Subalternity and the Hazara diaspora
Writing my paper on subalternity, I have come to see it as a way of metonymising identity in questioning representation. Spivak differentiates between Vertretung, rhetoric as persuasion, and Darstellung, rhetoric as trope, and she exposes the complicity of the two being conflated as a unified, essentialised subject. More about this at the Deakin symposium (‘The Political Imagination’). Ali Alizadeh, Lyn McCredden and Ann Vickery have accomplished much in creating this space for a marginalised discourse which needs to be received and endorsed for Australian postcolonialsm to move forward.
Whilst in Melbourne I hope to attend an event on the repression of Hazaras. Unsafe Haven: Hazaras in Afghanistan, and Only From The Heart You Can Touch The Sky (12 April- 9 June), are two exhibitions focusing on the contemporary arts, cultural and political life of Hazaras in Afghanistan and the surrounding areas. Hazaras are a vital indigenous culture persecuted because of sectarian rifts but their human rights and security ought to be advocated by all parties and their allies, concerned in the region. Due, in part, to our historical links with Afghan immigrants and the influx of political and economic regfugees, Australia has one of the largest Hazara diasporas. The exhibitions feature works by photographer and writer, Abdul Karim and videos from Afghanistan; also paintings and calligraphies by Khadim Ali and Ali Baba Awrang as well as daily screening of films from Afghanistan.
Opening: 11 April (6-8 pm)
Opening address will be delivered by Julian Burnside
Address: RMIT Gallery, 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne 300
www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery
Afghan live music by Zia Sahil and Afghan food
All the events are free.
There are discussions scheduled over the next few weeks by historians and artists: Dr Mammad Aidani, Khadim Ali and Ali Baba Awrang travelling from Kabul and a forum on May 3, at which Julian Burnside and David Manne will speak.
Susan Scollay, co-curator of the State Library’s Love and Devotion exhibition is talking on May 17, 12-1pm about Weaving Words, the relationship between poetry and carpets in the Persian World.
Meanwhile in Balochistan province, Pakistan, Sunni terrorists continue to violently target Hazaras. There have been rallies and arrests after eight men were killed ten days ago. Their plight goes largely unnoticed while
strategic agreements are ongoing, and while NATO and the coalition forces continue their counter-insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.
Alien Shores
I woke up this mornning after a late night, reading, writing, then chatting by phone to Martin Edmond about the humours of the writing ‘screen’ (as opposed to ‘scene’: of which there is none, he suggested, because a scene would refer to a place, whereas we are mostly glued to our laptops or phones.) At some point during our conversation I received an email from a geek asking to postpone our appointment: someone on the waiting list for a hospital clinic had cancelled and it was his turn. Second cancellation. Relief.
Then the alarm humming like electronic birds, a day off. Then the routine: coffee, cereal, abcnews.com.au, feed the rabbits, pack lunch, fold and take flute. Tegan timed her brief speech on multiculturalism, which I thought was wonderful for its simplicity and understated flourishes. She didn’t want to talk about asylum seekers. She wanted it to be a broader topic.
After I dropped her off, I went for a long walk. The sun was dusty and bright but there were signs of decay on the pavement, leaves and petals. This gladdened my heart, each a little poem dispersed. I had been feeling lost as one does at the beginning of new work, and since it is like a journey into the unknown, sometimes anxiety, sometimes the frustration of failures. But the morning was colourful, tibouccina and jasmine flowering, the baked, curled tongues of magnolia leaves, like so many voices.
This week, I’m told, my copy of Alien Shores should arrive. It’s a collection of stories I can’t wait to read; stories of refuge and asylum by Indian and Australian writers, edited by Sharon Rundle and Meenakshi Bharat.
A trail through the leaves where the river leads …
It is the most gorgeous sun-plashed day. Somewhere, someone is having a pacemaker tested. An ambulance arrives in the shopping centre car park because a woman can’t breathe.
I have been thinking about writing residencies for a little discussion at the Australian Society of Authors, which led me to want to follow where ever the river leads me, again.
Alone, as I was, here is how I saw the river Esk as she slides towards a bend at the furthest boundary of the property
a mile from Roslin. There were harled ruins of a cottage and on the far bank, the Lady’s Castle.
And there was a precipice I visited, where at evening the sound and colour of the trees, the gorge, the water
were braided, all soul. It was so beautiful to drink, deeply, beyond words.
~ ~
Doctors Who: Dr Eric Dark and Writing
I have just put out a load of washing on a sun-filled, late-summer’s day. All morning the water dragon and the feral rabbit have been playfully posturing in the grass. I have a day away from the surgery, when it it is possible to read, maybe write, in between the interruptions of housework and school. I enjoy this indulgence, of course, and yet the practice of medicine permits me to focus, to view problems, primarily physical, but with social and psychic elements, microscopically.
In preparation for a fundraising dinner to honour the legacy of Dr Eric Payten Dark, husband of the novelist Eleanor Dark, I’ve been thinking about his life and work. His biographies suggest an extraordinarily, gifted man, a rock-climber, a lover of nature, a practising GP for 57 years, a pioneer of diathermy, new tuberculosis treatments, a socialist writer and activist, whose concerns were with health, progress, modernity. Despite his significant writing achievements, Eric Dark’s life was that of a committed and dedicated general practitioner, a man who was devoted to support his wife’s innovative and illustrious literary career.
Eric and Eleanor’s lives embodied the beautiful collaborations of medicine and literature, the public and the private, the practical and the abstract. Many of Eleanor Dark’s novels reference medical themes from feminist and socially progressive perspectives. Her novel Prelude to Christopher challenges a prevailing national resistance to scientific enquiry with its themes of biology, eugenics, culture. Like novels by Christina Stead and HG Wells, its utopian narrative hybridises genre. Clearly there were psychological pressures for the Darks, living as they did during a time of censorship, gender and race repression but both Eric and Eleanor appreciated that medicine was a discourse of colonialism and nation. Their beautifully complex lives attest as much to the power of silence as to the power of words, to the need to preserve the environment, to live in harmony with Nature’s laws, as well as to defend social justice.
Eleanor Dark once told an interviewer “My books have been written at intervals snatched from years as a housewife . . . it is impossible to keep a home going in Australia unless one is busy most of the time”. Busy, yes, but sustainable and complex. I should leave this piece now, and have lunch and pick my daughter up from school soon. But I’ll be thinking more about the Darks over the next few weeks, and I feel deeply privileged to participate in honouring their contributions to literature and social medicine.
At Box Head
After all the rain we’ve had it was pleasant to enjoy the weekend’s sunshine, and what better view than Box Head, one of my favourite walks in Bouddi National Park. My friend Arjen and I have been climbing down the cliff face and across the rocks to Tallow beach for years. We take fruit and drinks and talk about our lives and all kinds of stuff. It’s cool, and along the way there may be dolphins in the ocean; once we saw a seal, or the little penguins from Lion Island sanctuary coming in to feed. Yesterday I lost my footing on the smooth deceptive algae and went skating on the sandstone rocks, but I think my hair and the hat I was wearing cushioned my fall, as there was no laceration or apparent fracture. I swear I’m an expert when it comes to falls. I think my body relaxes.
Today is the first day of another school year and though I was utterly daunted about how I’d manage, so far it’s gone well. Went to my day job this morning. Thank god for medicine: it’s such a controlled, calm space. Had a cruisy afternoon after school with Tegan and her best friend (+ best friend’s little sister), while I did a little housework and thought about an abstract I am writing for a conference on diasporic poetics. I’ve been really getting absorbed by the Spivakian question: she must be one of the most brilliant theorists I’ve read in the way she uses abstractions to contest European logocentric and Marxist philosophies and to extend those abstractions into new philosophies of education that develop and expand democratic lines of thinking. She exposes the occlusions and foreclosures so skillfully. And hey, maybe this is just a beginning for my abstract. But my point is that I find her inspiring. Though she denies it, Spivak is an activist and a poet of philosophy.
Tegan has just calculated that the Pacific Sea-Maid, aka “Siren pacificus” is 87.5cm in length, and she tells me that the Carribean Mermaid has poisonous yellow tentacles for hair and wears necklaces made from discarded land glass, bone and the sharp teeth of sharks. I’ve been saying it’s bedtime for at least half an hour and thinking about living gracefully. Why are mothers so ignored? Outside it’s dark. The cicadas have stopped their shrill calling. I guess my clothes are dry. And I reckon I’m ready to do this again for another year :)
I’m back…in the ruins of articulation
Ok, I know, I know, I’ve been neglectful, dismissive, avoidant, and haven’t blogged for two months. Most of that time was spent during a Writers’ retreat in Scotland. I had no wish to write a travelogue/blog, or use this space for thoughtless nonsense; maybe a photomontage might be nice. But here’s a photograph taken at Hawthornden Castle where I was a Fellow with Kenneth Stevens, Liz Almond, River Wolton and Donna Stonecipher (Hamish Robinson, a poet and resident Castle scholar, was the Director). It was a really incredible time and I certainly got some writing done from my room, Boswell, which overlooked a pine forest and the ruins of the original curtain wall.
What strikes one in the UK, is the cultural domination of Europe; its subject positioning. How distant and insignificant Australia seems, the penal colony, the Pacific outpost, a poor copy stranded in the Indian Ocean. I think this altered my appreciation of our cultural cringe, the search for nationalism in our literatures, the chiselling away at language by poets like Wallace-Crabbe, who sculpts a lyric vernacular; or Peter Porter’s and AD Hope’s perspectives.
En-route back to Sydney, via the Arabian Sea, I attended an absolutely awesome conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Goa. The Portuguese described it as ‘invasion’, when in December 1961 Indian troops entered Panjim signalling the end of almost 450 years of colonial occupation and the beginning of the end of the empire in Angola, Mozambique, Brazil. The anti-colonial movement was also a struggle for democracy, against the policially repressive Salazar regime. Among the 160 delegates from around the world there was much scholarship and creative work to share. The dialogues and company were fantastic with polyphonies of Portuguese, Konkani, Hindi, English. The vibrant, postutopian luso-colonial ambience of Goa, drew me towards thoughts of forgotten histories, biographies, fictions. I visited my grandfather’s ancestral home in Asagoa, north of Panjim; brought home books, photographs, music and a Konkani primer.
I keep thinking about Spivak’s essay on the subaltern. In Portuguese the subaltern could be described as the desterrado, oppressed by political domination, economic exploitation and cultural erasure. Sound familiar? And I keep thinking too, of Bhabha’s “mimic” man and wonder how the subaltern can speak, how language can be refreshed, renewed, deterritorialised. More on this another day. Suffice to say that Bhabha considers mimicry to be destabilising and ambivalent to colonial discourse, a kind of ” double vision.”
So today, when I came across this video remix of Homi Bhabha and Kate Perry, I couldn’t resist posting, if just to say Hello there, saffron-antipodean-luso-colonial world, I’m back, in the ruins of articulation…
Some new work…
Spring weather is easing its way into summer. The jasmine flourishes as ground cover near the carpark of the surgery where I work. There are bees constant in the lavender whorls, busy transferring pollen. I’ve just got back from Westfield, where Tegan and I went shopping for toys: unicorns and elfin accessories which we ended up bringing home. Next week, the ipod touch.
My lovely friend Susan Fealy has sent me news that a review of my book by Will Yeoman has appeared in the West Australian. Here’s an extract from what he writes: “Vishvarupa teems with stinking slums and fragrant landscapes, gods and ghosts, lovers, friends and family; but it is the poet’s open heart that translates this rich procession into flowing lines that wave like prayerflags over the abyss.”
Heather Taylor Johnson has written an insightful review of Vishvarupa in Cordite
My short fiction “Letter to Derrida” has recently appeared in TEXT, though I’m greiving mildly as only a writer could, for one or two indulgent words I’d used in redrafts…should “mouth’ have been “voice”, I wonder? And my all-time, long-term favourite story, “Chasing Nabokov” was long-listed in the Carmel Bird Short story award and will be appearing in the Escape Anthology to be released soon by Spineless Wonders, a new and innovative publisher in our literaryscapes.
And there’s yet more…I’ve just been sent a link to a video that Jochen Gutsch filmed for the Goethe Institut as part of a series on Australian and German poets. Jochen interviews me about my writing, my background, my interest in travel and the experiences of being a mother and a writer. We also talk about identity, transnationalism and my work in Mascara Literary Review.
Varuna’s Writer-a-Day
Last year I spent a peaceful and productive week at Varuna, the Writers’ House, working on my novel. It was a very special time, shared with four other writers. The company, fine meals and camaraderie were memorable, an experience I’d highly recommend. It’s a ten minute stroll to the seclusion of the National Park, or you can walk to Katoomba.
Varuna are recording a writer-a-day reading from their manuscripts. It’s a wonderful way of connecting the community of Varuna alumni. Here is a podcast from my fiction manuscript.
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Small players in the big stakes
Australian Literature is a commodity to be marketed and exchanged, it seems, in the competitive field of global nationalist literatures. But what kind of relationship does Australian literature have to the multiplicity of its individuals? I recently touched upon this subject, amongst others, in a paper I gave at the Asian Australian Writing Workshop in Wollongong. The workshop was attended by a close-knit and supportive group of early-career researchers and academics whose agendas might be more governed by international recruits to Oz Lit Inc.
But if we are to nurture the true diversity which makes our literature vibrant, complex and challenging we need small players and minorities to survive. Coteries might provide us with the image and the content of literary excellence but they can be too frequently sullied by long-standing allegiances or greivances. I think we need more competition and more equality in how the organisations that are fostering diversity are being supported by our funding bodies. It gets tricky when there are insider divisions and rivalries. Sometimes we ask ourselves the question: what has all this got to do with literature?
My guess is there are enough of us who’d like to contest the existing nationalist legacies, the powerful institutionally-backed mergers, with all kinds of strategies. Perhaps we should be more supportive of each other and less concerned with our own achievements. This has to be a community that reaches out and includes more writers, and which fosters that precious commodity, the imagination. It was uplifting to hear Michael Sharkey and Peter Minter speak frankly about this at the Australian Poetry Symposium in Newcastle, with Michael sharing his experience as a teacher.
What concerns me is the denial and the silence, the invisibility behind the packaged facades of such debates, which still adopt euphemisms like “cosmopolitanism” and “complexity”. This might sound polemic but I think we need to confront racism, intolerance, injustice more openly as if they were a pathology, a comorbidity that can and will be addressed. And here’s another gripe, closer to home: why are journals like Mascara Literary Review not being openly supported, given their contribution and reach?
Today I received an email from the Griffith Review, who intend to publish an issue on What is Australia For? to revive the debate on identity. It is encouraging that such a discussion is happening in a lively manner.
Encouraging too, are the editorships of journals like Meanjin, Southerly and Overland. It was good to hear Jacinta Woodhead speak in Newcastle, even though her expertise is not in poetry.
One publication to look out for is Southerly’s Modern Mobilities: Australian Transnational Writing, to be launched on October 12 at 6pm in the Woolley Building.
