Behrouz Boochani's 'Freedom only freedom' Book

Heritage week provides us with a timely reminder that Ballarat has a long history of being populated by people from all around the world. By 1858 there were around 60,000 people in Ballarat and surrounds including those that had come from countries such as England, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, and China.

Kurdish journalist and human rights activist Behrouz Boochani outside the abandoned Manus Island naval base where he had been locked up. Picture Getty Images

We know that these people came to seek their fortune and the freedom those earnings provide, and I was reminded of this history while listening to a very moving conversation between Omid Tofighian, translator of a newly released book Freedom Only Freedom, and the editor of The Courier, Eugene Duffy at the Eureka Centre*.

Their inspiring conversation covered topics such as - how language and terms such as 'illegal' transform how we interpret events; how the force of fear affects our ability to engage in our common humanity; how when journalism fails, the arts can succeed in reframing how we can humanise the 'other'; and how writing can be both an act of resistance and a pathway to freedom.

Omid and Eugene reminded us, that it is our stories, that can sway us when facts and rational data fail to reach our empathic hearts. The stories in Behrouz Boochani's latest edited book Freedom Only Freedom, and his previous book, No Friend But The Mountains, tell heart wrenching stories of his experience as a refugee, where our immigration system refused to speak his name, instead calling him MEG45.

Using 'political poetics' Boochani writes: We are resisting because we want freedom in a safe environment. The core concern is freedom...only freedom. The rest of what you hear are just peripheral issues.

History has shown that humans have the potential to be extraordinarily callous and cruel and that the cultivation of compassion can provide a powerful antidote to these dispositions. Compassion provides the strength, wisdom, and courage to address suffering, to resolve conflict, and to create nurturing connections across our diversity.

In addition to concern for our own residents, it's encouraging therefore that there are many initiatives in Ballarat that also reflect our concern for people in other countries. These include members of the Ballarat East Men's Shed who have made hundreds of handmade toys which will soon be sent to children in war torn Syria; Zonta Ballarat's birthing kits that are sent to help birthing assistants in developing countries; and this weekend also saw the official launch of the Ballarat Afghan Action Group, which provides food and aid to vulnerable Afghans, oppressed by the Taliban, particularly women and children.

Eugene Duffy began this event with a reminder that Heritage Week offers us the time to reflect on the soul of our city - and it finished with a statement by a young Afghan father who said that at last he feels at home, noting simply '...when they (people in Ballarat) smile at me then I feel free'.

*This event was organised by Ballarat Afghan Action Group, in partnership with Ballarat Libraries. Dr Lynne Reeder is a member of the Compassionate Ballarat Steering Group and her mother's family came to Ballarat in the 1850's after escaping the famine that was raging in Ireland at the time.

Dr Lynne Reeder, Adjunct Research Fellow

Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Federation University Australia