Nickie Muir: One fateful hour difference between life and death

Nickie Muir

Being shot at in the dark, while in the hold of a boat leaving port illegally, alone when you're only 11 has got to be character building.

Hearing the bullets just skim your skull? Fortifying.

Spending four of your adolescent years tracking down the family that gambled on you as their last chance, has to be an exercise in resilience few of us would pass.

Listening to the story of a now-grown refugee - one of the boat people we hear so much about, I was struck not by what a tragic story he told, but more of how enriched all those around him were through the sheer fact of knowing him.

His business partner who co-directs his NZ-based IT company that now employs more than 200 people has benefited from his cheeky chutzpah (his life story gives a whole new dimension to the concept of "risk") and the extensive business network he established back in Vietnam once he'd settled here.

Like the Afghan boys from the Tampa - whom a friend had the privilege of teaching and who from their work ethic and enthusiasm for any opportunity thrown their way had an enriching effect on the learning experience of the other Kiwi students, this young man is nothing if not a big plus for New Zealand.

But back to being human ballast in the stinking hold of a rotting fishing boat. Alone. Day five they ran out of diesel. Day six no more food. And then the water ran out.

The thing that frightened him most was when the adults started discussing a murder/suicide scenario should rescue prove elusive.

What haunts him and leaves him reeling in disbelief and bewilderment all these years later? When a three-storied Swedish cruise-ship bore down on their T-shirt waving, half-starved crew. It stopped. Saved? Then after observing their predicament with binoculars, the luxury floating hotel, turned around and sailed away.

The word "disappointed" doesn't cover it.

"What were they thinking?" he asked. "Had there been an international order issued which said 'Don't feed the locals?"'

Eventually. another ship picked them up and towed them to an oil rig where they tied up and, within an hour a tropical cyclone reduced their boat to a few sticks left hanging at the end of the mooring rope in the morning. The bullet holes on the water line can't have helped.

He never forgets that one hour's difference in being rescued was the difference between life and death and that none of his millions of dollars he has at his disposal now could buy that hour.

It comes down to compassion and doing the right thing and the argument that the strife and struggle that creates refugees happens faraway and is therefore not our problem is untenable in the globally connected world we insist we want to be a part of for the economic benefits. Especially in light of climate change.

NZ could increase the quota of refugees we accept as the price we pay for being a civilised nation and not the nation-state equivalent of a luxury ship that sails away.