It was not the first time that he was being harassed into leaving Australia. While his case was still going on in the federal court – on five consecutive days – five different Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) bureaucrats, all claiming to be his case managers, told him to remain prepared for deportation at any time.

He is a Chinese man. Let us call him Christopher Copperfield. I am not revealing his real name – at his own request – in the interest of his personal security (which includes fear of retaliation from the DIAC). Additionally, this Western name might open people’s eyes to the fact that a non-Westerner is as much of a human being as any Westerner and his sufferings matter as much as any Westerner’s.

Christopher experienced intense persecution in China due to his practice of Falun Gong. It was under his father’s influence that he began practising it. His father was arrested as leader of the practice group. So he took over as the group’s organiser. Consequently, he was arrested and detained.

He escaped to Australia.

Here he wanted to apply for protection as soon as he could. Therefore, following a friend’s advice, he contracted the services of a migration agent, Guo Qiang Cai of Paradise Migration and Education Business Centre, who assisted him to lodge a protection visa application in 2000. DIMIA (as the department was then known) refused it with its unhampered propensity towards an undeserved arrogance. A few days later, with the same migration agent’s assistance, he applied to the refugee review tribunal (RRT) for a review of DIMIA’s decision.

In early 2001, his agent gave him a phone call explaining that he had been invited to attend a hearing with the RRT. He called Christopher to his office to complete some forms. So he went to his office. The migration agent asked him to complete the response to hearing invitation form.

It was his agent who told him about what to write on each line of the form.

His agent also handed him a copy of the letter from the RRT inviting him to a hearing. The letter included the details of the time, date and place on it.

On the day of the hearing, he took a taxi and reached the building where he had been invited by the RRT.

When he arrived, he showed his invitation to hearing letter to the receptionist. She asked him to take a seat and claimed that he would be called. So he sat down and waited. As no one called or came to see him even after a considerable time, he asked someone nearby.

He claimed that they would call him if it was his turn. So Christopher thought it was common to run late. He waited about another twenty minutes. He started to feel very uncertain, so he went to the receptionist and showed her the letter of invitation to the hearing again. The receptionist made a phone call. Then she told him that he could go home and that the RRT would contact him later.

So he went home.

After this “hearing” – to be more exact, not a hearing but the RRT’s notion of it – he heard nothing further from the RRT.

Some months later, his agent phoned him to advise him that his appeal had been refused.

At that time, Christopher was at work. So he did not have an opportunity to engage in a detailed telephone conversation with him and ask him any questions.

About one week later, he went to his agent’s office in Burwood intending to discuss the RRT’s refusal further with him. He found that the office was closed. So he asked the man in the shop next door about his agent’s business and he told Christopher that the business had been closed for a few months

However, his migration agent had never made the slightest mention to him that his business was closing down – not even when he rang to tell him that his RRT appeal had been refused.

After finding this out, Christopher tried to call his agent on his mobile number but could not get through as the number was always “not available” and there was no message and no option to leave a message.

His discovery of this made him feel very let down. He also felt extremely disappointed with the RRT. Christopher could not understand what had happened and why the RRT had not called him as they had claimed that they would when he was at the RRT office.

He also felt very afraid as he realised that he was now illegal in Australia. He also felt very confused and frustrated and he did not know where he could turn for help.

It was a very obvious illustration of the corruption and oppression underlying Australia’s (mis)treatment of asylum seekers. What right did the RRT have to refuse his application without even conducting a session that had been promised to him by none other than the RRT itself? What right did the RRT have to refuse his application without even conducting a session that was its jurisdictional duty to conduct? And what right did his migration agent have to deceive him?

The answer is one which neither the RRT nor the DIAC would like to acknowledge. But the truth needs no authenticating documents; no visas, passports, no identification documents. The truth is not beholden to the DIAC and the RRT and there is absolutely nothing in this whole world that the DIAC or the RRT can ever do about it. The truth needs no authentication from the DIAC and the RRT because the truth is its own authentication. And the truth is that this is not a case of invidious and idiosyncratic flaws but of systemic and structural ones. Those whose own citizenship to Australia is beholden to the act of genocide are intrinsically incompetent, untrustworthy and incapable of assessing, let alone judging, any asylum seeker’s perspective.

As such a flaw has manifested itself in a systemic and structural manner, I have all the more reason to criticise it, expose it and bring it to light. In the consistent spirit of this perspective, I have already published an earlier article, From the heart of Australia’s postcolonial irony.

Due to such (mis)treatment – and his migration agent’s deceptive behaviour – Christopher was not aware of his further options. So he was forced to stay in a state of fear for a number of years. The DIAC bureaucracy appeared no more friendly than the Chinese bureaucratic regime. He remained in Australia – even though he felt absolutely helpless – because he knew he had no other choice but to remain in Australia.

It was in mid-2007, following information he received from a friend, that he learned that he had the option of applying for review of the RRT’s decision. So he applied to the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia (FMCA).

The FMCA’s hearing was constrained within the limitations imposed by an ideological and discursive construction which the late Edward W. Said called orientalism. He was forced into giving a linear narrative of events and their origins.

This insistence on a search for events and their origins – once pitting itself against what Fredric Jameson phrased as “always-already-begun” – got itself (as it always does) deflected into auto-referentiality: if a linear narrative of history is so essential to Australia’s refugee determination process, then why not begin with the beginning? Why not begin with the fact that those who deny citizenship to others so self-righteously, owe their own citizenship to genocide?

No DIAC or RRT bureaucrat and no judge in any Australian court and no other Australian citizen must ever forget, even for a single moment, that he – whoever he is and whatever he is within the system – owes his very power of deciding who deserves to be an Australian citizen, and who does not, to the fact of the genocide in which his forefathers had participated and by virtue of which, he is today an Australian citizen. And this genocide was directed at Australian people, the Aborigines. Let us begin with the beginning!

If linear narrative is so essential, then why do they forget that when Captain Cook arrived in Australia, he did not have a visa with him. So the first illegal alien in Australia was none other than its greatest hero, Captain James Cook. Let us begin with the beginning!

The Federal Magistrate Cameron accepted that Christopher had attended the RRT hearing but was not called. So the RRT’s jurisdictional error had been established.

Once the RRT is found to have committed such an error, it is required to reconsider the asylum seeker’s application. However, in this case, the FMCA’s decision was constrained within orientalist limitations: the pretext of “unwarrantable” delay was used to deny relief.

This orientalist insouciance towards a human situation was carried to new heights by the Federal Court of Australia (FCA) registrar, who made it impossible for Christopher to apply for review by forcing him to pay a filing fee. Due to financial difficulties, he could not afford to pay it.

The registrar went so far as to harass him about his “illegal” situation – a situation that was the creation of this illegal system’s inhuman treatment of him, in the first place – by interrogating him about his supporters.

Several times, Christopher requested the DIAC to detain him at the Villawood immigration detention centre (VIDC). But they refused him more than once before finally detaining him on April 9 2008. His period of detention has now exceeded two years.

The DIAC has always (mis)treated him in ways that any decent human being would feel ashamed about. He has always been kept under the constant threat of deportation, which amounts to a tremendous degree of harassment for him. His case managers have always kept him in a perpetual state of harassment.

His current case manager – Mick Kaddour – has told him that he would be deported. However, in doing so, he has violated his legal function as a case manager and is therefore guilty of exceeding his boundaries. A case manager is supposed to be a neutral person. He is not allowed make decisions about who is going to be deported. By deporting him, he may get good money from the mafia dominating the DIAC. However, he must not forget that, in assuming this authority for himself, he has, as a matter of fact, shown disrespect towards the Minister of Immigration by assuming as authority for himself which has not been delegated to him.

While Christopher is a very popular man among the Chinese community, and has a very good grasp of the English language, Mick Kaddour, like his inglorious bosses, has failed to acknowledge – let alone appreciate – his human qualities. He keeps asking him very silly questions which are meant to be provocative. While he has been repeatedly told to stop asking him silly questions, he has failed to comply.

Christopher – now a Christian – is a very good man. Even before I met him, my friend – whom I mentioned in my earlier article as “A” – told me so. And on meeting him, I found every reason to share my friend’s opinion.

Mick Kaddour has recently apologized for his (mis)conduct. However, his apologies are unacceptable for the reason of their unwarrantable delay.

Mick Kaddour had been told that his apologies could only be accepted if they were sincere. However, they were not sincere, since he, illegally, tried to deport Christopher. This is not surprising, since Mick Kaddour – just like most other DIAC bureaucrats – is a cockroach of the system who sustains the fundamental fact of his existence through a pathological abuse of power.

The DIAC case managers are a very corrupt and pathological species of creatures disguised as human beings. One of my own former case managers was another such coackroach. So I can understand everything he has to say about his case manager. I can understand it from my own experience. And I intend to expose these creatures of darkness before bright sunlight.