Comparing The Fight Against Injustice In When Michael Met Mina And Freedom Stories

When Michael Met Mina and Freedom Stories both present the idea of fighting against injustice from a fictional and non-fiction standpoint. Discuss.

The heart-warming story of two young love-birds, with contradicting beliefs, in the fictional novel, When Michael Met Mina, by Randal Abdel-Fattah shares similar refugee and asylum seeker traits to that in the raw and truthful documentary series, Freedom Stories, directed by Steve Thomas. Throughout each of the stories it is clearly indicated that Mina, in When Michael Met Mina, and Shafiq, from Freedom Stories, fight against injustice. Mina does this by standing up for herself, her background and culture, at the pronouncement of her new piers stereotyping opinions and by continuing to push through
the media’s racist comments and threats towards her family restaurant. Whilst Shafiq is able to contend happiness after the Taliban’s inhumanity and Australia’s unacceptance as a result of resilience, persistence and a good mind set. These incredible people, fictional and non-fiction who have both experienced extreme traumas, are thorough examples of battling the worst of prejudice. The imaginative story juxtaposed with the real life documentary provides two angles on refugee’s challenges.

Mina is a sassy girl, and a true fighter.
She has confidence to stand up against the biggest of bullies. Fleeing from Afghanistan, due to the Taliban, and arriving in Australia without a baby brother is hard enough. In addition to newly founded, prejudice organisation, Aussie Values and moving to a new school, these factors all result in Mina facing some of the most excruciating inequities available. On Mina’s first day she is already bombarded with rude and unnecessary racist comments as her piers joke that, ‘in Saudi Arabia, downloading movies count[s] as stealing,’ and that ‘Muslim countries’ would ‘wrist to wrist’ instead of high fiving. Followed by claims by the son of the founder of Aussie Values, Michael, who has already announced, ‘if you come by boat you’ve jumped the queue,’ before the school bell had even rung on Mina’s first day. This was only the beginning of many hazardous encounters with Aussie Values in the future. These gratuitous statements are discriminatory and prove how uneducated many Australians are. It shows great injustice to stereotype races so untruthfully. Mina’s entire family encounters further, unimaginable racism and stereotyping, with claims towards their Halal restaurant that ‘Halal certification money funds terrorism,’ this was only the beginning of a number of physical and verbal attacks on the restaurant. Resulting in Mina’s family being in constant fear that, ‘the media business will affect the restaurant.’ Throughout these injustice
actions Mina is noted to stand up and fight against it, particularly in her confident and brave attitude when she mentions cheerfully, ‘I wouldn’t worry, most people don’t take that show seriously’ in an attempt to comfort her step fathers worries about the new show ‘don’t jump the queue’ . She also has the courage to stand up to Michael’s racism on her first day at her new school. Her unbelievable confidence allows her to push through the injustice situations she faces.

Shafiq from Freedom Stories is another Afghani migrant whom began his life in Australia after fleeing from the Taliban. He also battles inhuman actions primarily involving the Taliban’s cruelty and Australia’s unwillingness to accept him and other desperate people. Shafiq was ‘targeted when the Taliban came to power.’ ‘They found all [his] artworks and burned them all.’ These abusive actions led by such a cruel group of people, followed by placing Shafiq in a Taliban prison is extreme mistreatment. This terrifying and overwhelming time in Shafiq’s life sounds unimaginable, and almost impossible to overcome. Although Shafiq’s courage and resilience resulted in him grabbing all his things and fleeing the country. After the trauma suffered the least Australia could do was accept this valiant man. Although his ‘introduction to Australia’ began with 10 months in the Woomera Immigration Centre. ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution,’ (UDHR Article 14) Yet Australia continues to force these people to wait in detention centres for years and years. Shafiq was ‘called by number’ not name and recalled being treated ‘like a machine…an object’ rather than a human being. Our tyrannizing and exclusive national rituals need to change as these barbaric immigration laws only caused further trauma to Shafiq. As a result he “turned to alcohol” and “couldn’t sleep” before Shafiq’s family was able to join him in Australia where Shafiq’s resilience, to fight back from extreme suffering was once again perceived, his connection with painting was also a significant contribution to starting his new life. After reuniting with his family a creating a ‘place to call home,’ the hardworking father was able to, ‘despite the damage done,’ experience, ‘the happiest moment in his life.’

These two different approaches, fiction and non-fiction, provide an insight of a refugee from two different angles.
When Michael met Mina is represented in a fictional format. This creates an appealing story for young people, as it is age relatable and includes parties and other things than the average teenager may also experience. Hard to dislike characters like Michael’s parents, who show ‘passion and eloquence’ and certainly ‘aren’t bad people’ help the readers to understand that good people are not always right, as ‘it’s hard to accept that nice people can be racist too.’ It allows readers to be informed that their role model’s beliefs are not always correct and it is important to create your own understanding, and not believe everything that the media says. Freedom Stories take a different approach, in representing the stories of real life refugees, in a non-fictional format. This provides a very confronting story that evokes strong sympathy, viewers can physically see and hear the trauma and how is has affected these people. Seeing Shafiq re-watch footage from the Woomera Immigration Centre and recalling memories, such as his lock number ‘148’ was much more confronting than just reading it, as Shafiq’s facial expressions and tone introduced a deeper and more intense emotional feeling. By representing refugee’s stories in a documentary formation it provided an accurate and factual story, from a non-bias perspective. Steve Thomas was responsible for truthfully explaining
the stories with integrity, and left the viewers changed, in a better way with a broader understanding on refugees and a greater anger on Australia for causing additional trauma to these already suffering people.

Refugees and Asylum seekers are normal people. They come to Australia in hope for freedom and follow the same aspirations that every Australian does. They want jobs to earn money and begin a happy life. They do not try to steal our jobs and are not trying to stand out, they are simply human and need to be treated like humans as well. After uncovering Shafiq and Mina’s personal stories and battles with injustice actions shown by other humans ‘it’s there resilience I won’t forget.’