5 Questions with Thinesh Thillai
Thinesh Thillai தினேஸ் is an Eelam Tamil queer lawyer and creative hailing from Toronto, Canada.
In 2019, Thinesh was published in Growing Up Queer in Australia and Growing Up in Australia. Thinesh is the creative producer of Hot Sauce, a roving dance party, and Hot Sauce at Home, art oriented gatherings, both of which aim to create an intentional space to celebrate the lives of queer people of colour.
Thinesh has also been involved as a community engagement strategist by the Darlinghurst Theatre Company for the Malthouse Theatre Company’s production Stay Woke, the Belvoir Theatre’s production The Jungle and the Sea, and recently consulted on the Griffin Theatre Company’s production Sex Magick.
No.1
You Have Been Told a Lie is a podcast series that uncovers the truth about the Nadesalingams, a Tamil family of four who were snatched from the Queensland town of Biloela and placed in detention. What does it mean for you to produce a series like this? How did you begin to conceive its shape outside of taking interviews with the Nadesalingams themselves?
I, like many other Eelam Tamils in the diaspora, are either refugees, or are at the very least the products of displacement. So naturally, the story of Tamil refugees who were seeking asylum in Australia resonated with me. However, what particularly piqued my interest was the fact that this regional Queensland town with very conservative politics was advocating for this family to be allowed to stay in Australia, despite the region being known as one which had residents who would vote for parties and policies that kept families like the Nadesalingams out.
Initially, my co-producer Jay [Ooi] and I didn’t anticipate the project as being more than a one-off episode discussing this dissonance at a high level; at the time the Nadesalingams were still in detention. We didn’t think working with the Nadesalingams and/or the Home To Bilo campaign team was something that was feasible at the time.
However, once the Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship was on board to support this project, Jay and I had the capacity to delve into the structural issues that impacted the Nadesalingams’ fight to stay in Australia and give this story the time it deserves.
Because the Nadesalingams had become the face of asylum seekers in Australia, we thought it was an important opportunity to speak to a variety of experts, as well as those with lived experience. We wanted people to understand how local, national and international politics are interconnected, and how these tiers of politics materially impact the vulnerable humans trapped in the middle of it all.
No.2
In the trailer, you say that this series is framed through the perspective of the Nadesalingams, in their own words. How important was this decision to you, and why?
This decision was very important, although we didn’t anticipate that we would be able to speak to the Nadesalingams when we started this project. There was a lot of media attention on the Nadesalingams and understandably, the Home To Bilo campaign team was quite guarded based on prior experience. However, as we started to build a relationship with the team, they felt comfortable with me speaking directly with Priya and Nades in Tamil.
Usually when we heard from the Nadesalingams in mainstream media, it was a couple of sentences in English that had been pre-recorded for reporting purposes, with the view of getting them permanent protection. But when I spoke to Priya and Nades, they were able to speak in their first language, and we ended up having three-hour conversations each time over the course of two years. As you listen to the episodes, you get to hear the emotion in their voices while they are in detention, and as they talk about their respective childhoods, anticipate the election outcome, and while we accompany them home to Biloela. Very few people know what the life of a detainee is like within Australia’s cruel detention system. We wanted to make sure that people heard those details directly from those who had experienced it first-hand.
No.3
In an interview with André Dao from the Manus Recording Project Collective, Behrouz Boochani said, “[…] art is the most powerful language to share this story, to tell this tragedy, not journalism.” I feel that You Have Been Told a Lie is a little similar in that it bridges that divide. How do you think you utilise the functions of both art and journalism to communicate abhorrent human rights injustices to a wider public?
While journalism is very effective in cutting through to the facts and necessary details of a particular story (maybe less so in the current climate), it tends to create a distance between the subject(s) and the audience. More often than not, facts can lack an emotional connection.
However, art makes things real. Stories can make people feel things in a way that statistics and policies cannot. Historically, some of the most notable art has done the work of journalism, documenting the social and political climate of the context and time the work was created in. So it won’t come as a surprise that some people within the arts utilise techniques within the remit of journalism to create work that connects with people.
Now, I am not sure if Jay or I would consider ourselves journalists or artists, but we definitely had many healthy arguments around striking the balance between theory and story.
I was very focused on ensuring that we didn’t simply just tell the narrative of the Nadesalingam family. I was worried about creating something akin to a puff piece with no substantial information around why this injustice occurred and why we are bound to repeat these injustices again and again. I wanted people to understand that the Nadesalingams were fighting against much larger forces than them—forces that we as a collective society were responsible for and were implicated in.
Jay, on the other hand, was excellent at making sure that the heart of the story was not lost. He was there to challenge me and make sure that the concepts we were exploring were couched in the intimate lives of Priya, Nades, Kopika and Tharnicaa.
No.4
Without giving anything anyway, what do you hope listeners will learn after listening to You Have Been Told A Lie?
I hope people learn that the injustices that the Nadesalingams faced in Sri Lanka, as well as the injustices they faced in their claim for safety in Australia, are the result of history, international relations, and political expediency colliding. It’s not in the least bit simple, but there is a way forward.
No.5
What other human rights podcasts do you recommend?
I recommend the following:
Temporary: The Podcast: this is an eight-episode series of refugees’ stories by the Kaldor Centre at UNSW and Guardian Australia.
Tech Won’t Save Us: this is a series that takes a critical lens on the technology that permeates our lives, challenges our relationship to technology (well beyond the ‘social media is bad for you’ trope), and unpacks the tech dreamworld for the nightmare that it is. Whilst you may not initially think this is a human rights related podcast, listening to You Have Been Told A Lie and Tech Won’t Save Us will change your mind.
Justice Matters: this is a series by the Harvard Kennedy Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy. This pod touches on a variety of different topics from critical race theory, to LGBT issues, to feminism. It looks at all these issues from a global lens and distils these complex ideas into digestible 30-minute episodes.
Find out more
‘A nice family from Biloela’: it’s how this family is always referred to—Nades worked at the meatworks, Priya volunteered and cooked meals for people, and their daughters are born in Australia—surely they deserve to stay. But what even got them into this predicament in the first place? How were they treated so poorly under our government’s care? And what sort of people do they need to be to stay? These are the questions rarely discussed, but these forces have had a huge impact on this family, and many others like them.
Listen to the You Have Been Told A Lie podcast here.