By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
MY name is Selva … And I am fighting for my life.
So begins Song for Selva,
an ode to a Sri Lankan asylum seeker who expressed how desperately he
missed his family in a heart-wrenching letter to Australia.
Selva, who now lives in Noble Park, wrote the letter in his 37th month of indeterminate detention.
He was lamenting over his wife and their 2½-year-old daughter, who he has never seen in person, as they remained in Sri Lanka.
‘‘My beloved daughter … has not had the opportunity of a cuddle,
nor the warm embrace of a father; all she only hears is my voice
intertwined with emotional cries of my unfailing love for her,” Selva
wrote.
“After my daily calls to my beloved wife and daughter, I stay awake in bed unable to sleep.
“There are days when my emotions become uncontrollable, and I cry
fulfilled with the shame that I have become a worthless human being, and
not a husband to my wife and a father to my daughter.’’
In his anguish, Selva wrote that Australia was killing him slowly after several visa applications were knocked back.
Soon after writing the letter, which he addressed to the
Immigration Department and to “the citizens of Australia”, he was
released into community detention.
He has scant income and few possessions, but talks daily via
Skype to his family and enjoys the simple freedom of going for a walk.
He has an uncertain wait for his permanent residency application and doesn’t know when he can apply for his family to join him.
Les Thomas, a Melbourne refugee activist for 13 years, wrote and
recorded the song about Selva within a week with ARIA-winning guitarist
Jeff Lang.
Mr Thomas said he strived for a “humanising” voice, retaining many of Selva’s words within the simple melody.
“It’s a devastating letter,’’ he said. ‘‘I felt this was a cry for
help impossible to ignore and there was an urgency to get the song
written.’’
The song has had wide airplay on community radio, and can be found at lesthomasmusic.com and asrc.org.au.
