The Men Next Door

Down the road from where I work a man committed suicide recently. This is not a particularly unusual event, given the unfortunately high rates of suicide in this country, except in the same location a couple of months earlier another man gave up on his life in a most gruesome manner. Both of these men, an Iraqi and a Fijian, decided that their bleak chances of a decent, let alone a prosperous, life in Australia with the basic tenets of safety and security were completely diminished. Villawood Detention Centre, where these losses of life took place, is an ominous political site where death and life have co-existed in a fragile bind for many years under the watchful eye of private security companies running the prison-industrial complex.