Waiting

A week or so ago in the mail I received a guide to the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art which begins at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane on the 5th of December. I received the guide as part of my Queensland Art Gallery membership, the benefits of which I don't use nearly as much as I would like.

The guide was a 'Preview/Cinefile special edition' and while perusing its pages I came across a still from a Sri Lankan film, The Forsaken Land (Jayasundar 2005), a film that I saw at the Brisbane International Film Festival.

Click to view full image

The production still in the guide is not cropped to the extent this picture from the APT6 site is. The trunks of the trees in the surrounding bush and the bleached sky beyond them extend out of this frame to convey a sense of isolation and claustrophobia all at once.

The recent news of Australian-bound asylum seekers from Sri Lanka had already made me think of The Forsaken Land and, in particular, I recalled two things. The first was the mood or tone of the film. It is masterful film-making, conveying life as it goes on while waiting for random, unannounced explosions of military violence. It was very affective; utterly devastating.

The second recollection is about the question and answer session with the director, Vimukthi Jayasundara, after the screening. It was an odd Q & A session to the extent that it was so forcefully chaired by the representative from the film festival. The chair was determined that the audience not read the film as political. Or, if that isn't quite correct then we were, according to his instructions, to acknowledge that it was political, but then recognise that it was 'so much more'.

In this he appeared to be fulfilling the wishes of Jayasundara, who seemed to be well and truly tired of discussing the political situation in Sri Lanka instead of the merits of his film. Part of me has some sympathy for the director's schedule here, but I wonder at the assertion of the existence of a clear distinction between content and form that such a forceful request is premised upon. For me, it was precisely the various aesthetic components of the film that so effectively conveyed the weight of living under such conditions.

I think this is an important film, one that Australians must see, and especially now. I urge you to view it as political.

There Goes the Neighbours

It seems that my neighbours have, in real estate parlance, 'abandoned the premises'. This fact only dawned on me when I came home the other day and saw that their gates were open and so was a downstairs door. Until this point I had assumed they'd gone on an extended holiday, which, given the recent school break, was not too far fetched an assumption.

It's true they left on the Queen's Birthday weekend. On the same Friday afternoon that I waited for a friend, before we headed for the Bunya Mountains, I noticed from my kitchen window that my neighbours were also packing. A trailer was attached to their car and I guessed they were going on a camping trip.

When I returned after my long weekend away, I saw that they hadn't returned. In some ways this was a bit of a relief. When I had first seen them packing up, I had laughed to myself how typical it was that on the very weekend I was choosing to go away, my neighbours were going away too. I thought, rather churlishly, that if they were going away then I would like to have been at home to enjoy the peace and quiet in their absence. While they weren't the noisiest or most annoying neighbours I've ever had in my life, there were times when their music, blasted at odd intervals throughout the day, drove me to swearing at my ceiling.

Upon my return, I noted their continued absence and looked forward to some time to enjoy what I'd thought I would miss out on. At this point, I figured they'd taken an early start to the school holidays. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought this, except to say that there were school age children living there, even if they didn't observe school hours. It was the fact of there being children at the house during school hours that led me to conclude that my neighbours had indeed taken an early pass for the forthcoming school vacation. For some time, I also drew the conclusion that the lack of observation of school timetables, combined with the fluctuating numbers of children living next door--sometimes there were three or four children, other times just one--was evidence that my neighbours were foster parents.

This made sense to me on several levels: first I thought that if they were looking after children who had come from unstructured backgrounds then it wasn't that untoward; I also figured into my assumptions that my neighbours were Aboriginal and that fact probably accounted for a whole lot of things that, from my perspective, I couldn't know about.

Ah. Here I come face to face with a whole host of my assumptions, some of which I'm not sure aren't implicitly racist.

Exploring the foster care assumptions further, I guess, in addition to the indicators I outlined above, I was informed by one of my clearest memories of anyone I went to primary school with, an Aboriginal boy, GG. He was in foster care and we used to catch the bus at the same bus stop to go to school. There was a group of us who used to eat guavas from the trees while waiting for the bus, and G would often chase me, holding out before him one the exo-skeletons shed by cicadas that clung to the sides of the trees. I would run amongst the trees screaming as he threatened to attack me with it. I remember when I found out that he was a foster kid, how it moved me quite profoundly, because it seemed to be quite an awful thing. It made me feel ashamed that the worse thing you could do in the playground at school was wear green and so be accused of being a GG fan--he always had a running nose.

I went through a stage of wondering if my neighbours hadn't organised some alternative schooling arrangement. At this point, it didn't occur to me that the children simply weren't being schooled. I still don't know this; this is all the work of my vivid imagination arising from a few observations out of the kitchen window while washing up.

The parent figures didn't seem to work either. Again I only know this because I work from home. What's to say they didn't too? The man was often working on cars, so from that I decided he must make money from re-conditioning engines. Often times I would hear him listening to horse, maybe dog, racing on the car radio, urging his bet to cross the finish line first.

The woman would often sit outside in the mornings, on a chair set up near the cars. Together they would chat amicably. One day I came home and a raised garden bed had been built near where she sat, a round, stone-edged garden planted with aloe vera.

I was always returning footballs and tennis balls over the fence, sometimes without witness, sometimes with a wave of thanks and hello.

Often they would sit outside at night too. Their friends would visit in vehicles that looked as though they came from rural and regional areas, and they would sit around a barbecue, drinking and laughing, before they slept in the beds of their trucks with canopies beneath the stars.

As winter came around, my neighbours took to lighting a fire in an oil drum. Its smoke would come right in my kitchen window and I took to closing it because it made me feel sick.

It was these last few observations that allowed me to make sense of the loaded trailer and the extended absence as I did. I thought they had gone to visit their friends where it was warmer, to sit around other barbecues and drink and chat and sleep in their yards; to seek for the teenage boy in their care a different kind of education.

When I saw the open gates and downstairs door, I thought they had returned, but I couldn't see either them or their car. I strained to see if perhaps someone had broken in, but all I could see was upended furniture and litter through the downstairs door.

The next day I saw a van from the Public Works agency. This was followed by a succession of trucks and vans: two took away the contents of the house; then a glazier replaced missing and broken windows; a plumber and an electrician dropped by; and finally, a garden care service restored the yard. It was this last visit that puzzled me the most, not because they tidied up the yard, but because they went one step further and dug up the garden bed. I saw a man struggle with a pick axe to remove the carefully built stone edging with its squared, level surfaces; I heard the rocks thrown in the back of a truck and hauled away; and now I can see the flattened round expanse of dirt that remains like a smoothed over cicatrice.

It was this act that made my neighbours' disappearance final: the obliteration of the site into which they had expended a great deal of care and skill, around which they had routinely gathered and lived.

Sorry

Girly Bits

I went to the doctors today. Yes that's doctors, plural, there's no missing apostrophe there.

I went to the first doctor because I had to get my referral to the second doctor renewed. Nothing life threatening, just part of my current life. (If you've been reading this blog long enough, you'll know).

Anyway, I prepared myself mentally to see the first doctor because I knew I wouldn't get out of her office without having to submit to substantially more than the polite writing of a referral letter. I knew this because a few weeks before I had received a letter in the mail informing me that it was time for me to have a pap smear.

When I got that letter, I groaned. Don't get me wrong, my GP is the best. People tell me horror stories about pap smears and I know that I've had it good. Dr M is constantly reassuring and gentle throughout the whole awkward procedure, talking me through every step. But you know, it's still not terribly pleasant.

And somehow she manages to make me laugh too. About my response to her enquiry about what I'd been up to--'Same old, same old'--she said, 'What do you mean, 'same old, same old', you're having a pap smear!'

Then she casually mentions that I'm approaching 40. I tend to think that I'm going to be 40 in the same way that Billy Crystal responded to Meg Ryan's worries about turning 40 in When Harry Met Sally: 'When? In eight years!' Meh. But truthfully, I'm turning 40 in the way ThirdCat will be turning 40. Not so long now.

The significance of 40 for Dr M is that it means I'll have to start being vigilant about checking for lumps in my breasts. And since she is not one to miss an opportunity to administer preventative medicine, suddenly I had my shirt off and more poking and prodding ensued. Apparently one of my breasts is more fibrous than the other. (Oh, was that too much information?).

Anyway there is a point to this post aside from embarrassing self-revelation. I asked Dr M whether it was possible for women older than 26 to be immunised against cervical cancer. I wasn't sure if you had to be a certain age for the vaccination to be effective. I've seen the advertisements on bus stops encouraging young women to be immunised, and since the fellow who came up with the vaccine is a Professor at the University, I'm particularly aware of the development in preventative treatment for cervical cancer.

Well, it turns out that anyone can have it, but the government will only offer it freely to girls and young women between 12 and 26. The cost for older women is $150 per injection and three are required, one initially, another after 2 months, and yet another at 6 months.

I'm not entirely sure what I think about the imposition of an age limit on this potentially life saving treatment. On the one hand I feel outraged for older women in lower socio-economic groups. My doctor explained that many women were choosing to have the vaccination, but she knows I'm on a limited and irregular income, so she was quite subdued as she told me about it. I told her I'd think about it, but really, when it comes to my long term health, is it an option not to?

I think if I make it a priority, dip into my savings, since this is the kind of thing they're for, I probably can afford it.

Hope you and your loved ones can too.

Hey Sistah!

Happy International Women's Day.

La Famiglia II

Continued...

A couple of days before Christmas, I had an argument with my sister, V. It began soon after she asked me what I thought about the Howard government’s introduction of a test to determine whether those seeking Australian citizenship are sufficiently versed in the history and language of Australia and the apparently common values of its present citizens. My first response was that I’m not sure whether most present citizens of Australia, myself included, would pass such an examination. I elaborated, that as a way to ensure social harmony, since that is the stated goal of the test, it was a decidedly flawed idea.

I argued that the test assumes that people making the major decision to become Australian citizens are not already interested in finding out about the country of which they wish to be a part. It strikes me as a strange premise from which to begin assessing those who want to make their lives here. Why mark the beginning of the application process with such a divisive and damaging accusation of disinterest? Isn’t an application for citizenship an unequivocal expression of interest in Australia? It concerns me that as a people we can’t identify (empathise?) with those who want to be Australian citizens’ desire to belong to a relatively peaceful and democratic society. Isn’t that much of what is being expressed when an application for Australian citizenship is lodged? Where does the notion that applicants are not interested in Australia in any meaningful way arise? For what nefarious purpose do we imagine the applicants want to become Australian citizens?

V countered with the evidence that there are many migrants who have been in Australia for many years and still do not speak English. I’m convinced that this ‘evidence’ has been sourced from A Current Affair or Today Tonight, where one or two instances of something are invariably and dishonestly inflated to become a pervasive state of emergency. If someone doesn’t speak English in a country where the official language is English, then I imagine that it’s more of a problem for them than for the maintenance of social order. I think it would be beneficial to know English, so that social isolation might be avoided—if that’s an issue, which it can be—and I imagine it would be infinitely easier to do your shopping, pay your bills and complain to your local, state and federal government authorities with English than without it.

V then cited the Cronulla riots, saying quite strongly that ‘Something has to be done!’ This startled me, because as a statement, it was infused with such fear. She was obviously quite frightened, and she elaborated, envisaging that Australia would become like the UK, which, drawing from her experience of living in London for six years, she characterised as a society rife with racially motivated violence.

By this time, we had both accused one another of speaking disrespectfully to the other, and I was ready to drop the whole thing.

It isn’t that I don’t share my sister’s fear about the prospect of a violent society, and it turns out that she isn’t convinced of the efficacy of the proposed citizenship test either, but she would accept it as the start of measures to ensure a peaceful society, it would be ‘something’, whereas I think, as I indicated above, that such a test is premised on an uncharitable vision of those seeking a life in Australia, one that places them in an untenable position of having to prove themselves to an unforgiving audience. I’m not sure that placed in such a position myself I wouldn’t be seething resentment at having to constantly prove my allegiance. I would be more than surly if I was constantly found inadequate as an Australian. Is it any surprise that anger boils over in the face of such harsh judgement; anger and its expression through violence that itself is interpreted as irredeemable evidence of an Un-Australian character?

My mother has often told stories of feeling unwelcome in the years since our migration to Australia on account of her British-ness. To this day, she remains sensitive to being called a ‘pom’, because in the mining and resource towns we lived in for many years, she reports that it was directed towards her in its pejorative sense. She is also incensed when people correct her pronunciation, which she attributes to her West Midlands accent, rather than ignorance. There are many issues at work in my mother’s experience of migration that I wouldn’t want to discount: it must have been overwhelming to move away from established support networks of friends and family to the other side of the world with three children under the age of five. Still, as migrants, the British were wooed by the Australian government of the day. Virtually free passage eased the economic burden, and while the charge of ‘whingeing pom’ may have smarted, certainly no person of English extraction was being accused of not sharing Australian values and so destroying the fabric of Australian society.

The other aspect of my family’s migration that I can’t forget amidst the whole debate that my sister raised, is that we left England in response to my father’s fears about the influx of immigrants to that country, especially from the West Indies. Now that I’ve chosen to research in the field of Cultural Studies, I often pause to reflect on the irony that I was born in the very year, in the very place, that Stuart Hall assumed the directorship of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. And within a year, my father had ushered his family away from what he perceived to be a disintegrating society to one where the substance of the White Australia Policy was still celebrated, if not officially sanctioned.

I mentioned this, what I consider to be a shameful reason for our immigration, to my sister, and she retorted that our parents had wanted a better life for us. I can’t argue that moving to Australia didn’t afford us better opportunities than might have a been available to a tool-maker’s family in Birmingham. Still, while I’m aware that those same opportunities weren’t available to everyone, I can’t celebrate the fact of our comparatively comfortable lives uncritically. (Just this year, I attended a class, where a fellow PhD student related the story of his father’s unsuccessful attempts to migrate to Australia from Fiji, just a few years before my family moved. His father migrated to the UK.)

In an attempt to calm the waters between my sister and I, I told her about a Christmas card I had received from another office-mate of mine. Quite frankly, I was surprised to receive a card from J, because she is Muslim. And you know, I really don’t care about getting Christmas cards, being a heathen and all. In discussion with D, who had also received a card from J, we concluded that she had wanted to acknowledge that Christmas was a significant celebration in Australia, and she didn’t really know either of us well enough to know that she wouldn’t be hurting our feelings by not acknowledging it. J’s gesture was very kind and we took it in that vein. To my disappointment, V nodded approvingly and took it as evidence that J was making an effort to share our values. I began to say, ‘but she doesn’t want to move to Australia permanently, she’s studying here...’, and no doubt I would have gone into a rant about what a ridiculous thing this whole expectation that everyone from non-Christian, non-Anglo origins should constantly perform their allegiance to Australia, in an attempt to satisfy those who will never be convinced. But I didn’t.

To be continued...

La Famiglia

My family is not an especially close one. Part of the reason for this is that my immediate family migrated to Australia from the UK very early in my life, and so there has never been an extended family network in easy proximity to celebrate special occasions, much less have casual visits with or share baby sitting duties. But even if we had remained in the UK, it isn’t certain that the sense of family would have been much stronger. Perhaps on my mother’s side, I would have grown up knowing my grandparents and my aunt and uncle, even had the opportunity to fuss over my younger cousin when he was born. On my father’s side, however, the disconnection would likely have remained the same. His family was a mangle of half-siblings and transient father-figures, which he distanced himself from as much as possible, evidenced most clearly in his decision to move his own family to Australia.

I’m mentioning this history now for several reasons. The first is the last minute decision by my brother, S, and his wife, I, to visit Brisbane from Melbourne for a week over Christmas. The second is the recent return to Brisbane from Toowoomba of my sister, F’s family (including the adorable Hannah). There has been a glut of family interaction over the Christmas and New Year period, which may not be unusual for most, but after a conversation I had with D, one of my office-mates, just before Christmas, I have concluded that it is unusual for my family. After some expert questioning from D, I told her the story of my family and she expressed mystification about the apparent lack of bonding between the members of my family. To some extent I agree with her observation, especially when I think of the parent-children bonds. Between the siblings, however, there are some strong bonds, although certainly not between all of us.

At any rate, the time spent with the various members of my family over this holiday period provided the opportunity for me to find out some more things about them. Whether this will effect the forging of stronger bonds between us is not likely, for the examples I’m about to relate are not really flattering. I suppose they’re things I’ve discovered over the last few days that mystified me and I need to express them to understand them as part of me or else conclude that there is some merit in the cabbage-patch theory of reproduction.

We were half-watching the news one evening, when it was reported that Saddam Hussein had been sentenced to death and so would be hanged. My mother responded with a jubilant cheer. I was surprised. I asked her if she was for the death penalty. She said she was for some people. I expressed my puzzlement because I had spoken to my sister F, who is Christian—born-again, like my mother—about the subject of the death penalty before. F had been quite adamant that anyone who was a Christian would be against the death penalty, if only on the grounds that it is for God to decide who lives and dies, not human beings or the governments, democratic or otherwise, of which they are a part.

When I’d had that conversation with F, I had also expressed surprise. At the time I was thinking about George W. Bush, who has often spoken about his faith in Jesus Christ, and the stance of his administration on the death penalty when he was the Governor of Texas. I’m sure I read something somewhere that credited his leadership as one that presided over a record number of state-sponsored executions in the US. I seem to recall that F made a disapproving moue and questioned the authenticity of Bush’s Christianity. I don’t know about any deficit of authenticity, but perhaps it isn’t too much of a stretch to suggest that Bush has Christian fundamentalist leanings, along with those who are prepared to kill because they are against abortion.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that my mother has some sympathy with George W. Bush, she has always been conservative in her politics, but I thought, perhaps naïvely, that her conversion to Christianity would somehow temper those more extreme political views, which have allowed her to express views about various groups of people, that just shock me with their intolerance. I thought that maybe she would at least ask herself in a non-ironic, Christian Socialist sense, ‘What would Jesus do?’.

To Be Continued...