Author: Kathryn Greenhill

Non Violent Direct Action. BlogJune 2020/7

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IT’S UNFAIR AND WE NEED TO FIX IT


COVID-19 has magnified cracks and inequities in how we share what we have.

Disproportionate numbers of black people are dying world-wide from the disease. In Australia thousands of people already unemployed are finally able to afford food and shelter now that the government has matched their payment to the payment provided to people who are newly-unemployed because of the pandemic.

Just two examples out of so many.

Non-white people already knew about the inequities.

I think white people already knew too. Rather than debating whether we did, or didn’t know before, we clearly do know now.

COVID-19 has hit hard and discriminately because we live in an unfair system. People die when there is no Personal Protective Equipment not because we are without resources to plan, manufacture or distribute this; it is because we live in countries that allow and encourage obscene and uneven distribution of resources. Direct consequences of active choices.

The pandemic was the catalyst to so many deaths, but as can be seen by the differing death rates in different countries, a large proportion of deaths are the result of political systems that accept unfair decisions about resource allocation.

I’M A WHITE WOMAN. WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE THINGS BETTER?

In Australia I benefit through nothing I have done except be born in a family that is treated differently to other families by the education, health, social and employment systems. Others are penalised for exactly the same reason.

What do we do? How can white people be allies and listen well to non-white voices without forcing them to do the work to educate us?

Listening. Amplifying voices. Not speaking on behalf of, or over non-white voices – and not speaking up when there is a non-white person who could do the job. Admitting our comfort is at the expense of others’ discomfort. Leaning into discomfort, not expecting praise for learning to be better at giving space and listening. Donate to organisations like the Aboriginal Legal Service.

I am framing this as “who gets material stuff is unfair”, but acknowledge that it is not so simple or surface. As a white woman I have a very different experience about how I feel about my personal safety at any minute, what kinds of checks I am doing to monitor my tone and how I am appearing to others when I go outside my home.

I have very different expectations about which institutions and people working in them I can trust to help, and which I need to avoid due to a history of pain and damage to people like me. I have a difference in how often I will be minding my business and feeling OK about the world, only to have that challenged by intentional or unintentional reminders of being treated differently due to my family.

TAKING ACTION THROUGH CIVIL PROTEST

In Western Australia The Black Lives Matter March takes place in Hyde Park at midday on Saturday 13 June.

Changing the world to a fairer, more equitable, one for everyone is not just a Saturday afternoon, or even a single weekend, job. White people need to give things up. We may, and should, come out with less so everyone can have more.

Listening to non-white voices, finding out what help is needed, not doing what we think is better without first checking is a key way. Marching at the back in protests. Speaking out, even though we know we may sound hypocritical and tokenistic, and if we are accused of this changing how we do it so we do it better next time.

This is a long road and everyone who wants to help will do it differently. For me, I can see that civil action and protest will continue to be part of the way I want to make a difference.

Taking part in School Strike for Climate and Extinction Rebellion direct actions at the end of last year I was reintroduced to resources and concepts around Non Violent Direct Action. Part of the process involves working out what you personally do and do not consider to be violent, how far you would personally go in acts of non-violent disobedience and learning techniques for de-escalation, conflict resolution, restorative action and keeping yourself and others physically safe.

If you are thinking about protest and civil action being part of how you address inequity, then you may be interested in following up resources around NVDA on Nicola Paris’ CounterAct site, or Non Violent Direct Action resources at the Commons Social Change Library

Gargoyle, almond, chickens, egg, grapevine. BlogJune 2020/5

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Part of the new chookyard.

No more bending for eggs.

Other people adopted pandemic puppies or pandemic kittens, but I finally accepted that the arrangement I had for my chooks for 20 years was really not so clever, even though it sounded really, really ingenious. I held on to the theory of it way longer than I should have.

With a bit of help I moved the chooks and had their enclosure rebuilt using mostly materials I already had.

SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA…

The old enclosure was on a circular vege garden with a 2 metre radius. One side of the enclosure had a curve following the outer rim of the garden, with the other two sides straight, covering a 1/3 segment of the circle.

The idea was that the chooks dug and poo-ed in their enclosure, then after two months I rotated the whole enclosure around to the next third of the circular garden. The chooks would eat down the plants that had now gone to seed while I would plant the next lot of plants where they had just prepared the bed.

EXCEPT….

I like to let my chooks roam free. In my small garden, that meant they would eat down my newly-planted veges, jump into the blueberries and eat the new fruit, scratch up the basil in the container gardens…or I would have to leave them behind wire on sunny days when they could be running and climbing.

SO…

The new enclosure uses the curved frame from the old one on top of a limestone wall and lets the chooks roam under the almonds and feijoas…. but also has a hatch mechanism so that during the day I can let them out to fossick down three sides of my house. Each side is about a metre from the very high fence -line, with a mulberry courtyard and a lemon-tree courtyard along the way.

I already had the guinea pig cage to shelter them in the yard, but by putting it on top with an access hole in the floor, and adding a front-facing door, I can now collect the eggs without bending down.

Quite a bit of grain-throwing and greens-shaking at the top of the ladder was needed for a couple of days before the chooks would use the new area.

Not running on empty. BlogJune 2020/3

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I last bought petrol for my car on 15 March, 80 days ago… and the fuel tank is nowhere near empty.

The major journey was an hour round-trip to Perth to recharge the battery after it went flat through lack of use.

Also a metaphor. I am one of those people who are getting more sleep, nutrition, exercise and peace in lockdown.

It is hard to identify any more with having been so driven.

BlogJune 2020 – an image a day. Join in. List here.

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STEPPING IN TO BLOGJUNE…

For the last 10 years a group of mainly Australian library bloggers have tried to blog more frequently each June, originally aiming for one post per day.

This year is an odd one.

Understatement.

I am not sure I feel articulate right now. Or even what I actually feel or think, if I could articulate it.

Although writing can help work those things out, I am saving that for my journal.

JOIN IN

Here, however, I aim to add one image each day in June, with or without words.

Please join me on your blog if you would like, and use the hashtag #blogjune for your posts. There is a mob of folk on Twitter who track the hashtag each year, so you may want to automate posting there.

A JOIN-IN FORM AND A LIST OF PLAYERS

If you want to let others know you are playing, and see who else has joined in, please use the form embedded below. Under this is the Google sheet showing participating blogs.

If someone wants to create an file of RSS feeds for people to add to a reader, or create a Twitter list or tweetbot, or otherwise use the data to share, please feel free – and I am presuming anyone who adds their blog URL to the list is OK with this.

Happy Blogjuning! (should that have an “e”?)

JOIN IN FORM

Navigate directly to the BlogJune 2020 Join-In Form

LIST OF PLAYERS

Navigate directly to the BlogJune 2020 List of Players

(If anyone wants to share how to make this wider, please do. I have tried changing the iframe width to 800, and to 100%, but it does not change)

So, what shall I do?

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Anyone been through similar … or have sage words of advice for deciding what to do next?

2010

A decade ago I was the right side of my forties, married and twenty years into a stable relationship, with two dependent kids. I had an ongoing job in academia and had paid off my house. I was more or less physically fit and had just completed a Masters degree.

Australia had its first female Prime Minister, the United States its first black president. Economist Ross Garnaut was working on a second comprehensive and scientifically-rigorous review on Australian government action to minimise climate change. (Spoiler: Recommended action was not taken).

I was kind of hopeful, but stressed by trying to keep all the balls in the air, with little time for myself.

2020

Entering 2020, I am the wrong side of my forties, divorced and single. My kids are more or less independent, although each is living with one of their parents. My job was made redundant a month ago, allowing me to once again pay off my house. I am in the gym most days and enrolled in a PhD.

People I do not respect, who seem incapable of compassion or making wise decisions, have been bought (yes – bought!) to power by interests that value what I do not, in nations with capacity to change our planet.

In the last week, after months of the east coast burning beyond what I could have imagined 10 years ago, there was severe flooding in Queensland, a massive dust storm over Dubbo and hail the size of golf-balls fell on my nation’s capital.

I am frankly terrified for the future of the planet, either through climate emergency or a man-child temper tantrum that takes the world with it. I suddenly have far more time each day to do things slowly and well, and generally what I do is determined by my needs and wants, not a clamour of others.

Russell, R. (2020) Catastrophic fire warning day_0057NFX https://flickr.com/photos/42596487@N00/49053692647

But, what is it that I want to do, or should do?

With this backdrop, I need to decide what to do with the rest of my life.

I understand that my position is enviable and a result of being born privileged. I am not held by debt or kids or ill-health or a relationship or an ongoing job (although I am very lucky and grateful to have a half-time position, in a job I like, covering parental leave for a year). I do need and want to be employed.

I am not sure I have a template for how to make the decisions I need to. I suspect that, with so many possible paths, many options will turn out to be just as good. I just need to pick one. Which?

Life is short, precarious and full of the unexpected. I know that good fortune today can turn to circumstances almost impossible to bear within a microsecond.

Do I breathe out for a while, enjoy the stability and extra time and ramp up the yoga classes ?

Do I devote all my time to finishing my PhD? Or drop it because I don’t need it for my job any more?

What about finding a partner? People do that and it’s fun. Or moving into community like a baugruppen or cohousing? Or opening my house to refugees?

Should I move interstate or overseas for a higher paying job that maintains seniority, or just for the change of scenery…. or try to find something as close to home as possible and finally get rid of my commute?

Should I maximise what I can earn now, this far out from retirement where I still have compound interest to make a difference? Or aim to work at something high-paying so I can invest in a property that will allow my more-dependent child to live independently and not at home with me? Or should *I* leave home and downsize to a small flat for myself and leave him in the big house?

Do I change careers? To what? What am I even interested in? Or good at? Do I go wildly out on a limb and do something totally different? Am I done with librarianship/education/communication/universities?

Or is time more valuable than money at this stage in my life, and should I aim for part-time work that allows me to grow in other areas?

Potter in the garden, bake fabulous cakes, sew floaty bright dresses, read my backlog of fiction, paint the walls, take up the flute again, de-clutter the loft, finally learn to code properly, catch up with neighbours and old friends, foster homeless kittens, go back in a serious way to fencing or kayaking or skating or swimming or snorkeling or running or… ??

Should I travel while I am still fit enough to enjoy it? Take a few months of the long service leave that was paid out last month, and that I had been looking forward to for years? What about volunteering abroad?

Being the wrong side of forty five, where even the best people can find it difficult to get employment, can I afford to take time out at all and should I be doing everything I can to try to get a stable full-time position?

Should I focus more on helping and equity ? Use my relatively advantageous position to help other people who are not in the same boat, with far fewer choices? Whom? How?

Or, given the mess the planet is in, focus all my energy and heart into trying to make a difference there? Repaying the debt that allows me to even THINK about so many options at the expense of my grandchildren and non-human life that shares the planet.

A few years ago, Anne Holmes suggested reading Transitions by William Bridges, a work I have returned to several times in the last decade. It provides some useful exercises around understanding how old patterns influence what we do in times of great change.

I know I should be grateful, possibly mainly because I am living somewhere habitable at the moment… and just buckle down and get on with it.

But which “it” would that be?