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Go Back to Where You Came From

Six ordinary Australians are tested on their views of asylum seekers in a daring social experiment, that asks who we are as a nation.

Go Back to Where You Came From is one of the most ambitious television projects undertaken by Australian television.

It is compelling television, remarkable for what it is attempting to undertake, for its execution and for its drama.

Producers Cordell Jigsaw (Bondi Rescue) have pulled out all stops to personalise the issues involved in giving asylum to refugees, demonstrating extraordinary access in hostile situations. Witnessed through the eyes of six ‘ordinary’ Australians, the drama and emotion is undeniable and the lessons are deeply confronting.

The decision to send not just a documentary camera crew on a journey to refugee camps, but opinionated Aussies, is inspired. It results in a hybrid between Reality Television and Documentary filmmaking that drives its message home.

 The six Australians, from various walks of life, arrive with a cross section of opinions. The most extreme is 21 year old Raquel, unemployed from western Sydney, who doesn’t accept Africans in her suburb and says we should not accept any refugees.  “Australia for Australians. “Africa for Africans.” At times she resembles a young Pauline Hanson.

At the opposite end is 39yo Gleny from Newcastle, who believes Australia should show more compassion.

Four others share varying opinions on the subject, most of which involve reducing or stopping our intake entirely.

All have voluntarily agreed to participate in the exercise for 25 days, without knowing what Producers have in store. It’s pretty safe to presume none would have agreed to it had they known what lay ahead. It is an arduous, often intolerable, social experiment all under the unforgiving glare of a television camera.

The sometime-host for the series is case worker and researcher Dr David Corlett, who has worked with refugees since 1998. In a Big Brother-like ruling, he denies them passports, money, phones and IDs -the same instruction made of refugees who board boats bound for Australia. Instantly the six begin to feel they are losing their identity, unable to even give a last goodbye to family.

From there they are transported to a mystery destination -not Indonesia, but Albury or Liverpool in Western Sydney- to spend a week living with families from the Congo and Iraq who have resettled here. They learn about the hardships -poverty, disease, rape, death- they have overcome to begin a new life. They struggle with the food and customs. They bond with families previously viewed as faceless statistics.

But it is the second and third episodes that deliver the most compelling television when they witness Immigration raids in Malaysia (refugees have no status here and are herded up like cattle by police). In Kenya they share tin-shed accommodation in a refugee camp of 84,000. One woman, 64 year old Raye Coleby -who had originally said refugees deserved to see their boats smashed on the rocks of Christmas Island- cannot hold back the tears when faced with smiling children in the face of desperation. Watching Raquel, previously so blind to African people, is fascinating, if uncomfortable television.

Another group travels to Jordan where they meet children and adults who have endured life-saving operations or lost limbs from the Iraq war but are filled with spirit. Both groups are given a further, traumatic challenge that will test their character and compassion.

The overall effect of the three nights is draining but life-affirming. Some scenes will leave you close to tears.

At any given point you expect some of the Australians to say “I quit” (indeed some do) but they pull together as a group, and they feud as a group. Yet the internal conflict is dwarfed by the real-world conflict that constantly surrounds them. We should be indebted to the six for perservering with what was asked of them in order that we better understand the issues behind the catchphrases of “boat people,” “queue jumpers” and “illegal refugees.”

If viewers were outraged at Four Corners showing cattle being sent to Indonesia, how will they feel about the government sending humans to Malaysia?  

The series is also the kind of television SBS should be producing: volatile stories that force us to ask who we are as a nation.

Go Back To Where You Came From is one of the boldest pieces of television SBS, or any Australian network, has ever made. Don’t miss it.

Go Back To Where You Came From airs 8:30pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on SBS ONE.

41 Responses

  1. @ Rage Reset

    I mentioned elsewhere in the TV Lounge I was grateful they ended the electronic assault. By the way it was every show I watched on the channel and after every adbreak. I’ll note I watch their news and it was during that too. So nothing was sacred. I think the term is advertising overkill. They successfully campaigned for me not to watch it. As mentioned earlier all they had to do to get me to watch it was advertise it during the adbreaks. That’s it. Also repeating it on SBS2 would of been a winner. I’m of the view if the channels treated their programmes like their ads in that they didn’t mess with them deliberately then the more I’d like watching their shows I’m interested in. And I’ll be happy to stick around as a viewer for the shows that succeed at it. But if you wish to do electronic graffiti I’ll be on the computer at best or flick over at worst. As all it does is remind me there are other possibly less annoying channels out there. Or less annoying stuff to do. If viewers are considered both a commodity and a customer. Shouldn’t they try not to annoy them so they go away? I was just informing them they successfully drove me away. They could ignore it or do something about it. It is up to them.

  2. @A: Youre huffing and puffing because of a 15-second graphic during a program which cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce which you’re watching for free?

    What a fascinating life you must lead.

  3. Hilarious how all the closet racists here ignore the fact that many of the asylum seekers we get are doctors, engineers, lecturers etc.
    And that the number of asylum seekers this country takes is almost trivial compared to Europe.

    And that they don’t seem to care about the vastly more numerous so-called Aussies who rort the welfare system blind as career dole-scammers or trip themselves up in public places so they can go to Slater & Gordon for big cash settlements. I guess things like that won’t become an issue for these dolts until News Ltd. tells them what to think about it..

  4. @ Gary

    No drugs just sick of all the pop-ups on the ABC and especially SBS this week and this month. It’s driving me away. Soon I’ll be on the computer and not bother watching the TV screen at all; I’ll just listen at best. I do that with a lot of commercial channels already.

  5. Hang our heads in shame! These people are treated like dogs. Maybe something good will come of us being shown what really happens, like with the cattle on Four Corners. I had no idea! Great program!

  6. Great show. If only Channel 7 or 9 would show it so it would get a wider audience. Maybe SBS could Give it to another channel as a community service!!!

  7. Excellent review David. You’re right about the lack of intense emotional scenes in the first episode, I’m glad to hear there is plenty of it in store over the next two episodes.

    This is a screencap of the group after they’ve been rescued by the coast guard:

    imgur.com/8K3ZJ

    The Young Liberal guy is the only one who looks angry, the others look a bit bewildered. And after the host tells them the boat was never in danger of sinking, that it was all a stunt, this guy is the only one who looks provoked:

    imgur.com/JYSWI

    The others are still wearing those bewildered expressions.

  8. Jason D., only one of the participants is clearly racist. None of the others gave any suggestion they were. Well, maybe the Cronulla lifeguard, but only maybe. But the Young Liberal guy wasn’t racist, the two women weren’t, and the other guy was married to a Taiwanese woman!

  9. @ Fed Up. Do you see the irony in saying that these people are “increasing crime in our perfect country” when this country began as a penal colony and the majority of early arrivals were convicts? You obviously have not experienced persecution or fear of death where you live when you say things like they are “Probably better off staying where you were cause the evil, crime committing people are now here destroying us”.

  10. SBS is looking at the asylum issue from the wrong angle. It’s easy to pick out extremists to portray the asylum debate as being about xenophobia, that’s only a minority view when the actual debate is more moderate. It’s more about pull factors & illegal immigrants using the method of claiming asylum to gain entry, rather than not letting people in at all. There are hardly complains about asylum seekers arriving by plane because they have their documents, where as most boat people arrive in Indonesia by plane & then destroy documents.

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