Being Present

Being Present
© Melina Magdalena (2006)

“I wanted you to be present”
(Majid, just before his death; Caché (Hidden) Michael Haneke, 2005)

To be present at any given time is to give the gift of human connection to the world. Moment by moment, we make choices about what we attend to. At the moment, I am typing on my computer ... listening to music ... singing along ... knowing the washing machine cycle will finish soon and wondering how cold it will be when I go outside to hang it out ... savouring my fried rice breakfast, still warm in my stomach ... thinking about my sister and her newborn baby girl ... conscious that I have planning to do for my teaching this week ... and the need to get out my paints to make thank you cards for the students in my class, who have taught me such a lot over the last four weeks ...

But all of this is now also in the past. And some of it is in the future. The flow of time is a matter of ever-present perplexity for me. How often am I really present? How can I be present and still maintain links to the past and the future? What is present?

Caché (Hidden) Michael Haneke, (2005)
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/)

I went to watch “Hidden” last weekend. At the films’ conclusion, like several other members of the audience, I sat in stunned and horrified numbness, wondering what the film was all about, and what it said about me, in my life.

I was horrified and stunned by Majid’s act of defiance, but something else disturbed me more. While Majid’s end is swift and startling (albeit not without ongoing ramifications), the behaviour and attitude of George, his erstwhile peer and brother, is what leaves me sleepless. Majid’s act of self-destruction contributes nothing, because George refuses to engage with it on any level at all.

It reminded me of Marilyn French’s “The Women’s Room”, (1977) where Val self-destructs in what seems to be a pointless act of aggression against patriarchy. Not only does her participation in the robbery fail to solve any problems, but it does not even attract the attention of the world to what those problems are.

I am also reminded of the sorry tale of Sorry Day in Australia, (http://home.alphalink.com.au/~rez/Journey/) and John Howard’s refusal to say ‘sorry’. His refusal leaves me almost speechless, because it is such an inhuman response, revealing him as cold, passionless, manipulative and cruel. The ability to show empathy and compassion for what others have experienced is not a weakness, but a gift and a strength that connects one person to another. When our nation’s leader claims that showing empathy will make him liable and accountable for the past, he is missing the point.

What we have and what we are is connected to what we did in the past. Australians ride high on what was stolen from the Aboriginal peoples of this land. However, Australia’s Indigenous peoples are not holding the rest of us to ransom. No one is demanding that we relinquish everything we have and give it back. It is not possible to turn back the clock and restore things as they used to be.

Like disenfrachised people everywhere, whether they were colonised or hounded from their homelands, Aboriginal people simply want to be recognised as human beings, and be given what every Australian has – equal opportunities to live, work, play, create and thrive as valued and contributing members of the Australian community.

George’s rejection of Majid and what he represents goes deeper than any personal guilt he may be covering up, for the fact that Majid, an Algerian Frenchman, grw up penniless and orphaned, in contrast to George’s well-padded, connected and affluent lifestyle. In the whole film, Majid is represented as hospitable and welcoming. He is not accusatory of George, but opens his home, offers George a drink, somewhere to sit and asks him about his life. But George rejects any level of connection with Majid. This is an absolute image of racism. George refuses to recognise that Majid is a human being. At the end of the film, we see George sleeping off the events of the previous weeks. Sleep is his solution to encountering the trauma in which he was complicit. It’s an easy metaphor to interpret – equivalent to hiding one’s head in the sand. (At the end of the day, we’re all too busy to do anything anyway. But is inaction equivalent to passive non-violent resistance?)

In the closing scene, we watch tensely, as George’s son Pierrot, leaves his school at the end of the day. From our viewpoint, we might be watching from behind a video camera, or looking down the barrel of a gun. While watching the film, I was convinced that we were about to witness a bloodbath; especially given the situation could be constructed as a war between two religious groups, the Christian-haves and the Muslim-have-nots. Instead, we are treated to an alternative that challenges the prejudices uncovered by my initial thoughts as to what will happen next. Majid’s son is indeed at the school, where he meets George’s soon. They walk off together in conversation, as their fathers never did, and never will.