#My country is an ocean of blood and violence with only small islands of comfort | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lucy-abts2030-uq · 1 year

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Creative Reflection

From the driver’s seat on the way home, I watch the fading summer sunlight paint the dry grass golden and I begin to cry with relief. Here are the Moreton Bay figs silhouetted against the sky. Here is the lazy roll of the ocean, the salt crusted over my lips. Here is the smell of burning sugar cane, the hum of cicadas. Here is the fragrant port wine and the shy, blush purple wisteria. Although I now live in Brisbane/Meanjin, I belong to the hinterland of northern New South Wales where I grew up. When I am away, I ache for my family, for the sun-soaked wilderness.

In ‘I used to have a name (for this)’, Mununjali Yugambeh poet Ellen van Neerven carries gum leaves under their tongue from Mununjali country back to Melbourne/Naarm. But the gum leaves under their pillow “are crinkled and / get smaller each day”; their connection to home and country is a phantom limb. Reading these lines for the first time, I burst into tears. Although I don’t experience Indigenous people’s connection to country, I understand feeling like a faded photograph when I am away from home. Gum leaves dissolve under my tongue.

My journey began with this achingly tender image of van Neerven pressing the leaves to their lips and turning memory into a physical part of their body. It touched the small part of myself that is still so scared to be far from home, brimming with love for what I’ve left behind. In van Neerven’s collections Comfort Food (2016) and Throat (2020), love spills from their body into their words: for sex, good food and lovers, for Mununjali and Yugambeh culture and country, and for their community, family and ancestors. I saw myself in van Neerven’s representations of love as an overwhelming bodily sensation: their lover’s “blood and bones … fused” with theirs in ‘this deadly love’; their feet planted in the earth’s “beating heart” in ‘Sacred ground beating heart’. Despite our differences in culture and experience, the sensuality of van Neerven’s poetry momentarily placed me in their shoes. I ached alongside them as they longed for a lasting relationship in ‘How My Heart Behaves’, mourned their grandfather who died without military recognition in ‘Please Pause Today’ and despaired over Aboriginal deaths in custody in ‘Women are still not being heard’. And I wanted to know whether the empathy these poems created could motivate social change in a culture haunted by colonial violence, among people still unwilling to show kindness to those who are different.

As I looked deeper, I realised that van Neervenuses materiality not only to create empathy but to reclaim the Aboriginal body. Since colonisation, European anthropologists have collected Indigenous people’s remains for scientific study, using their physical differences to claim their inferiority. Anthropology reduces Aboriginal bodies to lifeless objects “hatefully” stored in museums away from their country and sacred burial sites, and casts them as Other, “in … oppressive abjection” (Baker et al., 2015, p.64; Baker et al., 2020, p.855). This Othering underscored British colonisers’ 1788 declaration of terra nullius that defined Australia as ‘land belonging to no one’. This dehumanisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continues today through physical violence and the denial of their sovereignty and repression of their histories. Drawing from our in-class engagement with such ideas, I looked for ways in which Aboriginal artists redefine their bodies as subjects, restore these hidden histories, and challenge their constructed Otherness.

Theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha proposes that marginalised individuals cannot express themselves authentically in the language of their oppressors and must “unearth new linguistic paths”, creating radically new language forms to assert their sovereignty and subjectivity (2009, p.20). But when I turned to visual art, I found a slightly different story, particularly in recordings of The Unbound Collective’s 2019 performance event Sovereign Acts IV: OBJECT that made my breath catch. Members Ali Gumillya Baker (Mirning), Simone Ulalka Tur (Yankunytjatjara), Faye Rosas Blanch (Yidniji/Mbarbarm) and Natalie Harkin (Narungga) tread the colonial wing of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. They wear skirts made of leaves and branches, sing and perfor a smoking ceremony, and project phrases such as “we are still afloat in the wake of deep colonialism” and “not your terra nullius” onto paintings of bourgeois settlers and pastoral landscapes. The Collective’s bodies create a new visual language, altering the austere gallery space with their voices and shadows, the haze of smoke and words that highlight the invisible Aboriginal history beneath these colonial institutions. But their bodies layer new stories over old ones, acknowledging the past but adding richer texture. Their bodies occupy the gallery space not as objects of study but dynamic agents of change, becoming a decolonising force that challenges Western power structures (Ferguson, 2018). But although this performance was fiercely provocative, it felt to me as though it was wholly borne of love, of a desire to show that Aboriginal bodies are beautiful, powerful, and connected through relational sisterhood.

The Unbound Collective’s performances transform the Aboriginal body and narratives of Australian history through what curator Clothilde Bullen describes as “loving activism”. In their Sovereign Acts series, The Collective use acts of love to liberate Aboriginal bodies from the abject margins (Baker et al., 2020, p.855). Blanch’s spoken performance about her natural hair describes its “hidden treasures”; it is not a symbol of savagery but a beautiful link to her ancestors’ strength, from which she draws great cultural pride (Baker et al., 2020, p.866). Tur intertwines her own prose and song with her grandmother’s poetry, speaking with her ancestors to “repatriate love” for culture, family, and community amongst new generations (Baker et al., 2020, p.860).

As I have considered how such works simultaneously foster empathy and challenge colonial ideologies, Tracey Bunda and Louise Gwenneth Phillips’ Research Through, With and As Storying (2018) has been a crucial text. Partially told through the authors’ own stories, this work centres Indigenous storying as a multi-disciplinary language and theoretical research practice that challenges Western academic conventions by communicating through emotive, sensual story rather than conventional academic language (Phillips & Bunda, 2018, p.5). Storying emphasises relationality by intertwining the storyteller with their ancestors’ stories and with the reader, sharing emotional knowledge felt through the body (Phillips & Bunda, 2018, p.31). This linguistic pastiche brings forth, values and loves Aboriginal voices, perspectives and knowledge excluded from the Western academic canon, which undermines the authority of the white, masculine intellectual elite (Phillips & Bunda, 2018, p.43).

The Collective, Bunda and Phillips have helped me to understand how van Neerven’s embodied language layers voices. ‘Dalgay/Yugambeh Death Poem’ shows that ancestral pain “will linger … for a lifetime” in van Neerven’s aching back and gallstones in ‘Stomach’. Marina Tyquiengco and Christine Nicholls describe this temporal play as a mutuality between past and present that reflects the ongoing impact of colonial violence and reveals the silenced, painful histories of Indigenous people. By demanding land repatriation, exposing the hollowness of symbolic reconciliation, and highlighting the tragic aftermath of the mission system and the Stolen Generations, van Neerven has challenged me to reflect on my complicity in racism and lacklustre efforts to deepen my knowledge of Indigenous history or pursue meaningful symbolic decolonial action.

But this language that represents the body as a vessel for memory does not only speak of pain. ‘Chermy’ remembers the Chermside home where van Neerven’s mother grew up as a “sacred site”, “safe” in “Nanny’s warm arm” and the nourishment of an Aunty’s “sandwich / and cuppa”. As Jeanine Leane writes, these memories associated with the love and care between the women in van Neerven’s family provide hope for the future and make van Neerven feel they are “rising / to the air space / to the sky”. Storying challenges the notion that the Indigenous body is a site “worthy of violence but not kindness, not tenderness, not care” (Sumac, 2018, p.173). Although there is pain in van Neerven’s work, Throat closes with the lines “We sat up singing … The song will keep going in us”; the Aboriginal body becomes a site of resilience and love.

There’s a tendency in Australian culture to homogenise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and cultural productions. But through layered language, van Neerven and The Collective’s work highlights the diverse experiences amongst Indigenous Australians. To reduce their perspectives to one definition would reinforce the repressive anthropological model that many contemporary Aboriginal artists disrupt by representing their bodies as complex subjects capable of both pain and immense joy, rather than voiceless museum objects.

As Bill Ashcroft and Declan Fry write, the emotional materiality in van Neerven and The Collective’s work creates a dialogue that ties audience and artist together as equal negotiators of meaning. First Nations Canadian writers Smokii Sumac and Daniel Heath Justice call this a “kinship” which affords us deep understanding of artists’ experiences. By reminding me of my own visceral longing for home, van Neerven’s storying sparked an empathetic connection that dissolved the binary between the European Self and the Aboriginal Other.

Affective, embodied storying is important because it emphasises our relationality, creating connections between artist and audience that invite us to be part of a web of kinships across time, space, and culture that highlight our responsibility to care for one another (Barras, 2015). As a white woman I will never completely understand what it is like to live as an Aboriginal person. But we all desire, feel pleasure and sorrow, long for home or a hug from a loved one. I keep coming back to the idea of a love so great that it transcends constructed boundaries between cultures, genders, and species. Like van Neerven carrying the gum leaves in their mouth, our bodies were made to be vessels for the kind of love that we grow to feel for them as we read their words. Admittedly, as van Neerven and artist Fiona Foley argue, “language is empty without ceremony”; it is not enough to consume Aboriginal artists’ work and pat ourselves on the back for being great allies. Artistic empathy must be accompanied by concrete decolonial action, whether that be protesting, using our votes wisely, financially supporting Indigenous businesses, demanding better from politicians, or calling out racism. And what better motivator for this than love? The kind of love encouraged by Ellen van Neerven and The Unbound Collective that makes us despair, laugh, grieve and long with the artist, reminding us that we are kin with all who share our home.

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masquad-fanfics · 7 years

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Click - Songfic (Germany/Ludwig)

“Then that's how it'll be! But don't think I'll go easy on you!" Said a raging Andorra, storming out of the room. The reunion with France had gone terribly wrong. She was trying to sign a treaty with them to share the profits of a new found island close to the south of Africa, but the end went in opposite directions and they were now at war. She was furious, she didn't mean to start a conflict, but France had been an absolute jerk who would only grant them a 10% of the money earned.

"10%!! Does he think I'm stupid?" She said, exposing her thoughts out loud once she reached her home. She stomped up the stairs to her room, and locked herself in. She didn't go out for two days straight, planning possible attacks non stop. Not even Spain dared to go in, and the moment she stepped out with a victorious smile he stared in awe at all the maps scattered around her room.

After a more relaxed afternoon Andorra was back to her usual calm self. Spain was glad, since it could be quite scary living with an angry Andorra, and offered her his help in the upcoming war. She knew she'd need more help though, France was a tough combatant, so she resolved in calling Germany, who gladly accepted.

Preparing for a war wasn't easy. She was a small country and most underestimated her. Even if she always looked shy and sweet she had a strong will and didn't accept a no as an answer if she saw it wasn't a fair choice. Thankfully for her, France thought of her as the awkward little country everyone saw her as, giving her the possibility to launch the first attack. Three long months later and all the weapons and soldiers were ready.

They advanced, with Germany always by her side, confronting all the difficulties found on their way and with luck by their side, knocking all the armies France sent and arriving to the last battle in record time. Why the last battle though? Because until now France himself had never been in the encounter, watching how things turned out from the comfort of his palace.

After camping some nights to regain their strength, the day finally came. Both armies waited patiently for it to start, as France and Andorra spurred their horses to advance to the middle of the field.

“I’m impressed by how far you’ve come. But there’s no use in continuing. You may have won some battles, but you haven’t won the war.” Said France arrogantly “If you surrender now we can continue with the business we were making, no remorse.”

“I’m not gonna accept your mediocre policies. And I will win the war.” She triumphantly stated, turning her horse and going back with her troops.

After giving an encouraging message to her army, Germany decided to speak to her privately before the battle began. “You don’t need to fight yourself. France is not gonna do it.” He said as she finished tying the straps of her armour. “I don’t care what France does. That only proves he’s just a coward. And I’m not. I’ll show him that.”

“Then I’ll be by your side. Always.” He placed his strong arm around her shoulder which surprised her, giving the little physical contact Germany ever gave. She smiled shyly “Let’s do it.”

With a roar both sides began to advance. In a minute the two masses of bodies collided, metallic clashes and gunshots one after the other, the noise increasing and decreasing, accompanied at times with cries of pain. Andorra was at the very front, courage never fading. For now. At one point she turned around, something she should’ve never done. The scene behind her made her shiver to the very core. Bodies were sprawled in difficult angles, blood staining everything and a white smoke from the firearms over the area made the image look even more dreadful. The ones still on their feet attacked without thinking, killing anyone and anything, no matter if they were their enemies or allies. Her eyes nervously scanned the field, shinning with terror and worry. She froze where she was, the clamour of the battle disappearing. That was until she felt a sting of pain in her lower back, which brought her back to reality. She looked down.

No matter how precious this feeling may be.

The sands of time are going to cover it up and make it ambiguous.

At first she saw nothing, but little by little a small dark dot appeared on her attire. It widened, soon soaking her clothes and, at the same time, making her feel dizzier. Realization hit her hard. She had been shot.

But don't say that fate is a cheap word.

Since you're always laughing by my side, you could be the one.

She faintly heard her name being called from afar. She stumbled and closed her eyes for a moment, regaining her balance. When she opened her eyes again a tall figure was standing in front of her. She looked up to see who it was, but the dizziness appeared again with that movement. She felt herself falling, but everything looked strange, like in slow motion. She waited for an impact, but it never came.

“Esmeralda… Esmeralda?!” That was it. Her real name. Not many knew it. She suddenly realized who it was.

“L-lud… wi… g… “ She tried to say. She opened her eyes again, but just that simple effort made her faint.

See, everyone slowly forgets something, no matter how important.

So can I entrust you for a bit

With my memories of you?

Her mind travelled back to some years ago. The day they met. It hadn't even been a week since Spain had recognized her independence. Regardless of this, she continued living in Spain's house, since she couldn't afford living on her own yet. And because it was easier living with more people, since she enjoyed the company. But not everyone did. She wasn't the only one that lived with Spain at that time. Romano, Belgium, Netherlands and many South American countries were also there. Not many really noticed her presence until that day. Having gained her independence made a few countries to envy her. They thought it wasn't fair. Why could she be independent but not them? Still, they never said anything. Until that day.

It was a late October afternoon, and Andorra was going back home after a day of working in her territory. It was already dark, so she didn’t see some other countries that began walking behind her as she got closer to the house.

“Hey Andorra.” They called her, startling her.

“Y-yes?”

“We wanted to congratulate you.” They said. It confused her, they had barely ever talked to her, and they were never specially kind. But she went with it. Maybe they did mean it. “Oh… Thanks.”

“Yeah, it’s really cool you’re independent now. And you gained it without the need of a war!”

“I prefer to be diplomatic. I don’t like using violence.”

Their seemingly genuine smiles disappeared and their eyes somehow looked darker. “Right. Thing is, we do like it. And it’s actually a good method to use when things don’t go quite the way you’d like them to.” Andorra was shaking at this point. She knew she shouldn’t have trusted them, but what else could she do?

“Oh, dear.” They said as they slowly approached to her. “It shouldn’t have been you. You’re weak. You don’t even have an army. You’re still living with Spain, feeding with his money while you enjoy your freedom.” She tried backing away, but she hit the wall behind her in no time. She didn't even dare to look at them, keeping her gaze fixed on her feet. She wanted to stand up to them. Show them they were wrong, that she wasn't weak. But she couldn't. They were true. Hearing their hysterical laughter only terrorized her more, as she sunk down while hugging her knees. If they were going to hit her, at least she wanted to get as less hurt as possible. Right when she thought they were about to start someone else appeared. "Leave her alone!" Shouted the stranger, and his voice was so powerful it scared the other countries away. She heard footsteps approaching her, and the same person from before talked to her, but this time instead of sounding intimidating he was nothing but kind. "Are you okay?" He asked.

She dared to look up to see who was talking to her. She recognized him easily. It was Germany. She had never talked to him, but obviously knew about him. Andorra stared at him for a long moment before remembering he had asked her something and she nodded effusively.

"Here, I'll take you home." He said, reaching out his hand for her to grab. Right when she was about to take his hand the image got blurry and faded.

Just the silhouette of such an uncertain memory is like a thorn.

And makes my heart tighten.

Always.

The blur increased until it was all just a mix of colours. They started to shape again and suddenly Germany was there, holding his hand out, but something was different. All around him was a huge void, the only other thing beside them was a closed door. Andorra had no idea where that lead, or where she was, but she took his hand anyways. She trusted him. He opened the door and a soft breeze caressed her skin. She felt grass under her feet and when she looked up she saw herself, way younger, making a little flower crown. She remembered that day. She wanted to stay there, but Germany kept walking. Suddenly everything changed. Now she was at home, some years older. Her younger self opened a closet and Romano was there, hiding. She remembered that day too, it was when Romano arrived and kept hiding because he didn’t want to stay at Spain’s place. Germany continued, stepping into a room that changed dramatically all of a sudden into an exotic island. Spain was beside a teenage version of her, showing her all the different plants and creatures she had never seen before. Again, another day she vividly recalled, Spain had brought her to a faraway island in the other side of the ocean.

She suddenly realized it. Germany was taking her through all her best memories. Because she was dying. That’s what is said to happen, you remember all your life before you die, like a movie. It all began going much faster and suddenly she saw herself in the battle field, her arms hanging loose while Germany held her close. She didn’t want to leave him like that. Not without saying goodbye.

I have the last missing piece

of this incomplete puzzle.

She coughed and her eyes fluttered opened.

"Esmeralda!" Germany exclaimed, hope soon replacing his sorrow. She smiles weakly and her heart warmed when he said her name. She opened her mouth to speak, but Germany didn’t let her. “No! You don’t need to say anything.” He said in a rush. She placed a hand over his chest and shook her head. “I-i… h-have to.” She whispered. Her voice was shaky and raspy, and pronouncing every word drained her. But she had to continue. She didn’t have the strength to do anything else, so Germany had to prevent her from collapsing in the floor, holding her body as close to him as possible. With the arm that he wasn’t using to hold her he carefully tucked some damped strands of her black hair.

“Ludwig, I w-wanted to… t-thank you. For always been there for… me.” As she talked Germany’s eyes watered, something she had never seen happening. “But… you c-can’t save me… this time.”

“No… There has to be a way.” He refused to believe he was just about to lose her.

“There isn’t. This is goodbye.”

I want to hear your memories unfold.

“Just remember me… please.” She took a deep breath and prepared to say her last words. “And remember that… I love you.”

And with that, she was forever gone.

So this is for you.

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