Visas Now! Launches 3 April

A decade on from the most visible part of the global refugee crisis, a New Zealand writer looks back on what we’ve said we would do, what we actually did and what would work well in the future.

Visas Now! Aotearoa’s response to global refugee emergencies by Murdoch Stephens chronicles the three one-off intakes of Syrian, Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in the past decade. First person accounts of this emergencies and intakes are woven through the book with contributions from community members who arrived in these intakes, who reunited with families and those who were unable to reunite.

“These one-off intakes capture the public attention for a week or a month,” says Stephens, “but what I was interested in was what happens when the media has moved on and when it is easy for promises to come up short. Did we really do what we said we would do?”

Stephens is best known for founding the successful Double The Quota campaign which led to the first increases in New Zealand’s annual refugee quota in three decades.

He wrote the first draft of Visas Now! in Los Angeles in 2023 on a Fulbright Scholar Award, but when he returned he felt the book needed to include the lived experiences of former refugees and those who had campaigned to help those affected by war. In the following year he and publisher Left of the Equator worked with ten community members to position their experiences among the detailed history.

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The book begins with an introduction by former Labour MP Ibrahim Omer and features contributions from people including Behrouz Boochani, Kate Turska (MNZM) from Mahi for Ukraine and Dr Tariq Habibyar. Each contributor has a photograph across a full page of Visas Now! in a full colour portrait shot by Dr Ehsan Hazaveh.

“The point of the book is not just to show what happened, but to start the conversation on what should happen next. Should Aotearoa welcome those most at risk, those with an existing connection here, or those whose high profile means they are likely to be targets? I think this question is especially important as so many of those who contribute to the book were unable to find any way to bring their family to safety,” said Stephens.

Visas Now! Aotearoa’s response to global refugee emergencies is published by Left of the Equator ($30 RRP) and launches at Unity Books at 6pm on Thursday 3 April.

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