Summer2020

The weather, as usual for that time of year, was absolutely stinking hot. Tom was wondering what the point of all this was. An entire blockade, across the entire island, only for the sake of capturing some primitive natives – why couldn’t they just leave them alone? What was –

“Men! At arms!” barked Major MacDhuie, snapping Tom back into reality and away from his rampant daydreaming.

Tom was an Irishman, forced into the British Redcoats against his will. This was perhaps why he felt a slight affinity for the wretched natives of Van Diemen’s Land. A culture that, like his one back home, was being entirely exterminated by the British colonial thugs.

What was the British obsession with wiping out other cultures? It seemed to be a regular pastime of theirs. They had already eliminated the African cultures like a hungry child gobbling up a piece of bread, leaving only the discarded crumbs scattered across the continent. They had also done the same to his homeland, forcing many of his family, who had lived in the small coastal hamlet of Kilconnor in County Mayo, to flee across the oceans to the New World.

“Men! Start advancing!” screamed Major MacDhuie, wiping his moist, sweaty brow with his forearm. All of the men grumbled as they trudged through the thick bushland, most of them probably in the same rebellious frame of mind as Tom. They were forming a blockade across the entirety of Van Diemen’s Land, in an attempt to corner the natives and capture them. It was all part of the British plan to ‘educate’ the indigenous population in the British ways. He knew that this plan would never eventuate. It was all just a guise by the government to senselessly murder the wretched natives, much like the attack on Glencoe. This really outraged Tom. Who were they? Thinking they could play God?

***

It had been what seemed like an eternity since they had been ordered to start the blockade. The weather was only getting hotter, and Tom was starting to feel a little faint and was panting like a tired dog. Why were there so few billabongs? His canteen had run out about 30 minutes ago. No wonder the natives were so primitive. They had to spend their entire lives searching for food and water, meaning they had no time to mentally develop.

“Sir! Some tracks over here!” yelled a soldier, about fifteen feet away from Tom. Major MacDhuie brushed past Tom as he strode over to the other soldier.

“Aye, that’s them all right. We have the primitives under our noses now! Quieten down men! Keep your eyes and ears open!”

With that, the troop descended once again into the monotony of trudging along, only a little quieter than before.

***

They had been trudging along for about half an hour since Major MacDhuie spotted the prints. Everyone was still keeping quiet, making sure they got their job done as efficiently as possible. Suddenly, Tom heard a distant rustling sound among the rotting leaves.

“Sir! I’ve heard something!” He called to Major MacDhuie. As they approached the sound, he could hear the rustling sound of human activity among the weeping white gums, the padded sound of feet hitting the rotting leaves on the forest floor, and the babble of a foreign language as the natives went about their daily activities. Tom’s heart was racing. Rifle cocked and ready to fire, he was sneaking silently through the underbrush. He could see the women, gathered around the fire cooking what looked like some kind of exotic animal. Major MacDhuie had now lowered his voice to an excited whisper, and his moustache was bristling with excitement:

“We’ve found them! Prepare arms!”

Inhumane, Tom thought. He was gaining sadistic pleasure from this, treating it as if it were a fox hunt in Britain. Tom took notice of the children playing what looked like hopscotch, and he felt a twinge of sorrow for them, knowing the terror he was about to implement on them.

“Attack!” yelled Major MacDhuie, hardly containing his sadistic excitement. The natives all looked around, a sense of confusion streaking across their weather-worn faces.

The soldiers all sprinted out from the bush into the clearing, guns pointed. The sense of confusion turned to that of terror, and the natives fled for their lives.

“Follow them!” ordered Major MacDhuie “Follow them and terminate them!”

Tom barrelled after them, like a falcon swooping down on its prey. He heard their footprints dissipate, and he swore to himself as he ran into another clearing. There was a rustling of leaves behind him. He revolved on the spot and cocked his rifle, only to find himself facing a mother and her son. His heart dropped to his stomach. He knew that he would have to finish them off. He whispered as he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger of his rifle.

“I’m sorry.”

In 1998 about three and a half months after graduation, I began to feel dissatisfied with everything around me. I remember thinking, “There has to be more than this.” My mum suggested Bali, “Margaret went last year, and she reckons she hasn’t been the same since, gave her a whole new perspective apparently,” she attested. I refused to be one of those people, so I spent my savings on a plane ticket to Paris. I didn’t really have a plan and in hindsight, I probably should have made one. Then again, it was a time when every cell in my body was beyond desperate to escape that burnt out boomtown and its anachronistic nineteen-eighties mindset.

I won’t lie, Paris wasn’t doing it for me. It was filthy, cramped, and worst of all, its people had a collective ego that could only be matched by that which I had recently escaped. I jumped on an eastbound train, and within hours, had rolled into Berlin. Walking through the station was surreal. Every person on every platform walked with drive. There was a distinct, fierce look in each of their expressions, it gave me the impression that every move they made was part of some long-term goal or ambition. I knew I had found what I was looking for. These people had an innate sense of confidence in themselves, confidence in the idea that they were going to use their one life to do something big. My first hour there consisted of me wandering around, looking for the barrier that lay between the city’s cosmopolitan west, and what I had anticipated to be the industrial ghost town I had learned about in school. When I finally found it, I crossed into something that in no way reflected my expectations. By six o’clock at night, East Berlin revealed her mid-century euphoria, characterised by neon streets that sat below rows upon columns of rectangular, mass-produced windows, exposing the lives of their unapologetic inhabitants who had nothing to hide and nothing of which to be ashamed. I remember thinking, “I never want to leave.”

As I sank further into the eastern bloc, I couldn’t help but notice a narrow stairwell that went deep beneath the cobblestone. Fixated on the prospect of a drink, I descended. The soft sounds of European jazz became more immersive with every step, and upon completing my descent, I was absorbed further into a warm orangey glow and the Saturday night chatter of a cosmopolitan people. Seated at the crowded limewood bar, it wasn’t long before the glasses began to stack and my vision began to blur. It was at this point that I remember feeling embarrassed. Sitting there alone, and in many ways lost, I was approached suddenly by a tall, blonde, blurry woman, who took it upon herself to park up next to me and strike up a conversation.

At first, I was suspicious, but then I realised that if I was about to be trafficked for my organs then I may as well get a good conversation out of it. So, there we talked for hours, and while I don’t quite remember the contents of that discussion it must have been a good one because the next morning, I woke up on her couch with my kidneys intact.

Before I was able to recall the night passed, I was greeted enthusiastically by the girl whose names it turned out was Mia. “Guten Morgen,” she said, “I’m making you breakfast.”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” I replied, embarrassed by the fact that she probably thought I had nowhere else to go.

“No no, I insist. You like bacon – no?”

“Ha-ha, who doesn’t?” I retorted.

It was good bacon too, and we spoke for hours about her childhood in the regime. Her father Johan had been separated from his mother the night the wall had gone up, as she had been spending the week with her sister, his aunt. “It’s crazy, to think that the way of life and the perception of the world that you acquire through all those generations’ experiences, can just be cut off in an instant by something that is entirely out of your control,” I responded.

“Aha, I don’t know,” Mia said, staring at a nail that had come loose from her state-produced apartment floor. “It’s just how it is, no? I’m sure there are all kinds of stories like mine in Australia.”

“Hardly!” I laughed. I then hesitated. “Well, not really anyway.”

Mia smiled at me and I knew where she was going. “You Aussies, you are just like the British – and the Americans!”

I had to laugh; she wasn’t wrong, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of the reason I had travelled in the first place. I was hoping to escape, but the thing about travel is that it always puts in perspective the place you are trying to escape. No matter how far you flee, or how hard you try to separate yourself from the things you despise, Home always catches up with you, it confronts you. It was that moment in Mia’s apartment that I finally came to realise I was just another Margaret, filling the great cultural void in my identity with that of another nation.

7:45

15 minutes to make the 21-minute walk back home.

The two-gallon carton of milk sways in my hands like the palm trees towering twenty feet above me. A Santa Monica staple – radiating from the city centre along its vast suburban landscape. The scarp walling in our basin from the fields of the republic beyond our inhabitance, once an obstacle surveyed by Spanish explorers and hunted by Tongva tribesman, now one of the many barriers to the outside word.

My worn basketball shorts are stark against the cleanliness of the suburban background. A desert tamed by man; Destiny made Manifest. Neat houses and vacant blocks follow the contours of the land – once taped over with red stickers announcing ‘Foreclosure Sale’ – now rebuilt, renovated and reinhabited …… an American dream. A lottery where the numbers aren’t so random, where luck is given rather than received. It’s easy to talk about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when you already have everything anyone could ever want.

I enter Regent Boulevard; American Craftsman homes unnaturally define the boundaries of the street – uniqueness in conformity – the hypocrisy of our system.

7:55

The phone rings – it’s Mom.

“¿Cuándo vas a estar en casa?”

She knows I don’t speak the language

“Soon Mom, I’m just down the road.”

“And Isabella, mi niño?”

I hate it when she calls me that.

“She’s on her way.”

***

I see Isabelle, dragging her feet on the dusty pavement, outside my neighbour’s. Her uniform brown hair brushing her shoulder blades over her white polo shirt and Levi jeans. “Babe,” I feel the warm embrace of her body amongst the aroma of her Cartier.

An elegant space divides my skin from hers, the warmth dissipating like sweat from the skin.

Isabelle steps onto the path entering my neighbour’s place: I touch her hand indicating “wrong way” – followed by an awkward laugh. I retreat to our home, the foreigner next door.

An oasis of Spanish Colonial Revival in a desert of suburbia. It looks somehow more at home in our desert state, compared to the lawns and picket fences of our neighbours. The openness of the courtyard is uncomfortable amongst the practicality of the clean wooden façade of our neighbour’s.

“Wow, what a spectacular house – is it like your place back home?”

“Yeah!” I lie. I’ve never lived anywhere else.

My mother opens the door.

“Niño!” She embraces my shoulders and ferociously kisses my forehead.

“¡Buenos días, Isabella¡ ¡No te quedes ahí en la puerta¡ ¡Pasa!”

“Maria, nice to meet you!”

Isabelle awkwardly looks to the side as she receives the same treatment, Mom offering her warm embrace.

We walk through the arched door, which swings aside to reveal the buttery yellow interior. The wall is broken up by little droplets of solidified paint, the result of Uncle Antonio’s attempts at renovating.  The tiled floor relieves the heat from outside as we remove our shoes. Isabelle doesn’t look particularly comfortable – I want to assure her my mom’s floors are clean, but the gleam probably already tells her that. I quickly dunk my fingers in the bowl of holy water haphazardly nailed next to the doorway, realise how odd it looks, and try to surreptitiously do the sign of the cross under the guise of a cough.

On our right is a Credenza containing the car keys, Mom’s hair pins and a series of bills – a horrendous photo of middle school me, braces, bottle glasses and bad haircut. I thump the frame down onto the table, hoping Isabelle won’t notice the worst phase of my life.

Our hallway opens up to the kitchen, photos of Mom’s extended family on the wall.

Her parents, old and fatigued from years of manual labour but still grinning beside pallets of someone else’s produce – the work ethic which allowed them to afford the very walls their picture adorns. I never met my grandparents, as the banned chemicals of a generation ago took their toll.

Another is a photo of me near the window, with the cousin who I dragged to the Southern California Medical Museum when they came from Mexico. My grins hide the fact that I hated their visit – I was their awkward shadow for the whole trip, shambling beside their realness and authenticity at twelve years. At least that particular trip to Pomona gave me the idea that I wanted to be a doctor.

There were many more, all these photos of places I’ve never been, most people I’d never met. My father is notably absent from even the smallest photograph. The story keeps on changing like the photos on the wall.

The tiled backsplash draws both Issy’s and my attention, the mahogany table a centre piece to the room. On the kitchen bench quesadillas overflowing with cheese, elote skewered in a line on a bright blue dish, and the aroma of the posole dominating the kitchen.

“Mom, you didn’t have to go to so much effort!” I say half-proud, half-embarrassed.

Maybe she’s cooked so much because she’s nervous.

Isabelle’s eyes bulge slightly. Her Mexican dining experience is limited to the Taco Bell dollar menu.  “Holy..!” She breaks her silence, almost involuntarily.

Mom looks at her in shock. If I spoke like that, I’d be family history.

This is going to be a long night

‘Resistance is useless.’ I beg to differ. Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen of the United Nations. My name is Christopher Michael and you very well might be wondering, what is a student from Scotch College doing here at the UN? Well, that is a great question and maybe if technology hadn’t become such an overpowering and dominant force in society like it is today, I wouldn’t have to be here. Unfortunately, the ignorance of humanity, you included, has prevailed. The notion that resistance is useless is totally absurd. I acknowledge that some of you may be sceptical regarding the severity of the issue but I’d like you to all ask yourselves, do you even know how many times you have checked your phone today?

Mankind. Ever since the beginning of time, evolution has chosen its intelligent exemplars. As the sun rose above the horizon, mankind arose like a phoenix from the ashes, climbing to the very pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder. We humans learned to forge weapons from sticks and stones to break the bones of other animals. We humans learned to capture the essence of destruction and creations, the glowing example of the achievable of the impossible: fire.

As fire danced in humanity’s eyes, humans danced around the fire and this catalysed their knowledge. They became smarter, stronger… learned how to manipulate the world with ease. With the God-given gift of fire, became the most powerful force on Earth.

As the years went by, the few sins began to foster, churning the smoke from the fire into the purest form of malevolence that seeped into our lungs. Fire became stone. Stone became metal. Metal became plastic. And from then on, humans were lifted to the Earth by alloy-winged angels that came from the heavens.

Technology became the new fire, the new force with which humans could change the world. But just as man had evolved, so did technology. We worship it. We idolise it. We hang onto it like it’s a lifeline we cannot live without. Humans thrive off ego, validation of sins, and yet, we are so oblivious to our corruption, our vices.

We give it all of our attention, every second, every waking moment. In fact, in a study conducted by the research market group Nielson, adults spend 11 hours a day interacting with media. But mankind is a miracle of god’s creation, a living, breathing life form capable of achieving the impossible. A smart phone is just a simple chunk of plastic, and yet, against all odds, it is technology that has the power over humans.

We are spoon-fed our newsfeeds through smart phone platters and our Instagram followers are all that really matters. Technology feeds us, it fuels us, it controls us. Our phones lay forever in the palms of our hands, and yet we are in its. I think that is worth ‘resisting’.

Technology is shaping man’s thoughts, man’s behaviour, man’s identity. Like in The Wizard of Oz we hide behind faces, anonymous profiles without any traces. Conditioned by computers we metamorphosise, brain washed from Dorothys into Scarecrows. Like the Tin Man, technology makes us forget to oil our joints. Why experience the world through our own retinas when we can just use a MacBook Pro with retina display? Penn State Researchers found after analysing recent data from the US Census that, on average, we exercise for two hours per week. That’s half the four hours recommended by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention. This is resulting in much higher chances of cardiovascular disease and obesity. I think death is something worth ‘resisting’.

Humanity is becoming too dependant on technology. We know more about Malware than we do of the real Trojan Horse. He’s a mindless disciple, indoctrinated to follow Windows and Apple, and Silicon Valley is his new Sistine Chapel. Earphones writhe in our pockets, the new caduceus through which we experience the new music of our age.

Lust. Money. Drugs. We hold it in our hands. We hold in the palm of our hands brain washing machines that turn tears into an endless spin cycle of malevolence. We hold in our hands a maximum-security fortress – locked by a four-digit code. We hold in our hands a Pandora’s box in which we spill all of our secrets, the details, the intricates of our lives. In fact, a survey conducted by the Royal Administration of Public Health in 2018 on 14 to 24-year olds found that 78% experienced increased feelings of depression, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness if they used Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It is corroding our character. I think that is something worth ‘resisting’.

Humanity; once the pinnacle of evolution, is now a spider trapped in the worldwide web of its own creation. We created the internet, a virulent ocean of torrents and tricks. But like the polarised pictures, we are over-exposed to this insidious web where everyone goes.

Instagram, IP and its one billion users, filters out faults and our flaws as we bask in approval behind closed doors. We incessantly seek validation, the approval we so desperately crave. Blinded by his own gluttony, technology feeds man as he drowns in the  sweet lie that he still has control.

We inject validation like morphine and ice and Wi-Fi to us is like cheese is to mice. For a talkative species we are all so disconnected. According to Dr Catherine Adair, a clinical psychologist, “As a species we are highly attuned to social cues. There is no doubt we are missing out on many important social skill”. IP Adams and Eves all around this Garden of Eden have taken a byte from the forbidden fruit – the Apple TM. Just like Adam and Eve betrayed God, technology, our children, will betray us. The electronic age is being manufactured before our very eyes. An age where mankind falls, surpassed by a magnus opus of his own creation.

History is being re written, no, re-typed, to cleanse humanity of its imperfections.

The iCloud has no silver lining.

Mankind falls.

Technology Rises.

Ashes to Ashes.

Dust to Dust.

To answer the question I posed to you before, the average person checks their phone every 10 minutes and does this over 80 times a day, so you must all be fighting off the urge to check it. Well, go on, I won’t stop you, but I hope you all now understand why a student from Scotch College has to come out and address you today. We ought to resist this. We must. Resistance is not useless, it is the most powerful force for change, or to stop something.

Thank you.

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am Dr Jones and today I would like to discuss with you a recent meteorically controversial topic.

The days of civilised political debate, unconsciously sharing one’s views and respectfully acknowledging the opinions of others, are over. No one likes to be chastised for their views but it seems the ability to share ideas and beliefs and then modify and change our own, something that is a hallmark of a free society, seems to be gone.

The Greta Thunberg circus has become a complete farce.

Travelling across the ocean in a seemingly environmentally friendly sailboat (excluding the making thereof) is a first-world fake melodrama at best.

If Thunberg really wished to address the UN without spewing carbon emissions into the air she could. The New York Times reports that scientist Jerome Bell has refused air travel and now works entirely by skype.

Additionally, the fractious shunting, toxic democratic debate and brutal berating of Thunberg’s journey has done little to evoke a positive effect. Vilifying your audience with how they’ll “never be forgiven” and how your woes are a direct result of their allegedly “evil” actions doesn’t do much to bring your audience onto your side. Normally it has the opposite effect.

However, Thunberg’s problem isn’t only the alienation of her own audience. It’s the pejorative way in which it’s affecting other teenager’s lives. Both her Journey, her speech, and the way the Left have abused her influence for publicity have erupted in a sea of frantic teens certain their lives and the world will perish in fifty years.

Despite this being why the many sixteen-year olds have still fled to the streets during school hours to make themselves heard!

Impressive commitment.

I’d be more impressed if they each, individually stuck around to make a statement. I’d be more impressed if they save up their weekend, their free time, not school hours, to protest. I’d be more impressed if they collectively planted trees in areas that needed revegetating so that they’d actually, for once, made a physical change.

But what would be most impressive is if they save up the commodities and materials sourced from their greatest fear. Mining.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I mean phones, I mean cars, I mean electricity.

It’s not about the protest – it’s about what happens after. Walking the streets during school hours gives you no skin in the game. All it would take is a little hard work and elbow grease.

And I’m sad to say but this problem is still a major problem, despite these protests. I’m not saying our resistance is useless. I’m saying our current resistance is. We can resist climate change. We will resist climate change.

As said by Doctor David Malone, “The problem with current protests, protests post internet is

anyone can make one. Back in the old days before internet, protests needed to be a well-constructed, planned and lasting statement. Now it is little more than fun and games on a website.”

It seems these days we too easily skip the step of face to face organization and involvement in actual political debate. Young people seem too intimidated and lazy to sit through long hours of political debate. Well let’s make that stereotype change. Because it is the only way we can make change.

We can make change because we are the problem.

We can make change because we are the consumers.

We can make change because I and you believe we can make change.

The average Australian produces 15 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. The top 10 companies in the world produce over 80% of the global green house gases released into the air.

We are at the root of the problem.

Kids frantically shouting in poorly organised street protests during school isn’t going to cut it.

Neither is protesting in those streets using phones, paper and cardboard, as they are things sourced directly from what we are protesting. Mining.

It seems our efforts are only fuelling the industries we wish to reduce. That our resistance is useless.

So, we must find it in ourselves to live with less. Less electricity, less hot water, less technology and trust me, that will make all the difference.

Thank you very much for listening. Enjoy the rest of your day.

“Defence, how do you plead?”

“Not Guilty, your Honour.”

In reality I was guilty, of breaking what was – and still is – simultaneously the most crucial and most oppressive law of our society. You see, I had confessed my love to a girl and asked her to marry me. A very special girl to me, but one out of my league… legally speaking, of course. My father was a street sweeper before he died of tuberculosis when I was only young, and my mother died giving birth to me after a life of trying to hold together some kind of household for herself and my father. My love, my inspiration, my stars, my moon, my sun… her father made his living as an industrialist. He owned factories, he owned people, and made millions doing so. A well-respected man amongst prestigious circles, he, of course, had his mind made up about his daughter’s future well before she had even spoken her first words. He planned to use her as a bargaining chip, so to speak, an instrument with which he could sweeten a business deal with some young, naïve start-up. It gave him a convenient way to squeeze some more money out of some unknowing young and hopeful. He saw her as a tool, just as he saw those humans he owned as cogs… nameless, faceless and voiceless.

But she’s not – she… wasn’t. My auburn-haired maiden with rosy cheeky and luscious lips. Her eyes as deep and blue as the sea, her skin as soft and pale as the clouds above. She’s like sugar, she’s like a drug. Her touch is soft and deadly, her scent is sweet and fatal. Her gentle smile and her crystal eyes. Soft… but sharp. Beautiful… but dangerous. She’s not a cog, not a tool. She’s not nameless, she’s neither faceless nor voiceless. Not to me, at least.

But the law sees it otherwise. According to the Australian Inter-Caste Relations Act of 2037, it is punishable by death for someone of my status – nameless, faceless, voiceless – to have any two-way interaction with someone of her status.

I read books, books I’ve found in the dumpsters of upper-caste hotels, homes and other buildings. I’ve read of a time when love was free, when fathers didn’t use their daughters as business tools, of a time when a black man could love a white woman – and express it openly… When a man could love another man and not be imprisoned for it. When I could have loved my Jordan.

The politicians and the preachers say the same thing. The sins of the past must guide our future. But is it really a sin to be happy? Should it be a sin for men and women to be free?

But the legislature is very clear. The politicians and the preachers are very clear.

“You will die for your sins. Any who refuse to accept their boundaries in this world will never see the eternal afterlife.” This elusive forever land, up in the clouds where the pure and wealthy wilt away, pretending that everything is good and clean. Doesn’t really sound too different from earth, does it? The rich above and the poor below, unseen and unheard.

Until one of us does something like this, then the upper echelon come out in their droves. To witness a modern crucifixion.

“The defendant is accused of pursuing a relationship with a woman, Ms Jordan West, from the caste above his own. Having plead not guilty, attorney Mr Craig Newell will lead the prosecution. The Honourable Dr Justin Manning is presiding. Defendant, as per the Australian Caste Definitions Act, 2024, you do not have a defence attorney, is that understood?”

“Yes, your Honour.” Rubbish.

I’m not going to lie, I zoned out during a lot of the trial. It’s very much legal mumbo-jumbo. Although I know how to read, I can’t speak Lawyer. I didn’t really understand any of it, as hard as I did try to pay attention. It’s not like I had someone to help me through it anyway. I felt like a caged animal sitting in the defendant’s stand, like I was about to be sold into a life at the zoo. I could see my mind wandering out of my head and then out of the courtroom while the cutting stares of the mindless spectators slowly lasered through me.

Like a slave watching his salesman, I stood and listened to the judge read out what was really the only thing I understood the whole time.

“Guilty.”

Tears.

“… Sentenced to death.”

Silence.

And then cheering from the crowd. Jordan’s father stealing her away and the bailiff stealing me away, both of us bound in inescapable chains.

The only difference is that I’ve always been chained down. She’s just been chained up.

Driving down the highway, I had forgotten how gigantic those pillars had risen since yesterday. Out of the corner of my eye, another arose. With gleaming rides pulling in, filled with gleaming individuals who live gleaming lives under the shared heat of Miami. Right on the old swamp that reeked like fish and mould, a death trap for those who hadn’t even smelt the bones of our planet before. A couple walked along the foreshore to my right, turning back just before the sign that enters my world. A world of broken homes, sirens and sweat. Where people are evicted weekly, scrimping on food and not sleeping, only thinking about when exactly that handout or paycheck will come. A bitter thought for an average person, but not us. Not our mob. As Mama likes to call it, “our little secret, mi amor”.

Out of my bed, I woke up to my mama barking at me to get ready for church. I shouted back, “Ma I’m up,” with the lingers of my slumber still hidden in my tone. Another day, as boring, sterile and full of people who are stuck in the same boat as me. Dreaming about a future that will never happen. Finally getting out of this town, driving into the sunset waiting only at red lights until we can make a life for ourselves in the horizon ahead. My dreams always crash into harsh reality at the best parts.

“Once we have church, we need to go get some clothes for you,” said Mama, as she served me a plate of scrambled eggs.

“Don’t worry, I always checked out the sales at Goodwill and I know what I want,” I said, mid-egg chewing, trying not to complain about where we shopped.

My family always went to church every Sunday, a local one down near the empty storefront on the main street. Mama started making us when we moved a couple of years ago from Mexico. A new start, to fit in with everyone and the “wholesome” American values. While sitting in a church for a few hours each week drives me insane, I see everyone from every scope of the earth here. Families like mine, widowed partners, ex-addicts, low income families galore. A melting mixing pot of hardships for the greater purpose of coming together to give thanks for what we have. I’m lucky in a sense; we haven’t been robbed, nor mugged or even shot at. In our neighbourhood that’s called sure damn luck for us.

When we pull out of the driveway in our second-hand Honda Accord, a fight breaks out at a rental unit up the street. Blue and red sirens flash across the dark bitumen, engulfing the mother being dragged away from her crying children. One’s got pyjamas still on. Her eyes still filled with sleep as aching tears pour down her face. Two of the shadowed police officers put them in the back of the truck. A common occurrence for an “unfit” parent to have her kids taken away in the street. The one thing that changes from those lifeless houses across the highway, is that no one turns an eye to what happens here. Not a single glance, bar myself. Mama keeps her eye on the road, concentrating on turning at the intersection with no line or stop sign. I look over at her, seeing her tense up. Trying so hard not to peer into the eye of other people’s problems.

We stop in the carpark of the church and turn to Mama, who’s grabbing her purse out. She turns and stares at me for a second, as if to see an unloved boy from an immigrant family, which I get called every time I step foot near the wealthier areas of Miami. Instead she smiles and looks over at the church entrance filling with people from the streets.

“Come on, mi amor. We’ll be late; don’t want to be sitting on the floor now do we,” Ma whispers, with a soft smile draped over her face.

This Sunday service was different, however. Our pastor got up on her podium and spoke to us about our future and our society. Somewhat of a change from the usual religious babble about previous events before our time.

“We are all gathered here today from different families, different experiences, different stories of our own. But what connects us all here is our community, our home. Some of us in this room may never leave the streets you grew up on or you might catch the luck of God and end up with a grand house with an abundance of children. But what matters most is the determination we hold within our identity as ourselves. Follow what drives you, makes you tick, for our world needs more people who tick to fuel our desires.”

On the drive home in the passenger seat, I slip into a deep sleep. I dream of skyrocketing through my future in the ever-shrinking confines of the metal structure around me. Visions of me returning from working… in a fresh pressed suit, briefcase in hand. Pulling into a grand home overlooking the coast, all while my wife and our kids smile and wave at me through the kitchen window. Serenity flowing from the veins of my sportscar into the freshly mowed grass and into the hallway carved with concrete and furnishings. Then it all goes dark. My dream is ejected, and I’m awoken by Ma at our house.

Disappointment floods through me, knowing that my dreams of wealth and happiness will only be lived out in the lives of children living across the bitumen highway.

At half past seven I arrive at work, as required to receive a full wage at the end of the week. Although this is thirty minutes before it officially starts, bosses are particularly heartless in this part of Java. My friend, who works next to me, is already here. “How is your family going?” I inquire.
“Not great,” he replies. “My daughter is too sick to go to school today.”
“I hope she gets better soon; my mother racked up a large hospital bill from her pneumonia which they are still insisting we pay off, even though there is no way we ever could.”

At that time the doors open, so we go in, collect our paints and sit down at our bench. I get to work immediately, out of fear of the manager glaring from over my right shoulder. I work at my bench, with a piece of pine in front of me and a stack to my left. I begin placing dots on the flat sides, copying the design in front of me. I dot a yellow circle with lines radiating from it in yellow, then paint four adjacent wavy lines in blue dots and something else I suspect represents an animal in brown and red. I dab a patch of green in the bottom left then sprinkle some orange and white around it. I then put it on the drying tray for someone to paint the other side when it’s dry enough. It will then be packaged in some plastic and labelled with a big “Traditional Hand-painted Boomerang” sticker.

As I’m working a man in a suit walks into the workshop. “Sorry I’m late, I didn’t think you started until eight,” he commented to my boss. “I brought the new designs.”
“They don’t look as nice; why do you think they will sell any better?” my boss asks.
“It’s the authenticity; they were designed by one of those indigenous Australians, so they should be just like the real things.”
“I’ll get them distributed.”

I am sent to collect the new type of wood which came with him. It is darker and heavier than the pine I was working with before. I distribute it around my bench while someone else swaps out our paints. All the blue and green paints are taken away, leaving just a muddy brown, dirty orange and an off-white. I get started with painting as the man in the suit drives off. The design I have to replicate is just five concentric dotted circles with dotted wavy lines coming off either side. It seems far less colourful or interesting than the old design, but it does mean I need to change colours less. The wood is much harder to work with as it is rougher, so the paint doesn’t go on as well. The unfamiliar design also takes some getting used to. Despite this my boss expects us to work just as fast as we did yesterday, on the old design. The other bench is still working on the second side of the old design. “No point wasting hard work,” my boss explained.

A few months later I find myself on the edge of the footpath finishing off a carving of a wooden Wayang Klitik figure to entertain my children with. I have the spare time for it now and nowhere else to be. A few days ago, my boss said something like, “There’s been a decrease in sales over the last couple of months so we can’t afford to keep paying you. Don’t come next week.” I’d blame the silly design they’ve had us painting but he just spouted some gibberish about the market and his superiors when I begged to keep the job.
He did still pay me for that week, but it won’t last long. My cousin Bagus has offered to let us stay in his shack until I can find a job again, but I don’t know what job I could get. In the meantime, I will do my best to keep the kids happy.

The creation of these puppets is a tradition I inherited from my grandfather. I find it very gratifying to create a good figure; like I’m a fine craftsman decorating a temple. It is the finer edges and details which I spend great time and care on. To keep the limbs thin yet strong requires a soft touch and respect for the grain of the wood. Many people presume it’s easy until they take a leg off by chiselling in the wrong direction. The faces are my favourite part. The shape of the mouth, nose and eyes, as well as the angle of the chin, all have subtle effects on the expressions the audience interprets during different scenes of a performance. This one will have a wide smile which in certain scenes transforms into a cheeky grin, because I know this will make my daughter smile.

As I am finishing sanding the figure a tourist walks up to me. “Hey,” she says, “can I have that?”
“What do you want it for? I was just making this for my kids,” I reply, completely caught off-guard. The tourist is wearing a t-shirt with an unfamiliar logo splatted across the front and designer sunglasses hiding her eyes.
“I think it looks cool; I’d like to buy it off you. For a souvenir – you know?”
I pause for a few moments to consider my situation, before asking, “How much?”

She offers me what would have been almost two weeks’ wage and I’m almost too shocked to ask for triple. We quickly settle on what I think of as a month’s wage for my day’s work. As she’s walking off, I realise that I hadn’t even attached the sticks yet.

I go inside with a massive smile on my face to tell Bagus about this. “I wish I got sales like that in my stall,” he sighs.
“I could make some more,” I suggest.
“That would be brilliant!” Bagus exclaims.
I set to work immediately, feeling optimistic about my future and the happiest I’ve felt in a long time.

“Mr Davis? He’s ready to see you now.”

“Oh, okay.” Slightly startled I rise from one of the hard-plastic chairs positioned in the office reception.

The sterile air-conditioned office of a man so fixated with his wealth and image, so entranced by his reflection, awaits.

Standing, the cotton of my shirt glued to the nervous perspiration on my back. Black leather shoes scraping at my weathered heels bound in tar for rougher men.

“Good morning, Mr Davis. I hope you’re doing well.” All the obligatory pleasantries.

“Why would you be suited for this job, in your words?”

In my words? And what words would they be; how do they compare to your words?

“I work hard, I’m motivated, I’m good with people.”

“I’ll bet you are. You know I have great respect for your people, your culture is so rich and diverse. If you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Oh no, that’s fine… Thank you.” Forced through gritted teeth.

So that’s where this is going? Not an employee but a charity case? Perhaps a means of self-righteousness? Maybe a taste of that bitter-sweet do-gooder glow?

“I think that you’ll make a great impression here and we would love for you to join us.”

Ah yes, a great impression. A way for you to fill the void in your heart longing to know that they’re wrong, that, in fact, you are a good person, a good Samaritan. An impression of you, a man willing to make sacrifices to aid those less fortunate: the weak, the poor, the black.

How kindhearted.

Times have certainly changed. But forty years ago my mother worked out of the kindness of her employer’s heart. Allowed to work despite her affliction. Her large nose, flat face and her satin, black skin. Allowed to be separated from her family to bring her into a better life. Free from the influences and damage of her culture.

Saved.

Taken from the family to be reared as a member of Western society. It was For Her Own Good. A way out of the primitive ways of her people.

“We’ll raise you, put you to work, you’ll do well for yourself. We’ll even give you food and a roof over your head.”

And this is the repayment. Givens for Takens, acts of charity for grievous crimes. A sense of fulfilment, having done their part for forgiveness. A job, free cash, housing plans, ought to be enough.

Restitution.

“Would you like to see my references?”

“No, no that won’t be necessary.”

Later.

The smell of mouldy food and wet clothes clings to my moist skin as I step from the mid-winter drizzle onto the 158 heading east. Another man slouched on the sticky plastic seat raises his eyes to watch me through clouded vision.

Suddenly painfully aware of the coarse edges and itchy tags on my damp suit.

“What’ve you been up to?” his dark face snarls from under his ragged mop of wiry hair.

I ignore him, seems best for both of us.

He’s not having it.

“You’re not like the rest of us. You can go places. Ought to.”

Ah, but I am. I am a part of this inescapable cycle which you should know too well.

He climbs to his feet and lurches over to my seat. The driver gives a worried glance into the mirror.

The smell of vomit and alcohol wafts over me as he approaches.

So, this is it then? This is the rich culture I represent. A member of an exclusive club, chewed up and spat out, given the best society has to offer, welfare, a jail cell or a cosy corner to sleep in. Under-appreciative of all blessings passed unto him.

“Where’ve you been? An interview? How’d it go?” he slurred.

“They gave it to me,” I sighed.

This is why they gave it to me, the way that my type is presented. I am but a number to fill their quota, to give them a bonus cheque at the end of the year. To create an image of forward-thinking and inclusiveness as always for their interest.

“Well, don’t forget who you are when you’re rich and famous.”

He slouched lower in the seat and drifted off into a smoky haze of booze-tinted unconsciousness. The lidless Pepsi bottle from his hands tumbled and clattered to the floor, its vile brown contents dribbling out onto the sandy floor of the suburban bus. The stench of cheap liquor permeated through the bus as it trundled through the empty streets of a rainy wee-day Fremantle.

“You know I’ll have to clean that up,” the driver complained motioning to the back of the bus where the man is now in a fitful slumber on the sandy plastic floor.

“Not my problem.”

Tear gas, pepper spray, pressurised water, rubber projectiles and live rounds. The pride of Hong Kong’s’ citizens in the face of extreme police brutality makes an absolute mockery of the statement ‘resistance is futile’. In the city of Hong Kong, now often referred to as the ‘city of expired tear gas’ by its inhabitants, the streets are rife with protesters loudly and proudly screaming their demands through peaceful protest. In a showing that can only be considered disappointing, the government has not responded in kind; extreme police brutality and infringement on their citizens’ essential human rights are just some of the reasons why we have an obligation as humans to stand with Hong Kong in its protests against the extradition law bill, and show that resistance is not useless. As citizens of Hong Kong often ask, “If we don’t stop them here, who will be next?”

In an absolutely graphic scene, a member of the Hong Kong police force has a protester in a headlock. As another protester tries to help him out, the officer fires live rounds, wounding the protester. When this protester was finally sent to hospital, he underwent surgery, but sadly passed away later that month. This example of police brutality is only inspiring hostility in what was once a peaceful protest.

The only result that can be gained from violence, is violence. As Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that”. Violence cannot stop violence. In their attempts to quell resistance and prove that it is futile, the Hong Kong Police has only inspired a stronger desire to resist, and prove that with resistance there is hope.

The extradition law bill has completely disregarded the wants and demands of Hong Kong citizens. The people scream democracy and independence and are only met with silence. The passionate and powerful voice of the people crash against their government like waves against a mountain, and like the waves, their strength and endurance are proving that resistance – to corrode the will of their government, to take back their human rights – can only described as heroic and inspirational.

The notion that resistance is useless continues to be ignored and disregarded by Hong Kong citizens. Their bravery in the face of adversity, amongst all ages, shows how strong resistance can be. Hong Kong sees protesters from all sectors united: students, industrial workers, first responders and parents all standing together.

To put this into context, how would you feel if your mother, brother or son put themselves in danger for something they believed in? Would you tell them resistance is useless or would you support them? Tell them resistance is useless and break their dreams? Hong Kong is proof this isn’t true. With unity in all sectors, ages and walks of life, they resist brutality and injustice, and are proudly showing that resistance is not futile, bringing hope for all.

I state again Hong Kong’s bravery and strength in the face of brutality and injustice show that we should, as a race, stand strong with them. The use of tear gas and live rounds, showing a complete and utter disregard for their human rights, has not weakened the Hong Kong resistance, but only strengthened it.

Resistance is not futile. Do not lay down and be conquered. With resistance, there is always hope.