“Go back to where you came from” – Student Essay “Go Back To Where You Came From” was a television series on SBS. The main purpose of this documentary is to build empathy for refugees and to allow the audience to understand the risks and dangers that they face on their perilous journey to safety. This is an important topic as at the moment in Australia, we are a very multicultural nation and we have an ongoing national debate about letting more refugees and asylum seekers into our country. The main aim of “Go Back To Where You Came From” is to build empathy towards refugees. In this series, there are many close up camera shots and interviews. An example of this is when Raye and Raquel are talking to Bahati Masudi’s wife about the troubles and horrors she witnessed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the rape of her two sisters. By using close up camera shots, the producers and camera people give us a clear view of her emotions and sad facial expressions. Even though we will never truly understand the horrors that people go through on their journey to safety this series gives us an insight into their experiences and an appreciation of their struggles. This topic is important because before we make decisions about “stopping the boats” and not letting refugees into this country, we need to understand their experiences and have empathy for them and maybe this will change our beliefs. Some people can change their views on an issue and others will not. At the start of the series, all the participants are interviewed about their current thoughts on refugees. Throughout the series, there are flashbacks to these initial interviews to show the change in people’s beliefs and for others the reaffirming of them. For example, initially Raye says, “I could have gone over there and shot them all” about the refugees in a neighbouring detention centre. She is shown this interview later in the experiment and she cannot believe it. “Did I actually say that?” she questions as she is now more compassionate and caring towards refugees after experiencing their lives first hand and learning the stories behind their flight in search of safety. Darren’s views, on the other hand, hardly change at all. Initially he doesn’t understand why they would flee their home country and undertake the boat journey. Near the end of the series he starts to understand why they would leave their home country but he still doesn’t know why they would try and come to Australia by boat if they are no longer in immediate danger. People will always have differing or different views on an issue and most, but not all, will change their views given the right information and experiences. If we want to take serious and immediate effective action on

the issue of refugees we need to give as much information as possible so that people can see the importance of the situation and change their views. Finally, this documentary series helps us to understand and give insight unto the dangers that refugees are escaping from. We realise that it must be very serious if people are taking the enormous risk of going on an overcrowded, leaky, unseaworthy and definitely unsafe boat. We, as the audience, also see how dangerous their home countries are, using hand held camera cameras to make it feels like we are there with the participants. An example is when they were in Iraq and we watch as they put on bulletproof clothing and get escorted around in heavily armoured vehicles and embark on a quick tour of Baghdad. We move around with them and feel the fear and uncertainty thanks to the hand held camera. So, before we judge refugees we have to understand the reasons why they have undertaken such a perilous and risky journey. In conclusion, the medium of documentary has effectively allowed us to see the refugees’ experiences during their journey as well as the reactions of people not involved like the participants. This has effectively helped us to understand why refugees are so desperate to come and live in a country like our own. This is issue of refugees will define our era so we must understand and have empathy for them before we judge or make critical decisions about their future.