Last Updated on October 17, 2024 by themigrationnews
Shira Sebban (2023). Vietnam’s Modern Day Boat People: Bridging Borders for Freedom. McFarland, softcover, 236 pages, $39.95.
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8537-3, eISBN: 978-1-4766-5009-8
Shira Sebban’s Vietnam’s Modern Day Boat People is not one for the faint- hearted. One would feel that Sebban has put the reader parallelly on the boat to witness the modern Vietnamese refugee plight as they sail with paddles of hope only to be hit by currents of emotions, trials and tribulations to a much-yearned resettlement on a shore where the refugees could let go and just be.
Sebban, whose parents had once upon a time been Jewish refugees, is a writer, editor and member of Supporting Asylum Seekers Sydney (SASS). She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2022. The research required for the book has been acquired from English- language, Vietnamese and Indonesian sources. The book serves as a well- researched account of the narrative and has a repository of pictorial evidences and legal data to back up all the facts. Apart from being the guardian angel and saving grace in these people’s lives’, Sebban has done commendable and praiseworthy work in collating all the data and putting them down in the book.
What hits the most throughout the seven chapters of the book is how the author has captured and put down with extreme and vivid detailing; the sequence of events. The roots of the desire of these refugees to flee from their land plunged from factors such as the seizing of property by the Vietnamese government, the loss of livelihood owing to Chinese attacks to their fishing boats and discrimination attached to being Catholics. The precarious plan to escape was then made by renting out boats and carrying supplies of food for the journey. The perception, legalities, stringencies and various dimensions of other state governments in their policies when it came to accommodating and rehabilitating refugees is also embarked upon extensively in the book. The refugees were dead scared of being sent back to Vietnam owing to the severity of the treatments of the police and the heavy jail terms. This is the story of Vietnamese refugees as they flee from their land to be in other states such as Australia, Indonesia, the U.S.A and Canada.
Alongside this, the earnest, relentless and resilient quests of the author and multiple human rights lawyers in brainstorming and jotting down plans, finding leads, organising funds, reaching out to various organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Amnesty International, Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment (VOICE) etc to the responses of the various organisations involved, the heavy imageries of the detention centres and the struggle for life and livelihood amidst deemed illegalities are what frames the picture of the Vietnamese refugee ordeals against the “look for a better life, a birthright of any human being.”
The book holds its ground in conveying to the readers, the lack of agency and uncertainty the refugees faced. It was particularly disturbing when each time, one would assume ‘that this would be it’, whenever a flicker of light and channel of hope would appear, only to see them jostled to the ground like mere blocks of legos. Evidently, the storytelling is a combined pursuit of the fiery resolute of the author, and the will of late human rights advocate Ngoc Nhi (Ann) Nguyen in wanting to echo these subaltern voices to the world. Sebban has also outlined how this narrative has not garnered much limelight in the Western and English language media which gives it reason, that this must be shared “to celebrate the families’ hard- won resettlement in Canada.” Although emotions are not undermined, the book is more rigorously laden with presenting the incidents factually.
Without a doubt, Sebban’s book will definitely make one reflect on the juxtaposition of uncompromised State Security and National Interest to the heavy and helpless refugee realities across the world. From the struggle of seeking asylum in a foreign land, to having to endure trauma from endless repercussions and accusations in host states, being associated with smugglers, probable deportation of the refugees back to where they came from without even ensuring their safety or threats, being put in detention centres where refugees do not even see the light of the day, attending continuous interviews and signing agreements with the system, having to prove again and again, to the legalities being difficult to push through even if the case is proved right.
The author could have provided a list of the individuals mentioned in the book and a brief profile on them at the beginning or end of the book since there are a lot of people involved in the book. However, the section titled ‘Further Reading by Chapter’ just shows the dedication given to the case studies of the refugees whereby there is more information regarding the abuses in detention centres, screening, support and sponsorship programmes etc that there is no stone left unturned in objectively portraying the state systems as it is. In this way, the lived realities of the modern-day boat people are an engaging eye- opener and sensitises the reader.
Considering the global events today, the refugee question may be a perplexing one but the book draws a call to action by policymakers in addressing asylum seekers and also the structural problems at the grassroot level that make people flee from their homeland which is supposedly the place where one should feel the safest. The physical and mental scars from identity and space politics becomes the genesis of their exodus, only to be deepened further by discrimination in the foreign land. On a personal note, the author’s gift of an English- Vietnamese dictionary to each of the families upon losing their title as refugees due to acquiring Permanent Residence in Canada was heart tugging. It shows that the empathy in each of us must live to love, be aware and extend services to the destitute for the difference that we can bring will be a significant one.
The book would be a very valuable read for human rights activists, policy enthusiasts focussing on immigration policies, area studies scholars specialising on Southeast Asian states, Australia, U.S. and Canada as wells as academics in Refugee and Migration Studies since Sebban’s work serves as a first- hand case study itself. The book stands out for a number of reasons including, the fact that, it offers a contemporary narrative of boat refugees from just the past decade, a communal narrative in the way the experiences of the refugees are outlined together, human rights violations, placing their hardships in the perspective of broader discourses about justice and freedom and the way in which the organisations and states have their legalities, thus presenting the reader with the challenges and limitations faced, all of which can be studied to bridge gaps.
“Vietnam’s Modern Day Boat People: Bridging Borders for Freedom” is a compelling story that has lessons for everyone whilst also reminding us that, for every refugee, there is a struggle that they channelise so that theirs’ becomes’ a story about hope. This is ultimately, a story about strong warriors who persisted and made it.
Sandra Sajeev D Costa is a research intern at the West Asia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi.