Time, torture and Manus Island: an interview with Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian

Abstract

Former asylum seeker detainee and journalist Behrouz Boochani (author of No Friend but the Mountains) and his collaborator Omid Tofighian speak about the experience of indefinite incarceration on Australia’s Manus Island and the psychological toll of waiting. They compare this form of detention to prison and the existential impact to torture. This Kyriarchal System, they argue, strips the individual of identity and humanity and they explain how such a system can perhaps be questioned better through the poetic fiction that Boochani has used in his path-breaking narrative than through appeal to dry rational facts and figures.

Living Death at the Intersection of Necropower and Disciplinary Power: A Qualitative Exploration of Racialised and Detained Groups in Australia

“…As Pugliese ( 2008 : 208) argues, because of the corresponding structures and experiences, the terms ‘detention centre’ and ‘prison’ must be recognised as synonymous. The violence of immigration detention is therefore clear and the uncertainty that arises from its indefinite nature is particularly cruel and psychologically distressing (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 ; Bosworth 2014 : 183; Canning 2017 : 71; Pugliese 2002 ). Reports of physical and sexual violence are also commonplace (Canning 2017 : 71; Perera and Pugliese 2021 ; Vasefi 2021 ).…”

“…There are also accounts of violence from the voices of those detained (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 ; Boochani 2018 , 2020 ; Green et al 2017 ). Boochani ( 2018 ) and Tofighian ( 2018 , 2020 ) draw on Boochani’s experiences of detention on Manus Island and describe the violence there as a ‘kyriarchal system’.…”

“…The term kyriarchal is employed here to depict immigration detention as a system that uses ‘systematic torture [to] erase the identity, agency and personhood of the imprisoned refugees’ (Tofighian 2020 : 9). Boochani also reflects on the theme of time and explores how the uncertainty of indefinite detention is reproduced through various disciplinary processes in the daily lives of those imprisoned (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 ). As expressed by Boochani and Tofighian, unlike a camp, the system is not designed to kill but is instead ‘designed to [repeatedly] torture people’ (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 : 82).…”

“…Boochani also reflects on the theme of time and explores how the uncertainty of indefinite detention is reproduced through various disciplinary processes in the daily lives of those imprisoned (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 ). As expressed by Boochani and Tofighian, unlike a camp, the system is not designed to kill but is instead ‘designed to [repeatedly] torture people’ (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 : 82). This depiction is similarly expressed by Khosravi ( 2021 : 13–14) who explores ‘waiting’ as an ‘experience of time’ that is hierarchically structured in accordance with intersecting and interlocking identities.…”

“…Structural violence also plays out more narrowly within carceral spaces through harmful systems and processes. As shown in the first-hand accounts, structural violence existed within immigration detention and prison at a systems-level through, indefinite periods of detention, lockdown and isolation (Bhatia and Bruce-Jones 2021 ; Bosworth 2014 ; Canning 2017 ; Khosravi 2021 ), and inadequate medical care and inhospitable conditions that operated to cause pain and suffering (Loughnan 2019 ).…”