John Olunkwa: Refugees should make the most of opportunities in Australia

Written by Nnaemeka Meribe

One thing John Olunkwa does not like to remember is life in Guinea as a refugee. He hates discussing it as, according to him, it reminds him of the worst period of his life. “It was nightmarish. I don’t like remembering it. If it was possible I would have deleted that aspect of my life from my memory long ago”, says John, a former Sierra Leonean refugee now living in Australia.

Despite his dislike for discussing his days as a refugee in Africa, John believes that being a refugee can make one cultivate a can-do attitude. While acknowledging that the execrable conditions of refugee camps can be a motivation for crime, he believes that from such survival- of-the-fittest environment one can develop rare resilience and doggedness that are essential for survival. At this point, John begins to reel out names of successful people from refugee backgrounds, including Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Madeleine Albright, Thabo Mbeki and Croatian soccer star, Dejan Loveren.

Eddy says he spends most of his time reading about the success stories of people from refugee backgrounds. In fact, during our meeting he was holding the book, The Happiest Refugee, by Ann Do, the Vietnamese author and actor whose family fled to Australia as refugees in 1980. “I am enjoying this book. So much inspiration to draw from it. You can see the zeal to survive, the doggedness and perspicacity”.

As the discussion shifts to the rights of refugees John gets animated. From the way he gesticulates, you can tell his passion for the cause. He has the provisions of the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention (also known as the Geneva Convention) at his finger tips and is always ready to cite relevant sections to prove a point during discussions. “Article 33 of the Geneva Convention Article 33 provides that ‘No contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’”, John recites as he makes a point regarding Australian government’s insistence on continuing its policy of mandatory detention and offshore.

The refugee issue is very political and for politicians, it seems the less they say about it the better for them. John, however, believes that the issue has refused to die because politicians have refused to address it properly He says it is all about our shared humanity. “I wish we should talk more about refugees and how they are being treated”, he says, “Don’t pray to be a refugee. I will always praise those who keep the issue in the public domain. It is service to humanity”. He reaches for the book, Refugees: Why seeking asylum is legal and Australia's policies are not (by Jane Mcadam and Fiona Chong), and shows me. “I have read this book back to back many times since 2015 when I bought it. The authors of this book have done a good job on the rights of refugees”, he observes. “This is what politicians should be reading”.

What has John done for the refugee community? “A lot”, he says, revealing that he has worked as a case officer for refugees while working with Life Without Barriers and Red Cross. “I worked for Life Without Barriers and Red Cross, providing competent case management support for people from a diverse range of asylum seeker/refugee/humanitarian backgrounds”. He says working with these two organisations availed him of the opportunity to listen to stories of refugees from different backgrounds. “I have been there, you know”. Life as a refugee is tough, he says shaking his head three times. “But then every refugee has a unique story. So, I listened to each person’s story and made strong a strong case for them.

His advocacy for refugees does not begin and end at workplace and meetings. He has written articles on refugees’ contributions to Australian economy. One of such articles, How refugees stimulate the economy, was published on the La Trobe University website during his Master of International Development programme in the university. His master’s degree dissertation also focused on social exclusion of refugees in Australia. He is currently putting together a PhD proposal on the effect of immigration detention law on refugees’ economic and social contributions to Australia.

John grew up in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. He has fond memories of the beautiful West African city. “Life was good as a kid in Freetown. We lived in Goderich, a relatively quiet suburb about 20 kilometres from downtown Freetown”, he says, nodding his head and smiling as he recollects. “Goderich was a beautiful community with beautiful city. As kids we could play everywhere, eat everywhere. There was no discrimination. Families shared things in common. Any adult could discipline any kid found misbehaving. It was such a beautiful communal life we lived”, he adds.

But that beautiful life in Goderich was truncated in 1991 when rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with the backing of the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), stormed Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government in Sierra Leone. John was just 10 years old then. Thenceforth his life became thickly sown with thorns. “Everything became disorganised for my family”. I did not really understand what was happening”, Eddy recalls. “We could hear sounds of gunshots from afar. Everybody was talking about rebels but I did not understand what they meant by rebels. I could notice the hopeless situation around us”.

Eventually, Johns family escaped to Guinea in 1994 after moving around and living in different parts of Sierra Leone. “We were practically in transit everyday for three years”, he recalls. “We moved from town to town, village to village in search of a safe place away from the war zone. But each time we heard that the rebels were approaching we would move. God bless my parents. They really suffered for my siblings and I. They kept moving us till we found our way to Guinea.

While Guinea provided some sort of relief for John and his family, it came with its own challenges. The condition of the refugee camp, he reveals, is better imagined than experienced. “Yes, we were now settled because we were not living in fear in terms of the rebels approaching and all that, but then there was another kind of fear. “People were dying on daily basis, he says moodily. Cholera was killing people, malaria was killing people, kwashiorkor was killing people…death, death, everywhere. It was as if people were gathered together in a place to die in turns. You see why I don’t like remembering Guinea. I saw more deaths in Guinea than I saw in Sierra Leone while escaping the war”.

With John’s emotion almost getting the better of him, I switched the topic to his family. John got married to beautiful Irene in 2013 and they have a four-year old daughter, Ola. Eddy says fatherhood has been awesome. “Ola has been a handful, a pleasant handful”, he chuckles. She is too strong and intelligent for her age. She is everywhere, doing everything and asking 100 intelligent questions in a minute. She says she wants to have a sibling. Maybe we will grant her request soon”, he says amid mischievous laugh.

Australia has become home to John. He is not contemplating returning to Sierra Leone. “Maybe we will be visiting Sierra Leone once in a while—at least for Ola to know her roots. But Australia is home. I love it here. My family loves it here. This is home”, he says.

John says coming to Australia is the best thing that has happened to him. “It was not easy when we arrived Australia in June 2006. I was experiencing culture shock every day. But the Australian government helped us to settle in. The government gave us allowances and supported us to return to school”. He believes that living in Australia is like being given a second chance in life. After literally walking through the shadows of death in Sierra Leone and seeing people around him die in refugee camp in Guinea, he cannot be more grateful for the good life he appears to be enjoying in Australia.

While John has serious reservations with Australian government regarding the off shore refugee detention camp, he wants people with refugee background already living in Australia to make good use of the vast opportunities provided by the government. He believes Australia has provided everything a refugee needs to be successful. “Australia offered me a second chance in life. This country offered me opportunities I never dreamt of. I was able to go to university, graduate and do a master’s without paying a dime”, he says, “My advice to refugees in Australia is that they should make the most of the opportunities here and be successful”

Two days before my interview with John, he attended a meeting of the African community in Melbourne. He says the meeting focused on the profiling of Africans by the media and the urgent need to counter the narrative that Africans are criminals.  The meeting, he informs, is part of ongoing coordinated responses to the 7 News documentary, African Gang, which highlighted the criminal activities of some African Australians.

“That 7 News documentary was in bad taste. By using the phrase, ‘African Gang’, it impugned the character of everyone from Africa, a continent with over 1.2 billion people from 55 different countries”, he explains. “The vast majority of people from African heritage that I know in Melbourne and Victoria are working hard to contribute to Australia and their families. It is the success stories of these honourable African Australians that we will use to push back the warped narrative”, he adds.