International Interjection at Irrational Intervals

The Solution

2008-07-21T11:30:00.000+12:00

So seeing as how I'm in Tauranga now and my adventures are pretty much over, I thought I would write up a few of the ideas I've been cooking up to help stop myself from growing cold, calculated and conservative...

The first idea is something I decided on a few years ago. I was thinking about how predictable most people's lives are and how we are encouraged to follow certain paths and achieve certain things and therefore end up in fairly certain places. The "ideal" pathway for someone in my position seemed to be to finish school, get a degree, get a job, find a wife, buy a house, have kids, raise kids, plan for retirement, retire, die. This pathway is tempting, and in an ideal world I would love to be able to concern myself with nothing other than raising a healthy family, but the world is not perfect. It seems to me that by the time you have done a few of the things on that list you have so much invested in the system that you really can't afford to (and probably don't have the time or energy left to) work for meaningful change in society (especially the level of change I desire). I don't doubt that some people do manage to do it, but I think I will have a much better chance at affecting meaningful change if I avoid this conventional pathway.

When I started university I had the idea that I would become an engineer and be able to make heaps of money and therefore give heaps away and maybe even use my position as an engineer to help people here or in poorer countries increase their quality of life. Somewhere in the middle of my studying that idea fell over on top of me. This happened for a few reasons.

I realised that while I would set about an engineering career with all the good intentions, good intentions would not guarantee me lots of money to give away to do the good I desired, especially when I would probably need a car and a house, and would probably end up with a wife and kids, etc. Whereas if instead of chasing after money to give to other people to do "good things" I simply did "good things" myself, there would be much less uncertainty involved and I would be pretty much guaranteed to have a positive impact.
As I came to look at the pyramid scheme known as capitalism more critically and realise that as a professional engineer I would be quite close to the top of the pyramid, I began to question whether it would even be possible for me to give away enough money to make up for the harm I would be doing by participating so wholeheartedly in capitalism.
Then there's the myth that progress is always good. The ways in which western society has chosen to progress have often and often continue to to be harmful and unsustainable. I'm not sure that going to other countries and teaching them how to do things like we do them is what they need or even want. And in any case if there are professional engineering jobs to be done overseas which can't be done by locals, I'm sure there are plenty of professional engineers already who would love to spend a bit of time working in an exotic country. It would also probably take years for me to get enough experience and knowledge to be any help at all, and even then there is still the chance that I wouldn't be wanted or needed by who ever is doing the project. Which comes back to the conclusion of the first bullet point in this section.
While we're talking about helping out in other places, I may as well mention that most of the big problems in poor countries are incredibly simple problems and don't need fancy engineering solutions. For example, a simple well that can supply a whole village can be put in for a couple hundred dollars and mosquito nets for windows are pretty cheap too.
Oh yeah and there's also the fact that I find working full time in an office incredibly boring and soul destroying. Especially during winter when it is dark when you get to work and dark when you leave. I've talked to a bunch of friends who have recently started working who have admitted that they feel similarly. For many of them their lives have become a rhythmic cycle of waking, working, watching TV and sleeping. Then drinking the weekend away and planning extravagant vacations to make up for it all.

On a different angle now, I think I've fallen in love with the Catholic Worker idea of voluntary poverty. It's the idea that it is not necessary for any of us to have more than is necessary. And it's the realisation that when ever we hold on to more than we ourselves need we are withholding it from those of our brothers and sisters who have less than they need. It's different than the poverty of destitution which many people are trapped by, but aims to provide just enough to meet our needs so that we can make the rest available to help others. Try it, you'll love it if you give it time. I think if I can commit to voluntary poverty for the rest of my life it will be pretty hard to start seeing poor people as lazy and to start talking about how rich people pay too much tax.

An idea I've been getting from many places lately is the need to be connected to the land. That might sound pretty hippy, but it makes a lot of sense. If we are in some way (the more ways the better) connected to the production of our own food, the collection of our own water, the sourcing of materials and construction of our own shelters - the provision of our own basic needs - we can't help but consume less and more responsibly. You might be wondering what I mean by "connection." Well, I've tried just now a couple times to explain it, but every attempt feels horribly inadequate. The best I can do is to suggest (and I highly recommend the benefits of this suggestion) you dig up whatever grass or pavement you have access to and try to grow as many vegetables as you can this summer (which means planning and planting from early spring or before) by as natural means as possible and using as few external inputs as possible. This will make you realise how very little you know about the amazing ground we walk over every day, which sustains our very life and yet which we treat with the utmost disrespect.

Being more connected to the marginalised people in our society is another thing I would like to pursue and encourage. These are the people who need the most help. Society is not designed with them in mind and it doesn't usually do very well at adapting for them. By being in contact with them regularly, but not just in contact, by actually being connected to them by friendship, job, neighbourhood, and whatever other ways I can manage, I hope to avoid forgetting about, neglecting and ignoring these people as it can be so easy to do.

Then I also want to make sure I never let the end justify the means. This is especially important when we're talking about the pursuit of some distant utopia, whether it is anarchic or not (though can utopia really be anything other than anarchic?) because (without wanting to sound pessimistic - and believe me I'm not) the means may very well be as close to the ends as we'll ever get.

The last thing is to ensure that I'm always living as part of a healthy community (or at least a community trying to be healthy) full of generous, caring and accepting people who will give me support and I can in turn support. We need each other in our everyday lives, in our attempts to build cooperative and equitable realities and in our struggle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual wickedness in high places! (Ephesians 6:12 if you're interested). Why settle for just a nuclear family when you can have a whole community?

Oh yeah and I think getting some mean tattoos would be a good way to affirm my commitment to living a life less ordinary, and a good way to make me feel stink in future if I ever do abandon my morals in pursuit of comfort and luxury. So I got a couple in Brisbane from my good friend Anna. I might show you if you're lucky.

Thanks for caring and reading and thinking, but don't let it stop here!

Christchurch

2008-07-14T16:27:00.002+12:00

Here are some ramblings for you since I haven't written anything for a while.

I'm in Christchurch and it is cold. That's good because it is winter and it is supposed to be cold. Soup also tastes heaps better when it is cold. I have to wear shoes again though which is not so good.

I caught up with a friend from highschool and then met a mate from Auckland down here. Duncan and I hung out at the Otautahi Social Centre a bit and tried some impressive strawberry pilsner and did heaps of dumpster runs on some awesome DIY bikes. There was a homemade chopper/cruiser bicycle thing made from a kids BMX with front fork extensions and an old 10-speed converted to a single-speed with only one real pedal and a trailer made from a shopping cart to carry the treasure we found. We looked a real sight riding around Christchurch in the middle of the night and the early morning, especially after we found the santa hat and tinsel. We ended up meeting a hilarious homeless couple who took the hat off our hands as well as some grapes and gloves and things thanks to Duncan.

Duncan and I also headed to the South Pacific Christian Anarchist conference this weekend which was great. It was at Onuku Marae near Akaroa and has stunningly beautiful surroundings. As hippy as it might sound, it is good to be around familiar trees again. Australian vegetation is really cool, but for some reason I found it really comforting to be around native vegetation here which is so familiar and reassuring.

The conference was top quality, as far as conferences for Christian Anarchists in the South Pacific go. There was over thirty people and an excess of wholesome dumpster food and much good discussion to be had. It was cool to see people I hadn't seen in years in some cases and meet plenty of new people with similar ideas and ideals. I am looking forward to getting home though.

It is tiring spending three months meeting totally new people everyday and saying goodbye to them almost as quickly. Not having your own space or any contact with people who really know you well is taxing also. So I reckon don't ever let me travel alone again, and make sure I don't try and do so many things next time either, no matter how tempting it is. For me I also found it hard being so focused on learning and talking and exploring without too many opportunities to do practical, productive things.

Squatting

2008-07-05T02:00:00.001+12:00

I wrote this a few weeks ago when I was in Melbourne and I've just now fixed it up a bit and posted it. I'll be in Christchurch on Tuesday and then slowly making my way back up towards the final destination of Auckland, so let me know if you want me to add you to the list of pit-stops along the way.

Squatting is much more common place here than in Aotearoa. At least amongst the alternative/activist/anarchist/punk scene, I imagine there aren't too many middle management types embracing the squatter lifestyle.

In case you are wondering, squatting is the practice of occupying and living in a building, or on a piece of land which you don't hold any "legal" right to occupy. Successful urban squatting usually happens in run-down buildings with absentee landlords who own much more property than is good for them (or good for the rest of us) and haven't given the place a thought in years, or are waiting for a better market or something silly like that. At this point you may find yourself thinking, "Oh my, this is all rather criminal isn't it?". If so, then next time I see you I will explain exactly why there shouldn't be anything criminal at all about having access to food, water and shelter, and why the whole notion of criminality is not at all helpful to us. As the ever-quotable David Rovics puts it, "Why should some have seven homes, when some don't have any?"

By all accounts squatting is a lot easier to pull off here. Melbourne is obviously bigger than any city in Aotearoa, our whole population is only just larger than that of this city. Despite the fact that Australia is experiencing a massive housing crisis at the moment there is still a bunch of forsaken and entirely inhabitable buildings sitting around just waiting to be liberated from the the chains of their oppressive emptiness.

Squatting is not only a good way to lessen your weekly expenses, but those that choose to squat (as opposed to those who, for lack of money and opportunity, have no other option) generally do so as a direct act of defiance against a society in which everything is commodified and the essentials of life must be purchased at whatever value the 'market' determines. As some would have it, the ability to live and breath must be purchased and the money to purchase your own life must be earned by participation in the capitalist economy. Those of us who find the pursuit of profit above all else and the exploitation of workers to subsidise the leisure of the elite morally repulsive (not to mention boring and lifeless), are left in a difficult position.

So squatting is a very tempting option and effective way to eliminate almost entirely any need to participate in what is a repulsive and fundamentally flawed system in urgent need of replacement. There are numerous tricks of the trade to avoid paying for things such as water, power, food and furniture when squatting, although sometimes luck has it that a landlord hasn't even bothered to have the power or water turned off. Once again, I know, "That's stealing!", ask me about that next time too.

As a side note, shoplifting is another practice which it isn't surprising to find support for amongst those inclined to squat. I don't want to get in depth, but the general idea is that when shoplifting from a huge company, it doesn't hurt anyone. What it does do is ever so slightly and inconsequentially lower the enormous profits made by the shareholders of the corporation, which in order to put their product on the shelf in the first place has had to pollute and destroy the environment and exploit workers in numerous countries, including those behind the counter in that very store. It also saves the shoplifter once again from the moral tragedy of participation in these unfortunate realities.

Personally, I haven't shoplifted since I stole a pack of chewing gum Mum wouldn't let me buy at the video store when I was 6 (she made me return it and apologise), but perhaps only because shops hold so little which I ever have need for and can't get in other ways. Just as most people would not deny a starving child the right to steal a loaf of bread to eat, if I truly needed something, I would have no problem stealing it, only I would have the hatred of exploitation to justify my actions in addition to the necessity defence.

See you soon, land of the long white cloud here I come!

Brisbane

2008-06-30T14:36:00.002+12:00

I'm in Brisbane. All is well. I'm doing this two week live-in exploration of community-building, and ideas and issues related to the concept of community and related to attempting to create and promote community. That is the best way I can think to explain it.

I can't be bothered typing much, so here is a short list of some cool things I've been up to if for some reason you feel you really need to know...

-wearing a lot of bare feet
-exploring incomplete skyscrapers
-being a part of cooking for 16 people amongst which are vegetarians, vegans, and hyperallergenic people with not very much at all they can eat (most fruits and vegetables, not to mention most of everything else makes them sick!)
-lots of interesting "food gathering/scavenging" activities

The Aboriginal People

2008-06-21T16:00:00.000+12:00

A lot of people sleep on the streets here. A lot of people ask you for money as you walk around the inner city. A lot of them are Aboriginal people.

For 50,000 years the Aboriginal people have lived in this land that is now known as Australia. There were hundreds of thousands of them and they spoke hundreds of different languages. Now, as with all indigenous victims of colonialism, they are left with few options. Unfortunately, the most viable options are usually complete assimilation with no connection to their past, or exile to what we consider the least desirable sections of land. Even more unfortunately, the transition to the culture of their occupier's isn't achieved and they fall somewhere between the two options, that being life on the streets.

There was an impressive building just down the road from where I stayed in Melbourne that used to be an Aboriginal Health Centre set up by the local Aboriginal community there in Fitzroy. It is a grand old stone building painted in three grand horizontal stripes with the striking black, yellow and red of the Aboriginal flag. It has fallen into disrepair and some years ago stopped functioning as a health centre, but still should be under the terms of its 99 year lease and in the hands of the local indigenous people. However, the government has agreed to give the building over to a group called Mission Australia that will turn the building into a restaurant. The restaurant will operate a training program for young Aboriginal people which will enable them (if they are up to standard) to wait hand and foot on well to do whiteys in Australia's fine dinning establishments.

The struggle for the community to retain control over the building and to have it providing them with essential services rather than training them to serve dinner to their colonial masters is not yet over, but unfortunately it isn't looking good. I wish them all the best in this struggle and the many others they face.

Like...

The Northern Territories Intervention!

Today is the one year anniversary of John Howard's military intervention into 73 indigenous communities in Northern Australia. It is still going on now and it is still immoral, illogical and illegal. In order for the Intervention to take place the government had to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act and the Northern Territory Land Rights Legislation. Surprisingly, it could be said that there is legal precedent for this, as it is not the first time that the Racial Discrimination Act has been suspended here!

A report released last year entitled The Little Children Are Sacred highlighted high rates of child abuse and alcohol abuse in aboriginal communities, and was used as the justification for the intervention. However, not one of the 97 proposals in the report have been followed through with. The intervention has failed to deliver any benefits for the invaded communities, unless exasperation and racial discrimination can be considered benefits.

The first thing to be done in the intervention (other than to send in soldiers, trucks and guns) was to ban alcohol and pornography from these communities. This is not done anywhere else in Australia, especially not in any white communities, no matter how bad their rates of child abuse may be, and can not be seen as anything other than racial discrimination (good thing that act was suspended). Then people on benefits were hit hard. Children had to be submitted to invasive health checks or else their parents wouldn't get their money, and then when they did get their money they could only spend it at certain big supermarket stores via some sort of voucher system. Many communities didn't even have these stores in their communities and so had to go to the exasperation, effort, loss of time, extra expense, etc. of travelling to other towns to shop for their basic needs. Some things have been laxed now and I understand that getting food is a little easier, but things are far from back to normal and even further from being any better than they were pre-intervention.

Some other issues that this intervention link to are that of police brutality, especially toward aboriginal people in custody, and also the extraction of minerals from aboriginal land. These are two huge issues by them selves and I don't have the energy to write about them now.

While thinking about the discrimination and oppression the Aboriginal people have suffered and continue to suffer here, I am constantly reminded of the similar way which the Maori people continue to be treated in Aotearoa. Particularly the humiliation that the people of Tuhoe were confronted with on October 15th last year during the invasion of the lands over which they still exercise sovereignty. My love and solidarity is with all the October 15th arrestees, and the self-determination of the Maori people,

Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake.

P.S. As a side note it is interesting to know that Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA all have horrific histories of oppressing the indigenous people of the lands they now assume as their own and these countries are the only four to refuse to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Surprise, surprise.

Dayboro

2008-06-18T13:03:00.003+12:00

I'm on a Catholic Worker farm in a little place called Dayboro right now, it is awesome. There are dozens of fruit trees, 2 ducks, 3 chickens, a windmill, multiple solar energy utilisation operations, soap making, beer brewing, wine fermenting, soy fermenting, bio-diesel processing, rain-water harvesting, humanure composting, worm farming, small scale earth damming, bread baking, pretty much everything you could ever ask for. I'm living in a caravan (caravans are so sweet) under a house occupied by a family of 9.

Go read about the Catholic Worker movement on Wikipedia, especially about Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and Ammon Hennessy, they are all dead now, but they were awesome. Catholic Workers are usually staunch pacifists, but believe in direct action and have supported unions and the Cuban revolution (kind of), and women's suffrage (although few of them ever vote) and all sorts of things. They are usually heavily involved in anti-war movements, most notably as "Ploughshares" activists. They believe in trying to make a society where it is better for people to be good. They have this idea of a new society that they are trying to bring about via "Round table discussions, Houses of Hospitality, and Agronomic Universities." So I'm pretty much in an agronomic university right now, and I'll tell you what, it is way better than Auckland University! They are keen on a craft based society which is pretty cool - I want to be a soap maker (amongst other things) after the Catholic Worker Revolution and make amazing smelling soaps like Peppermint and Green Tea! I don't have the time (that's not true at all, but it feels so wrong to be on a computer here) or the bandwidth to write more about it right now, so you'll have to be happy with an "easy essay" from Peter Maurin and then an un-nursery rhyme that I found here in a great little book that Barricade Books used to sell and hopefully still does...

The world would become better off
if people tried to become better.
And people would become better
if they stopped trying to become better off.

There was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile
He found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile
He bought a crooked cat
Which caught a crooked mouse
And they lived together
In a crooked house
And he put his crooked sixpence
In a crooked national bank
And the crooked bankers spent it
By buying crooked tanks
Which they sold to crooked governments
To win their crooked wars
So all the crooked imperialists
Could enforce their crooked laws
And the biggest crooked irony
In all the crooked state
Was that all the crooked dealers
Considered themselves straight

Music

2008-06-09T23:00:00.000+12:00

Music is very important. This song by Tin Tree Factory does a great job of expressing a lot of my sentiments. A lot of their songs do, you should listen all of them, but this one is particularly good and this is what most of the lyrics are. It is called Verbose, and I just realised when writting it out it can sound a little angsty, but it doesn't come across that way when you listen to it, so you should listen to it, and all the others here. (Revolution Pop is great and so is If which is also known as Goddam Condos I think)

Sit me down you're going to tell me a story and
Make believe it like is was the first time
Cause the message is redundant
And it makes no sense at all
Fill me in on all the history and politics,
Fill me in on all the places and things
Just to justify the reason
For no justice at all
Economically there's no better system
Governmentally there's no better way
You say that we can't change it
And our backs against the wall

We can dance together, on this broken record
We can dance together, on this broken record

I'll tell you what I think about your _______ ______ stories
The kind you never leave a _______ section about
The winners wrote the history
And they wrote the real people out
Technological discoveries are not going to save us
In fact they have this funny way of making it worse
Cause profit over people will take the real stuff out
I'm living like I'm living because I am searching
I'm living like I'm living because it's more fun
You won't belive me when I tell you
You won't believe me when I shout

That progress is not always forward
There's this social construction called race
And there is no binary gender
And there upon I plead my case

We can dance together, on this broken record
We can dance together, on this broken record

A butterfly can flap it's wings and topple an empire
A butterfly can flap it's wings and hover in space
It all depends on how you work it
Depends on how many people know
Don't give me all this crap about this being a phase
Don't say, "I thought like that when I was your age"
Just because you feel guilty
Because you sold your soul
This little song and dance that we are putting together
Is ending now because we are getting carried away
You will never change me
Because I already know

That progress is not always forward
There's this social construction called race
And there is no binary gender
And there upon I plead my case

Oh progress is not always forward
There's this social construction called race
And there is no binary gender
And there upon I've made my case

We can dance together, on this broken record
We can dance together, on this broken record

Forests

2008-06-08T21:01:00.000+12:00

Hello all. I'm in Surfer's Paradise staying with my brother for a few days. It's not my usual scene, but I caught up with another Kiwi friend here today who I discovered has just recently gone all vegan and conscientious about things. It was a welcome surprise. I might tell you more about Surfer's Paradise later, but for now here is some good reading for your eyes.

I left Melbourne and hitched to Sydney in a day (it is a lot quicker by the direct highway) with a crazy truck driver and accepted the offer of a bed for the night at his friend's place. Early the next morning I caught a train out to the Blue Mountains. I stayed at a backpackers there for a day and walked down the 'Giant Staircase' and along the base of the cliffs and then back along the top of the cliff and saw waterfalls and massive old trees and rocks and wildlife and all sorts of wonderful things. I timed my quick visit to the rain forests of the Blue Mountains perfectly to coincide with a whole lot of mist and fog and rain, so I didn't see much of what was the (I'm told and am inclined to believe) beautiful panoramic views. But what better way to see the rainforest than in the rain? I did some dumpster diving there as well in this quaint little mountain town and am still trying to munch my way through a whole shopping bag full of lollies and chocolates.

One thing I really would have liked to do is to head to Tasmania to check out the apparently awesome forest occupations down there. I couldn't, but they are worth a mention anyway. From all accounts Tasmania's old growth forests are amazing, and what is happening to them sucks (all accounts except those from those involved in their clear-felling that is).

Native logging isn't that big of an issue in Aotearoa anymore (correct me if I'm wrong) because I believe it is now pretty illegal. That took a lot of protest and lobbying to achieve though. Aotearoa happens to be a great place to grow pine quite quickly (20-30 years, although it isn't as strong as when it grows slower, which affects properties like stress and strain and creep, which affect design, which other civil engineering students who listened more intently and are actually using their degrees can tell you all about, but it isn't really relevant to this blog), so we grow that and cut it down instead of logging in virgin areas. There are issues with this way of doing things too, but the only one I'll mention here is that more and more of these pine forests are being felled to make way for more dairy farms which is a huge problem. Agriculture (in particular dairy farms) is responsible for around 50% of our green house gas emissions in Aotearoa, not to mention the horrible lifeless state of many our rivers and lakes which no longer support aquatic life, and give you rashes if you swim in them. But enough about NZ.

Australia has no such protection on old growth logging, and Tasmania's incredible and irreplaceable forests are being cut down to make pulp. Pulp! It is ridiculous, I know. The residents of Tasmania are really annoyed and have had some impressive demonstrations over the years. They also show continued support for the activists that are camped out in the forest at present trying to stop or at least slow the logging.

The forestry people also want to make a pulp mill in Tasmania so they don't have to send the logs away (to Japan I think?) and can make more profit (and pollution) themselves. But pulp mills are notorious polluters and really really smelly and no one wants it there except for the people that would stand to make heaps more money if it was there. ANZ bank was investing in the $2bil project, but recently pulled out, which is really cool news. I saw a banner telling ANZ to pull out that was in the process of being painted when the news was received that they had pulled out already. It remains unfinished, and is hung up on my friend's wall. (Actually I think the other side of the banner is now being turned into a different banner.)

While it is cool that one company decided, uncharacteristically, to pull out of a dastardly project, that doesn't at all mean the pulp mill won't be built. One of the many problems with global capitalism is that the company looking to build the mill now just goes to someone more removed from the situation to get funding. ANZ would have liked the profit it could have gotten from the pulp mill, but wouldn't have liked the bad publicity. There are many other companies who will also love the profit, but won't have to worry about the Australian population bothering them about where that profit comes from though.

So in conclusion, really old forests are awesome, but cutting down every single tree in sight all at once and then burning their remains sucks. Animals loose habitat, rain generation potential is lost, carbon is released, unsatisfiable consumption habits are encouraged, and amazing places disappear, never to be seen again.

Housekeeping

2008-06-02T12:18:00.002+12:00

I played urban bicycle polo yesterday, it was awesome! We need to start some games in Auckland.

Critical Mass was good also, around a hundred people, on the small side for Melbourne.

I'm leaving Melbourne tomorrow morning to hitch North. At the moment I'm thinking that I will stop in Sydney and catch a train out to the Blue Mountains and have a look around for a day maybe, but who knows what will happen.

Within the week, probably on Friday, I'll be in the heart of the beast, down town Surfer's Paradise. My brother lives there now and I will visit him for a few days, or as long as I can handle in what I can imagine will be a stark contrast from the places and people I am used to hanging out with! It will be good to see my brother though, and some warmer weather will be welcome.

I went to a G20 benefit show the other night and learned lots more interesting stuff about the situation. For instance, the aggravated burglary charges (which sounds very scary) relate to some people going into the office of a company which makes a lot of money from war, throwing glitter around the place and taking down a couple posters (which doesn't sound anywhere near as scary). As I understand it, the main concern in the G20 cases is the way in which the police are aggressively seeking to make examples of the defendants and overplay their actions because they were politically motivated. One of the unions here is supporting the arrestees (with others hopefully following suit) because they realise that these cases will set precedents in the criminalisation of dissent and seriously limit legitimate protest in future.

I want to let you all know that these posts are all a bit slap-dash and I can't put a whole lot of effort into them, so forgive me if they don't make perfect and wonderful sense. Some of the things I have written and will be writing about I haven't quite figured out in my own head satisfactorily yet, but I'm thinking about them and I think you should too. Feel free to question me for clarification or accuse me of something, especially when you next see me.

By the way, I meant for this post to be a lot shorter than it turned out! The one below this was supposed to be the real post today...

Heteronormativity

2008-06-02T10:00:00.000+12:00

The last few weeks here in Melbourne I have been living in the flat of a friend, Anna, who did a semester in Auckland last year. It has been great and I am forever indebted to her and her flatmates. There are six of them here including Anna, all with various genders of their own.

By far the majority of people I know and have ever known have been fairly straight-laced heterosexuals. Many have been horribly homophobic including myself at times. So it has been a great and valuable experience to spend several weeks in situations where heterosexuals are usually out-numbered by those who prefer to think of their gender as other than the default.

I have been able to listen to many enjoyable rants on the subjects of queer theory, sexuality, homophobia, and gay marriage. Everyone is pretty keen on queer theory here, which is worthwhile knowing about and I'm sure you can read all about it on Wikipedia, but I think I'd rather talk about heteronormativity right now.

Heteronormativity is how we all consider heterosexual attraction 'normal'. There is no doubt that intercourse between humans of opposite sex is necessary for the continuation of our species, but that doesn't mean that people of the same sex can't be sexually attracted to each other. A more interesting proposition is that while sex is (mostly) a fairly straight forward affair, gender is anything but. Gender is something that can be developed/chosen/created/explored... It is discriminatory to assume that everyone will be happy with the gender that is traditionally assumed to correspond with their sex, and can be quite offensive. Yet our whole society is invested in the protection of heterosexuality as the norm and the abhorance of anything else as deviant, with token and condescending permission given to the display of a few restrictive homosexual stereotypes.

---> For the religious readers: This may seem all very secular and unholy to some of you, and it can to me too sometimes I'll admit. But as I said, this is a very real issue for a lot of people and since the greatest commandment is to love God and love one another, we are obliged to try and understand and to love unconditionally. Anyway, this is a long and heated religious discussion I'm sure, so for now be content with at least thinking about some of this stuff and sit me down for a good chat later.

The issue of gender is a very real struggle for many people and we need to think about how they are treated and oppressed by our actions, assumptions and our speech. Claiming we are joking or preceding our genderphobic statements with qualifications like "I'm not homophobic but..." don't really cut it, even if we presume that the only people in the room are straight male friends.

So off you go now. Invent some new pronouns and if you are unsure what gender someone has chosen for themselves ask them. If they are heterosexual and offended that you asked, you have created a perfect opportunity to challenge their own heteronormativity.

G20

2008-05-30T15:15:00.000+12:00

I went to court today. Not for me though, don't worry mum. This will take a while to explain, but it is important.

Background:

In November 2006, the G20 summit was held in Melbourne. You may have heard G8. G20 is similar, but it is made up of the worlds 19 largest economies as well as the European Union.

It is pretty much a bunch of rich fellows hanging out in a fancy places for a weekend and talking about how to make more profit off the backs of poorer people. They call it neo-liberalism and it is all about exciting things like free trade, market deregulation, privatisation, flexible labour markets, protection of intellectual property rights, and so on. Pretty much it is an economic theory which claims to promote development on the assumption that what is good for big businesses is good for everyone. It really sucks and it messes up entire countries, with the poorest people getting the roughest time, but the companies making money no matter how it pans out.

So there were a bunch of people here in Melbourne that were understandably offended that this summit was taking place in their city and wished to stop it, or at least disrupt it as best they could. If you're not much one for protest, think of the situation as a group of people trying to stop a rape or murder in progress, or more realistically, trying to stop the planning of further rapes and murders by a group of known rapists and murderers. There were several thousand protesters on the main march.

The protests got "violent" as the press likes to say, which means some inanimate objects were broken and protesters didn't want to stay in within the arbitrary areas set for them by police who would like nothing more than an ineffectual and token display of dissent. It also means that police hurt actual people (rather than property) with their big sticks and pain compliance holds. One police officer was afflicted by tennis elbow (tennis elbow!!! Oh, poor you!) and two protesters were hospitalised.

Over the following couple months over 30 people were arrested (including several New Zealanders, one while transferring planes at Sydney airport on his way to Europe) in connection with the protests and charged with things such as riot, affray, assault, theft and criminal damage. The operations were conducted by the Police Terrorism Investigation Squad, which is over-kill of the like we experienced in Aotearoa late last year with the hideousness of the so-called Terror Raids.

Over the course of the whole drama the media has predictably sided with the police, been horribly sensationalist and neglected to address the serious issues the protests were targeted against preferring to instead write off the protesters as cowards and criminals. The media went as far as to claim that one police officer "nearly got aids" when he was bitten by a protester (the officer was physically hurting the protester in a futile effort to get them to remove themselves from a lock-on they could not remove themselves from). It was clarified in the eighties that you can't get aids in this way.

A heartless campaign of defamation was also launched against one arrestee, a 29 year old Turkish political refugee who was thereafter unable to get work in Melbourne, so moved in with a friend who offered him a job in Sydney. This was in breach of his bail, so he was sent to jail and is there still after having pled guilty to several charges. He refused to recognise the authority and legitimacy of the court and was sentenced to 28 months in prison. A bunch of the other accused have already pled guilty and been given suspended sentences or community service.

Court today:

The appearance today was mainly administrative. The judge wanted to determine the possible length of their trials, in addition to which charges might be tried together. The defendants now also only have to report once a month instead of every week.

The Kiwi who was arrested on his way to Europe was given permission to return to New Zealand to live with family in Christchurch until the date of the trial. The prosecution wanted to make him put up $40,000 to $50,000 surety before he could go, but the judge reckoned that was excessive and that surety would be better at $10,000.

The trial won't start till 30 June, 2009 and could take up to three months. A big issue for the defence will be ensuring that the way the cops present their evidence (mostly a compilation of news footage and photographs) doesn't make the whole thing look like it was two days of carnage instead of just a couple small incidents spread out over the course of a conference weekend.

Anyway, I'm sick of writing about this now, I put it up on indymedia as well so I need to leave the computer and return to the real world now.

Oh lucky you!

2008-05-29T01:49:00.000+12:00

I've written the better part of five blogs tonight. I don't have a lot else to do while I await my haircut. But I'm not letting you see them yet, they will be held on to and released when the time is right. Some of them are pre-emptive and some are related to indymedia articles I will be putting up as my journey progresses and some are just me ranting about things that I want you to know about and can go up at any particular time when I don't feel like writing much and some may even describe entirely fabricated adventures just to keep you on your toes. You'll have to wait and see.

If I feel like it, then I'll release one tomorrow, keep an eye out.

Melbourne

2008-05-23T22:04:00.000+12:00

I am having a good time. I like it here. Melbourne is great.

Melbourne is the first place that I have never heard anyone say anything bad about. Before coming here, everyone who I told I was coming here got excited and either said they'd been here and loved it or that they knew someone who raved about it to them. Impressively it seems to be living up to the hype.

I have met way too may awesome people and seen way too many inspiring places and projects and had way too many deep conversations to relate in any detail here, so I'll give you a quick bullet-point run-down.

I'm staying in a flat in Fitzroy, pretty close to the city that has all kinds of interesting people living in it and hanging out at all hours of the day and night.

There's a great place called Credo Cafe which serves free lunch four days a week in the centre of the city and fosters a great community including everyone from homeless heroin addicts to swanky lawyers.

There is a $4 pizza parlour.

One friend from NZ who lives here now occupies a squat with some fellow punks and other alternative hair-cut loving friendlies, and comes up with all kinds of sweet scams and schemes.

This place called Lentil As Anything is a cafe where you pay what you want to pay for your meal, no questions asked. It only serves vegan food, but all kinds of people eat there and find the whole experience quite novel. Which it is, but it should be more common. It's non-profit and manages to fund some cool community projects with the money they take in.

Public transport is awesome compared to NZ, I could and probably should write one entry just about public transport. Remind me to do that... although apparently it isn't as good as in Canada.

There is a multitude of excellent community projects happening here, both secular and christian. Community houses, social centres, community radio, intentional communities, oppshops, gardens and lots more.

I haven't rummaged in too many dumpsters yet (apart from the flower shop down the road) but I've been getting some good table diving in whilst wandering around the central city.

There are heaps of awesome dodgy little alleyways all over the city that have impressive graffiti in them, and some people play alleyway cricket in them.

"Bridge parties" are a regular occurrence here, I'm attending one tomorrow, so I might mention more on that later, they sound worth talking about.

So I'm doing a lot, and not really feeling particularly motivated to write a lot of stuff on here, I'd rather be out making better use of my time. From now on blogs may be focused on issues or ideas rather than periods of time or places. Let me know if there is something you want me to write about in particular, otherwise some future blogs to lookout for may be:

The Northern Territories intervention and Aboriginal issues

The G20 court process

Australia's native forests

Heteronormativity and queer theory

Self-sufficiency

Homelessness

Squatting and related lifestyle options

Public transport

Until then, be nice to each other, and be good - unless being good requires submission to an immoral higher power.

Sydney

2008-05-19T14:37:00.000+12:00

I'm in Australia now, so I guess my travels have started in earnest. I stayed up till 3am on Monday (which was by that time Tuesday) to catch a shuttle to the airport and my 6am flight to Sydney. The flight was super boring and I had forgotten to order a vegetarian meal so I was given single miniature bread roll and a serving of yoghurt while everyone else was eating their beef sandwiches. Surely they could have spared more than just one bread roll for me? I hate airplanes and airports so much for so many reasons.

Landing in Syndney I had a bag I needed to deliver to a childhood friend I hadn't seen in years. Her name is Anna. I couldn't get hold of her because she was at work, so I slept on a bench and used the free airport internet to write that last blog (that free internet was the single good air-travel related experience I had and I made good use of it) I also bought an australian sim card and $29 of prepaid credit which gives you $139 of credit which was exciting until I discovered it runs out in a month. (Incidentally, why do they have to make it seem like you get more credit than you pay for? Why can't they just make calls cheaper so you use it at the same rate?) So I have a whole heap of credit to use and not to many friends to spend it on over here. It costs me $3 for ten minutes to call NZ, so let me know if you feel lonely and want me to call you!

I made my way to Northern Sydney to visit Anna eventually and stayed at her place for two nights. It was good to see her and catch up, and we had a good discussion about religion. She was very hospitible and even picked the chicken out of my serving of curry that she cooked, which is a fair bit more effort than Aerolineas Argentinas went to for me!

I didn't really have anything in particular to do or see in Sydney, so I tried to find a couple local dumpsters with limited success and discussed the consumption of animal products with Anna's friend (who from what I could tell was wearing a zip up sweatshirt jacket thing with no shirt underneath - kind of weird I thought, especially since he was going out to eat at a fancy restaurant. It seemed a bit Party Boy to me!)

On Thursday morning I left early to catch a train south of Sydney to start hitching to Melbourne. I found to my dismay and disgust that train tickets from the airport are about four times as expensive as tickets from anywhere else that traverse similar distances. I have devised a plan around it if I ever go there again, ask me about it if you ever need to know. The hitching began easily and I even got to stuff my face with cookies on my first ride, but after that I spent heaps more time waiting by the side of the road than travelling in cars and only made it about 250kms (out of over 1000kms to Melbourne) on Thursday. It was officially my worst progress ever.

Bill picked me up as it was getting dark and offered me his couch though, so that was pretty nice of him. I could write a whole blog about his crazy redneck house, but I won't. Let me just say that he had more motorbikes in his garage than photos on his shelves; a really flash computer set up solely to play online poker; a decorative dragon-dagger which he bought in preference to a samouri sword only after lengthy and painstaking deliberation; a humongous zip that he keeps boiling all day long even though it is just him there and I didn't want coffee; and a red lightbulb that never gets turned off in the bathroom.

He was a really friendly and generous guy though and I was greately indebted to him. I have his business card, so if I ever need my lawns mown in the middle of nowhere, a few hours south of Sydney, he will be get the call.

The next day I had better luck and got an awesome ride with a baker who told me all about sourdough bread and was genuinely the best conversation I have ever had from a ride. I ended up making it all the way to Melbourne that day after getting a seven hour ride with a couple Industrial Refridgeration Engineers who stopped at the local drive-through bottle store (which seems really wrong by the way, but apparently they are everywhere) to get us some Jim Beam for the trip.

Now I'm in Melbourne, it is pretty sweet, I bought some hardly worn Teva shoes today at an opp shop for $5. Easily the best opp shop find I've ever had. They will keep the water out much better than my old sneakers.

Wellington

2008-05-09T14:44:00.000+12:00

Wellington was choice. I went down on Wednesday and came back to Auckland on Sunday because I had some stuff to do on Monday before flying out at 6am (meaning I had to get to the airport by 3am) on Tuesday. I'm in Sydney airport using the awesome free internet from Optus, who ever that is.*

So about Wellington - I stayed at 128 Able Smith St, Wellington's radical social centre which is a cool place. There is a massive bicycle workshop, a radical library, meeting space, garden, and all sorts else. It seems like it plays a significant role in the anarchist scene in Wellington and it would be great to have a place with a similar function in Auckland, but visiting Wellignton highlighted an interesting dynamic which I'll explain in a second.

As well as checking out the anarchist projects and hanging out with a bunch of cool activists and anarchists in Wellington I also caought up with a few people from the Urban Vision organisation. They are Christians that have decided to spend their lives living on the margins with the lower class of people who are more often than not ignored and forgotten. For the most part they work part time and live in pretty shabby council flats with the goal of getting to know their neighbours and helping to create more healthy communities in what can be very alienating places.

This brings me to the interesting dynamic. Communities like Urban Vision, and like others I have been visiting tend to see as their main focus, their immediate community, those living in their own neighbourhood. They focus first of all on helping them and then want to expand what they are doing to be able to tackle wider issues that may or may not directly affect those they live amongst. Activists on the other hand tend to focus first on the wider issues, but at the same time desire to be involved in and support their local communities. It seems it is hard for people involved in local communities to open them up to broader struggles and it is equally hard for people involved in broader struggles to keep from becoming looked upon as weirdos and outsiders by their local communities.

So both positions are tricky and the two approaches also seem to have trouble working with each other on occasion, which doesn't help matters! Suggestions are welcome...

I also saw some mates from uni and high school and did some great dumpster diving. We got a whole bunch of a great Wellington beer whose name I can't remember plus the usual great free food.

Hitchhiking back was a mission, but I made it eventually and the last guy to give me a ride dropped me at my door and gave me a fruit pie as well which was a perfect end to a 14 hour day of travelling.

I'm going to go have another nap. See you soon.

*"Wow," I hear you saying, "your Australian adventures are off to a flying start." Yes they are. I can't contact the girl I'm going to stay with here in Sydney and I have my own bag (and a half) plus one to drop off to her, so I'm just milling round here until I can find her and I'm taking naps on the benches in between using this internet. Don't worry, it will get better.

Gisborne

2008-05-09T13:22:00.000+12:00

Gisborne is a bit of a mission to hitch to. It ends up being a similar time commitment to getting to Wellington, since it is pretty out of the way. I got some sweet rides though and met a lot of forestry workers.

In Gisborne I stayed with my friend Manu and his family. They were wonderfully hospitable and very good value to talk with. The community that they came to Gisborne with the intention of developing didn't really turn out the way they had planned at all, but never the less they are doing all sorts of interesting things. It was interesting to talk about the struggle of properly integrating yourself into a community without being seen as a community all to your own which exists separate from those around you. As one might imagine, changing the world is not easy, even positively affecting one small neighbourhood can be really hard. One of Manu's good friends lives with them, and in light of this realisation, he encouraged me greatly by assuring me that whatever I plan on doing will fail. That is to say, it will not work out as planned and it will be a struggle - but it will be a million times better than sitting in an office five days a week, watching TV evenings and weekends, and going on extravagant holidays once a year to numb the pain of my own dull existence.

While in Gisborne, I read an amazing book of Manu's written by Ciaran O'Reilly, a long time Ploughshares activist about his experiences in a Ploughshares action in the US, his trial, and the year he spent in jail for it. It is called Bomber Grounded, Runway Closed and is currently out of print, but so worth reading if you can find it.

During the day on Tuesday I dug up some very healthy potatoes which put my own dismal potato experiment over summer to shame, and did my best to assemble an old rotary hoe. There is a strip of land next to their section which they have gotten permission from the landlord to plant with vegetables with some local kids since it isn't used for anything else, and has the potential to be very productive.

We also had a delicious broccoli soup one night - soup is definitely the best part of Winter!

One other thing I wanted to mention was how cool it has been to visit families who all speak fluent Te Reo Maori. Manu and Tarsh's kids as well as Graham and Jo's kids speak Maori as a first language and pick up English later on. They also go to full immersion schools where lessons are all taught in Maori. It has encouraged me to continue learning Te Reo when I get back to Auckland.

I'm in Wellington now and I've had a pretty full schedule of meeting new and old friends and learning about all sorts of interesting projects. but I'll tell you about that on Monday maybe. If I have enough time that is. Monday will be my last day in New Zealand for a while and I have a million things to do when I get back to Auckland including making soup of my own.

Hooray for soup!

Hamilton

2008-05-01T11:30:00.000+12:00

So leg two of my North Island wanderings began Monday. I hitched down to Hamilton in three rides, the last and longest was with a guy who commutes every day down to Hamilton because it is cheaper to pay for petrol and live with his parents than flat in Hamilton. Even with petrol at $2 a litre.

So arriving in the city, I started to walk over towards the mighty Waikato river and tried to find a way across. Eventually I found a bridge and going on the directions I had just received from my friend Nicola I headed South looking for River Rd. Unfortunately she thought I was on a different bridge and also got North and South mixed up, so I was doomed from the start. Eventually we found each other though.

I went to high school with Nicola and she kindly let me crash on her couch for the two nights I was in Hamilton. Monday afternoon she had to work though (not really work, just playing with naked mannequins in her friend's garage) so I took off to explore the neighbourhood. I found a supermarket and helped myself to a selection of hummus from an open dumpster. I had some bread with me, so I headed down to a park I passed earlier and sat on the bank of a peaceful (although dirty and polluted) inner-city stream to eat my feast and read a book I found on the side of the road in Kingsland a while ago about Ecology. My bread and hummus was well complimented by a fresh, wild salad that I picked from the ground around me (mostly onion weed and tradescantia or 'wandering jew') as I sat and read.

That night Nicola made pancakes and I watched her new live dance band have a practice. Most of the time I was playing string games with the drummer's kid though. He was cool, he was going to watch a movie, but he got too carried playing with a piece of string so he didn't. Nicola's band was good.

I was surprised and delighted to find that Nicola flats with Jenna - a girl I went to primary school with in Taumarunui and haven't seen in over ten years. We had a couple drinks and reminisced and all that, as you do.

Next day I spent with Karen, a lady who I met in Brisbane in 2006 who is part of a community in Hamilton called Te Whanau Puutahi. They were running a holiday program for the local kids (similar to last week in Merivale) so I got to draw some pictures with felt pens, fix some go-carts and shoot some hoops. One kid really like my picture of my garden and he stopped drawing a car and instead drew some sort of amazing pumpkin/apple tree hybrid that put my corn to shame.

Karen is awesome, she looks after some of the local children at her house to give their parents some time out. She had three excitable little girls staying, so I took them to the supermarket to shop for dinner (yeah, I paid for food!) and then I cooked a big vege mash on rice that need three pots to contain it all.

Later that evening I caught up more with Jenna and had her show me all our old classmates on Bebo. We also checked out our old hangouts on Google Maps, (the old country roads in Taumarunui are a lot longer than I remember) and remembered such things as ice-fights, scandalous teacher's, wetting our pants in class (well, I didn't do that), art class, cross country and 6 year old kids with Lion Red t-shirts.

I woke in the morning to the glorious news that the ANZAC Ploughshares had made their way into the Waihopai spybase at dawn and deflated the protective covering of one of the two spy satellites stationed there, funded by NZ taxpayer money and used as part of the global ECHELON network to gather information in the "war on terror" that has now claimed the lives of well over a million people. Keep an eye on this story as it will no doubt be in the headlines over the next few weeks and years as the three Christian peace activists are likely to be charged with Sabotage which carries a ten year maximum jail sentence. Ploughshares activists always do a great job of highlighting western governments complicity in heinous foreign conflicts and national and international crimes. They bring much needed attention to very serious matters both through their actions, and even more so through their trials. Check out this link for information about the recent Ploughshares action in Australia in which all activists were cleared of their charges. Let's hope New Zealand is sensible enough to be able to support these dedicated activists to a similar outcome.

So then I just hitched back to Auckland. In one ride which was nice, and it was even with a guy that I didn't know, but who plays in my mates band. We had a good chat about books.

Next on the list is Gisborne in a few days time.

Tauranga

2008-04-25T10:05:00.000+12:00

Perhaps not the most exotic of travel locations, especially for me since my parents still live there. However, Tauranga is where I began my travels so I'm going to say a bit about it.

On Monday Will and I hitched to Tauranga. It took us a long time and we seemed to be plagued by religious fanatics for a good part of the journey, but we made it in the end. My favourite line of the day was from a friendly Mormon second-hand washing machine salesman who was nice enough to give us a quick New Zealand history lesson. He explained to us how the Maori left the mainland of what is now the United States of America and travelled to New Zealand by canoe. "I go to a Mormon church - that's how I know all about history."

In Tauranga we caught up with my parents and witnessed their lounge-painting expertise. We also visited a few of my friends in Tauranga and catching up with them was good as always. We climbed Mauao and spent ages browsing the second hand book store, amongst other things over the next few days.

The main reason I went to Tauranga was to visit Graham and Jo, some friends I met a couple years ago that live in community in Merrivale, one of Tauranga's poorer neighbourhoods. So on Tuesday we went along to the children's holiday program that Graham was helping run for the local kids. It is based out of the Merrivale Community centre, which looks like it does a great job of providing information and services to the local community. It is rented from Housing New Zealand for $10 per year!

We went to the (relatively) new Tauranga art gallery where we saw some sweet art and an exhibit of Maori taonga (treasures). The most intriguing item was a beautiful flute made from the arm bone (the humerus I believe) of a terrible enemy (obviously once he had eventually been killed) to insult him and I guess take some form of recompense for the trouble he caused. After that we played some games in the local hall and learned to weave flowers from flax.

The program finished at 3 and we were given a tour of the awesome gardens and chicken-run Graham an Jo help maintain. Their family live next door to a bunch of friends who share similar lifestyles and desire for community, so they have knocked down the fence between them to make for a bigger and better garden and a much more sensible living arrangement. People are constantly wandering between the two properties and sharing their lives with each other. It was awesome, we definitely need to be knocking down more fences. We shared dinner, talked deep and long about philosophy, language, the Treaty, poetry, religion, and then capped the night off with a dumpster diving run.

Thanks heaps to Graham, Jo, my parents, and everyone we met or visited in Tauranga.

On Thursday Will and I split up to hitch/race back to Auckland. He took the gorge and I took the Kaimai hills. We both got rides really fast every time we had to wait, but my ride got in a small accident at the Bombays (and didn't have insurance) and Will stopped for a few beers with his ride halfway, so we were both slowed down a a little. In the end though, my experience and good-looks got me home first. Better luck next time Will.

While I'm Away

2008-04-06T19:33:00.000+12:00

I think I'll probably write things on this blog while I'm travelling. I leave for two months in Australia on May 13, so I'll have a lot to say about that I imagine. Before I leave though I'm going to wander around the North Island a bit too, so I might feel like adding some thoughts about that because it will be part of the same journey.

I will be visiting friends and family around New Zealand and Eastern Australia. I have several alternative Christian communities lined up to visit in various parts of the North Island as well as Brisbane and Melbourne. I will drop in on some activist friends in those places too. My brother is living on the Gold Coast now, so I'll see him, and there is a Catholic Worker farm North of Brisbane that I have heard a lot about and will try to lend my services to for a couple weeks. I'll be hitch-hiking close to 5000kms all up I reckon, so there should be some interesting stories to tell about that.

When I finish in Australia I fly to Christchurch and will spend a week or two with the locals as well as attending the third annual SPCA conference. That stands for South Pacific Christian Anarchists by the way, cleverly disguised isn't it? If I'm lucky I may visit the ever-threatened Happy Valley, and then make my way leisurely back towards Auckland.

If at any stage during this experience I become sufficiently disenfranchised with inhuman communication to the extent that I abandon this blog and stop checking emails, please forgive me.