Parole Board Submission

November 16 2006
The Secretary
Parole Board of South Australia

ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a submission to the Parole Board in the matter of Prisoner X, who broke into my home in September 1993 while my children and I were sleeping, threatened our lives and raped me. I am a registered victim, and prefer to be called a survivor.

I realise that you cannot base your decisions on past judicial decisions, but found it impossible to write a submission to you without reference to what has gone on before. So I have inserted questions about possible parole conditions into this text.

POLICE ACTIVITY
After Prisoner X raped me the police told me they had no idea who he was. They had no idea where to find him, and thought it was an opportunistic attack by someone who had broken in to steal and support his drug habit. This meant that every man I ever encountered was under suspicion. I live with the fear that I can be raped at any time by any man, every moment of every day and every night.

I participated in a study by the police, who were gathering and comparing information about similar sexual attacks that had been occurring in pockets around Adelaide. The police interviewed me, showed me photographs of other rape survivors and tried to piece together any information that linked us. This was fruitless. They still had no idea who had raped me.

CONFESSION
Prisoner X walked into Holden Hill Police Station and confessed to a string of crimes for which victims were not all found. Some women had not reported his attacks on them. The reason for his confession was that the next victim after me had reported his brutal attack on her. The detective who was handling her case believed her when she said she could make an Identikit photo of the man who had raped her. This photo was published in the local newspaper. Prisoner X saw his wife reading the article, recognised his own face and chose not to wait to be discovered or reported by someone who also knew who he was. He did not confess because he regretted his behaviour. He did not confess because he recognised the great damage his actions had wrought on the lives of women, their children, their friends and their families. I believe his confession was a calculated move to manipulate the criminal justice system and avoid a life in prison.

Because of Prisoner X’s confession, his victims never got a chance to tell the court what he did to us. Prisoner X himself avoided hearing about our pain and our ongoing distress.

There were two minor ways in which we were involved in the case. First, we had to identify Prisoner X in a police line up. Secondly, we were encouraged to write Victim Impact Statements, which were read by Justice N when she considered his sentence. We had no assistance with either of these events, and I was further traumatised by both of them.

IDENTITY PARADE
I had no trouble identifying Prisoner X in the police line up. This occasion took place at the Holden Hill Police Station. I sat in a room with some other victims and we were told that we were not allowed to talk about why we were there, what Prisoner X had done to us, or what we thought of the case. We sat in silence as we were picked off one by one and led into the room where the police line up took place. The room we went into was the room where the men were lined up against a wall. There were no other women in the room. The identification process was video taped. After I entered the room, my full name and address were announced to everyone present. I was violated once again – my body was stripped bare by the eyes of all those men, and my identity was revealed to them. This was a humiliating, terrifying, violating experience.

VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT
I prepared my Victim Impact Statement alone on a borrowed computer. It took days, as I relived and wrote down what had happened since Prisoner X raped me. I missed the funeral of a close family friend, because I was immersed in writing down as fully as I could, the impact of Prisoner X’s crimes against my children and me. I sent my Victim Impact Statement into the police as I had been directed, and heard no more about it.

SENTENCING SUBMISSIONS
I sat in the sentencing submissions and heard how Prisoner X’s uncle abused him as a child. No details were given. This was supposed to be an excuse for why Prisoner X routinely terrorised strange women by hijacking their cars or breaking into our homes and raping us. It was presented as though Prisoner X had done a good thing in attacking us, and thereby sparing his wife and daughters.

Many Australian children are molested and abused during their childhood and teenage years. Most do not go on to behave as Prisoner X behaved. Most choose not to transmit the abuse across generations. Some seek help, and others soldier on alone. Prisoner X’s behaviour is indefensible.

SENTENCE AND SUBSEQUENT APPEALS
I sat in the courtroom as Justice N sentenced Prisoner X for his crimes. I listened in numb disbelief as she quoted from my Victim Impact Statement and halved Prisoner X’s head sentence because of a few words I had written in conclusion. Justice N never once approached me or spoke to me about what I had written. She quoted my words out of context and I felt guilty, as though I were responsible for Prisoner X’s ridiculously light sentence. I was violated once again, this time by a woman who betrayed me in her apparent admiration for Prisoner X’s willingness to step forward and face up to his criminal behaviour. I still heard no word from Prisoner X about remorse or contrition.

The Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) was appalled at the leniency shown by Justice N in sentencing Prisoner X for his string of serious crimes against women, and appealed successfully that his sentence be increased. I was not involved in this appeal, but someone from the DPP kept me informed of its outcome.

It has been a scant eight years since Prisoner X went to prison for assaulting 12 women. I couldn’t understand why he was already due for a pre-release work program and now for parole. The DPP never contacted me about Prisoner X’s successful appeal against the lengthening of his sentence. Nor was this sensationalised in Adelaide’s newspaper the way public outrage at his initial sentence was.

In appealing to shorten his sentence, Prisoner X’s lack of contrition and remorse seem obvious to me. It’s the same as his so-called confession, which was a calculated and selfish move to decrease the amount of time he would have to spend in prison to pay for his crimes.

NO REPRIEVE FOR VICTIMSAlthough the correctional services system in Australia offers reprieves to convicted criminals that include work programs, day release and parole, there is no such reprieve for victims. We will never be free of the effects of Prisoner X’s crimes against us. His release on parole or otherwise can only make us feel less safe. While he has been in prison, I have been able to get on with my life in the knowledge that he will not appear at my bedside or my front door to kill me for reporting his crimes against me to the police, as he threatened to do.

· the confession seems not to have come out of remorse or contrition
· appeal against the length of his sentence seems self-serving and unjust
· there is no reprieve for his victims when he gets out of jail so soon

MY STORY
After Prisoner X raped me, he told me that if I called the police, he would come back and kill me. He brandished the telephone and threatened to pull it out of the wall, unless I complied with his demands. I was a single mother, alone in my home with my children. My son was three years old, and my daughter was almost two years old. This happened about 6 months after I had fled my abusive husband.

I was outraged by being woken from my sleep and brutally raped. I was terrified that he would come back and kill my children and me, so I waited a few minutes to be sure he had really gone, and immediately made two phone calls to (a) my parents and (b) the police. My father picked up the phone and I told him someone had broken into my house. He said “Did he hurt you?” I said “Yes.” He said “I’m coming over straightaway.”

I don’t remember who arrived first – my father, or the police, but I was most concerned that they not wake the children. The police wanted to take me to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for forensic examination, so my father stayed with my children.

MY CIRCUMSTANCES
At this time I was also going through Family Court proceedings to establish access arrangements. My children were already traumatized by our marriage. During my marriage I had been estranged from my family and was only beginning to reconnect with my parents. I was also busily making plans for the rest of my life, for returning to study and making a home for my children. I had very few friends. As is often the case in domestic violence, my husband had taken care to isolate me, often through a process of social humiliation.

One of the reasons I fled my marriage was that my husband had raped me after the birth of our second child. After that incident, which we never spoke about directly, I felt like he was raping me every time I consented to have sex with him.

When Prisoner X raped me I discovered that I live in a world where men think they have the right to rape any women whenever and wherever they feel like it. I learned the bitter truth that I can never control the actions of men around me. I tried to avoid coming into any kind of contact with any kind of man. I worried incessantly about the fact that my son, whom I love very dearly, was going to grow into a man. I could not bear to think about the fact that my father was a man; that my brothers were men; and that one of my close friends was a man.

Though I have learned to live with my deep fears, I still jump every time someone knocks at my door, even when I am expecting visitors. I am on constant alert. I dread getting into a lift with strange men, though this is something I have to do almost every day. I have to psych myself up to speak with men who are sales assistants at service stations and in other businesses.

When Prisoner X raped me people tried all kinds of ways to justify his actions and blame me for what he did. The police seemed to make a big deal out of the fact that I hadn’t worn any underpants to bed. People said I should have locked my windows. They said I should not have left my husband. They said I was already living in fear and had somehow attracted a monster into my life to make my nightmares into reality. I could never bring myself to believe that people thought I had done anything wrong, because I was just asleep in my bed when he broke into my home.

It has taken thirteen years for me to remember what my state of mind was, before Prisoner X raped me. I was happy, optimistic, eager to embrace my life, enjoying mothering and looking forward to all the changes that were going on around me. Yet all this time I have nursed the secret belief that Prisoner X targeted me for a reason. I never believed it was a random attack.

· how do you ensure he doesn’t do this again to other women?
· the effects of his actions are deep, long-lasting and affect not only the women he raped, but their children, family and friends

CONSEQUENCES OF BEING RAPED
I can write at length about my experience of the ongoing physical, emotional, financial and spiritual effects of Prisoner X’s crimes against me, but in doing so I will come across as a nagging complaining victim, rather than a survivor of a hideous criminal experience that began when Prisoner X broke into my home in September 1993 and continues to this day.

The idea that in making this submission to the Parole Board, I am playing an important role in achieving justice just doesn’t ring true. This continues to be the story of poor victimised Prisoner X who has been in prison and wants to get out to live a normal life again with his wife and daughters. I have no real role in this story, except as an anonymous victim. Having my say does not help me to heal. It does not help me to recover. It does not make me feel safer. It does not make me feel justice has been served.

In writing this submission I am brought low again, as low as I ever let myself go. I feel bereft of myself – the only way to cope with these memories and to allow them to surface is to disconnect myself from everything else in my life. I fail to respond to my children as I should, and I am unable to go to work, because this is all I can think about. The rest of my life and my identity are in stasis. I am meaningless and worthless.

Perhaps it was an unlucky accident that my home was the one Prisoner X broke into that night? And if I were to make good my threat to kill myself in an effort to relieve my fears and my anxieties, who will suffer from my actions? They will have no impact on Prisoner X’s life or his prison sentence. The fact that rape is supposed to be considered as serious a crime as murder only goes to show that life is cheap, and there is no justice for victims of crime.

Ultimately, what bearing can my unexplainably debilitating menstrual cycle have on Prisoner X’s prison term? How can it matter, that I have longed to bear more children yet am incapable of forming any close relationship with a man that would make this possible?

I can see a direct link between recovering from rape, and the lengthy delay in my career and studies, and the financial impact this has had on my family. My life chances were severely impacted and reduced by Prisoner X’s crimes.

Is this the kind of thing the Parole Board considers, in examining applications by prisoners, for parole? The longer Prisoner X stays in prison, the longer I have to not think about him. I’ve already had to think about him this year as he has been on work and weekend release. Every time I hear from Correctional Services that it might be wise for me to avoid this place or that place, my inclination to be reclusive redoubles. Why would I want to leave my home if I might encounter a monster in the local shops?

· the ongoing effects of post traumatic stress disorder are debilitating and serious, affecting me psychologically and physically
· letting him out of jail can only exacerbate these experiences
· my children are affected in turn by my distress

CONDITIONS OF RELEASE
The miniscule degree of separation between people in Adelaide worries me. Prisoner X and I have children around the same age. Prisoner X’s wife and daughters are not responsible for his crimes against my children and me. Only he is responsible, but how dare his wife relocate to Golden Grove? Why didn’t she stay in Williamstown?

· Do I now have to consider relocating my children in order to avoid my rapist when he leaves prison?

REHABILITATION
One of the reasons given to the court for why Prisoner X’s sentence should be reduced was the lack of rehabilitation services that would be available to him in prison. The court was told that he stood a better chance of being rehabilitated if he were not imprisoned.

In my involvement as a Registered Victim with Correctional Services, I was told that Prisoner X has been a model prisoner, and that he takes advantage of all the rehabilitation services that are offered him in prison. However, I’m not sure what that means. The phrasing “takes advantage of” suggests that he is acting out of self concern, in order to get out of prison as soon as he possibly can. Maybe it’s not in order to acknowledge or come to terms with his crimes, and not an effort to prevent him from behaving in the same way in future.

I don’t know what rehabilitation means, for a serial rapist. What are the rates of success in the rehabilitation stakes? Is success determined by the increasing length of time between attacks, or by a reduction in severity? After his sentencing, I met up with some of Prisoner X’s other victims. I was shocked to hear from them, how brutal and frenzied his attacks had become, particularly when babies and small children were present.

Our televisions feed us an unrelenting diet of murder, rape and crime, the majority of which are by men against innocent women and children. Who can determine that a serial rapist is not thrilled, educated and encouraged by what he sees on television? Is it reasonable that I demand Prisoner X not be allowed to watch television for the rest of his life? Stress increases the risk of re-offending. Thank goodness he won’t be going home to a house full of small children anymore. Can I demand that he be given a stress-free life? Do I deserve anything less?

· What will his ongoing rehabilitation program look like?
· How will he be monitored to ensure he is compliant?
· What safeguards are there for the community that he not rape again?
· How do you ensure he fathers no more children?
I have no confidence that when he is released from prison, Prisoner X will not seek to carry out this threat to kill me. I have no confidence that he has any idea of the effects of his crimes against my children and me. I don’t know that he has any remorse or regret or contrition for his criminal acts.

Prisoner X does not deserve to attempt to lead an ordinary life out of prison unless he is determined never to rape again.

If Prisoner X still gets a thrill out of imagining breaking into a home and overpowering and raping the women he finds in there, he should die in prison. If Prisoner X continues to show no remorse for his actions, and no understanding of their impact on his victims, he should die in prison.

I don’t want to encounter him. I don’t want him to kill me. I don’t want him contacting me or my children directly or indirectly. I don’t want him to rape, or break into any more cars or homes. If there is any risk of these things occurring, don’t allow him to leave prison.

· he should not make contact with me or my children, whether directly or indirectly
· he should not carry out his threat to kill me because I told the police what he had done
Yours sincerely,
Melina Magdalena


(*Prisoner X remains unnamed in this blog for a good reason)

Don't Turn a Blind Eye

On the day of the Reclaim the Night March, I attended a different kind of event in Casino, another town in northern NSW (the beef capital).

I had met with Aunty Faye Binge the day before, after talking with her several times by phone before I arrived in Lismore in late October. It was a relief to finally sit down and have a cuppa with her, as I find it much easier to get to know someone in person, than over the phone.

Aunty Faye was one of the organisers of the event, along with Mary Willis and a group of other community women from Malanee Bugilmah and the Women's Community Planning Group, Casino. It was called "Don't Turn a Blind Eye To Sexual Violence", and was a family community event which involved a march down Casino's main street, speakers, musicians and lunch in Civic Hall.

When I arrived at Civic Hall early in the morning, no one was quite sure how many people would turn up. I was also surprised that no one person seemed keen to take charge of organising the hall - seems they are a cooperative bunch, without the power dynamics prevalent in so many other groups I've had dealings with. How refreshing! So I got to help set things up.

The event was very successful, attracting a crowd of about 50 people, and a good mix of ages and Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I think this was the aim all along. It was also an explicit aim of this event to include men who want to work with women in healing communities affected by sexual violence. I was quite impressed by the sentiments expressed by the two men who spoke - the Mayor and Chris, who is the Manager of Malanee Bugilmah.

They were kind enough to allow me to speak as well, which I did, impromptu and from the heart.

I was shocked to learn that Reclaim the Night was stopped in Casino several years ago, after marchers were abused and threatened by onlookers during their march through the town. It sounds so scary and blatant that men were willing to make public and explicit, their views on women's rights.

This is the kind of event I am always happy to attend, because it was colourful, creative and positive. Community people had made some glorious banners that they were very proud to parade down Main Street, and the feeling in Civic Hall was peaceful and optimistic. I hope they continue to hold these events annually, as is their plan.

**the beautiful artwork on the postcard is by Kylie Sharma, who also happens to by Aunty Faye's daughter.

Reclaiming the Night in Byron Bay

Last night I attended one of the best Reclaim the Night marches I've been on. I'm visiting the Rainbow Triangle in northern NSW. There was no march in Lismore this year, so I took advantage of the free bus which took women from Lismore Women's Health Centre to Byron Bay for their event.

On my bus, I got to sit next to Laura Henkel, whom I'd never met in person, though I've corresponded with her a few times, and know her - of course - from the documentary "The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face", made by her daughter, Cathy Henkel.

Laura is one of the contributors to The Reclaiming Anthology: healing our wounds. She is the survivor of a horrific sexual assault that took place in South Africa, where she was born and grew up. It was great to hear Laura's perspective on South Africa of today. She also told me how it happened that her parents had emigrated from London to Africa - quite an adventure, it seems!

Cathy Henkel's film has been widely shown around the world, and was judged the winner of the Best Documentary Feature, Tribeca Film Festival, New York and winner of Best Documentar Lexus IF Awards. The impact of the film continues to reverberate around Africa and the world. In fact, Laura now has a rape crisis centre in Liberia named after her!

Laura's comment on the Pacific Ocean is that it's a pond, when compared with the majesty of the Atlantic! She hopes to live by the ocean again some day, having spent her first few years on the coast of South Africa.

When we reached Byron Bay, we watched, as about 350 passionate, excited and determined women gathered in a park on the beach. The event was well organised, and I was surprised to find my artwork on the flyer that Kassa Bird had prepared for marchers. She didn't know who 'Mersigns' was, and had apparently received the picture from Christobel. I don't know Christobel either, but was honoured to see my poster being used in this way.

The sound equipment was superb, and it was easy to listen to the speakers - of whom there were only a few. I really enjoyed Mandy Nolan, the 'Sister of Ceremonies' who also took the time to let people know that I was there, with books and posters for sale. She instantly and predictably reacted to my last name 'Magdalena' as representative of another strong woman who walked the streets. Having read the Da Vinci Code the night before, I wasn't offended!

What I picked up from this march was the enormous surge of energy we created, in walking through the streets of Byron Bay. I haven't spent much time in small towns, and it was just wonderful to parade past onlookers just as we would in a city, and feel we were imparting a vital message to the world.

I don't know how Reclaim the Night 2006 went in Adelaide. I hope it was a good event.

During the day, I attended a different kind of event in another nearby town, Casino (known as the beef capital of Australia). See the post "Don't Turn a Blind Eye"

Pocketful of Starlight

Pocketful of Starlight*
(c) Melina Magdalena

it was
exactly
as though Love
came by and
tapped me on
the shoulder

there she sat
quietly
and calmly
contemplating
me of
all people

though I’d
never seen her
before
grim
probabilities
dropped
away and
vast
possibilities
seemed
suddenly
endless

I stood in
a meadow
of stars
that sparkled
beneath my feet
horizon
too distant
to grasp so
the waiting
was all for
this moment

instantly
she became
familiar
so precious
and dear
imprinted
upon my
memory

it was time
to embrace
my future


(*from Perry Como Catch a Falling Star)

The Reclaiming Anthology Roadshow!

Book & Poster Tour 2006


It's now been almost a year since the launch of The Reclaiming Anthology: healing our wounds (Seaview Press, 2005). The book is now into its second print-run.

I will be travelling to Melbourne and Northern NSW to promote the book during October 2006. Copies of the anthology will be sold for $25 each (RRP$27.50).

I have also printed the poster which inspired it, $8 each.


(Book + Poster = $30)

If you're in the area and would like to make contact, or arrange to buy a poster or book, please leave a message for at the following places.

Melbourne
October 11 - October 15
The Oasis Youth Hostel
ph. 9328-3595

Lismore (and northern NSW, possibly including Brisbane)
October 25 - October 31
Staying with Larisa and Colin
ph. 6622-7171

Or email me: magdalena@adam.com.au

I'm also beginning to work on a new idea for an anthology about sharing women's success stories of surviving domestic violence.

Group Processes I

Group Processes I
(c) Melina Magdalena 2006

Here's a letter I didn't send!

Dear T,
I am writing to complain about my systematic exclusion from involvement in the project. My intention is not to attack or undermine you. On the contrary, raising these matters shows my respect for you. If I did not respect you and wish to encourage you in developing your leadership potential, I would simply write this episode off as a hurtful event caused by the brashness of your youth and inexperience.

In the past, I have had to deal with leaders who withheld information, played games and changed their stories according to which group member(s) they were speaking to at any given time. This kind of leadership engenders a great deal of hurt, feelings of disempowerment, disappointment and anger. It leads to factions in the group, when members band together in order to gain some support from one another. Other group members become outcasts. I do not sense that you are this kind of leader. I sense that you are doing your very best to stay afloat. I do not think you had any plan, intention or conspiracy to treat me badly.

In finding yourself in a position of power, you have had the added stress of trying to manage a group that includes some of your close friends, as well as people you don’t know very well. It is natural for you to seek support from your friends and to feel more comfortable in dealing with your friends, than with the outsiders. What you need to keep in mind though, is that because I am an outsider I am already highly sensitized to the threat of being left out. For this reason, it’s especially important that you as a leader are conscious of my position as outsider. It is your responsibility, having invited me into the group, to ensure that you treat me fairly.

I accept that within the series of dot points that describe active and inactive roles in this project, I must clearly define myself as inactive. This is not my major complaint, although the fact that you failed to inform me about or invite me to attend the meeting at which you decided these roles backs up my view of the systematic way in which you have excluded me. Devising out this system to justify your doing so a mere six weeks before the launch of the project seems to me to be a sneaky and fundamentally dishonest way to deal with this issue.

From my experience, leaders who operate from an information-sharing mode can feel far more supported and appreciated by group members who in turn, feel empowered and able to participate in the group. It’s not about giving up your control as leader, but about keeping your intentions and methods transparent.

The most important thing about leading any group is to recognize that there are people in that group, each of whom brings a whole set of viewpoints, experiences and feelings to that group. The style of leadership helps to determine what kind of experiences group members will take away with them, and how successful that group will be. I feel very hurt and disappointed by my experience as a member of this group.

I have repeatedly and explicitly asked for information about the project. In my very first email reply to you, I said, “I am not young. Am I still eligible?” to which you replied that I was, of course, and welcome to take part. However, I have not felt welcomed or included. I have felt as though you delayed bringing me into the group; that you and others have made every decision without me; and that you have now taken steps to explicitly exclude me after the fact.

Communication is the one thing that makes or breaks a project. An effective leader is committed to communicating openly, honestly and regularly with the other members of the group. Even though I have explicitly sought to be involved in the project and have repeatedly offered to assist with various aspects of the project, you even failed to give me your phone number so that I could contact you, until I had requested it three times on three separate occasions.

In seeking information, I was not trying to take over or change decisions that had already been made – I was only seeking to become part of the group. I was operating from the idea that group members had a right to know what decisions had been made, and to participate in future decision-making. This misunderstanding on my part could very easily have been avoided, had you told me from the beginning that I was welcome to pay to exhibit in an exhibition that was being organized by others. Had you told me this, my response would have been – how nice that they are willing to do all the work and still include me, but that was never my understanding!

I believed from the outset that I had been invited to take part in the organizing of the exhibition itself. I have felt bewildered and hurt that you have not shared information with me and shown no interest whatsoever in any of the skills or knowledge I could have contributed to this project. Perhaps I am just a little slow on the uptake, but some honesty and openness and information sharing could have alleviated the hurt and disappointment this has caused me.

In offering to help manage the invitation list, I was not seeking to control who would be invited. I was not seeking to take over your role as leader. I was simply offering to use my administrative skills to relieve you of what you seemed to see as another onerous task. The same can be said for my offering to assist in organizing catering for the launch. I was not seeking to determine and control what kind of food would be served. I was not seeking to take over the roles that someone else had already taken on. And I would not have offered to help organize catering if I had thought that my travel plans over the next few weeks would make it impossible for me to do what I offered to do. Having been a sole parent, student, worker and community activist for many years, I am good a prioritising my time and juggling many commitments.

I have not been blind or deaf to your body language and emphases during meetings, when you have reacted to things I have said. When you read out the role of an active member and stressed the word ‘respect’, I felt you were singling me out and giving me a reprimand in front of the group, as though my behaviour toward you had not been respectful. Again, when I questioned your use of the inclusive third pronouns during meetings, and asked who the we was to whom you were referring, you tensed, refused to meet my gaze, and acted angry and defensive about my question. Why did you automatically seek to defend your position, without bothering to listen to what I had to say, or try to understand the feeling behind my plea for inclusion?

When you marched me out of the last meeting, and let me know exactly how you had felt when I sent you an email which expressed my anger at not being told the previous meeting had been cancelled, and which explicitly asked whether I was being deliberately excluded, I got no sense that you were committed to including me, or that you had even bothered to try to understand the source of my distress. This is not good leadership. It is power tripping, controlling behaviour. If you re-read my email, you will see that it is not a personal attack on you. It is an email in which I express my anger at turning up for a meeting that I had thought I was going to be included in, and discovering that no one else had turned up. At that point I was aware you had neglected to invite me to the previous meeting, and I wondered whether you had changed the meeting time, date or venue in order to exclude and embarrass me. I had a right to express my anger, and to ask for information. This was not a personal attack on you.

I anticipate your response to this letter will be to want to give me back my money and say that I am no longer allowed to exhibit as part of your project. Or if you think that is too much, perhaps you will say that my artworks are too big or too inappropriate to be included. Or maybe you will just pick the worst spots in the gallery to display them or put incorrect information on the catalogue about my work, and me in order to pay me back. Please take a few deep breaths before you react with passive aggression. I’m not interested in petty game playing. I don’t want to carry a grudge against you, and I don’t want you to assume I am a bad, difficult person just because I have had the courage to express myself in this way.

No one likes to be criticised – myself included. If I have done anything that has offended you, I expect you to let me know what that is, so that I can try and make amends for this. All I can think of so when I turned up an hour late to a meeting, because I misread your email. I am very sorry for this mistake.

I am also sorry to have to make a complaint, because I think the project is great, I agree that it is needed, and I hope it comes off really well. I hope that you are able to look back on it as a giant step in the direction of project leadership, and that in the end, you are pleased with how it goes. I am really happy to be involved in the project, and accept now, that my involvement with it is in an inactive capacity.

Best wishes,
Melina Magdalena

Pack Mentality

Pack mentality
(c) Melina Magdalena

Today for the first time, I'm writing directly onto my blog instead of writing something separately and then pasting it in after some consideration. Life is really busy and my priority is to put something up each week, even if it's sometimes not as polished as I'd like for it to be.

This week has been a difficult one. It's so weird how the same kinds of issues crop up in many lives at once, like a fireworks show of synchronicity, or a virus that spreads like wildfire through interconnected lives. Astrology is one way to explain this. Who knows?

The theme of the day seems to be WORK. I'd like to do some writing about work and play, because it's an aspect of life that I find tricky and perplexing. I'd like to think that work and play could be one and the same, as the Anarchist Christians did maintain, but I also like to be able to choose what I do, rather than ask some known or unknown source to be the arbiter of my lifestyle. Clearly, motherhood as vocation is one aspect of this conundrum.

There's something about being a mother that makes me reluctant to crow for my kin this week, though on a family level we have enjoyed a truly harmonious time, during which we've laughed a great deal and appreciated being together as a family. I'm reluctant to say this because like the new mother who fears talking about her baby's sleep pattern, I don't want to disrupt the good times or jinx them by acknowledging them. Silly, isn't it!

I would like to comment though, on an incident that made my heart swell with love and pride for my son this week.

He came home from school and told me that seven of his friends had "nearly been suspended". This surprised me greatly, because it is incongruous with the kinds of friends he generally hangs out with. When I heard what they had done, my heart was chilled and I felt angry at the school's inadequate response to dangerous behaviour. At the same time, I acknowledge this particular form is a new shape of the pack mentality displayed too often by some young men, and perhaps the school wasn't sure how to deal with it.

The story goes that as on any school evening these days, a boy started a conversation on msn with somebody else. That somebody else is a girl from the school whom few people like. She is brash, loud, unpleasant and fat.

(If this is starting to sound like the way the men of interest describe Dianne Brimble , please note - I don't think this is a coincidence.)

More boys were invited to join this conversation, which rapidly degenerated into a vile and extremely personal attack on this girl. My son was invited twice into this conversation, but signed himself out both times, because he didn't think it was funny and he didn't want to participate.

The girl printed out the conversation and showed it to her mother, who took it to the school, which led to the seven boys almost getting suspended. They were not suspended, because the school said it was really a police matter to deal with such assaults.

Assault is the word used by the school. My son objected to this word and said the girl should have simply signed herself out of the conversation. He interpreted her behaviour as one calculated to get the boys into trouble.

I'm not sure about this. To me, this sounds like victim blaming. To me, those boys should not have ganged up to attack her, and I don't believe there is anything she could have done to provoke them to attack her.

This was a cyber attack, but it's no less an attack than a group of boys in a car who see a classmate on the side of the road, and pick her up on a joyride that leads to a pack rape.

Yes, it's important for girls and women to learn to avoid situations that lead to victimisation, and to learn to intervene in them and to fight back when that is the best option, in order to survive them and not be destroyed.

And isn't it sad that that every woman knows that younger women will inevitably be faced with situations in which they may very well be victimised and attacked in this way?

Fearless Girls

Fearless Girls
Book recommendation!
© Melina Magdalena, September 2006

I would like to recommend Kathleen Ragan’s Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: heroines in folktales from around the world (1998, Bantam Books) as a fantastic read for everyone I know.

My sister gave this book to my daughter in 1999, with the inscription “Happy 8th birthday! I hope you enjoy these stories about girls and women all over the world.” It has sat on her shelf for these past years, but I picked it up and read it last week from cover to cover.

This book will be very useful for teachers of English as a Second Language, as it includes authentic folk tales from cultures all over the world. What is special about these folktales is that the protagonist in every case is a woman. Many of the stories reflect predominant gendered roles inherent in the cultural values of their people of origin, but a significant number of the stories also challenge these roles, and a few stories of female tricksters are also included.

In those stories that centre around traditional cultural outlooks in which girls are married off to men in order to have babies and raise them, when misfortune strikes, or when the husband’s behaviour is less than desirable, these women heroes find truly amazing ways to turn their lives around and to be successful.

Some of the girls in these stories pose as men in order to right a wrong or prove themselves. They are proud of their ability to match the males around them, and step defiantly out from behind their masks to take their rightful places as women, at the end of these stories.

As Ragan states in her introduction, she chose the stories through an exhaustive scholarly study of folktales, and selected those tales in which the female protagonists survive the ends of their stories. She writes,
“One of the greatest dilemmas was the definition of a heroine. The following criteria served as a guideline: The main characters are female and they are worthy of emulation. They do not serve as the foil to the ‘good’ character in the story, and they are not wicked queens, Mother Miserys, or nagging mothers-in-law. A second criteria was that the tale must centre in and around the heroine.”

Telling our stories is a way of keeping our experiences alive. Folktales often develop out of real events and the interpretations of these. They inspire hope and admiration. When women are the heroes of these stories, they are painted in their true colours as ingenious, clever, loyal, resourceful and determined.

I found the stories valuable in providing windows into the cultural realities that often seemed strange and exotic to me. The book as a whole challenges me to be the very best woman I can be, to protect those around me from male abuse, and to stand up and speak for what I believe in.

Toxic Pronouns

Toxic pronouns
(c) Melina Magdalena, 2006

I saw him today after work, as I was driving from the bus station to the gym. I didn’t recognize him at first; I just noticed a derelict looking man in a red flannel shirt with no shoes shambling his way toward the shopping centre. Then I realized who it was, carrying those empty shopping bags and remembered that tonight is his night to have the kids. He must have been on his way to buy some food for them. And reflecting upon this pathetic sight I am filled with a mixture of remorse, revulsion and regret. He believes I have destroyed his life. I once thought the same of him. But I won’t go there anymore. He’ll get no satisfaction from me on that score.

I thought I was over domestic violence. I thought I’d moved on – that it was something of my past with which I had dealt with, from which I had learned and healed. But it’s resurfaced yet again, knocking me for a six, and leaving me with head spinning, stomach churning, and self-hating, guilt-tripping, suffering yet again.

I don’t want to rehash the past; anyway – you’ve probably heard it all before. It’s not a new story, but it’s a story that is far too common even today, when these things are sometimes talked about.

Having a blog gives me an opportunity to publicly document the events of the past couple of weeks in a way that may help me gain perspective on my own situation, as well as enabling outsiders a glimpse into what goes on for someone in an ongoing domestic violence situation. I don’t like to see myself in that place, because I feel ashamed and let down. It’s too easy to blame myself, and it hurts so much to see my children suffer. If I’d left things well enough alone, perhaps they wouldn’t have been drawn directly into the maelstrom of the toxic and dangerous relationship between their father and me.

He made the following statements and remarks to me during the course of a single telephone conversation. When I was finally able to hang up I wanted to vomit but of course I swallowed my bile and put my brave face back on. My children were in the room, listening to it all. My son said “That sounded like a very difficult conversation.” Little did he know.

I would kill your fucking parents at the drop of a hat.

I still have a problem with your parents. I don’t know how you can have anything to do with them. They tried to murder my firstborn!

You’re either in or out with your parents and they never liked me. How can you forgive them for leaving you crying at that bus stop for me to pick you up?

Your parents didn’t try very hard, did they, to convince you to stay with me. They made me the enemy and then they made you the enemy until they got the chance to drive a wedge between you and me and then they did everything they could to make you leave me.

I’m not the bad guy. Your parents are the ones who tried to split you and me up. They’re the ones who tried to kill my firstborn. They were so happy when you left me. They poisoned you against me. And they’ve tried to poison my children against me, too. How can I forgive them for trying to poison my children against their own father?

He’s hasn’t changed his tune once in the last thirteen years since I took the babies and climbed into a taxi and left my marriage behind while he slept in after another long hard night of partying down with his friends at the pub. He shows no shred of remorse; takes no responsibility for my choices. He insists I was in the wrong, I was the undoing of him, I was the destroyer of family, the seeker of evil – that weak-willed woman who went back to her parents and abandoned her husband.

And he doesn’t get, that one of the most offensive aspects of his story is that it renders me a powerless pawn with no mind of her own, caught in a battle between good and evil – him and my parents. Whereas my story is that I laughed with delight and shook with terror simultaneously as I took my children and left him. My life was about to begin again, when it had so nearly been ended, and my spirit had been so broken by his abuse. I didn’t know his abuse would still continue, thirteen years down the track.

This time I thought I was strong enough to handle it. Or maybe it didn’t enter my head at all; that he would see an opportunity to strike once again at the stubborn calm I keep around me. I think I thought he might have grown up enough to see beyond his selfish pain and recognize our children’s. And I wanted so badly for them to be able to speak their minds for once.

So I invited him around to talk, and to feed him dinner. He is adamant he didn’t know a meal was on offer. He uses the offering of food as an excuse for his violent, terrifying, bizarre behaviour. Whatever.

My son approached him later, suggested it wouldn’t be so bad next time we got together to talk, that the uncomfortable feelings will go away if only Mum keeps her deal and lifts the restraining order. His father said to him “It’s not really about the restraining order – that was just the first thing that popped into my head.” Bingo. It was as plain as the nose on my face that he was engaging in yet another manipulative ploy to win sympathy and block any discussion between the four of us.

As he carried on at my table I was horrified and terrified. Who knows how far he would go? Convinced of his rightness, why wouldn’t he pick up a knife and throw it at me? I would still be in the wrong for inviting him over and giving him food. I was silenced like a rabbit, caught in the deathlight of the oncoming collision, afraid to call his bluff, lest he be provoked to act out his rage physically upon me. I’m still a coward, when it comes to being beaten. It’s not something I enjoy.

There’s no need for me to make him out to be worse than he is. What he is is bad enough.

How would you feel if you woke up one morning and your kids were gone and the only way you were going to get to see them more than once a fortnight was to go to court and fight the fucking lawyers?

Why don’t you think about how I feel sometimes, about what you’ve done to me? How would you like it?

I’ve never forgiven you for saying I could see the kids and then not bringing them. How can I ever trust you again after breaking that arrangement?

I was so afraid after this conversation that he might go off and kill himself and I’d be left feeling responsible. Not that his death wouldn’t make things easier for us in some ways. And what kind of person could I be, to think such evil, horrible thoughts?

It’s not the first time he’s threatened to kill my parents. The police say they can do nothing about such verbal threats, unless they are turned into some kind of arrestable action. Does it matter to them that his threats are a form of abuse and violence against his children who witness the virtual carnage, and me? It seems that restraining order still holds him from attacking me physically, despite his foul words. He could get hold of a gun from one of his weirdo friends; that fan club that adores him, but if he killed me and he killed my parents, he’d be left holding the babies. And that’s not really what he wants. He’s never really wanted to be their father – his actions speak loudly on that score – his behaviour is calculated to control me.

Bearing a fatherless child would be an act of such faith and courage, of political defiance and snarling outrageous dangerous womanly power. To be that child’s mother, without being bound to the man whose sperm enabled my egg to develop, would be such a symbol of freedom for me, the woman who is caught between the husband who hates her and a society that condemns her for leaving him.

So when are we going to have another talk? Or are you over talking to me now?

The only reason you don’t like talking to me is because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Think about how uncomfortable I must feel talking to you, after everything you’ve done to me.

Maybe you feel uncomfortable because I’m right? Maybe it would do you some good to listen to it for once instead of ignoring me and making me out to be the bad guy all the time?

When I rang Lifeline a young male voice answered and I asked if I could speak to a woman instead. He fobbed me off, by claiming all the Lifeline counselors were trained to give me pretty much identical responses. Having been through a great deal of the training myself, I didn’t doubt this, so I let myself talk to him about the threats, the abuse, the violence, and the effects these were having on my children.

Authorities are always so frankly admiring of the way I parent my children. What they do not seem to realize is just how shitty I feel for dragging my children through the mud every time I forget just how bad their father makes us feel. How can I forgive myself for putting this onto them? I could be the best parent in the world and I couldn’t undo the damage our toxic relationship has wrought upon their futures, upon their self-esteem.

Mr Lifeline reflected back what he thought he had heard me say, that I had instigated a conversation between my children, their father and me in the hope, as he so drolly put it, to attain “more freedom” for my children. Then he asked me what I thought I’d done that was so contemptible. What actions had I taken that led to my children’s distress?

Slowly, my head caught up with my gut and my heart began to thaw and the tears began to flow as I understood that what I had done was open the walls of the fortress I’ve built around myself and my children to protect us and I let the monster in to do his vile work again. The shame clouded my eyes. I wanted to slice a sharp knife against my wrists. I wanted to beat my head against the wall to block out the knowledge out that if was I who had started this and I didn’t know how I was going to put an end to it again.

It was clear to Mr Lifeline that my ex-husband was continuing to manipulate the children, that he was perpetrating abuse against the two of them, and me. Now that was something else again – I had managed to ignore that the children were witnessing and experiencing the abuse directly this time, too. How could I have been such an imbecile to think that their father might for once look beyond his pathetic loser self and see that his actions were hurting the children he claims to care for so deeply? Shame. Shame. SHAME

Performance Art

Performance Art
(c) Melina Magdalena September 2006

My children will probably still be dutifully trotting off to their father’s house for alternate weekends when they’re in their thirties.

Synchronicity is a strange thing. It’s true that once sensitised to something, one suddenly sees it all over the place. For me, synchronicity occurs precisely when it’s needed.

Lately, I’ve had adults spontaneously tell me their stories of growing up in divorced households; people I didn’t know had come from ‘broken homes’, who I would never have guess had experienced the torrid times of feeling they were freaks. Without exception they have each volunteered the following:

“Oh, by the time I was that age, I wanted to do my own thing.
I wasn’t going to my father’s house every other weekend.”

I want my children to grow up and become independent human beings! I want to say to them – you are here to become yourselves, not to pay homage to someone who would make you in his own image!

It’s ironic that I’ve finally found someone who wants to be my partner. Finding time to be alone together could only become more difficult with a détente in the contact arrangements between my children and their father.

The enforced rigidity of contact and the payback games in which their father and I have engaged over the last 13 years have been sources of immense frustration and deep emotional pain. He has instilled in the children a belief that I always intended to keep him from them, and that it was only his wiliness and perseverance, even in the Family Court, that won them the precious right to see their father. I do not want to sever my children’s contact with their father. I do not want them all to myself.

In the interests of nurturing my children’s growing independence, I have noted several things about their communication with their father and me. They avoid informing their father of anything that is not routine. This includes getting in trouble at school, losing calculators, needing to pay for extra activities and receiving invitations to social events. Parties are a problem – particularly when they fall on the weekends when my children are with their father. The children make an assumption that they will therefore not be able to go to them. Why? Don’t ask me, I can’t tell, and as far as I know, they’ve never asked him either! Needing to be able to pay for things is a problem – they do not ask their father, as a rule. Why bother? His attitude has always been to take his right of contact by force if necessary, while refusing his responsibility of contribution to their material well being and neglecting to make sure communication about his activities goes both ways.

Building my children’s confidence, assertion skills and autonomy is a task I consider paramount as part of my mothering. It’s never pleasant when we disagree, but it’s a chance for them to practice these skills. When they need a note for school, or lose something, it’s risky for them to bring these troubles to me. They are willing to take these risks with me not because I am a pushover, but because I treat them with respect and try to keep their best interests uppermost in my mind and behaviour.

I suggested to them that perhaps given their changing interests and busy schedules, it might be appropriate for us to rethink the way their travelling back and forth between their father’s home and ours is conducted. I suggested to them that they are old enough to have some say in how they want to live, and that if they want to make changes or be more flexible, it would be a good idea for the four of us – me, the children and their father - to talk about this and come up with some ideas and plans. I reminded them that each of us has rights, ideas and feelings that are ok and probably different from one another’s.

When they asked me what I wanted, I stressed the fact that I didn’t want to impose my ideas, because I wanted to be able to discuss it all so that everyone was heard. I said that it is quite convenient for me to have blocks of child-free time, but that it is also frustrating when I want to be able to plan to do family things with them, but they fill up their weekends with me with other commitments and are rarely available to change their plans with their father in order to accommodate my wishes. They told me they are teenagers and don’t want to do family things with their parents (meaning me – their father drags them off wherever he wants to go and they never say a word).

My son told his father I wanted to talk to him about changing access. I tried to ring their father, and got his answering machine. It’s no big deal – I’m often not around to answer the phone either. So I left him a message. I don’t remember it word for word, but it went something like this:

Hello X, it’s M.
I think Y told you I wanted to talk to you about arrangements?
I just think it would be a good idea for us all to sit down
and work things out together
so we’re all happy with arrangements.
I’m at work today, so I can’t talk now,
but if you’ve got time tonight when you drop off Y,
we could talk then and you could maybe eat with us?
You can leave me a message and let me know if that’s all right,
or I’ll see you then.

When he pulled up in his car I went out and asked whether he had received my message. He had. I asked whether he had time now. He did. He came inside. I directed my son to offer him a drink.

I finished preparing the meal, and dished up four plates. I directed my daughter to make sure there were four chairs at the table and the children sat down to eat. Their father had already seated himself. There was one place left for me in the corner, squeezed in beside him. I assessed the situation, set my plate at the end of the table and said “Excuse me, if you move over, I’ll just sit at the end here,” extricated the chair from its entrenched, powerless position and seated myself at the head of the table.

Their father began to eat, but within one minute, he began to show signs of distress. He put his elbows on the table; his head in his hands, turned red-faced and began to cry. The children did not know what to do. They didn’t say anything. I just reached for the tissue box and put it on the table. It didn’t take long before he had gathered himself for the verbal onslaught I am still primed to anticipate. First, he yanked a tissue furiously out of the box, smudged it across his nose and threw it on the floor behind him.

“You can’t do this to me, M after all these years!
The last time we sat down together was with a fucking lawyer between us!
This is just totally bizarre.
Why didn’t you give me some notice or something?
I didn’t know you were going to give me dinner.
And I’m not even legally allowed to be here.
You’ve got a fucking restraining order on me.
You just can’t do this!”

He did not look my way. He delivered this verdict violently and loudly, punctuated by sighs, sobs and fists on the table. The children were terribly uncomfortable and scared.

I was also scared. I thought – yes, that restraining order is there for good reason and I don’t want to be in the same room with you ever and I don’t know why I invited you here and I don’t know why I concocted this stupid plan when it’s obvious I’m still as weak as piss when it comes to advocating for my children with you and you won’t listen anyway and you don’t care about what I want and think and need or your children you selfish prick you haven’t changed and you’re just a big fake and I don’t like being scared of you and where can I run to if you explode in the next five seconds and will you hurt the children you always want things your own way and why did I bother you stupid bully and how can you sit there pretending to be in such pain and how can I get you out of my house now instantly immediately like five minutes ago and forget this whole uncomfortable episode?

“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about the restraining order – ”

“Well talk to me then!”

“R and L –”

“I’m not R. I’m not L! I don’t want to hear it!”

I shut up. I continued to eat. He gathered himself up again. I thought Oh God. Let me die right here on this spot I cannot bear another second of this existence. I don’t want to witness my children’s torment any longer.

Imagine what I did next? It’s not hard to guess. It follows the prescribed pattern down to the letter. I had to somehow save the situation, defuse the bomb, stall proceedings.

So, I … apologized!

Yes, that’s right. I apologized for putting him on the spot, explained it had never been my intention to make him feel uncomfortable, that I had only wanted to open up a conversation because I thought it was time after all these years, even though we’ve had a longstanding arrangement that has been working pretty well on the whole. I said the children are old enough now to have some say and I thought it was a good idea to give them a chance to talk about what they want, too.

Fat chance.

After that performance the children were well and truly cowed into submission. When their father pushed his plate away and picked up his calendar, obviously ready to do business, they still hadn’t said a word, but had sat there silently eating their meal, then took their plates into the kitchen one by one and scraped what they could not stomach into the compost bin, returning to the table and refusing to meet my pleading gaze.

After he left, my son treated me to a lecture on my behaviour and expectations and exactly where I had gone wrong in expecting their father to behave like a mature adult. My son even used the word ‘baby’ in reference to his father’s behaviour, and claimed that he would have told his father to stop acting like one, if I had not had the restraining order against him and had not put him on the spot by serving him a meal at my table after all these years of never speaking with him without having a lawyer to mediate.

I reminded my son that the claim about the lawyer is untrue, and that in fact we have been able to negotiate many things over the years both over the phone and face to face. I told him that it is true I have a restraining order against his father and that I wouldn’t have received it from the court if there hadn’t been reasons for it. I also told him that his father has always spoken to me in that way, which is why I so rarely go out of my way to speak with him.

Even so, my son went to pains to justify his own silence and his own position in not wanting to change anything. My heart went out to him, as he told me how angry I was, and how wrong I had been in attempting to bring the four of us to the table to talk about our arrangements. I understood quite well that my son was unable to express his own anger and instead foisted the emotion onto someone whose anger was not so scary and confronting as his father’s.

My daughter was calm and matter of fact. She said little, but her attitude was clear. That had been a pointless exercise. What was there to say?

I gleaned some useful information. I now know when he is going away; three times during the next three months. He probably left quite pleased with himself for managing to get his weekends swapped over to a pattern that suits his fancy-free lifestyle. It just so happens that his trips all coincided with the weekends when he was supposed to have the children. If we hadn’t swapped weekends, it would have meant I had them every weekend for nearly three months. So now he gets to have the children when it suits him, and as usual, he won’t be available to help out if I get busy with my life.

Still, what’s new? Our lives continue to revolve around his needs. He always has been, always will be a performance artist.

My son said to me that this was the worst it will ever get. Next time won’t be so uncomfortable, especially if I lift the restraining order. I’m wondering whether X will have won, if I refuse to initiate a next time. Perhaps I would do better to stay on the sidelines, and encourage my children to speak for themselves, rather than set myself up to be further abused by the man who calls himself their father.

Down the Gurgler

Down the Gurgler
(c) Melina Magdalena, 2006

Anyone see Lily Tomlin and Helen Caldicott on Enough Rope last night? I stayed up especially, and am glad I did. Earlier in the day I had a conversation with my sister about the world. As a new mother I know she must be especially sensitive to what’s going on around us.

On Saturday night I had a series of hilarious dreams, one of which is pertinent to this discussion. I dreamed I was watching television. There was a lead-in before the ad break, to the next segment in the program, in which we were going to be introduced to “Australia’s Most Famous S-Bend Family”. In my dream I saw how this family (perhaps something like The Borrowers, by Mary Norton) had set up home in the S-Bend of a toilet!

It seems to me that if we don’t want to end up drinking toilet water via new and improved water filtration technology that no one trusts any more than they trust microwaves, than we really oughtn’t be putting our sewage in the water in the first place.

It seems to me that there is no inevitability about water desalination , nuclear power or recycling sewage into potable water. Besides the fact that recycling water makes perfect sense, as it mirrors the organic water cycle, perhaps people wouldn’t be so up in arms about using filtered grey water from washing dishes and clothes, as they are about using filtered poo and wee water?

If we continue to take no action, we will descend, like Jonah into the whale, and who knows when and in what condition we will eventually emerge into the filthy waters of our own creation? Humans are the dirtiest creatures on this planet.

So here’s an agenda for a political party that wants to win votes and save the world. Please add your ideas to this agenda and present to your likely candidates. (ever the eternal optimist, I presume there are some strong and sensible political candidates somewhere in Australia.)

1) Invest every cent that is needed in building Australia a solar power grid, so that we are completely solar powered and are selling our excess energy overseas by 2015.

2) As a lead in to the above, offer one-off grants to all public housing tenants in Australia to convert their homes to solar power by 2010.

3) Retrain some of the miners at Roxby Downs to manufacture, repair, maintain and install solar panels and the necessary apparatus.

4) Close all uranium mines in Australia.

5) Do not begin to enrich uranium in Australia.

6) Refuse to store nuclear waste anywhere in Australia.

7) Invest every cent that is needed in converting Australia’s sewage system so that toilet waste no longer enters our waters. This means investing in the research that will make it possible even for city-dwellers and office blocks to be able to convert to composting toilets . Every Australian household and office should be converted to using composting toilets by 2020.

8) Retrain miners and other willing workers to be able to manufacture, install, maintain and repair compostable toilets and in the plumbing skills necessary to change our sewage systems so that toilet waste is kept separate from grey water.

9) Make the installation of rainwater harvesting tanks mandatory for every Australian dwelling, and in educating Australians about how to keep this precious resource clean and usable.

Let’s not send ourselves down the proverbial gurgler.

Life in the realms of the possible

Life in the realms of the possible
(c) Melina Magdalena, 2006

1. My Landmark Forum
I got two phone calls this week from friends who invited me to a Landmark Special Event. Although I didn’t attend the event, this contact was beneficial, because it got me thinking again about the phenomenon.

I did the Landmark Forum on the Valentine’s Day weekend in 2004, and my seminar series later that year. The friend who introduced me to Landmark went on to assist at other Forums, and to do the other courses, for which she had to travel back and forth from Adelaide to Melbourne for several months. She and her mother were both really excited about Landmark Education.

I was a touch and go candidate for the Landmark Forum. Considering my background of deep depression, and my longstanding refusal to be medicated for this condition, I weighed up the risks of registering and finding it all too much, against the possibility that I was well enough to participate. I was intrigued during the registration process to discover that the Landmark Forum was not a therapy, because no one had been able to quite explain to me exactly what it was. But I had seen the effects it had on people I knew – their enthusiasm, joy and earnestness – and I wanted some of that. My years of counseling had brought me to a point of being able to function and be more or less productive, but I still felt weighed down with sorrows that I couldn’t budge.

DAY ONE
I spent day one feeling bewildered and overwhelmed, and determinedly positive that whatever was going to happen to me would be all right, so long as I wasn’t blamed for what had happened to me. The idea that what had happened, had happened in the past and was no longer happening, was attractive to me. I knew it held a key to transformation. It has taken a couple of years for me to gain perspective on what this means in terms of my ongoing recovery and healing (see below).

DAY TWO
I spent most of day two in tears. I even got up and shared with the whole group, the letter which I had written for homework. This was cathartic. I hadn’t cried in front of my counselors. I hadn’t cried in front of my friends. And my crying in private had always had an unsatisfactory quality to it – I needed to gush forth my river of tears, but they always dried up almost before they had started, while I got busy with all the other things that needed to be done.

DAY THREE
On day three I let go of my fear of other people. Not completely, but so that my fear no longer drives my every action. Unreasonably, so I can raise uncomfortable matters with others and even breach taboos when necessary. The processing time between when something happens to me, and when I begin to react, has become considerably shorter. I’m now able to trace back more often, the triggers to my reactions, and confront those who wrong me. I’ve learned to advocate for my children, and I feel all right about playing some of the social and bureaucratic games that I was previously too proud to engage in. I am aware now, when I am choosing a role and playing those games, and am not being played by others.

It is essentially this that has transformed my outlook. In the Landmark Forum, I made a choice to own my trauma. It means that my trauma no longer owns me.

DAY FOUR
I started getting some memories back, that I had not had access to since childhood. This was remarkable as it brought me into the present.

DAY FIVE
I was spectacularly unsuccessful in inducing other people to embark on Landmark journeys of their own. I did invite several people to the final evening, and several people came – one signed up, but then pulled out, because she simply couldn’t find the money to pay for it. The others were polite, expressed their happiness for me, but declined the offer to do the Landmark Forum themselves. Even (and especially) my children have adopted a cynical attitude towards it, perhaps because I prioritized my participation in the seminar series and made them stay home alone one evening each week for ten weeks.

The only person I have directly influenced to do the Landmark Forum was only convinced months later after another friend of hers had done it.

2. The Money Stuff
While I’m very happy to talk about the Landmark Education Program and to share the benefits that I gained from my participation in it, I continue to question its elitism.

I thoroughly endorse Landmark Education’s claims that it offers a transformational experience, which could benefit every person on the planet and lead to world changes in attitude and behaviour, could solve all kinds of global problems and be the driving force to a better world. The problem is that Landmark Education is simply not made available to the marginalized sectors of western communities.

Take my most recently thoroughly happy friend, for example. She gets by on the Disability Pension, but she’s very happy to be spending every cent at the moment, to get her Landmark training completed. From week to week, she has almost nothing left to live on, because of the cost of travelling back and forth to Melbourne. She has also borrowed money in order to participate in Landmark.

Because of the intensity of her studies, she has little energy to look for work that might assist her to manage a little more comfortably. I respect her choice. I’m really very happy for her. I can see the direct benefits she has reaped, from taking part in Landmark Education. This intense level of participation won’t last forever. When she’s had enough, she will move on to other things, taking with her what she’s learned. She can do this precisely because she is not responsible for anyone else on the planet.

What I would like people to consider, is the disproportionate cost of my friend’s participation. It’s not a matter of limiting treats, meals out, movie dates or that annual holiday, and budgeting in order to prioritise the Landmark Education process. No – she’s jumped right into the bathwater and taken the baby with her.

Landmark offers no concessions whatsoever. When I did the Landmark Forum, I was rudely shocked to discover that nothing but water and a chair to sit on was offered to us for the hundreds of dollars we had paid to be there. The expectation that on top of the registration and travel costs, we would be in a position to buy restaurant meals each night was something I hadn’t realized, and certainly hadn’t budgeted for.

Landmark Education keeps its overheads low by doing things like telling participants they needn’t worry about accommodation when they have to travel interstate, because local participants will offer them a place to sleep when they get there.(This is probably true. The nature of the work encourages close and deep bonds to be forged between participants.)

The method of handling disgruntlement is to shove it all back on participants, who are coached into believing that we are choosing to blame Landmark Education instead of choosing to rise above our own circumstances.

I feel it is a great shame that the benefits of Landmark Education remain unattainable by people in marginalized sectors of our community, because they do not have enough money at their disposal to even contemplate participating in the programs on offer. These are people in the welfare social underclass, people with children who depend on them for food and shelter, the elderly, the sick and the poor.

One argument is that if one counts the number of hours spent participating in the Landmark Forum and divides the registration costs by the number of hours the cost per hour is relatively low – certainly comparable with the sliding scale of counselling services. It might be further argued that doing the intensive five days of Landmark Forum would reduce the number of subsequent hours of counselling required by newly energised, newly transformed Forum graduates. Even if this is the case, most people pay for their counselling session by session, and do not have the $500 required upfront.

Another argument is that the welfare mentality will necessarily reduce the impact of the Landmark Forum on participants. This is the idea that something offered free, or at a reduced cost, will not be appreciated or embraced to the same extent as something purchased for the full price. My proposal is that the proportionate cost of registration must be considered within the context of a participant’s disposable income. Something that is unaffordable simply isn’t a possibility.

3. Landmark Trauma
I checked out the web before and after doing the Landmark Forum. I’ve always been frightened that I’ll get brainwashed into a cult, and wanted to make sure that was not the outcome of Landmark Education.

One of the saddest accounts I found was by a woman who had been coached to take responsibility for the fact that she was sexually abused as a child, and later raped as an adult. This woman’s story touched me deeply. As a survivor of rape myself, it left me in a quandary wondering why I had responded so positively to the Landmark Forum.

Just Google landmark education and you'll find links to similar accounts.

I’ve tried writing about this several times in the last three years and got nowhere. During this time, I’ve used Landmark concepts and technologies off and on both consciously and unconsciously, and benefited greatly from this. My outlook has remained much more positive, on the whole, and I’ve coped with some heavy losses and disappointments during that time.

My life has changed dramatically since I embarked on my Landmark Education. I’ve found a partner, something I couldn’t even invent as a possibility for myself until nearly a year after I’d done the Forum. I’ve completed my Graduate Diploma in Education and can even contemplate a future of enjoying a teaching career, again something I never thought was possible for me. I compiled, edited and published a book. I’m writing regularly and creating artworks. I’m living as full a life as I can manage, at the moment, and am even able to look ahead and create my future. My family life is the happiest it’s ever been.

I am still extremely resistant to the concept of forgiveness, and am touchy to the extreme, about being labelled a victim. I have no desire to let go of these two aspects of the identity I’ve created for myself. As a participant in the Landmark Forum, I was wary of being asked to take responsibility for being raped and abused.

The idea of self-blame is the clincher here. Like every human being I have regrets and broken promises. There are things I wish I’d done, and other things I’d rather forget I did. Before I did the Landmark Forum, I blamed myself for everything except for being raped. My self-hatred was the underlying issue behind everything that happened to me, everything I did. It took some time, (much longer than five days), but I made a choice to let that go.

When the topic of leaving the past in the past was raised, under the guise of taking responsibility for our futures, in the interests of our freeing ourselves in order to be open to the possibilities it might present, my hackles rose and I fought hard against this. It sounded like I was being asked to accept that I had created and desired everything that had ever happened to me (and everything anyone had ever done to me). I think this was on Day Three. I didn’t talk to anyone about the way I was feeling.

There has never been any doubt in my mind about who is responsible for raping me. This is not so easy for every person who has been raped. Many people are raped in circumstances society holds up as though they really had asked to be abused. This is the effect of living in a society which habitually blames victims.

I was able to resolve the issue of taking responsibility for being raped, by objectifying the experience to some extent. I also separated the act of rape from its impact on me. The idea that it happened in the past and was no longer happening was the key. The fact that I continue to experience the impact of being raped is distinct from the experience of being raped. That is the ongoing trauma, with which I continue to deal every day.

In choosing to own my trauma, I let go of being that self-hating, self-blaming, anger-dependent, fear-addicted victim. Whereas previously I wallowed in the mire of being unable to control my emotional and life-stopping reactions to the constant reminders and triggers to being victimised, I now allow myself to feel what I feel, express what I experience, and to make conscious choices about how I live my life.

I was not a person who repressed or concealed the fact that I had experienced trauma. Perhaps too, the nature of my trauma was not as deeply entrenched as it is for some. I was ready to open myself to the possibility of owning my trauma.

This has been possible for me because I had already reached a healing plateau in my journey. I have to take a longer perspective and acknowledge the other factors that have been part of my life and healing process. The counselling I did was undoubtedly life saving, and the studies I’ve undertaken have also contributed to my developing confidence and points of view.

My experience of Landmark Education has been positive. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. There are no quick, instant, universal fixes, but I wanted to add my story to those that recommend Landmark Education for people who can afford it.

First Aid

First Aid
(c) Melina Magdalena 2006

On Friday I got my Certificate in First Aid for Centres and Schools, all part of the process towards teacher’s registration in South Australia. The full-day course was held across town, and I arrived much earlier than I’d anticipated. Only one other participant was in the room when I looked in, a young woman who smiled at me from her seat. I took a seat beside her, careful to leave a seat between us in order to observe the social norms.

The course was made up almost entirely of women – new teachers and child care workers, and experienced teachers who had allowed their first aid certificates to lapse. No one sat between the young woman and me, but the last student to arrive, a young African man, sat to my right, and was my companion for the rest of the day.

The woman on my left was an ordinary white Australian woman in her early twenties, blonde, cheerful, somewhat plump and sure of herself. The one who came a few minutes later and sat on her left was the timid brunette type; thin, round-shouldered and still in braces.

They knew each other; whether from Uni they weren’t sure, or maybe it was from their church circles. I listened as they went through the verbal ping-pong, which established the shared contacts and experiences that would enable them to share their time and their table for the rest of the day.

One came from the country, the other from the hills. One attended a church where she was the only person her age in a congregation of over 70s. The other lives quite a distance from the church she goes to, but it has about 90 people of her age group in it. It transpired that she was already married, so I suppose she attends the young couples services.

I tuned out at this point, feeling there was much less possibility of common ground between us than there had been, and turned my attention to my copy of the first aid manual to see what the latest recommended treatment is, for snakebite in Australia. Then they began to discuss something that sounded more interesting.

The people in their churches are considering a split, a division of the old order and the new. They talked in vague terms – their mutual understanding meant it was not necessary to go into detail with each other, but I broke into the conversation at that point asking, “What are the issues?”

It was the bolder one who answered of course; the other one for all I know could herself be a latent lesbian. “The Church has decided to allow gays and lesbians to preach, and they’ve made this decision without consulting the people. We’re all against this of course. Not that we’re against gay people, we just don’t want them teaching us. And the thing is, practicing gays and lesbians are now going to be allowed to be ministers in our church.”

I looked her in the eye for a long moment, wondering what to say in the face of her blunt certainty. The ugly division she enunciated was raised in the air like a fiery cross. I could no longer see her words as a scaffold that could be used to attempt to bridge the distance between us. I allowed silence to fall. The moment ended, and I turned back to the first aid manual.

What irony that I, a feminist lesbian Jew, felt I had any reason to defend my Christian friends whose lives are impacted by the ordinary brutality of such reasonable people? Had I not that day already gone out of my way to breach the zone which excluded me, in order to seek training from the Red Cross, a supposedly neutral humanitarian organization which has existed for over 70 years but only last month voted to include Israel and a non-Christian, non-Muslim symbol to be displayed on its flags? *

On another day I would have felt vulnerable, excluded and resentful to be forced to keep such company. I guess my skin has thickened in the face of repeated similar incidents in which the assumptions of wider society that I am Christian and heterosexual impinge upon certain aspects of my identity that are often better left concealed.

It is unfortunate though, that having gained my first aid certificate, I still have no balm at my disposal to administer first aid to the torn hearts and minds of those around me who have no hope of belonging, simply because they can’t conform to the heterosexual norm.

I wanted to ask these two young women

1) What exactly are you afraid that gay and lesbian ministers will teach, given that their role is to represent the church you all belong to?

2) What do you mean ‘practicing gays and lesbians’? How is their teaching and preaching going to be any different whether they are sexually active or celibate?

3) How can it be, that you claim your church has excluded the opinions of every person who belongs to it, when in fact the church has worked for years through its own organization in order to reach this decision?

It seems to me that a human being who has chosen to enter the preaching profession is likely to be fairly convinced of his or her faith, and to feel inspired and moved in order to want to work as a minister under the shelter of the church that harbours this faith. Sexuality and religious conviction do not compete with one another, and nor are they mutually exclusive. They are two separate, sometimes overlapping aspects of identity.

Surely gay and lesbian people are not beating down the doors of churches in droves to demand they be admitted and accepted? As usual, ignorance and fear is disproportionate to education and experience.

I have heard Christians argue that the purpose of the devil is to lure human beings from the path of righteous heterosexuality into the ways of evil homosexuality. People who believe this will argue that advocates of the gay and lesbian ministry exist for the sole purpose of leading more Christians astray, to embrace an evil non-heterosexual lifestyle. They might add furthermore to their arguments that gays and lesbians who are convinced of their sincerity and faith, have been blinded by the devil in order to fulfil the devil’s aims, and that they are therefore not sincere, not faithful and not true Christians, but followers of evil.

I do not know how to converse with such people, and I don’t wish to associate with them. There is no room for dialogue, when I wish either to persuade them of my point of view, or to exclude them from my world, in exactly the same way they hold out only these options to me. The difference between us is that I have no ambitions to destroy them for their beliefs.

It is not something of a red herring, a distraction and an excuse, to focus upon ministers of religion who happen also to be not heterosexual, as harbingers of evil? To my way of thinking, there is no lack of evil in this world. Whom does it serve, to spend copious amounts of our time in casting suspicions upon our friends and neighbours, and to sit in judgment of their love?

·http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5104680.stm BBC News, 22 June, 2006 “Red Cross votes to admit Israel”, accessed online, 29/7/2006
·http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19640099-28737,00.html The Australian, July 1, 2006 “Schism looms over gay clergy”, accessed online, 29/7/2006.
·http://members.ozemail.com.au/~unitingnetwork/history1.html Chronology of the UCA Sexuality Debate accessed online, 29/7/2006.

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Stage Managed Offensive (part two)

Part Two: let’s play war
© Melina Magdalena

I understand things at a simple level. I’ve never been good at arguing for argument’s sake. I see no point in talk-fests that prove nothing and achieve even less.

Why not listen to both sides and come up with a set of solutions that overcome the perceived problems and make it possible to work together for the future?

In the world of stage-managed warfare, why not send our youngsters out to be trained up, achieve qualifications and kill civilians?

If they join up, they get money, training and job security which more than fee-paying universities and technical colleges can offer them. Our youngsters are in less danger as soldiers, than the citizens of the nation-states Australia sends them to protect.

Engaging in war is the drama queen’s technique for grabbing attention. Whether she slaps her rival across the face or steals her understudy’s costume, there is no justification for bombing the shit out of a city or country in order to prove one’s political point.

Such behaviour does nothing but create enmity, hatred, bitterness and grief which can lead only to more destruction and terror.

And the world sits back and watches in smug horror. At least it’s them and not us.

And our leaders say nothing, if not to outright condone the terrors perpetrated by nation-states against one another.

“We have a right,” they say, “to defend ourselves in the war on terror. We have a right to pre-empt the terrors that others are intending to perpetrate on us. If we don’t defend ourselves, no one will. Staging an offensive against our terrorist enemies is the responsible thing to do.”

There is no end to the cycle of terror, when we live in a culture that worships fear as a means of control and manipulation.

Ask yourself – what are you afraid of, and why?

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Imagine that someone decided to bomb the highways, runways and railway lines that connect Adelaide to the other cities of Australia. We can hear them talking …

“What about the power stations – we’d better cut off their power and telecommunications, too. And just for good measure, let’s poison their water supply.”

Why would anyone do that? What would it prove? What could it achieve? I put the same question to you.

Taking a cue from Israel; isn’t that what Australia should do to the good old US of A? Aren’t they are holding one of our citizens hostage in Guantanamo Bay?

How dare they? We’re not in a war situation, are we? Oh that’s right – we’re all in this together, this war on terror. But technically, we’re allies. And besides, the USA has nuclear capability. It’s probably not such a wise move to start taking out their power stations and highways, so let’s just ignore the USA’s terror tactics.

I suppose we wouldn’t all die. Some of us have been hoarding food stocks and fresh water supplies for years, in case of tribulation. Some of us don’t live right in the vicinity of mobile phone towers. Backyard rainwater tanks and vegetable patches would probably save a few. But it wouldn’t be long before families were forced to defend their patches against marauding hungry have-nots who were hapless enough to depend on the stock market to preserve their wealth, and bought big, ugly, cold houses in paved low maintenance garden-free zones.

It wouldn’t be easy to learn to murder those in order to defend our own, but we’d get there, or die in the attempt. It’s all about survival of the fittest, after all.

Imagine that we got ourselves back on our feet, buried our dead (mostly women and children) and began to repair the infrastructure that enabled our communities to thrive. Australians are resourceful. We have plenty of resources for export, so why not re-route some of them to Adelaide, to get us back on track?

Then, just as we’re beginning to breathe freely again, when hospital staff can take stock of their situations and begin to plan how to treat the thousands of less-severe casualties who have missed out on treatment in the meantime, it happens again.

The planes and helicopters fly over while we’re busy minding our own businesses. Submarines just rise up one day in the Port River. Who do they belong to? The dolphins are all dead – we didn’t listen to them anyway. Missiles appear out of nowhere. We see our wives and uncles blown to pieces in the street. A bomb falls on the university – did it miss its target? No actually, the university WAS the target. Our enemy has heard that the professors are teaching our children to rise up against them. We’ve reached a critical point in our learning when we’re able to say – that bomb didn’t just ‘drop’ – it was thrown at us deliberately.

We’re a little smarter this time. We made it look as though we were repairing the same highways we had before, but we were also building a tunnel to Olympic Dam. They’ll never bomb that – they need our uranium. The riff raff of Adelaide are fleeing underground. What’s left of us is getting out as fast as our legs can carry us - by trailer, on foot, by bicycle – desperation is the mother of all invention, and we’ve got no petrol left.

We’ve set up a refugee camp at Roxby Downs. It doesn’t matter that food supplies have to be flown in from elsewhere. We’re used now, to going hungry and thirsty. The kids have learned that it’s no use complaining. Someone will look after us and make sure we don’t get massacred in the millions. What would be the point in killing us anyway? We’ve got nothing left, that anybody else would want. Surely someone in the world cares?

God must have saved us for some reason.
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So let’s dig up the past. Let’s uncover that shallow grave. Let’s look a little deeper than the topsoil. Let’s get real. Let’s seek the heart of the matter and discover the naked truth.

War achieves power only for the greedy and destroys the lives of the innocent millions. War continues a cycle that humanity ought to have outgrown by now. The trauma of those who survive far outweighs the grief for those who die. In some ways, it’s harder to survive. Humans are not actually dependent for our survival, on warfare to lubricate the machinery of capitalism.

Have you lost your connection to what is real in this world?

Here’s a reminder:

• Every human being comes helpless into this world and depends on the kindness of others to raise it to adulthood.
• Everybody lives and dies.
• No human being is of more worth than another.
• We all need food and water and shelter and education and healthcare and love.
• We all come from families and communities whose aim is to nurture and grow.
• All the food we eat was grown somewhere, by someone in the world.
• If storms and warfare destroy the crops, there will be nothing for us to buy in the shops.
• All the water we drink is part of the Earth’s great reservoir that is cycled again and again and again, enabling life to continue.
• Even wealthy westerners are susceptible to starvation and disease.
• Bombs and landmines kill.
• Like war, nuclear power is dangerous for children, animals, plants and people and all living things.


WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.