(no subject)

I'm halfway between medlars and dissertation. Chapter Four is there, asking me why I haven't started writing it yet. I suspect I haven't started writing it yet because the notes have been sitting on my desk for three weeks and I can't for the life of me remember what Chapter Four is supposed to be about.

*miniscule period of time where I consult my door, which contains my dissertation outline (on one side - on the other it contains a complete calendar for the year 1305 including dusk and moon phases and a breakdown of what work I really ought to get done between now and the end of 2012 - my door is more intelligent than I am at the present moment)*

I'm writing about techniques historians can use to get history into fiction. Now I want to know why I couldn't remember that, given it's what I've been working on for eighteen months now (which is why I have a pile of notes). This makes me wonder if I left my brain at the doctor's this afternoon and if it's worth my while walking back there to look for it.

I think I need more coffee.

(no subject)

The news is full of Refugee Week and also Melbourne now having a Catholic bishop who was first a refugee. It makes me realise why I don't understand Australians who want to deny entry to refugees. I know what happens to the descendants of people who flee hate and torture and despair. They have children and those children are us.

I talk about my English ancestry a lot because I'm exploring it right now. Most of me, however, is of other origin. My mother's mother's parents fled the pogroms in Kishinev, for instance and my mother's father found safety in Australia after troubled times in Bialystock*. Very few Jews have ancestry that isn't refugee, one way or another.

This means I absolutely can't understand the people who want to shut Australia's doors. Offering asylum to those in such need should not be an optional extra for a society. Human rights should not be cast aside simply because the country of persecution isn't the one we're familiar with or the means of transport to Australia isn't one we're comfortable with.

I want to say that I don't understand where Australia's distrust of asylum seekers comes from, but I do. Australia has its own streak of racism. I hate it when it means I lose a career or when idiot bigots walk away from a conversation when they discover I'm Jewish, or when someone asks "What would your parents say if you married an Australian." I hate it far more, however, when human beings who are suffering are not given refuge. There are certain basics that we all ought to be able to expect - safety is one of them.




* Arnold Zable's amazing book Jewels and Ashes contains reference to my family - the family that didn't make it to the Antipodes and who died in the Shoah because Australia and most other countries closed their doors