The SIEVX Memorial Ceremony

Dylan Willcock creating the LSD Memorial

On Sunday 15th October, on a beautiful warm and sunny afternoon in Canberra at a park on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, I attended the SIEVX Memorial pole-raising ceremony which included the pole made by our own LSD youth group (some of you saw it on display at St Martin’s).

The poles and ceremony commemorated the lives of the 353 parents and children who were drowned when the boat SIEVX sank in the black night time waters off our northern seas between Indonesia and Australia in October 2001 – the worst maritime tragedy in our region since World War II. All were refugees, many were women and children whose husbands and fathers were in Australia in detention or on Temporary Protection Visas. They were desperate to be reunited, fleeing from the terrors of Iraq and Afghanistan, running out of resources, easy prey for people smugglers.

The SIEVX (not it’s actual name but standing for Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel ‘X’) was merely a fishing boat and less than the size of a tennis court, and yet was crammed with over 400 frightened and exhausted refugees. It was obviously in bad condition; however, the people were forced to board.
The SIEVX never had a chance. After a night of sailing in terrible weather it foundered and sank in international waters with the deaths of 146 children, 142 women and 65 men. Over a hundred people survived the initial sinking, and floated for 20 hours in the water, but rescue did not come. All but 40 survivors had died by the time fishermen found them the next day.

The beautiful design of the memorial, where 353 white painted poles with colourful decorated bands at the top – one for each adult (tall) and child (small) – wind their way in single file across and down the gentle grass slope to the water’s edge, came from one of hundreds submitted by high school art students who learned the story of the SIEVX. Each pole was created by a school, church, community group, or by bereaved family members themselves, from all corners of Australia. Each one expressed
a kind of welcome to the memory of that person, “bringing them home” to the place they died trying to reach. Each pole carried 2 small plaques: one to say the name of the person it commemorated and one to say the name of the group that made it. Unfortunately, some had to be labelled ‘Unknown Mother’, ‘Unknown Boy’ etc.

The ceremony itself was very moving; the pole raising done to the beat of a single drum. ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope spoke and former Governor General Sir William Deane was in attendance. 600 people raised the poles and over 1400 watched. Walking around the hundreds of poles and seeing the diversity and imagination of designs, and the beauty of the detailed paintings, mosaics and carvings, I was struck and moved by this tangible evidence of the deep care and concern of so many hundreds of ordinary Australians for people from another culture whom they never knew. Ours was amongst the best in my completely unbiased opinion (thankyou Dylan Willcock), however I think my favourite was one whose decoration band consisted simply of the beautifully painted words of a middle-eastern proverb. It read:

‘How do we know when it is dawn?
When we have enough light to recognize in the face of a stranger that of our sister.’

Kirsty Watkins.

View the Photogallery of the SIEVX Memorial Ceremony in Canberra

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