Stateless, their homes razed, terrorised, confined to camps _life for the Rohingya is a daily nightmare The Tiger’s Cage On PEN Melbourne Magazine 2/2019 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=660036881147161&id=100014225644826 Azad Mohammed (poetry) and Emily Reid (prose) Em Louem / Azad Mohammed There was a tiger in its pen, Stripes matted with dirt Who paced around, As if to change his view of the world Outside the cage. The doomsday Australian movies skip the main event and start with the apocalyptic and post- war scenarios. They don’t show the desperation of thousands of children deported to Mad Max– like Taliban-controlled deserts in Afghanistan. Or the full-blown monsoon, mud and mosquitos in the air thick as thieves. Humidity heavy, as Rohingya refugees run through rivers, starved, fending off wild animals, military and dengue alike. The actors still run wild with (sassy blond) ruffed-up hair, dirt on (tanned) faces—but miraculously they all have shoes, clothes, and always had time to pack. They don’t clutch tattered identity documents, their most important and only possession, despite them not even being recognised. And they don’t get forced to leave their children. They also don’t leave with a single bullet sounding the air, without being able to stop for a breath, rasping like razor blades, realising only too late who they had left behind to the green uniforms torching their houses—and as refugees, men, women, boys and girls continually emphasise following genocide—the sexual violence that permeates every aspect of the narrative. Glee among the crowds, Small children crying. Some were angry, others were in awe. Some imagined the caged beast as living free. Except that for the Rohingya living in confined camps, without freedom of movement, this wasn’t sudden. It was the third mass displacement across the border. And this time it was progressive, their identity cards evolved eight times since their grandparents, denying more and more freedoms each time. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ycFdRngpk/?igshid=19wen2zhwbv9g
