Doin’ the Crunchie – part one

Doin’ the Crunchie – part one
To Traif or not to Traif
© Melina Magdalena 2008


Remember Bert and Ernie – how unbearably earnest, serious and dorky was dear Bert, in contrast to joyous, quirky Ernie? Bert did have his moments of course; who could forget his paper clip
collection? This week I’ve been feeling a little like Bert and like Doin' the Pigeon.

The Jewish Lesbian Group Anthology has finally been published on-line. There’s a poem of mine in there that I hadn’t read since submitting it to the group several years ago. The anthology contains other well written, moving writings from Jewish Australian lesbians.

Making Spaces is about my relationship with my grandmother. I never did show it to her, always intending to share it with her once it had been published. I hope I never make that kind of mistake again.

Reading through some of the other contributions, I laughed and I cried, and was surprised at one point to be shaken by a surge of unexpected rage. This Summer when my sister and my niece were visiting Adelaide, they came over to my house one stinking hot afternoon, with the rest of the family. My niece (under two years of age at the time) was hungry. I bustled about my kitchen, preparing her a kindy lunch. For the uninitiated, that’s a plate of healthy finger food made attractive to the preschooler; less messy than some other meals I could mention. I had some sultanas, cheese, cracker biscuits … “I’ve got some fritz in the fridge”, I said to my sister. Do you think she’d like some of that?

My sister, a vegetarian for many years, had reached a difficult decision to allow her child to eat meat at least in the meantime. My brother-in-law is not a vegetarian. But she whipped her head around at me and snapped “I might allow my child to eat meat, but I’m not letting her eat traif!”

This was not the anger of someone who was feeling insecure. Unlike other aspects of mothering that had been internalised battlegrounds for my sweet sister, this time she clearly felt she was on higher moral ground.

I was swamped by a flood of shame. How could I have suggested that my precious niece put anything filthy and forbidden into her sweet little pure mouth? What kind of Jew am I? What kind of aunt am I? What kind of sister am I?

I’ve taken a little trip down memory lane this week. You know how it is – once you’re sensitised, everything feeds into the sensitivity. In my new NAP Teacher’s training course this week another new teacher made a remark about the assimilation of German Jews and how their assimilation into the German culture was the trigger for the Holocaust. Charming. Is this really the kind of person we want in 2008, around our newly arrived Australians? I don’t think so.

Then there was the blog post I came across, which starts with the paragraph
"I am so sick and tired of the terms slut and whore. I find anyone who uses these terms without thinking is being selfish. These words have caused a lot of harm. The terms slut and whore and the fact that they are still around today is a product of not only the fluency of language, where the word slut has evolved from it's original meaning of “dirty” to mean a demeaning word for sexually active women, and the word “whore's” etymology can be derived from the Danish word “hore” and the Swedish word “hora”, both meaning “one who desires.” (Stephanie Insiengmay, Leogurl’s Blog)

This post works its way through etymological, cultural and religious origins of some the differences between men and women and cultural expectations of our respective sexual behaviours. It’s an interesting piece of writing that resonates with me on many levels, as a woman, a Jew, a lesbian, a rape survivor. Insiengmay eventually reaches her core question – does the Bible condone rape? Well might she pose that question.

I return to the idea of my Jewishness and deplore my lack of authority over this aspect of my identity. What do I know? What kind of Jew am I?

The little I know of the Bible, Torah and other Judeo-Christian texts highlights to me the lack of woman’s voice. For the most part, these texts were produced and promulgated by men who saw no need to include the experiences and voices of women. They are male-dominated, patriarchal documents to which for the most part, I cannot relate. I’m not interested in being the kind of Jew who adheres to something just because others do, when it is meaningless to me.

And when I look at the Bible, I don’t see all of myself reflected in its stories.

As a human being, yes – some stories touch me to the core. I think particularly of Jonah, and how I chose my Jewish name to be Jonina Shirah – dovesong, recalling how a very reluctant Jonah allowed himself to be dragged into the spotlight at last, to deliver his important message. I think of Penelope Farmer’s Eve; she the innocent, who had such a brutal rebirth into a terrifying world of responsibility for others when she had not yet found herself. Lilith of course has been erased from these texts. I think too of Mary of Magdalene, for whom I am also named. And I recall the radio program I heard last week, in which it was postulated that Christianity and Judaism may yet revise their common links on the basis that Jesus would not have separated himself from his people, in order to found a separate, anti-Jew religion. Of course, it was a Christian who made this claim. As a Jew, I don’t have any problems with Jesus the teacher, healer, poet, human, friend.

As a woman, I also think of Esther/Hadassah, she who had it good. She risked it all, to call attention to the need of her people. Like Esther, I am privileged, and am frequently reminded of my responsibility and my opportunities to work towards a fairer and happier world for other women. I think of Na'amah, also written out of the official texts. She was Noah’s wife, who saved the seeds of a drowned world that the world emerging might flourish and feed the survivors. I think of Dinah, who was raped and discarded as damaged goods, unworthy of carrying on our traditions and our line. I think of Lot’s daughters, valued only for the currency of safety the violation of their bodies might award their cowering father.

As a Jew, I love the traditions and stories of Pesach. I am particularly drawn to Zipporah, Moses’ wife. She embraced the strange, the uninitiated, the haunted, and at least according to the animated version of the story, Prince of Egypt, she accompanied him back to the scene of the crime, to help in the liberation of her people. Again, I know little of how she is represented in the texts of my people. I know that Miriam cops a raw deal, and I love the feminist revisitations and interpretations of her power. I wonder about other Jewish heroes and humans, male and female. I know so little of them.

As a lesbian, there is none of my self in these texts. And this is painful. No matter its origins, we are fixated on sex and sexuality in this world, and my identity is skewed in turn. I probably give too much weight to my unbelongingness, but such are the circumstances that surround me and reflect my inner concerns.

Like so many of the men of the Bible, so many of the men who people my world are unpleasant, rough, inconsiderate, mean, cruel, stupid human beings. Not only the men who question the role of provocative t-shirts in inviting women to be raped; not only the man who blames the German Jews for their own annihilation; not only the man at my table today who argued over the use of some words, instead of working towards finding some shared, legitimate meaning to enable us to get on with the task at hand. These are incidental, momentary glimpses into the things that occur in my world on an everyday basis.

When I look around me and see men who are almost all embittered, angry, apparently dispossessed power trippers, who reflect the ills of the communities and the twisted aspects of their social upbringing, it’s no wonder I find so little value in reading the texts of my heritage. They were probably created by men who felt the same way - insecure angry little nothingnesses who falsely enlarge their grandeur because they could not bear to see themselves as such insignificant motes, in this gorgeous, mysterious, vast universe.

So back to the question – how do I justify having fritz in my fridge, and seeing no wrong in serving it to my little niece? If you are what you eat, and I eat fritz, the connection is clear. It is not to Traif or not to Traif, but it is:
What kind of person am I?
Am I Traif?

Apparently, I've been routinely misspelling the word, anyway! Now I know why Miss Holier Than Thou made a point of showing me the correct spelling in a recent text message. Whew! I need to process this anger, and how!

When I started to think about the word, it was easy to reel off a list of adjectival synonyms (though Traifitself is a noun – filthy, dirty, disgusting, damaged, horrible, diseased. And so it goes.

Of course traif is actually the opposite of Kosher, or halachic, or in Muslim-speak, halal. It is the preoccupation of millions who believe that how they prepare their food and keep their homes is more important to G-d, than putting food in the mouths of the hungry. It is the opposite of clean, pure, wholesome and (in current terminology) crunchy.

I looked it up on Google and was taken to a site that claims the word Traif is in some parlance, used to refer to lesbian. Clearly, I am on the right track here. Shall I continue to self-flagellate, never mind that that practice belongs to the adherents of another tradition altogether, to which I do not lay claim? Am I damaged goods, no use to the pure, unmarried, upstanding man who seeks his wife to complete his life, cook and clean and bear his children? So be it.

Why would I wish to forsake being who I am, in order to adhere to and live up to the demands and expectations of others, who would deny me my freedom to live and express myself according to my own moral compass of right, wrong and all the shades of grey in between? Can these others prove to me my failings and my failure to be human? Where is the evidence that the colours that surround us are not more important than the black and white? Why must worth be calculated always upon the brutal dichotomy of an absence and presence that can be seen and measured with the eye and the hand? What about the wildness of spirit, the illumination of heart, and the brilliance of gut?

So if, because, maybe I in my feminist lesbian jewish essence am Traif, is it possible for me to reclaim this, in the same way others have reclaimed queer, wicked, filthy and bad? Can I ameliorate Traif and rekey it to emote and connote only its positive qualities?

Because for me, I think now that Traif has mostly positive qualities. I know who I am. I know where I’ve come from. I know who I am being, and who I am working to become.

T-Shirt Corruption

T-Shirt Corruption
© Melina Magdalena 2008

Synchronicity comes to me this week in the loose conjunction of four events. Firstly, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, my birthday present from my own splendid son, and the oppression of women in Afghanistan has been heavily on my mind; secondly a teacher at my school displayed a blatant disregard for democratic process and has deprived a fairly elected young Afghan woman of her position of President in our school’s newly formed service club because she is a young Muslim woman; thirdly, a male colleague asked me recently what I thought about a South Australian parliamentarian who blamed the t-shirts women wore, for their being raped; and finally let’s not forget the commemoration of International Women’s Day this week, the eighth of March.

T-Shirt Culture
Just before Valentine’s Day this year, Independent MP Bob Such is reported to have accused women who wear t-shirts with provocative slogans, of demeaning their sex, and encouraging sex attacks. The article does not describe the T-Shirts to which he refers. I was naturally outraged when I heard about this on commercial radio as I drove to school that day.

Such sensationalised trivialised news items always trigger me back to a moment when I remember what I was wearing when I was raped – a flannelette nightgown. Hardly provocative, you might say. And where was I? Tucked up in my own bed.

DO RAPISTS STOP TO READ THEIR VICTIM’S T-SHIRTS? I DON’T THINK SO.

It reminds me of Ramadan 2006, when Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali compared uncovered women to abandoned meat that the cats will come and eat. Remember that?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to go out and eat the meat I find in the street; nor have I ever been tempted to leap upon and have sex with men who wear provocative and demeaning t-shirts, not even during my most desperate sperm-seeking adventures.

I am neither cat, nor man – and I wish no disrespect to either creature. Cats are known to be discriminating. Cats are known to be survivors. Men are human beings, with the same capacity for compassion and empathy as women. I don’t believe it is because a man is a man that he rapes. This proposition is as demeaning and outrageous as the proposition that a woman is to blame for being raped, because of the clothing another woman was wearing. Where is the causal link?

When a (male) colleague raised this issue with me in the staff room recently, I was speechless. I gazed at him with pity and horror – after all, he has two young sons himself. Does he really believe men cannot control their sexual impulses and lust for power over women? I wanted to say to him – just listen to what you’re saying for a moment. Where is the logic? Do you believe this about yourself? And what does it say, about the way you relate to me?

Instead I said simply “No, the women who wear those t-shirts are not the women who get raped.”

As for the t-shirts that I have seen on men’s bodies in the last year or so, here in Australia, where the culture of alcohol prevails, these t-shirts frequently have lewd, crude, boozy messages on them, whether displayed pictorially, through stick figures, or with words. I no more enjoy seeing men dressed in clothes that display their apparently cavalier and uncaring attitude towards women, than I enjoy seeing women who are dressed in clothes that to me, scream sensuality and sexuality. I don’t think this is a new phenomenon, although perhaps the rise of so-called raunch culture amongst young Australian women might be seen as something new, though the web references to it date back to 2006. It’s something I know little about, and find confrontingly uncomfortable.

In some ways it’s odd to compare the ubiquitous and concealing baggy t-shirt favoured by so many people, with the scant, flesh-revealing styles of dress favoured by many contemporary women. From what Bob Such said, it seems it’s the almost defiant messages on the t-shirts worn by young women that have caught and offended his eye, rather than the flashy eye candy of the sleazy and skanky.

I note that Khaled Hosseini quoted in A Thousand Splendid Suns the decree of the Taliban as they took power in Kabul, 1996, several special laws:

Attention women:
You will stay inside your homes at all times. It is not proper for women to wander wimlessly about the streets. If you go outside, you must be accompanied by a mahram, a male relative. If you are caught alone on the street, you will be beaten and sent home.
You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover with burq when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten.
Cosmetics are forbidden.
Jewellery is forbidden.
You will not wear charming clothes.
You will not speak unless spoken to.
You will not make eye contact with men.
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten.
You will not paint your nails. If you do, you will lose a finger.
(Khaled Hosseini (2007), A Thousand Splendid Suns, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New York and Berlin; pages 248-249)

I am tempted to ask – for whose protection are women to be so severely restricted? Is it that men risk their afterlives because they may come into contact with a provocative force so strong that they may temporarily forget their own humanity and commit acts of such depravity that G-d will not forgive them?

Is a woman not a human being? Is she not worthy of freedom of expression, freedom of movement – of laughter, for heaven’s sake? It is such apparently small things that make life worth living.

Service Clubs
Our school has a philosophy of peace and multiculturalism. It is our explicit aim to educate our students so that they may fully embrace life in Australia. Explain to me then how it can come about that a miscarriage of justice is justified and talked away. How does this not contradict everything our school stands for?

I recently took my class to the Australian Electoral Commission, where they learned about elections, the history of voting in Australia, and had a mock election to demonstrate how preferential voting works. The phrase that our guide used continually, was that Australia has free and fair elections. Not one of my adult students had ever had the opportunity to vote in a government election.

How an election which a student won by a landslide, chosen by her peers for the leadership qualities they see in her every day, can be distorted into invalid because of her success, makes no sense to me. As another teacher exclaimed angrily, it does violence to our students who are taught that elections in Australia are free and fair.

The only reason offered for this distortion and perversion was that a young Muslim woman would not be allowed to go out at night and therefore cannot be the president of a service club.

Let alone the obvious answers to this claim – the young woman in question enjoys a trusting relationship with her parents who are also adapting to the different demands of Australian public life, and she is in fact awarded a degree of independence that reflects her background and has shaped her into the person she is – the teachers who decided she could not take on the role she was elected to came to this conclusion without even talking to the person in question. She would not have accepted her nomination, had she believed she would not be able to do a good job in all aspects of the role.

I’m spitting mad about this, but the issue has been hushed up and whitewashed. It smacks of paternalism and racism, and has burst my bubble about my workplace and colleagues.

Happy International Women’s Day 2008.
Clearly, there is more work to be done.

Apology and Dissent - The BIG But!! (part two)

Apology and Dissent - The BIG But!! (part two)
(c) Melina Magdalena

Well well well, I am so happy that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke an apology on my behalf and on behalf of Australian people past and present, for the horrors, atrocities, bureaucracratic abuses and other wrongs committed by us and on our behalf, with our tacit assent and ignorance, towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of this continent and nation. I was lucky enough to be able to turn on the radio and listen to his address last Wednesday, along with my students, and some other teachers who wanted the opportunity to be part of this occasion. We then had a vigorous and interested discussion about Australia's track record and history, which my students were ready for, all having lived here now for between 3 years and 6 months.

And what I'd wanted to go on and say on this topic has of course changed with changing circumstances... When I Google 100 revs now, I am no longer directed to motorhead sites. Instead, there are numerous articles, letters and posts about the Reverends who hope to march in Sydney's Mardi Gras next month. More on that in a moment.

I also got a direct email reply from my MP, Pyney himself - a surprise. Perhaps I could interpret it as an oblique apology thrust in my direction, for treating me as an insignificant minion whose experiences and ideas were not worth regarding. Or perhaps he sent the same pdf copy of the Sunday Mail article to the thousands in his electorate, who responded to GetUp's call to keep the Liberals humble, and join in The Apology?

My first day back at work this year consisted of a day-long professional development workshop about restorative justice in schools and classrooms. It was my first formal introduction to the ideas and the process.

Restorative Justice can begin with the recognition that forcing an insincere apology from a wrongdoer who is ignorant of what harm s/he has instigated and of its consequences for the wronged, is utterly meaningless, and dissatisfying for both sides. As a young parent I had it modelled to me time and again “Say Sorry!” And again, with a threat to back it up “Say sorry, or you won’t…” Clearly, it was a social convention, and did little to repair the damage or the relationships involved.

So what is the value of Apology?

Apology is an open-handed gesture that someone makes with a particular intention.

The intention can be to preserve the status quo; stop the boat from rocking anymore; pull back from a previously-stated position because it’s too scary to keep up one’s outrage or distance from the fold. This kind of Apology is about giving one’s power away, and placing it at the feet of the Authorities. The Apologiser becomes weaker as an effect of guilt and shame.

You will note my use of “Apologiser” and not “Apologist”. If Apology is made in order to maintain a phony harmony and power-stricken status quo, the Apologiser is in effect, an Apologist for that status quo. A little like the reaction to Brendan Nelson’s so-called Apology (paraphrased as – we did it for your own good, and it hurt us just as much as it hurt you, and you don’t even have the grace to be grateful for our attempts to save you from yourselves).

Apology is just the beginning - the opening of the window of opportunity for a new way of relating.

A sincere Apology is an acknowledgment of Harm, more than it is about wrongdoing, blame or punishment. A sincere Apology is not an easy thing to offer. It takes great moral courage, particularly when the implications are that things are going to have to change. That kind of Apology is about rocking the boat and making a noise.

In Apologising, one can feel bereft of potency – who is to say that my Apology will be accepted with the same sincerity with which it is given? Who is to say that the Harmed Person or People will understand and believe my contrition and my regret? And furthermore, in making this Apology I must acknowledge that the effects of my Harm are further reaching, more deeply rooted, and longer lasting than ever I imagined. The more I listen, the more is exposed; the more deeply I fall into that pit of despair. I must see, and accept the effects of this Harm, no matter where and how it began. My accountability is to the Present, whilst I cannot alter the Past. In making my Apology, I am setting a new course for the Future.

There were some letters in the Sydney Star Observer, in response to 100 Revs. One of them in particular I think demonstrates the ongoing effects of harm and how the effects manifest themselves as they bounce from hurt to anger to fear to anger to hurt again. Can a guarantee be given, that an Apology will not cause further Harm, by raising expectations of healing that are never achieved?

The Harmed often carry a great deal of anger for what has been done to them, and the effects of this. There is no guarantee of graciousness towards the Apologiser. In this sense, an Apology must be unconditional. It is possible that the Harmed are not ready to accept a burden of working with the Apologisers to create new ways of relating. It is possible that the Harmed are stuck inside the web of their distress. When this happens, it does not render an Apology meaningless. It means the Apologiser must seek other, less direct avenues for making amends and creating a new Future.

I think we must remain open to the possibilities that a sincere and unconditional Apology creates.

Here’s an example of an Apology that is sincere but conditional:
Imagine if you will, an Institution with a long history of maltreatment of certain minorities. The maltreatment involves spreading vicious rumours, exclusion and stigmatisation and denial of access or comfort. One day, the Institution is forced to acknowledge and recognise the far-reaching effects of its policies, processes and the behaviours its adherents have promulgated in the name of Convention and not rocking the boat. The Institution makes a decision to formally apologise to the Wronged. The Apology is sincere. The people in the Institution genuinely regret the effects of their policies, processes and behaviours. If they could just separate the effects from the Wronged, (whose behaviour – alas – continues to contravene Convention), perhaps the Wronged would relent and change their ways? Then everyone would be on the same side, and we would all have a happy and unified ending.

The point is, that Apology is not about taking sides, but about building bridges.

The 100 Revs are not requiring those within the GLBTIQ communities who have been harmed by the treatment in churches to change themselves at all, in order for their sincere Apology to be offered. The whole point of taking their Apology onto GLBTIQ turf (the Mardi Gras) is to meet the Harmed in a place where the Harmed are more powerful and have more voice than those who are making the Apology. It is a humble gesture, and one which has caused controversy within the GLBTIQ communities, which, it must be acknowledged, are themselves far from homogenous.

The relationship between Apology and Dissent has something to do with Moral Courage. In acknowledging that things are not perfect, one expresses a desire for change. The effect of a sincere and unconditional Apology can be to shake the very fabric of Convention and tearing at the roots of what passes for a Peaceful Society.

What responsibilities do we have, as Australians who are part of an openly multicultural and culturally diverse society? Must we forever be engaged in acts of Apology, in order to co-exist, because our differences are brought to the fore, whilst our commonalities are reduced to the banal? Surely this is a negative spin on the cultural diversity? Is there not more that unifies us, than divides?

Dissent is a verb of action, whilst Dissension is a noun, a state of being. There are many ways to dissent. Some promote peace; some promote revolution and violence. Fomenters of dissent all work within the understanding of a need for deep and radical change at the heart of the matter.

To dissent is to act when we recognise the need for change. Dissent implies the acknowledgment of Harm, and Dissent can only begin from that recognition. It takes a great deal of moral courage to act in such situations. It means separating oneself from the fold of convention, stepping out and making a noise to attract the attention not only of the Wronged, but also of those who continue to harm, either with intention or through malicious ignorance. Apology is one of the first meaningful actions of Dissent.

It’s nice to think we can all exist in our disconnected bubbles of homogeneity, where everyone thinks and behaves like me, and we all feel safe and comfortable all the time, because we know what’s expected and that’s not too hard to keep up.

Trouble is, as self-seeking and comfort loving as Australia has become, we are also embroiled in serious exploration of individuality and expressions of freedoms. The implications are severe. Our bubbles are not homogenous. The illusion is shattered, every time some individual chooses a different path, and takes it unashamedly, insisting on his or her right to do so and furthermore demanding unconditional acceptance from everyone else.

We are not a homogenous society or culture. It’s about time our thinking caught up with our reality.

When someone comes out as being other than heterosexual, it takes enormous moral courage. An analogy for what it takes to step outside the bubble of one’s comfort zone is the crazy idea that a fish might one day decide for no particular reason that any of its cronies can comprehend, that it wants to live on the land now, and not in the water. Its cronies are too busy running around and asking stupid questions, comparing notes, spreading rumours about the land-dwelling fish, to see that there are vital aspects of that land-dwelling fish’ life that remain the same, and also that the land-dwelling fish would be much happier if her cronies and associates chose to support her in her new venture, rather than condemn her and whisper behind her back; let alone acknowledge what an incredibly brave and gutsy thing she is choosing to do, despite all the flack she is copping from left, right and centre.

And this is where response to the 100 Revs from within their own bubbles, falls far short of the mark. The coming out that the 100 Revs are doing, concerns the idea that belonging could be extended beyond the strict borders of conventionality and heteronormativity, to encompass a broader understanding of human sexuality within the beliefs and thinking of what it is to be Christian, than what has commonly been accepted by church-goers.

Apology and Dissent - the big BUT!!! (Part One)

Apology and dissent – the big BUT!!!
PART ONE © Melina Magdalena 2008

I began this week with a sour taste in my mouth; realizing that my refusal to consider my Uncle F’s apology to my parents was pushing me into the same corner he was trying to scramble out of.

Then came an email from GetUp requesting me to write to my local MP, seeking support for Prime Minister Rudd’s commitment to saying Sorry. My local MP is smarmy Liberal politician Christopher Pyne. I wrote a short, but passionate email, urging him to support The Sorry on the basis that it is just, necessary and important for his future credibility, the credibility of his Party but most of all, for the credibility of the apology that Rudd will make on my behalf, and on behalf of us all, for the wrongdoings past and present Australian perpetrate against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation.

Next, I received an email from my sweetheart’s parents. They are among the group of reverends who intend to march in this year’s Sydney Mardi Gras, bearing a public apology to “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people” for the way they have been treated in general, by churches and the people who attend them. To see their full apology, go here (100 Revs). This endeavour has been widely reported in the last few days. I have heard that those involved are suffering repercussions for the stand that they are choosing to take. Here’s one of the news stories that caught my attention. It links Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations with the 100 Revs.

On Lesbian_Parents_Australia this week, a focus has been on the issue of which schools will welcome our children. Many mothers on the site have had bad experiences as non-heterosexuals growing up Catholic, and also with working in Catholic schools. They do not wish their children to grow up stigmatized. This is their basis for choosing not to subject their children to an education in a Catholic school.

So apology has been on my mind a great deal, as my students returned to school and I began my second year of teaching.

We spent a great deal of time in the classroom on Monday discussing and committing to a set of classroom rules and expectations. This group of students has already had up to one year of schooling in an Australian context, and was quickly engaged in a process that is already familiar to them. We made our list, and felt good about it.

Yesterday, a young Sudanese woman interrupted class with a “What the HELL are you doing?” to a young Afghan man as he walked past her, to his seat. I didn’t catch what the hell he had done, and my automatic reaction was to question the woman, rather than the man – I am sorry for this, because it works directly against the principles of Restorative Justice , to which our school is committed. I feel that my reaction definitely falls into a “blaming the victim” mode. I do not know what happened in my classroom, except as a teacher, who was interrupted mid-flow by an interaction, accidental or purposeful, between two students of different genders and different cultural perspectives.

In speculating, it could be the man brushed past her accidentally. This woman often sits with her chair very far out from the desk, in order to work closely at her exercise book. It could be he touched her head (a severe cultural taboo) because she was not wearing one of her wigs that day, and this particular student has a fascination (borne of envy) with African hair. Or it could be something completely different.

Like so many classroom incidentals, it has been left unexamined and unresolved. If we were to devote our full attention to such occurrences each time they arose, we would have scarcely any time for teaching of the content that is deemed so vital.

On the other hand, such classroom incidentals clearly indicate a need for finding a way to work within our multicultural and culturally diverse communities so that we do not end up at perpetual war with one another.

To summarise, the focal points for me this week are:
· Homophobia
· Cultural Diversity
· The nature of formal apology
· Harm and Harmony

And that’s all I’ve managed to pull together this week. More next week, I hope.

Bones in the Family Closet

Bones in the Family Closet and Why I Won't Be Going There Again
(c) Melina Magdalena 2008

Well this is unbelievable, except that he's done it so many times before. I suspect my uncle expects us all to just forgive and forget, like the good Christians we aren't. I think I've had it this time around.

My inbox just went BEEP, as I was sitting here, minding my own business, preparing a worksheet for my students. My first thought was - oh goodie, another person responding to my birthday party invitation - and then I saw the sender's name, and the subject header RE: Children's 'Education' Accounts. My heart skipped a beat or two as I contemplated whether to open the email, fearing I would be subjecting myself to another torrent of abuse and racial vilification, but I went ahead and opened it, ready to delete at a moment's notice, if necessary.

Some background -
In 1980, after my parents brought us to Australia for the second time, it was clear we would be making this our permanent home. To their dismay, we were followed within 2 years by my mother's mother, her second husband, and their youngest two children my Uncle F, who is three years my senior, and my Aunt X, a year my junior. Much more is tucked away in our Family Closet, unspoken and unseen, than is talked about, but these things nevertheless enact their toll upon us all from time to time, as we are held accountable for the actions of our forebears, and find ourselves struggling for breath in the stranglehold of past wrongs that were never revealed, let alone amended.

Forgive the obtuse nature of these revelations - obviously I can't just lay it all out on the table here publically, lest I risk finding myself up to the neckio in legal proceedings by irate family members intent upon preserving the afterlife dignity of the aforementioned. Besides, since no one is willing to go beyond the Pale of Denial and talk about it, nothing has been proved. Without the evidence, all I have ever had to go on, is its very real and somewhat painful consequences.

So, as far as extended family goeth, I have only my aunt and uncle, their spouses and children (4 boys between them) here in Australia. I don't know my American family.

Although my beloved grandmother (their mother) seemed to take a long time between declining and then dying, it all happened in the space of a few intense months, during which I spent a lot of time visiting her in hospital, at home, at hospital again, and finally in the nursing home. I would not change anything about this experience even if I could. I have no regrets and no guilt in my heart, where she is concerned. We had a deeply honest, compassionate and loving relationship; I feel loved and cherished by my grandmother, and I believe she knows how much I loved and cherished her in turn. The only topic we didn't discuss was her late husband. So you can see I held up my end of the bargain, and kept the closet doors firmly childproofed and locked.

In the absence of any other likely villains, Uncle F leapt, quite early on in his career, upon my parents as the source of his anger, alienation and general frustration. Time and time again would go round and round the cycle of betrayal, abuse, apology and contrition. It started when he was quite young. He would steal something from them; sometimes something very precious, such as my great-grandfather's collection of stamps. Spectacularly outraged by the accusation, Uncle F would do a disappearing act. Unlike the stamps, he came back eventually. In returning, he'd try one of two tactics
(a) do a prodigal son manoeuvre and expect to be feasted and feted as the returned lost prince
or
(b) crawl back in on his belly, lower than the proverbially malilgned snake, expecting forgiveness in greater measure than his self-loathing.

As time went on and history repeated itself in expanding histrionics, Uncle F was more often met by suspicion and hurt, than welcome. We're only human, after all.

I would have to say he had it fairly tough, but certainly no tougher than any of us. I first became villainised after he moved out of my house. I was a young wife and mother, going through the great life changes that wifedom and motherhood tend to engender, along with all that other stuff I went through at the same time. Uncle F moved in, took advantage, embellished and embroidered his victim state that had led him to be homeless, ate, drank and made merry and never contributed to household expenses until he moved out again, trailing a wake of anger and hurt behind him that we would feel he ought to have behaved any differently towards us, the only members of his family at that time, who would give him the time of day.


Tja!

whatever!

Ah, the ebbs and the flows... I am reminded of "Watershed", that Indigo Girls' song in which they sing
Every five years or so I look back on my life
And I have a good laugh.
You start at the top, go full circle round
Catch a breeze, take a spill
But ending up where I started again makes me wanna stand still.

Then one day Uncle F found his God and His God found him. He was saved and forgiven for all past wrongdoings - and forgive my faulty understanding of the subject at hand, but it seems he considers himself forgiven of any future misdemeanours as well. The idea of being saved and forgiven extends itself widely from past, through present, to distant future. There is nothing he need do in the meantime, to preserve his State Of Grace. He is free from blame, free from responsibility, free from relationship or consequence.

Considering that Unvle F's transformation more or less coincided with my branch of the family's finding our Jewish feet, some conflict was sure to ensue. I can believe we found the same God, even though I've actually been a believer of some description, all my life. The expressions of our faithful selves naturally took quite divergent paths. We were no more open to expressing ourselves as Christians, than Uncle F was to express himself as a Jew, despite the fact that it was the same family member - my grandmother, his mother, my mother's mother, whose heritage had led us finally to our home of faith.

And so we painted another layer of mutual distrust onto the surface of our Family Closet.

When my grandmother died, she left me a small inheritance - something I had neither anticipated, nor expected. I was dismayed to learn she had left considerably less to her youngest children, my Uncle F and my Aunt X, and I was worried about this on two levels. On the one hand I felt it was unfair, and that as her mere granddaughter, I had no right to my inheritance. On the other hand I was afraid that there would be consequences to my grandmother's choices. I was reassured by various family members, including my Uncle F and my Aunt X, that my grandmother (their mother) had good reasons for choosing to distribute what she could not take with her in the way that she did; and that I should discard any feelings of discomfort about it. So I did.

My mother, (their sister) took steps to pre-empt disturbing consequences, and make amends for her late mother's (in)discretions. She decided she would like to take part of what her mother had left her, and give it to her nephews - the children of Uncle F and his wife, and Aunt X and her husband. In doing so, she enlisted my support. She knew I was on fairly good terms with the pair of them, and she knew that as her only adult child who was in the same city, it would be practical for us to share the signatory role to the accounts she set up in her nephews' names. I agreed to this.

It means that every time I get a bank statement, indeed every time I take a look at my bank accounts online, I get to see the accounts of my four young cousins (aged 1 - 8 years). It has been wryly frustrating over a summer of earning no income, to see my accounts gradually dwindle to nothing, whilst theirs maintain their steady, slow upward pace.

When all this took place, my mother contacted her brother, Uncle F, and her sister, Aunt X, and explained her intentions. These were immediately dismissed and rewritten by her outraged brother, who accused her amongst other things, of believing him to be incapable of providing for his own children. Nevertheless, the accounts exist, and my mother adds to them from month to month, because otherwise they would no accrue any interest at all. My Aunt X has taken quite a different view of the opportunity, and contributes to her son's account quite regularly. The boys will gain access to this money, such that it is, when they turn 18 years old.

As signatory to the accounts, I was fortunate enough to be the recipient of a vitriolic email addressed to my mother from her brother (Uncle F) in January this year. In this email, he accuses my parents of stealing Aunt X's money that she has been contributing to A's (her son) account, in order to fund their own bathroom renovations. Here are some excerpts from this first email, provided as examples of the nature of his communication to us.

"I think it's pretty obvious that I was wrong, and that you are in fact nothing more then [sic!] hypocritical thieves, liars and con-artists ..." (21/1/08)
"I have writen today to ask you (assuming you haven't already spent their
money on your bathroom rennovations [sic!] and/or all the other things I hear
you've been spending on) to transfer B, K and W's deposits directly to X ... to partially remunerate them for the money you so shamelessly have stolen from them."

Now when tempers flare, this kind of strong language is to be expected. What really offends and hurts me is Uncle F's misuse of certain Jewish texts, in this case what he calls "The Gemara (A key part of The Talmud - every Jew's most 'sacred' oral
tradition)" to back up his reasoning for why my mother and father would have behaved in the way he accuses them of behaving.

I am no Jewish scholar. I have not studied anyone's Bible or other religious texts, and I have never claimed to cling to Torah, Talmud or Bible as a person who takes them literally. I think to take such a complex set of texts literally would be crazymaking, because they are narratives that interweave, explore, cry out in anguish and despair, explain, rejoice, contradict and question, as much as they instruct. This I know from my limited experience as a Shul-attending Jew, which I was, for a few years.

Part of Uncle F's transformation into what he calls a Christian has involved a lot of study. He uses this study to explain and justify his behaviours, whether they have been to label his mother and sister as "evil incarnate", or to deny his children any contact with "magic" via evil Disney cartoons.

Setting aside my previous assertion that it could be taking his Bible literally that has produced such crazymaking, I am deeply wounded by my Uncle F's using his so-called knowledge of Judaism to accuse his sister and brother-in-law of theft.

I realised I could not let this lie unchallenged. I could no longer maintain any level of relationship with my Uncle F, if he were so cruel, disrespectful and abusive. The terms he lays out in this email are terms I can no longer condone or ignore. So I replied to him. Here is some of what I write:

"Dear F,
"I am not sure how to respond to this email. It makes me shrivel up inside and want nothing to do with you ever again. And this is such a shame, because I enjoyed visiting you and your family on Christmas Day, and had thought you accepted me as part of your family.... I would like you to refrain from using the Bible and Talmud to back up your defamatory, hurtful, disrespectful and abusive accusations. It seems such hypocrisy that you adhere to a religion that preaches such hatred against others whilst speaking from the other side of its metaphorical mouth of love. I can't see any love in what you've written here, to my mother and your sister....
"As an out lesbian, I know I need to tread carefully around you and your belief system. I have tried hard not to offend you. It is ironic that despite my efforts, you appear to make no consideration on my behalf. Consider for a moment how it feels as a lesbian and a Jew, to receive these accusations? They affect me no less than they affect my parents. There is absolutely no sense of relief in my mind to realise at this moment that you do not accept me; and that on the contrary you deride and revile my existence as a lesbian and a Jew; your niece; the cousin of your children. I had hoped to maintain a friendly and civil relationship with you on terms that I could accept. However, I cannot accept the terms you present in this hateful email to my mother....
"There is no truth in your accusations. I shall not dignify them with a detailed response." (23/1/08)

Clearly, I opened myself up to his further abuse. It did not take long.

".... Melina, I could understand your being upset if I were offering my
interpretations. After all, I am not Jewish, and I have only studied Judaism (off and on) since 2000 to try to understand your parents better. (About 1 year of full time study over those 8 years.) However, because I did't [sic!] offer interpretations cannot understand your being upset at quoting your own oral tradition to you....
"Perhaps your [sic!] upset at having the truth thrust into your face? If so, don't
blame me for the fact that you're following Rabbi's [sic!] so corrupt that G-d sent
His people into captivity through The Babylonianians in the 6th Century BCE
to force them to turn back to Him!
"If you don't like/agree with what's in the Babylonian and Jurusalem [sic!] Talmuds,
I suggest you find another set of beliefs. ....
"I think it's really sad that:
(1) You take personal offense to an email not specifically addressed to you
(2) That you can somehow conclude that I'm attacking your sexuality!!!???
(3) That you can discount my actions to bipolar or some other mental deficiency
(4) That you can attack me for no other reason then I'm trying to help my sister
(5) That you twist my words so... incompetently!!! ....
"This email is one of the worst examples of deflection I've seen in a long time. With your high IQ, combined with your formal education I really expected a lot more... Frankly, I've seen people with half your IQ and no matriculation do far better at changing subjects and avoid accountability." (23/1/08)

I did not reply to this email, but the torrent did not end, there. The next day, I got more in my inbox from him. I could not bear to read it, and stashed it in my 'family' file until today. OK, I've gathered my strength. This time, he makes no pretense of writing to me. After a series of 20 progressively vile, disgusting and violent quotes:

"Oh, I could quote many many A4 size pages containing the vile filth Rabbi's [sic!] have claimed to have been passed on by Moses in your written traditions...
Things these vile individuals claim to be as equally divinely inspired by the All Mighty as the ten commandments, the prophets and the pentatuch [sic!] - but so obviously are so obviously not that Jesus called them painted tombs full of dead mens [sic!] bones. (Beautiful on the outside but dead on the inside.)
"Now... I have shown you MANY examples of religious hatred in your most current and so-called 'holy' writtings... I hereby challenge you to list one (single) solitary example of the teaching of religious hatred by Christianity to justify your false accusation." (24/1/08)

MOST CURRENT?????

What century is this idiot living in, I ask you!

On the subject of my sexuality, he tells me of his sister-in-law, a woman I've never heard him speak of before. Apparently she and her female lover visit Uncle F reguarly:

"We do not treat them any differently then the way we have ever treated you at any time. We do not 'hate' either of them (or you) we love them - just as we love you. We love them as purely as we can - doing our utmost to treat them as Jesus did when he ministered to the prostitutes, murderers, liars, thieves, tax-collectors and/or any other kind of sinner the Pharrisees [sic!] and Saducees condemned as worthy of death by stoning.
"They (the religious leaders of Israel) didn't understand that Christ came not to condemn, but to to turn all sinners back to the Father anymore then you do." (24/1/08)

WHOAH - I can tell you it made me feel a WHOLE lot better to know that my Uncle F regards me and my so-called "lifestyle" in the same category he regards prostitutes, murderers, liars, thieves, tax-collectors and so on. I can also safely assert he does not show the same degree of lovingkindness to my parents, whom he at this point in time also considered to be thieves. He concludes by calling me crazy.

"I think you need serious help when you write things like the above to me.
"Perhaps I will address the more crazy stuff you wrote another time... I'll think about it after I've calmed down." (24/1/08)

My replies to this email are terse "don't bother, F" (24/1/08) and "F, Do not email me again." (24/1/08)

to which he confidently and in sane? mind replies:
"If you cannot accept what I have written, that's fine, and I'll be happy to accept that and not initiate further unwelcome contact...
When you email me, I have the right to reply. Stop emailing me, and I'll stop replying... It's really that simple!"

Unfortunately, is isn't that simple. I did not reply, but alas, received another email from Uncle F today. I paste it here in its entirety, without [sic!]s. He addresses my mother, who is Y. My father is L:

"Y,
"X just rang me to confirm that it was in fact the Bank that had made an accounting mistake which proved your and Ls innocence from all/any wrong-doing regarding the gift account you setup for A.
"I should have known that my initial belief was correct (that you and L are not thieves) and apologise for coming to the wrong conclusion.
"Aditionally, it occurs to me that it is not impossible that you did not know some of the deeper writings - afterall, not everyone studies their history as deeply as I have studied Judaism, and not everyone follows the teachings of Judaism totally.
"Regardless, I am gratified to have been proven wrong, and unconditionally apologise for accusing you of theft, as well as unconditionally apologise for making assumptions that you followed Judaisms total teachings word for word; and hope that 2008 is a fantastic year not only for you - but for all those you care about as well.
"F"

I shan't reply to this further confirmation of his loopiness. I take no responsibility for his loopiness. I won't be going there again.

Adventures in Stasiland (1985)

Adventures in Stasiland (1985)
(c) Melina Magdalena 2008

As I write this post, on Australia Day 2008, I call to mind my younger self on Australia Day 1985, as she prepared to journey to West Germany for a 12 month student exchange. I was 15 years old, and had led a politically sheltered existence. I knew very little of what was going on in the world, and was not prepared for making decisions and choices based on oppression, social justice or politics. I was travelling on a US passport. I only became naturalised as an Australian citizen in 1988, when I was 18 years old.

I'm also revelling in the return of my daughter, after a 2 month student exchange to Vannes, France. She stayed with a family and went to school there, but apparently spent most of her time wandering around the medieval city with the other exchange students. School was irrelevant and boring, and the French students weren't much interested in mixing with the exchange students. It's good to have her home, and to hear the stories she has to tell, about being a foreigner in France.

This afternoon I finished reading Where the Road Leads (2007), the memoires of Jean Calder, an Australian woman who has spent her adult life working with people with disabilities in Lebanon, Egypt and the Gaza Strip. As I reflect on what the Berlin Wall was for me, as a callow 15 year old in 1985, I am conscious of the Wall between Israel and Palestine, and the gross human rights abuses that are being perpetrated in that region of the world, a region I have never visited, but which is often in my thoughts.

Earlier this Summer I read Anna Funder's astonishing book, Stasiland (2002), which opened my eyes wide to some of what was going on in East Germany before that Wall fell. The Stasi were the State's Secret Police, made up of a multitude of bureaucrats, paid informers and unpaid informers. I am horrified by the stories Funder tells in her book, but I am not disbelieving. They set a few puzzle pieces into place for me - things that had affected me, and my family members who lived in East Germany, and things I had not been able to understand until I read the book.

It is interesting to reflect on the passage of time, how that affects the revelation of secrets, and how in turn, the revelation of secrets affects the world as it has changed through the passage of time. The things that can be told, and the things that people are prepared to hear, depend a great deal on what is considered to be acceptable at any given time. Over the past 23 years, I have often thought about what happened to me in East Germany. It is only now, after reading Funder's book, that I am prepared to accept that like so many of the citizens of East Germany, I as a foreigner also fell prey to their evildoings.

I visited my great-uncle, Immo Lucchesi, and his family, three times during 1985, but only two of these visits resulted in our spending any time together. I was rigorously drilled on the border crossing procedures; had my passport in order, and knew what I was allowed, and not allowed to do. I laugh at my younger self now - if only I'd been a more independent, adventurous teenager, I might have taken more notice of my environment. Instead, I relied solely on what I was told, and my own resources. I have no memory of what the Berlin Wall looked like, or what it was like to travel through West Berlin on my way to the East. My memories of East Germany are uniformly grey - no sepia nostalgia - neglected, cheerless and ugly, with a no frills atmosphere.

I was told at the time, that the reason for what happened on my failed visit, was the Sondermarke (special issue postage stamp) that I had chosen to put on the postcard I sent to Onkel Immo, in which I confirmed my arrival date and time to East Berlin. Even as a 15 year old I found this hard to fathom. Who would take the time to go through each and every postal item from West to East Germany; select out those items with the offending stamp; and set them aside or simply throw them away, so that the recipients never knew what they had not received?

Yet after reading Stasiland, I no longer doubt that this was precisely the kind of project to which the East German regime would have devoted a sector of its workforce. It's a shame I don't recall what was on that stamp, but apparently, it was unacceptable to the East German Government. My postcard did not reach my uncle, who was not there at the station to meet me.

A part of me wonders egocentrically whether this was a small, unplanned occurrence as part of a larger-scale effort, or whether it was a more targeted omission. Onkel Immo was well-known as a musician in East Germany. Members of his family were persecuted on many petty levels, that all added up to one big heartache. Unlike the rest of his family, he was able to travel with his orchestra. He was a flautist. He drove back from a tour of China one year, having requested payment in gold. A golden tube lay in the boot of his cardboard Trabi, wrapped in an oily rag. It wasn't detected as he crossed the border back into East Germany. He had it made into a flute, and flaunted his ability to resist the State every time he performed thereafter.

This tale was family legend. It had a huge bearing on my choice to learn the flute when I started highschool. A nice piece of synchronicity is that my second cousin Albrecht Lachmann, (the one who proposed a marriage of convenience to me during the first of my visits to East Germany that year) took me to a production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Our uncle was not playing that night.

Christa, my exchange mother, put me on the train to Berlin, and waved goodbye from the Hamburg platform. I felt confident. I knew from previous experience that my Tante Ursul would not permit me to leave them any Western money or chocolate, and I had in my bag an appropriate (and legal) set of gifts for my family members.

It was around six in the evening by the time we reached Berlin. I got off the train and went to the area where I would meet my uncle and go home with him. But there was no one there to meet me. I tried to be patient, and work out what to do. I simply stood against a wall, expecting to see someone I knew at any moment. But no one came.

A brainwave! I could call them on the public telephone. But I had no Eastern money. I went to the money exchange desk to ask for help, and to exchange some of my West German marks for East German legal tender. There were people there behind the thick glass. I knew they could see me. One woman sat with her feet on the table, glaring belligerently at me. I gestured politely, knocked on the window, and tried to gain her attention; I had it, but there was no way she was prepared to offer me any assistance - not after hours! She kept on staring at me through the glass, unwilling even to acknowledge our shared humanness.

Later, people asked why I didn't just hop on a taxi with the understanding that my uncle would pay the fare when we reached his home. This idea never occurred to me. I'd never caught a taxi alone before, would never have presumed that my uncle had the money to pay anyway, and was not prepared to get into a taxi with a strange man, when I did not have legal money to pay him with.

So I stood around some more, whilst commuters flowed around me. I felt resentful. They had someplace to go. What was I going to do? Eventually, my gaze fell upon a sign that showed the train timetable. Ah - there was a train back to Hamburg that evening. I could catch it, and at least when I got back to West Germany I knew how to get home from the station. And yes, there was time for me to figure out where to catch it.

I gathered all my courage and approached a middle aged woman. I asked her how to get back to the western side of the station so that I could catch another train. She explained the pathway. From memory, I had to go down some steps, through a short tunnel, around the corner, and up another set of steps. Something like that. I presented my passport and my return train ticket at the counter, as requested. The officers, in their green uniforms, took it away and left me standing there.

After a while, a uniformed someone came onto my side of the counter, and led me into a small room. It had no window, and was furnished with a desk and two chairs. A naked light bulb swung from the ceiling. Unschooled and naive as I was, I still recognised the cultural conventions of an interrogation chamber. He fired questions were at me in rapid German. I struggled to cope.

First, to confirm my personal details, as set down in my passport.
Secondly, to establish my reasons for coming to the GDR (East Germany). Who was I planning to stay with, what was I going to do there, and why hadn't I gone where I was supposed to go?
Thirdly, the bureaucratic necessities, and my failure to observe them correctly. Why hadn't I registered with the police as a foreigner was supposed to? Why had I not exchanged my West German money for East German marks?

While all this was happening, and for years thereafter, all I could see was how these soldiers or police - these human beings, for crying out loud - WHATEVER their role, had all the pieces of my story in front of them. Why couldn't they have taken the small leap of intelligence to assist me in my distress? What would it have taken, to call my uncle for me, and have him not only confirm my story, but also give him the opportunity to pick me up and take me home as planned?

Now I understand - they no doubt saw me as a bona fide East German citizen, posing as a US citizen, trying to make my escape to the illustrious West. I thought my story was straightforward, and my German bad. Perhaps it was not bad enough? I don't remember their searching my luggage. Funder mentions that some would-be escapees placed western goods in their bags in an effort to look like Western tourists. People were also told to cut the tags off their garments "so that they did not read 'People's Own Manufacture" (page 210).

Eventually, my interrogator left the room and returned 10 minutes later with my passport. I ran up the stairs to the platform to see the train to Hamburg just chugging out of the station without me.

The petty meanness of this deliberate act cut me to the quick, but I was determined to be strong, and not let it get to me.

The next train was in 12 hours time. I had a whole night to wait, and nowhere to go. I was hardly your streetwise 15 year old. What could I do? The platform was deserted, so I sat down on a bench and took out my novel to re-read. At least that would help to pass some time. I tried to read slowly.

After a couple of hours, when it was nearing midnight, I was still reading slowly. A trio of soldiers paraded intermittently along the high catwalk that spanned the East German platform. I suppose their role was to look for potential defectors, and that from so high up, they could see just about everything. I heard them shouting and talking amongst themselves, but I tried to ignore them. Eventually, I realised they were trying to get my attention.

"You can't stay here all night!" they shouted sown at me.

"Why not?"

"You just can't."

"Well, where am I supposed to go then?"

"To the West. That's where you belong!"

They laughed at me, and I felt the impact of their derision. At the time I felt sorry for them. I thought perhaps they resented my freedom in comparison with their repression. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe they were just poking fun at me.

I took them seriously, and put away my book. They were armed and dangerous, after all. I asked them how to get to the West, and they told me the route. It involved more steps and more tunnels to get to another train platform in the same station. Uncertain of what I was going to do once I got to the West - would I, for example, be able to get the morning train to Hamburg from the same platform - I left East Germany, and boarded a busy West German subway. I didn't have a ticket, and almost hoped I would be caught. At least then someone would listen to my story, and perhaps assist me.

BErlin Zoo Station - lots of people were getting off, including an elderly woman with her shopping trolley. I followed her out of the train. I must have looked rather lost, because she spoke to me, and asked whether I had anywhere to go. She directed me to the Red Cross office, which was in the station. I later found out that Berlin Zoo was notorious for its drugs, prostitution and other manifestations of homelessness and dysfunction.

I knocked on the window, though it was obvious to me the office was closed. But somebody answered! The shelter was full, but the worker took pity on me, and found a chair for me to sit on, around a table that was crowded with people who were all valiantly trying to sleep, sitting up. Were they all victims of the Sondermarke?

In the morning, we were all given tea and a roll. A worker accompanied me to the correct platform so I could board my train to Hamburg. I thanked her profusely. I can't remember the journey, but I remember wishing I was there already.

I got off the train and ran into Christa's waiting arms. She knew I hadn't reached my destination, and had had no way of knowing where I was in the meantime. She had waited to contact my parents on the off-chance that I might have found my way back to Hamburg on the morning train.

That intuitive optimism saved her a long-distance phone call to Australia! And I had an interesting story to write in my next weekly letter home.

-----------------------------------------------------------------




Jean E Calder (2007) Where the Road Leads, Hachette Australia
Anna Funder (2002) Stasiland, The Text Publishing Company, Victoria, Australia.

Our Excellent Roadtrip

Our Excellent Roadtrip
Melina Magdalena
(c) 2008

Yup! One month into 2008 already, and one month since last I posted... I got home yesterday after three most wonderful weeks with my Honey - one week here in Adelaide, one week on the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne, one week in Melbourne. T'was excellent.

So this is one of those holiday posts that bloggers seem to indulge in from time to time. I didn't do a round up of 2007, as I spent New Year's Eve on the beach at Semaphore. And I've been too busy since. There's a lot happening. It's going to continue to be a most excellent year.

Perhaps this will be the year to learn some more about blogging - images, artwork, links to other blogs, etc. - perhaps?

Here we go with the post proper.

GOOLWA and THE COORONG
We left Adelaide for Goolwa and the Coorong, after a quick trip to the Gepps Cross Sunday Market to stock up on fresh fruit and veg. In hindsight we didn't see much of the Coorong - it certainly wasn't the Coorong of my childhood, with massive flocks of birds on the water. I was reminded again and again of the warnings issued on behalf of the women of Kumarangk, that the Murray will dry up if a bridge is built . We didn't cross the bridge. I haven't been to Hindmarsh Island since it was bridged.

On our way to the Coorong, we walked across a large salt pan!
Honey directed me to a "bush site" where we could pitch our tent and camp for about $5. I hadn't been camping for quite a few years, and was a little nervous, but we got the tent up with no hassles whatsoever, went for a walk through the dunes, and got back in time to cook our dinner on her little butane-fueled camping stove.
Our walk was uphill and downhill and we met a red-bellied black snake which was soaking up the late afternoon sun beside the path. When I say "met" I mean the poor creature was inadvertently kicked by Honey, and screamed at by a terrified me. We looked it up later and indeed, these snakes generally slither away at provocation - thanks be to the Goddess.
I worried all night she'd been bitten and didn't know it and I'd wake up to find her dead beside me. But she was fine, and got me up in the early morning hours to go outside and see the awesome Milky Way as it careened its way above us. I didn't sleep again after seeing that sky. My mind was full of gratitude and wonder.

NELSON and GLENELG RIVER
Next day, we drove through Mt Gambier and stopped at Nelson, on the border. The caravan park was chokkers, but the lovely woman who ran the place, gave us the option of the last tiny tent site, or a spot in the "overflow". Seeing that it was lush with green grass, and hedged in for privacy on three sides, we chose the overflow. We felt very blessed.
We went paddling up the Glenelg River for an hour or so the next morning. On our way back, we heard the rich male voice, guitar and penny whistle we'd thought we had imagined the previous evening, as we walked down to the seashore. We looked to the opposite bank where a man was singing outside his combi van. The woman who hired out the canoe to us said she wished he would stay there forever for her to listen to.

SAWPIT PICNIC GROUND
We stopped at the Nelson Tourist Information Bureau to ask about a good campsite to go to next. It was very hot, though we were very lucky with the weather. It cooled off every night.
Sawpit Picnic Ground looked to be a better option than the other two sites near Portland, because although it wasn't on the beach, it had water and loos.
We stayed two nights at Sawpit, because it was so lovely.

CAPE BRIDGEWATER
We swam nearly every day in the ocean. I haven't done that since I was a child. It was amazing to reconnect with that part of me. My favourite swim was when we drove down to Cape Bridgewater. This is a small town nestled in some steep hills. We bought scones at the kiosk, and went swimming after lunch. The water was cool and about shoulder high, with continual waves that we could jump and dive under to our heart's content.

PORT FAIRY
It was in Port Fairy that we spent one half-hour on a public library computer, checking our emails. Honestly, I hardly missed my computer the whole time we were away.
Our evening meal at Port Fairy was, of necessity, hot chips and salad by the beach. It was a total fire ban situation. We were entertained during breakfast at Sawpit that morning by the Firies who rocked up in their engine to put out the illegal fires at several campsites. A van full of young, male German backpackers had made a fire the night before in the concrete fireplace, and not doused it sufficiently. They were still asleep when the Firies turned on the hoses. But there were some Aussie campers at Sawpit too, who really ought to have known better.
We walked along the foreshore to the lighthouse at Port Fairy that evening. On the rocks around the lighthouse, we saw a soft, brown wallaby. It was trying to evade us, but we hadn't seen it until it was almost to the water.

WARNAMBOOL
After two nights at Sawpit, we drove past the Codrington Wind Farm and on to Warnambool, where Honey has some friends, and we stayed with them overnight. It felt odd to be in a bed in a house, but it was nice. The winds of Warnambool played havoc with the windmill outside our window that night, and at one point a weird whistle was created when the wind blew into the empty fireplace in our room, and woke us up.
Warnambool is where the Great Ocean Road proper begins, but I didn't know that at the time. There was much more in store. I can't remember where the Petrified Forest was, but we stopped and looked at it, as well as the Blowhole nearby. This place will be most remembered for its flies, its impressive scenery running a close second.

PRINCETOWN and PORT CAMPBELL
On our way to Princetown, we stopped at Port Campbell, where Honey spent several summers in a row as a teenager and young adult. We looked at the Bay of Martyrs, what's left of London Bridge and the Grotto that afternoon, but saved the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge for the evening, after the tourist buses had gone home.

LOCH ARD GORGE

We were there at sunset. We had the beach all to ourselves for twenty blissful minutes.

JOHANNA
Our next campsite was at Johanna. We were flummoxed by the two Johanna's - Red and Blue. It turned out these were roads that joined up at the bottom. The campsite was enormous and well populated, though not crowded. It had no water for campers, but there were toilets. Unfortunately, not too far away was a large crowd of yobbos who kept us all up with their raucous behaviour, far into the night. We didn't rev our engine as we drove out the next morning, though we thought about it.
We wanted to drive up to Lavers Hill that night to see the glow worms, but the dirt and gravel Blue Johanna Road was something of a deterrent. However, Red Johanna Road was paved, and drove us smartly back up to where we needed to be - this is something for future campers to bear in mind.
We splurged that day and visited the Otway Fly Treetop Walk, for $19.50 each. We arrived at 6:00pm, and I wish we'd had a couple of hours to spend, but unfortunately, the park closed at 7:00pm. We climbed on the steel walkway, and up the tower, which was scary for me, but scarier for Honey, who doesn't like heights. The ranger picked us up as we were strolling through the trees, and transported us on his small car to the exit. But this place was also awesome, with great signage and amazing wilderness.
It was another total fireban night, so we ate at a Roadhouse and sat around reading, waiting for the sun to go down.
It still wasn't dark enough for glow worms when we reached Melba and Lavers Hill, so we had a game of Scrabble in the car. Eventually it got dark enough and off we traipsed, down a path. We spoke to a vet who works at the Warnambool Abattoir. He told us they're always on the lookout for workers, and that we should advise our students (newly arrived refugees and migrants) that if they want work, Warnambool's the place to be.
I loved the glow worms. I wonder what they look like in the light?

APOLLO BAY
Did we spend a night at Apollo Bay? I can't quite remember how it went, after that. We went swimming there, and I had the most excellent pot of Earl Grey Tea, and I know we went to Lorne the next day, so we must have stayed somewhere that night. All in all, we put up the tent and the air mattress about 7 times in 8 days. We got very efficient at it, and it never stopped being fun.

AIREYS INLET
Our last night was at a caravan park at Airey's Inlet. I know this was on Sunday night, because Honey and I had a discussion about traffic, and decided it would be better to drive up to Melbourne on Monday, rather than through the end of weekend madness. It was a good decision. We stopped and asked at the caravan park, whether there was a tent site available, despite the notice outside that told us there was no room at the inn. Lucky for us, there was one spot left, and it was very nice. Some teenagers were in the tent next to us, and gave us a long rendition of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" into the early morning hours. Listening to them - a boy/girl couple plus a male friend - Honey and I made a decision never to bicker and whinge to one another the way that girl whinged to her boyfriend.
Airey's Inlet is the place where "Round the Twist" was filmed. In the evening we walked along the top of the cliffs, because the tide was in. In the morning, we walked down along the beach and the rocks. At some points we had to wade through the water, to get to the next section. It was a lovely adventure to have at the end of our journey.

BELLS BEACH
On our way to Melbourne via Geelong, we stopped at Bells Beach to watch the surfers. This photo is not at Bells Beach, but it is a good photo to represent the multiple layers and diverse views of the ocean that we were treated to on our journey up the Great Ocean Road.

Highly recommended!

An Illustrated Christmas (card) Story

An Ilustrated Christmas (card) Story
(c) Melina Magdalena 2007

**please note, some names and identifying details have been altered, to protect the identities of people involved in these incidents**

In early December, I received a Christmas card from an old friend. I call her that, because for a couple of years we socialised regularly, and exchanged quite a lot of information about one another. We had a mutual friend in common, and she remains one of the brightest stars in the constellation of my social network.

Here's the card:

(I have no idea to whom this image belongs, but this is the copyright information on the back. © distributed by Austwide Wholesalers Pty Ltd)

Inside, it read

To Dear Melina, K, I & family …
With Season’s Greetings
and All Good Wishes
for the New Year
from (those pesky Christians!)
Nancy & Michael Smith
X

It was quite a relief when Nancy and Michael moved interstate two or three years ago. Since that time, we have exchanged pleasantries on the phone from time to time, and a couple of perfunctory emails. All contact has been initiated by Nancy. She always uses the opportunity to enquire about our mutual friend, who had already curtailed even this level of contact with Nancy, finding the hypocrisy of maintaining friendly relations more than she could bear. There’s more to their story, but I’ll just stick with mine here.

I wrote her a card in response. It wasn’t a Christmas card. It wasn’t a Channukah card. It was a blank card with a picture of butterflies, one of a set of cards I’d purchased from the Foot and Mouth Artists. I chose the card carefully, knowing that Nancy and I had strong reactions to butterflies, as a symbol of beauty in survival.

11 December 2007
Dear Nancy,
Thank you for your Christmas card and funny message. It’s good to know that you and Michael are doing well.
I do have to wonder though, about your choice of card for me, showing the Nativity scene. A culturally sensitive friend might have chosen a more neutral image for her Jewish friend. I’m not offended. I happen to love the Christmas story, and stories of Jesus the Jew, the teacher, the poet, the activist, the man, the friend…
I have nothing against Christians. In fact, I’m deeply in love with a Christian. I would, however, urge you towards a little self-reflection. Do you understand that it’s precisely because you are a white, Anglo, Christian woman, that you feel you are entitled to deliberately send me a culturally-inappropriate card at this season?
Do you remember several years ago, when you asked to participate in a Jewish Sabbath meal? I arranged this for you, in good faith, as a friend. My parents welcomed you into their home, shared their food with you, and gave generously of their time. I was alarmed, ashamed, offended and upset when you then began to express your racist attitudes. Consider for a moment, the impact this had on people whose family were refugees and migrants, and who choose to work with refugees, migrants and Aboriginal people. Just as with this Christmas card, you failed to show any sensitivity to our cultural differences. Perhaps because you feel part of the powerful, oppressive majority, you felt at home to speak your support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation policies, for locking up asylum seekers indefinitely in concentration camps, and to express your view that Aboriginal people have it far to easy in Australia, compared with whites. Your behaviour was outright offensive and fear-provoking. It’s taken me a very long time to find a way to tell you about this.
Nancy, I do thank you for your kind wishes, but I don’t wish to cultivate a friendship with a racist.
Best wishes for a bright future.
Merry Christmas & Happy 2008.
love, peace and blessings,
Melina Magdalena

I was away for a few days, visiting my sweetheart, and upon my return, this message was on my answering machine:

Message received 17/12 @ 7:03 pm
Oh hi Melina, it’s Nancy Smith calling. I received your Christmas card today. And first of all I’d like to say I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you, but I also found what you wrote in there very very offensive. I’m not going to grace the insults that you dished out in defense; they’re completely wrong, and I’d be very careful who I call those kinds of names. And you have deeply offended me, because I am not those things, and you’ve taken my comments out of context. And I suggest you look in the mirror yourself at the resentments that you’ve been harbouring. I also invited you into my home, and I never had any idea that you harboured those pathetic resentments about me. I’m very sorry that you’ve written such untruths about me. I’m very happy that you’ve been emotionally honest, and that you haven’t been two-faced anymore, which you have been all these years, and I’m very glad to disassociate from you and your insults. OK? And I do wish you well, but yeah, we’ll leave it at that, hey? Goodbye.

It’s worth pointing out that I had only ever spoken of that Shabbat meal to our mutual friend. I’d never spoken about it to Nancy, or even to my parents. We felt too ashamed and bewildered to mention it.

My first reaction to Nancy’s phone message was one of abject fear. To hear her accusations and the hurt in her strident voice felt threatening, ominous. I know she has criminal connections and a long history of illegal goings on. I wouldn’t put it past her to organize something nasty to happen to me or to someone I love, in retaliation for the “insults” I dished out to her, even though we are physically thousands of kilometers apart.

I acknowledge two things in her defense
a) it wasn’t particularly nice for me to choose Christmas as the time to finally raise this matter with her
b) yes, I have been two-faced in not speaking of this sooner.
However, I take no responsibility for her selective memory. The impact of her behaviour has stung ever since, like a resounding slap in the face, or a brick thrown through a bedroom window.

My mother invited me over for tea, and while my father was outside struggling with an overenthusiastic BBQ, I told her about the phone message. I’d told her about my earlier reply to Nancy’s Christmas card, so she knew the story. She had laughed, when I told her that I’d finally made some response to what had happened at Shabbat that night.

“You’re so much like your father,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You worry at things, and carry them around until finally, you can’t keep hold of them anymore and out bursts your response.”

“I’ve been wanting to say SOMETHING to Nancy for a long time, I just didn’t know how,” I replied.

My father came in then, and I spoke to him of what had happened. He has a history of misplacing my friends and acquaintances. When I tell him stories, he usually spends quite a long time organizing in his mind who I’m talking about and how that person fits in relation to my messy life.

“Is she the one?” he said, as soon as I’d barely begun.

“Yes,” I replied, knowing instantly, that he had placed her.

He continued speaking doggedly, as though if he didn’t say it then, he never would, “We thought she was on our side, and then after dinner, she started talking about how good the detention centres were, and so on….”

“Yes, that’s Nancy,” I confirmed.

My father turned and carried the dish of burnt chops out to the table. “Well, since that night, we’ve stopped inviting total strangers to sharing Shabbat with us.”


Shabbat = Jewish day of rest, day when one ceases work; also called “Shabbos”, and in English, Sabbath.
Shabbat Shalom = peace of the Sabbath; the traditional greeting exchanged around the Shabbat table.

The Double Bind - book review

The Double Bind - book review
(c) Melina Magdalena 2007

I’ve read several novels by Chris Bohjalian. Each time I close the books feeling a little depleted and possibly misused. It’s a curious sensation, because I enjoy every minute of every novel while I’m reading them – it’s just that the endings leave me with a sense of betrayal.

Perhaps it is my trite and feisty longing always to be on the side of the woman who was wronged. If I am so shallow then I disappoint myself. Maybe life isn’t really so black and white! Bohjalian’s plots turn the tables on his women protagonists, leaving them in either an overtly bad light, or floundering with serious ambiguity as to their ability to avoid consequences of poor decision-making or their actual feminine nature, which in his eyes appears to invite said dire consequences for these women protagonists and those unfortunate enough to become involved with them.

The Double Bind is not a novel about blaming victims. Much of what it has to say about PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is valid. Bohjalian’s compassionate view of his character’s world is not offensive in itself. At least in this plot, the hurt that protagonist Laurel Estabrook inflicts upon the people in her life is clearly unintended and unavoidable. What Laurel suffers is the fault only of the men who attacked her. The consequences of their attack can never be blamed on their victim. The people who love Laurel understand clearly that she does not intend to cause them harm; indeed that her every action is directed from the vantage point to which she has withdrawn. To protect themselves, they keep Laurel at arm’s length every bit as much as she keeps them at bay.

The book for me was a head-spin in that it left me questioning my own sense of reality. I wondered to what extent I have created an illusion of health, a glamour of safety, a delusion that the world still belongs to me even as I still belong to the world, when in fact, perhaps I would be better off dead. Do I need my fantasies in order to continue to function? Are my delusions necessary for my survival? Must I trick myself into believing I am more than that to which I was reduced, through the actions of the men who damaged me, so that I can convince myself that life is still worth living?

I did not drift for too long, in the howling winds of such existential agonies. I am not a fictional character – I know there is a lot more to me and to my life, than a few isolated events that had far-reaching effects on the way I choose to live my life.

Instead, I pursued this thread by questioning to whose benefit it is, that Laurel confront, define, acknowledge and own every nasty little detail of her experience. In order to be a “true survivor” is she to be left undefended and indefensible, with no dignity of choice and no delicacy of privacy? Is it necessary, in order for her to wear the mantle of “survivor” as opposed to “victim”, to somehow step out from under the burden of her experience and say – hey look at me, I’m still a valuable, contributing human being, even though those men did this and this and this and this to me?

In this sense, the demand that Laurel be open about her experience runs parallel to the demands that every person whose identity falls outside the mainstream, whether through race, gender, ability, or affiliation come out repeatedly, consistently and continuously, in order to be validated as a healthy human being. These demands call for superhuman effort. Most of us are too busy living our lives to waste our time constantly bringing our differences to the attention of those who would just as soon ignore them.

Is not Laurel, by the nature of the life that she is leading, proving her worth and her survival with each and every waking moment? She remains defiant, intelligent, unbeaten and spirited to the end.

I wondered anew about the nature of true healing. The sour taste that was left in my mouth when I finished Double Bind was more to do with the big question of – is it possible or even desirable to heal from such a major traumatic event? Clearly, if PTSD leads directly to madness, and if madness by its definition is mental disease, than the most that can be hoped for is a set of coping mechanisms and a network of support people to prop up the unfortunate victim.

It is unquestionable that no one should go through what Laurel goes through. It is undeniable that many people do experience abuse and torture, and that most of us do not die as a direct consequence of such maltreatment. So what should be done to us, or what should we do, in order to choose a different path, than the path that Laurel takes on her quest for survival? How different are our journeys, from Laurel’s experience of survival?

If healing means denying oneself the liberty or luxury of rewriting the past to something that is more acceptable and tolerable to us, than what other people know really happened, than do we all not live in a state of denial? Do we all not tend to rewrite our pasts, dampen down the emotional states to bearable levels, in order that we continue to function?

We do not all descend into madness. Nor is madness necessarily a permanent state. Madness can provide the respite we need sometimes, in order to regroup and find our feet again. PTSD perhaps, is a life sentence – a direct result of specific traumatic experiences. Not everyone with PTSD experiences madness all, or even some of the time. Nearly everyone with PTSD is accused at some stage, of at least being emotionally extravagant and at worst, of being mad.

The human mind and spirit is incredible in many ways. Those of us who live successfully with PTSD develop our meaning-making skills of intuition and connectivity to a level that others can barely glimpse as possible. It is difficult to verbalise this amongst ourselves, let alone to medicos whose understandings are relegated to regulated mechanical understandings.

Bohjalian does not seem to realize in his PTSD character, the depth and levels of self-talk that must necessarily interweave in a complex and strangely harmonious manner to enable Laurel’s survival in this hostile world. Her world is indisputably hostile, despite the mostly benign characters with whom Bohjalian has peopled it. Were it not hostile, at least in the way Laurel perceives it, why would she have needed to develop such strong defences against it? Laurel’s defenses range way beyond the defense of her own mutilated body. Her purpose is to defend anyone she cares about, from being affected and destroyed by the forces that came so close to destroying her.

So for Laurel herself, since the novel deals mostly with her internalized world as she comes to externalize it, I was gripped by the buzzing current that keeps her sleepless, that runs through her body and circulates in her blood. How could she appear to be anything but calm, in the face of constant panic? How can she possibly escape her past? She is guarded, day and night; vigilant against any attack upon the semblance of sanity and good health that she has created around herself.

Would it be better for Laurel to meditate every morning about the horrors that were enacted upon her body, count them off in a litany of gruesome acknowledgement, and then rise from her bed and go about her day along with the constant physical reminders of these acts? Perhaps it’s her ability to repress part of the knowledge from her everyday consciousness that enables her to function at all? Perhaps it’s amazing that she functions as she does, despite the unvarying murmuring of self-talk, panic and mind-messages that are playing in the background? Perhaps this ability to hear around and despite all this, is healing and health.

What is not spoken of in this book is the question which drives Laurel. Her story, and the story in this book, is infused with the question “WHY?”

Why did this happen to me?
What is it in me that caused this to happen?

Why did they do this to me?
What kind of people imagine and consciously carry out such horrifying acts?

Why did I survive?
What does it mean for the rest of my life, that I must carry the scars from these unspeakable acts?

When there are no answers to these questions and yet these questions cannot be avoided, the only way open is for Laurel to deal with them herself. She seeks meaning, and she finds it on a level that others define as madness. The other people in her life cannot follow her, because they do not understand the path she took to reach that place. Their experience of Laurel is not her experience of herself. That doesn’t make her completely wrong, misguided and crazy. When there is no one left to blame, the blame must be self-inflicted. And that is precisely the shame.

There is no Goddess in Laurel’s world. She must birth herself. Life is hard. To find new meaning in her life, Laurel looks beyond the confines of her own rich inner world, and extends her compassion to those whose realities are even harsher and stranger than her own. Such is the depth of her character.