[imagecaption] The SIEV X Memorial being erected by a group of volunteers, 2006. [/imagecaption]
‘Desert and island peoples know all too well that with one shift of the wind, you or I could be the passing seafarer, the shipwrecked sailor, the persecuted stranger. Understood in this way, the practice of hospitality, the host-guest relationship, is the central bond of civility—a reciprocal relationship, implying obligations on both sides, and based on an understanding that we are all, in certain circumstances, potentially “the other.”‘
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Despite the effort to recuperate them into a national narrative of Australian heroism, the efforts made by Christmas Islanders to rescue asylum seekers is perhaps better situated in the context of their own ambiguous status in Australia and in the broader context of philoxenia, the unconditional extension of hospitality towards strangers, theorized by the writer and activist Arnold Zable: ‘First the stranger is welcomed, clothed and fed, and given a roof over their head. Only then are they asked questions; only then are they asked for their name and business.’
The Christmas Islanders’ spontaneous demonstration of love and friendship towards asylum seekers echoes many other acts of philoxenia:
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