treats them. The rules are not rules when it comes to the elite. Even in this saga of unforced errors in the Australian Open, it is troubling how we are unwilling to seriously discuss the prejudiced system that treats people unequally. If most of us were to make an error on an immigration form about our Coid-19 status (or other critical information), refuse to answer basic questions with complete honesty and were caught, we would not get a chance to say that it was an error made by our agent or a slight oversight. A weak non-apology would not be enough. There wouldn’t be any real chance of an appeal, or any opportunity to be in front of a judge. The response would be swift.

It would be naïve to think this inequality only reigns supreme in Australia, or only elite athletes get to benefit from an unequal system. But then, the glass sometimes is half full. Who knows that out of this bizarre series of events, we may start to care about the unequal ones.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2022.

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