On 17 February 2014, Reza Barati was the first to be killed in indefinite detention (on Manus Island) during Australia’s second iteration of the Pacific Solution - the border regime was officially renamed Operation Sovereign Borders in 2013 after the Liberal Party returned to power under Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. After eight years of this form of border control (which is ongoing), 13 people have keen killed as a result of indefinite detention (on Manus and Nauru). Resistance against systematic torture, annihilation and submission has been organized by refugees detained both inside and outside, together with Australian citizens and people in other countries, since the very beginning of the Pacific Solution (phase one in 2001 and phase two in 2013). In this chapter I unpack the multifarious philosophical, creative and political dimensions of this resistance, with a focus on my collaboration with and translation for Behrouz Boochani. By introducing and examining the different dimensions of creative and intellectual resistance I render a basis for what we call Manus Prison Theory. I show how creative and intellectual forms of revolt by the displaced and exiled are silenced, and the ways they manage to break borders and centre themselves in the socio-cultural and political discourse and knowledge ecosystem.
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