Apology and dissent – the big BUT!!!
PART ONE © Melina Magdalena 2008
I began this week with a sour taste in my mouth; realizing that my refusal to consider my Uncle F’s apology to my parents was pushing me into the same corner he was trying to scramble out of.
Then came an email from GetUp requesting me to write to my local MP, seeking support for Prime Minister Rudd’s commitment to saying Sorry. My local MP is smarmy Liberal politician Christopher Pyne. I wrote a short, but passionate email, urging him to support The Sorry on the basis that it is just, necessary and important for his future credibility, the credibility of his Party but most of all, for the credibility of the apology that Rudd will make on my behalf, and on behalf of us all, for the wrongdoings past and present Australian perpetrate against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation.
Next, I received an email from my sweetheart’s parents. They are among the group of reverends who intend to march in this year’s Sydney Mardi Gras, bearing a public apology to “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people” for the way they have been treated in general, by churches and the people who attend them. To see their full apology, go here (100 Revs). This endeavour has been widely reported in the last few days. I have heard that those involved are suffering repercussions for the stand that they are choosing to take. Here’s one of the news stories that caught my attention. It links Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations with the 100 Revs.
On Lesbian_Parents_Australia this week, a focus has been on the issue of which schools will welcome our children. Many mothers on the site have had bad experiences as non-heterosexuals growing up Catholic, and also with working in Catholic schools. They do not wish their children to grow up stigmatized. This is their basis for choosing not to subject their children to an education in a Catholic school.
So apology has been on my mind a great deal, as my students returned to school and I began my second year of teaching.
We spent a great deal of time in the classroom on Monday discussing and committing to a set of classroom rules and expectations. This group of students has already had up to one year of schooling in an Australian context, and was quickly engaged in a process that is already familiar to them. We made our list, and felt good about it.
Yesterday, a young Sudanese woman interrupted class with a “What the HELL are you doing?” to a young Afghan man as he walked past her, to his seat. I didn’t catch what the hell he had done, and my automatic reaction was to question the woman, rather than the man – I am sorry for this, because it works directly against the principles of Restorative Justice , to which our school is committed. I feel that my reaction definitely falls into a “blaming the victim” mode. I do not know what happened in my classroom, except as a teacher, who was interrupted mid-flow by an interaction, accidental or purposeful, between two students of different genders and different cultural perspectives.
In speculating, it could be the man brushed past her accidentally. This woman often sits with her chair very far out from the desk, in order to work closely at her exercise book. It could be he touched her head (a severe cultural taboo) because she was not wearing one of her wigs that day, and this particular student has a fascination (borne of envy) with African hair. Or it could be something completely different.
Like so many classroom incidentals, it has been left unexamined and unresolved. If we were to devote our full attention to such occurrences each time they arose, we would have scarcely any time for teaching of the content that is deemed so vital.
On the other hand, such classroom incidentals clearly indicate a need for finding a way to work within our multicultural and culturally diverse communities so that we do not end up at perpetual war with one another.
To summarise, the focal points for me this week are:
· Homophobia
· Cultural Diversity
· The nature of formal apology
· Harm and Harmony
And that’s all I’ve managed to pull together this week. More next week, I hope.
