Boochani Behrouz - No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison

About No Friend but the Mountains

Where have I come from?

From the land of rivers, the land of waterfalls, the land of ancient chants, the land of mountains...

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island. He has been there ever since.

People would run to the mountains to escape the warplanes and found asylum within their chestnut forests...

This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile.

Do Kurds have any friends other than the mountains?

A chant, a cry from the heart, a lament, fuelled by a fierce urgency, written with the lyricism of a poet, the literary skills of a novelist, and the profound insights of an astute observer of human behaviours and the ruthless politics of a cruel and unjust imprisonment. ARNOLD BLAZE

Our government jailed his body, but his soul remained that of a free man. RICHARD FLANAGAN

The Warship Meditations / Our Golshifteh Is Truly Beautiful

The waves have freed us from their clutches /

The waves have spared our lives /

I laugh at them /

I laugh in triumph /

Laugh to express the feeling of victory deep inside.

Dozens of humans with deteriorated and crushed bodies sit in lines of varying length on the deck of a military vessel, making a chain. Azadeh and The Friend Of The Blue Eyed Boy are in the front row, staring wordlessly at a few soldiers who stand there looking like clothes hangers. Mani With The Bowed Leg sits at the head of one of these human chains with his wife and small, boisterous child they watch the soldiers attending to the others.

The only sounds are waves bashing every now and then into the body of the warship. I have never seen the waves so recalcitrant and unconstrained. They grow wilder, attacking the ship with more ferocity. Yet somehow they appear more beautiful. More admirable.

We can do nothing else but sit. Listening to the waves and following their rhythm is like a fascinating form of entertainment, a good way to pass the time. Until just the day before, waves had inflicted the deadliest sensations. Now the waves are like childrens playthings; even the tallest and most powerful wave can only splash a few drops of water onto our heads and faces.

Following days of hardship, it is like a dream /

Night descends, bringing bright skies that contrast the darkness of the previous night /

Serene /

Gracious /

The moon is more beautiful than before /

It has nestled within the embrace of the sky /

It is watching over us /

There is no trace left of that deranged moon, that brutal moon /

There is no trace left of those dark clouds, those prowling clouds /

Everything is calm /

Everything in its rightful place /

Perhaps the sky /

Perhaps the moon /

Perhaps the stars know that it is no longer necessary to inflict violence upon us /

They know that it is no longer necessary to instil terror within us /

They know that they have to transform into beauty, into benevolence /

They must reflect our thoughts /

Our thoughts full of dreams and excitement /

All over the deck of that warship sit human beings /

They are human beings who still wear the scars of dying /

The scars from when death clawed at their faces /

They sit passively on the deck /

But they are happy.

No-one dares to indicate their happiness while under the nose of the stern-faced military. It is as if everyone had arranged earlier that they should hide their joy until they are no longer under military control. Perhaps the idea of expressing joy creates fear in their hearts and minds; the military could very well be averse to it and return them to Indonesia. Perhaps no-one is sure that the deck on that warship is Australian territory; no-one can believe they have really arrived in the land of freedom. Whatever it is, whatever feeling, whatever thoughts are running through the minds of those passengers, they all remain seated in silence throughout the night. Like frightened children, they do not let out a peep.

Even the boisterous child of Mani With The Bowed Leg seems to know this. The heavy silence in the atmosphere has kept the child mute while resting on the fathers lap. The child stares restlessly at the father who stays alert to his surroundings. Showing the curiosity characteristic of children, the toddler examines the features of the fathers face, following the fathers gaze.

The Penguin is laid out flat on the floor just like the night before. It is bizarre, he is still struggling against death, he is still captive to the power of death. His eyes are open in an unusual way and his lips are trembling. His face is paler than before; it has adopted the colour of death. He was the first person transferred from the boat to the warship. When the military personnel arrived to attend to him he was writhing like a snake and moaning. A few officers who had come on board the boat had no choice but to lift him from the floor and struggle to take him on board the ship; they carried him like a sack of hard and dry potatoes. The Penguins body seemed lifeless and feeble but when someone went to touch him or move him he stiffened. He tensed; his whole body became rigid like someone having teeth pulled, becoming like a wire or metal rod as a result of the extreme pain.

As The Penguin was taken away, Mani With The Bowed Leg and his family followed, and then the other women and children were transferred. Finally, the men and the youths were also evacuated. We were bunched into groups of four and shifted onto the ship.

While The Penguin was frail and languishing on the boat, all he did was stare at the sky above. Now, on the deck of the warship, he continues to stare at the sky, with lips trembling and teeth chattering.

Our Golshifteh and her family are sitting beside The Penguins exhausted body.

That womans face is still exuberant /

Her appearance still beautiful /

Her pride still flourishing /

Her clothes are torn and her body smells like the other distressed people there /

Smelling like the sea /

Smelling pungent /

Smelling bitter /

But Our Golshifteh remains proud /

She remains captivating /

Our Golshifteh laughs at all this distress /

Laughs at all the misery /

Laughing with those dark, alluring eyes /

Those eyes flaming like small suns.

Our Golshiftehs presence within that displaced and wretched community is hard to imagine. She is the kind of person who radiates nobility. No matter what clothes she wears, no matter the situation, no matter if her life hits rock bottom, no matter what; she will leave a lasting impression on her surroundings.

It is difficult to believe that this woman, now sitting here quietly hugging two kids close to her chest, is the same woman who had faced off against the pitiless men exerting their force upon her.

This is the same woman with no tolerance for the heedlessness of the terrified passengers aboard our marooned boat, the same woman trying to instate justice by rationing drops of water and individual dates, the same woman trying to moderate their distribution. This is the same woman who cares about the child of Mani With The Bowed Leg in equal measure to the sustenance of her children, her own flesh and blood. When I encounter a woman such as Our Golshifteh, I feel proud and strong, and all the other devastated and broken faces are relegated to the margins of my consciousness.