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I have no words, and I must grieve.
For me, it is memories and feelings that burn, a sense of childhood place.
The city where I grew up, that surreal, planned, charged landscape, is so filled with smoke that its air quality is the worst in the world. An elderly resident died due to the smoke-filled air.
The city where I last lived, where most of my family came from (as much as any non-Indigenous Australian can claim to come from), where most of them live, was over 48 degrees Celcius in places yesterday. It's surrounded by a ring of fire. It's dangerous to use air conditioning as it will bring smoke into the house. Fires furher out have damaged power stations, meaning power outages.
They are not just dots on a map, they are friends marking themselves safe (Bega, Batlow, Tathra), relatives who lost their home to fire two years ago on the verge of losing it again (Falls Creek), my homes away from home, where I learnt to swim and learnt to live in and with the ocean, where my whole hometown decamped every summer, gone in minutes (Broulee, Mossy Point, Batemans Bay, Moruya, Ulladalla, Tilba, Lakes Entrance/Lake Tyers, on and on and on, down the south coast of NSW, with forays into East Gippsland), where my paternal grandparents built a home among the trees and lyrebird song (Picton), where my aunt and cousins swelter in the blistering heat, watching the fire front creep closer (Blue Mountains), where I hiked and learnt my smallness (Kosciuszko National Park).
And I am inordinately fortunate compared to most others. I am not one of the half-billion animals killed or billions of plants destroyed. My home is not under threat. Almost all of my family live in inner-city Sydney or Melbourne, and most of my friends and relatives live in urban areas. They are safe — for now.
'My' prime minister (though I did not vote for his government) spent this national catastrophe frolicking on the beach in Hawaii. Then he returned and spent New Year's Eve drinking champagne at his Sydney Harbour waterfront residence with cricketers, claiming, on more than one occasion, that the 'feats' of the cricket team would be sufficient to lift our spirits. (A cricket match in Canberra had to be cancelled due to smoke, way back when Scotty From Marketing was still frolicking in Hawaii.) Former fire chiefs begged for help and damned the government for showing 'no moral leadership' when it came to climate change. Finally shamed into doing something, the government announced emergency measures in the form of a party political ad, which initially had a prominent Donate button. These donations did not go to the fire services, nor to any other charities doing vital work — instead they went to the governing Liberal Party's coffers!. (I have to admit this was the point at which I was truly lost for words.) Instead of taking a shred of moral responsibility, government ministers have contemptuously mocked victims of the fires ('they probably voted Green,' 'they're just unemployed meth addicts') for not showing proper gratitude and deference to the prime minister when he finally graced their burnt-out towns with his presence. There is a concerted effort in the right-wing press and among other, darker corners of the internet to generate a conspiracy theory whereby arsonists, or 'greenies' and red tape from environmental policies have caused these fires, because they lack the decency to examine their own souls, to walk back three decades of climate change denial, coal-fondling greed, and their own contempt for both Indigenous and/or academic expertise.
(I am fearful, in fact, that when — if? — these fires are extinguished, those responsible will walk away with no culpability. I want to hang the shame of it around their necks like an albatross that they can never be rid of. I want the journalists and voters of Australia to haunt them like a Greek chorus, crying shame, shame until they are hounded out of office. They should be forced to wander a wasteland of ruined buildings and blackened treestumps, covered with ash of penitence and shame that can never be removed.)
My words are all burnt out, dried up, ash in my mouth. Read the words of others, who say what I cannot: 'Quiet Australians', a poem written last night, through tears, choking through smoke, by my beloved![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
lowercasename. Read First Dog on the Moon's most recent piece, The pain and terror of these bushfires cannot be held in a single human heart.
Witness us, in the wasteland.
For me, it is memories and feelings that burn, a sense of childhood place.
The city where I grew up, that surreal, planned, charged landscape, is so filled with smoke that its air quality is the worst in the world. An elderly resident died due to the smoke-filled air.
The city where I last lived, where most of my family came from (as much as any non-Indigenous Australian can claim to come from), where most of them live, was over 48 degrees Celcius in places yesterday. It's surrounded by a ring of fire. It's dangerous to use air conditioning as it will bring smoke into the house. Fires furher out have damaged power stations, meaning power outages.
They are not just dots on a map, they are friends marking themselves safe (Bega, Batlow, Tathra), relatives who lost their home to fire two years ago on the verge of losing it again (Falls Creek), my homes away from home, where I learnt to swim and learnt to live in and with the ocean, where my whole hometown decamped every summer, gone in minutes (Broulee, Mossy Point, Batemans Bay, Moruya, Ulladalla, Tilba, Lakes Entrance/Lake Tyers, on and on and on, down the south coast of NSW, with forays into East Gippsland), where my paternal grandparents built a home among the trees and lyrebird song (Picton), where my aunt and cousins swelter in the blistering heat, watching the fire front creep closer (Blue Mountains), where I hiked and learnt my smallness (Kosciuszko National Park).
And I am inordinately fortunate compared to most others. I am not one of the half-billion animals killed or billions of plants destroyed. My home is not under threat. Almost all of my family live in inner-city Sydney or Melbourne, and most of my friends and relatives live in urban areas. They are safe — for now.
'My' prime minister (though I did not vote for his government) spent this national catastrophe frolicking on the beach in Hawaii. Then he returned and spent New Year's Eve drinking champagne at his Sydney Harbour waterfront residence with cricketers, claiming, on more than one occasion, that the 'feats' of the cricket team would be sufficient to lift our spirits. (A cricket match in Canberra had to be cancelled due to smoke, way back when Scotty From Marketing was still frolicking in Hawaii.) Former fire chiefs begged for help and damned the government for showing 'no moral leadership' when it came to climate change. Finally shamed into doing something, the government announced emergency measures in the form of a party political ad, which initially had a prominent Donate button. These donations did not go to the fire services, nor to any other charities doing vital work — instead they went to the governing Liberal Party's coffers!. (I have to admit this was the point at which I was truly lost for words.) Instead of taking a shred of moral responsibility, government ministers have contemptuously mocked victims of the fires ('they probably voted Green,' 'they're just unemployed meth addicts') for not showing proper gratitude and deference to the prime minister when he finally graced their burnt-out towns with his presence. There is a concerted effort in the right-wing press and among other, darker corners of the internet to generate a conspiracy theory whereby arsonists, or 'greenies' and red tape from environmental policies have caused these fires, because they lack the decency to examine their own souls, to walk back three decades of climate change denial, coal-fondling greed, and their own contempt for both Indigenous and/or academic expertise.
(I am fearful, in fact, that when — if? — these fires are extinguished, those responsible will walk away with no culpability. I want to hang the shame of it around their necks like an albatross that they can never be rid of. I want the journalists and voters of Australia to haunt them like a Greek chorus, crying shame, shame until they are hounded out of office. They should be forced to wander a wasteland of ruined buildings and blackened treestumps, covered with ash of penitence and shame that can never be removed.)
My words are all burnt out, dried up, ash in my mouth. Read the words of others, who say what I cannot: 'Quiet Australians', a poem written last night, through tears, choking through smoke, by my beloved
lowercasename. Read First Dog on the Moon's most recent piece, The pain and terror of these bushfires cannot be held in a single human heart.Witness us, in the wasteland.