Asylum Seekers In District 9

793 Words4 Pages
Text Analysis Part 2 – Speculative Film – District 9 How does Neill Blomkamp convey the theme of forced displacement, asylum seekers and xenophobia? Currently, Australia is the only country to mandate the strict enforcement of the detention of asylum-seekers. This goes against the right of asylum, a concept under which a person may be protected by a foreign country. Displacement can occur due to conflict, disasters, repression or an ecological degradation. As many countries are ensnared in civil conflict, the number of people seeking asylum has increased over time. The result of this movement, and Australia's unwillingness to accept these people, is the creation of detention centres. In other parts of the world, there may also be mass camps…show more content…
An example of this from the text is the use of signs and notices stating that an area is for “Humans Only”. The walls around District 9, as well as areas that have laws against non-human loitering, are saturated in barbed wire coils. Blomkamp uses this to emphasise how the people in the area feel about the aliens. Eviction notices were given to the aliens, giving the government a legal loophole to move them. The relocation scenario in the movie is a direct comparison to District 6, where over 60,000 people were forcibly removed from their homes when it became a whites only area. This connection grounds the theme of forced migration in the real world, highlighting the problem in South Africa in the past and in the world today. The effect is that if the viewer has knowledge of the apartheid era, they make the connection between these events very quickly. This reinforces the theme of forced migration and adds to the feeling of…show more content…
An example of this is the aliens being placed in a designated area while the government decides what to do with them. Detention centres in the real world are for a similar purpose, to hold people until they are either approved refuge in the country or denied entry. It shows the process of detention centres to the audience so that they would empathise with the aliens and want to help them against the threat of displacement the government is imposing. The people of Johannesburg begin rioting against the aliens and the government so that they would move the camp 200 kilometres away from the city and make it heavily policed. Another comparison to detention centres can be drawn from this, as Australia’s main detention area is on Christmas Island, far away from the mainland. This furthers Blomkamp’s comparison to both detention centres and forced
Show More
Related

  • Challenges Facing Refugees

    1456 Words  | 6 Pages

    resulting from the election violence and has had difficulty addressing their needs and finding durable solutions. Furthermore, Kenya suffers from its own internal problems such as famine, drought, and violence. Kenya may not be the most ideal haven for asylum but its geographic position makes it one of the most accessible countries for its neighbours' refugees to seek safety. International bodies, NGOs, and the United Nations pressure Kenya to welcome the refugees pouring over its borders, but there is

    Read More

More about Asylum Seekers In District 9

Open Document