White Butterflies

By Colin McPhedran

(Pandanus Books)

Reviewed by Magella Blinksell

Days before reading Colin McPhedran’s extraordinary life story White Butterflies, I happened to be at a school reunion. It was also a week away from the first anniversary of the sinking of SIEV X – a tragedy which claimed the lives of 353 asylum seekers. This sinking eventually forced a Senate Inquiry, uncovering ‘Operation Relex’, and deepening moral concern over Australia’s current refugee policy.

School reunions, book reviewing and refugee issues… These might seem to belong to disparate worlds. But of late, finding one’s own reference points – in regard to shifting notions of human rights – has become ever more urgent, binding small personal moments to wider political expolation.

Long held, and universally adopted understandings of the term ‘refugee’ are under challenge from the current conservative and populist political lexicon. Although Australia is a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention with obligations to conventional definitions of a refugee, the Minister for Immigration, Phillip Ruddock would have it otherwise. Ethical benchmarks are also suffering from a form of ahistorical revisionism. Babies, children and pregnant women, the survivors of war and deadly political regimes are detained and punished behind Australian razor wire for indefinite periods, despite international condemnation.

At the reunion, I overheard my Generation-X peers describing aspects of our formative primary-school years. There were accounts of growing up with Vietnamese-Australian schoolmates, first wave ‘boat people’ who (in memory) were embraced into a largely inclusive, modest, catholic school environment

Jokes about hair loss, and reminiscences were also sprinkled with selective moments of social commentary: “How could Australia be forsaking its commitment to human rights?” “I can’t believe what’s happening in this country!” Or “I’ve got children now – I just can’t believe how you’d lock up kids!” And then a contrary question – indicative of a wider spectrum of public opinion, and one easily found beyond the club-like atmosphere of a school reunion: “But are they real refugees?!”

One can’t help but place White Butterflies in this contemporary context. Colin McPhedran’s book is a deeply moving autobiograhical account of a childhood journey during the Second World War along one of the world’s deadliest refugee trails. The narrative takes us across Burma, through the treacherous Hukawng valley, into the military hospitals in India, and then onto a new life of adventure.

Tens of thousands of Anglo-Burmese and Indian Burmese lost their lives in their attempts to evade the invading Japanese Army; most refugees died of starvation, malaria, dysentery, tropical disease, or exposure to the monsoons. While White Butterflies provides a rare firsthand sketch of incomprehensible suffering, it is an account that is leavened with McPhedran’s compassion and humanity.

Tales of head-hunters in Naga Land and unusual school vacations are counterpointed with the author’s appreciation of curry (whether in starvation or in the foggy depths of London). There are modest but fascinating portraits of family connections with Burma’s intellectuals and its later powerbrokers: including puppet Prime Minister Ba Maw, and the notorious General Ne Win. We find McPhedran in the crush of a crowd awaiting Gandhi, privy to a stirring post-colonial discontent while observing the gin-slinging affectations of the colonial elite. Eventually Australia beckons – with the author settling in the Southern Highlands for over 50 years.

What is so compelling in this largely chronological narrative, is McPhedran’s voice. There is an uncompromised humanitarianism and an ability to see clearly into the nature of things, even when revisiting life as an eleven year old, setting out on a journey that would take three and a half months to complete and one which would ultimately claim members of his family.

What is offered is a simple but beautifully evoked exposition of transition – from that of a happy schoolboy, born to a Scottish oil executive and a well-born Burmese mother – to that of a refugee. It is here that the strength and timeliness of McPhedran’s story resides. Too often in contemporary discussion the moniker of ‘refugee’ is objectified, either reified to a static legal entity or ascribed with passive victimhood. What such usage fails to adequately describe, is the process (or the events) that force a person into seeking refuge.

McPehdran writes poignantly about this first strange recognition of himself as a refugee:

“The sad sight of weeping people gathered in groups as they sat beside dead family members was beginning to awaken me to the realisation that we were indeed on a dangerous trail and that days ahead would be filled with the sorrow of people parting from loved ones. Already, I could cope with seeing a bloated body, lying face up…”

The seeds of the author’s Buddhist path, pursued later in life, can be found amongst these recollections of feeling – and finding oneself – ‘in another’s shoes.’ There are memorable (and rarely told ) descriptions of receiving air-dropped food packages, of warm connections with the kitchen staff while staying in five star digs, explorations of race, and a moving reassessment of his feelings of abandonment towards his father.

On the dust jacket, Ian McPhedran writes of his father (Colin): “As the children of a ‘new Australian’, we knew nothing of Dad’s early life or his epic trek until he prepared to return to Burma for the first time in 1982. Only then did he begin to tell the moving story of his boyhood adventures.” “He does not dwell on the past. Yet whenever he is asked how he would describe himself, Dad always shrugs lightly and says, ‘I am a refugee. That’s what I am.”

White Butterflies is a remarkable contribution to Australia’s history-telling, implicitly inviting the reader’s self-examination as we respond to asylum seekers within the hardening borders of a war-bound ‘new world order’.

Magella Blinksell – Film and Arts Journalist.
Review published in VOICE: A Journal of comment & review, No.5 March 2003: Children’s Literature Issue.
voice@ginninderrapres.com.au
www.ginninderrapress.com.au/voice.html

White Butterflies by Colin McPhedran

Price: AUD$27.23 overseas and AUD$29.95 Australia (inc. GST)
Size: 142 ¥ 220 mm
Pages: xii+239pp.
ISBN: 1 74076 017 4

Enquiries and Orders:
Please contact Thelma Sims thelma.sims@anu.edu.au

For catalogue details and interstate stockists: www.pandanusbooks.com.au