so looking through my files. discovered this. it was written six months ago for a zine i meant to finish but in typical fashion haven't gotten around to it yet. anyway with the year anniversay coming up it seems appropriate now.

CAMP SOVERIEGNTY

KINGS DOMAIN 12th March
One. One, two. One, two, three, three helicopters. One two three helicopters circle the sky. It’s three days until the Stolenwealth Games commence and these helicopters are meant to somehow make me feel happier, more peaceful and relaxed. Gees what kind of world are we living in when the sound of choppers circulating and keeping the air ‘free’ is meant to be a soothing sound. God I don’t know. I wonder whether there was this much security for the Olympics in Sydney, whether people fell asleep to the sound of airplanes and helicopters. I suppose I should get used to it but fuck that why should I get used to this paranoid country, this paranoid world… this paranoia within me. Why?

It’s four in the afternoon. Loud techno music is playing in the background as a couple of thousand people get their kicks off at Earthcore in the city. I’ve been sitting here in Kings Domain since 11. Today’s the first day of the indigenous protest camp. We were to meet under the statue of King George (extremely appropriate!) at 11 and set up camp from there. Of course the socialist couldn’t help but get their hands in the mix by selling their rags to everyone. I think I was sitting there for only maybe five minutes when I was accosted by a Trot or some fringe branch Marxist member hocking a newspaper. To make things easier they’d even printed out a little piece of paper telling me twhich issue had an article dealing with indigenous rights.

After sitting there for an hour a meeting was called where Clare Land and a legal advisor spoke about the issues surrounding the camp. About the new gazetting rules that meant the state government could excise any part of the city as a games site. And as such quell any protest or voices that ‘disrupt the enjoyment of others’, that present an alternative view to that of the state governments media and tourist angle and there excessive budget.

This speech lasted for ten, twenty, thirty I don’t know however minute it was. Anyway however long it was the speech took place and then we headed over to the site that had been chosen as the campsite, all a hundred metres away. Here, the two hundred or so of us ferals, punks, student, activists, whatever the fuck we are calling ourselves these days, sat in a circle and listened to speeches by Isobella Coe, Targan, Robbie and Marge Thorpe, Robert Corowa and Uncle Kevin welcoming us to the camp and to the sacred fire. At the end of the speeches we all rose from the circle and grabbed a branch of gum leaves from in front of us and put it on the fire. As we walked back to the circle the city become covered in smoke and the smell of eucalyptus travelled down the hill, releasing bunjl to spread his message. Even one of the police officers, whose intention was to put the fire out, walked hand in hand with Robert Cowora to put a branch on the fire.

Since the first smoking ceremony ended- around one- we’ve been sitting around waiting to hear news of whether we’re allowed to set up the camp. Namely whether we’re allowed to use pegs and where is the best place to put the tent to ensure that we don’t pierce the sprinkler system. Also we’ve been waiting to hear back from the rangers the more important news of whether or not the sprinkler system will be shut off. Apparently all will be told by mid afternoon.

To occupy time some of us have been handing out flyers to the crowd heading up to the myer music bowl for Earthcore. I think in the half an hour or so I was handing out flyers only two or three people grabbed them. Mostly people just ignored me and walked on by. I guess guilt holds them back. Or maybe they’re not interested, which is worse. I talk with one of the other guys who has been handing out the flyers. He says he’s experienced a similar thing of being stared straight through, of being accosted and ignored. I guess though that’s what we’re looking to experience, that this ignorance is what encourages us to continue putting ourselves out there. Eventually someone, some idea will spark and things will just hit off. I mean there is two hundred of us waiting to set up a protest camp so it’s not as if there’s no hope in this country, or as if we’re not attempting to forge our own paths.
Anyway so it’s four o’clock and I’m sitting here at King Domains listening to an argument between a couple of punks and one of the guys from Earthcore in the city. I want to interject and get involved but I’m enjoying playing the role of voyeur and eavesdropper from the moment. Chris- I hope, I think that’s his name- is sitting there telling the two punks about the paranoia in his head. How he fought in Iraq, how he fell asleep twenty miles south of Baghdad to the sounds of bombing, how as he walks through the streets of Melbourne he expects the buildings to explode any moment. He explains how he doesn’t understand the protests about the war in Iraq, whether we hate him or not, why there were so many people out on the streets, that when he learnt about the protest over in Iraq he was pissed off at this country and all on those on the streets. A point to which the punks reply is that they’re not attacking him personally but rather the system that sends them off to the war; that the anger of the people on the streets was anger at John Howard for sending them off to war, a war that this country doesn’t need to fight. That they don’t want to see a body lost for a fight that is not really ours to fight, in a struggle to appease and keep up some delusional relationship with a psychotic country.

A point to which Chris counteracts that he to hates John Howard for sending him to war and that he wishes he hadn’t even been in the army but since his dad had and his dad before that there was nothing else he could do. And well besides once you’re in the army you can’t leave without the risk of going to jail. That even if this is not a war we’re meant to be fighting that it’s still better to be on the side of America rather than against. That even though he hates Howard for sending him to Iraq that he still voted for him and still will in the future. An argument that infuriates the two punks as that is the problem, that as a country we don’t need to go into war. That we shouldn’t be siding with America, that it’s this siding that leaves us in situations like we are.

I sit here watching all this, thriving on the intellectual argument. It reminds me of watching the Australian Open with my nan and pop, or sitting in class at uni laughing as lecturers argued amongst themselves (their theorists sitting on their shoulders like little devils/angels), or like two gazelles fighting in the plains of Kenya. It’s interesting but also headache inducing. After an hour or so the argument dies and Chris leaves heading down the hill into the city. I turn and talk to the two punks the look on our faces say it all. Here’s someone we’ve gotta free and it’s going to take more than an hour to free him and it’s going to split heads to do it. I’m glad I didn’t open my mouth because I probably wouldn’t have articulated everything as well as they did. Probably would have gotten infuriated. And besides truth be told I wouldn’t have remembered as much of what was going on.
It’s five o’clock now and we’ve just been told we can set up camp. The next hour or two is spent putting kitchens and fires in place and setting up the sound system for the week of festivities that have been planned. To set up the information tent, the medical centre, the barbie, our own tents, to collect enough leaves for the fire, for the daily smoking ceremony, to ensure that the spare blankets are ready to be used, that everyone can settle and buckle down for the next two weeks and wake up tomorrow ready to plan everything, ready to head on down to the yarra for the ANTAR stolenwealth protest that is taking place.

That night I fall asleep thinking of Chris and Iraq and the helicopters flying overhead and wonder what the next fortnight is going to be like. As I wake twice during the night once to a rehearsal of the opening ceremony and the screaming of woman for her partner to get his arse over, another to the sound of pouring rain I realise it’s going to be quite tiring but not nearly as full on a war as that in Iraq. We may be saturated and captured by media images, may be isolated and alienated and feel scared and paranoid from helicopters floating over head, from the glorification of violence on the screens in front of us, but at least we’re not over in Iraq or Afghanistan being put on the frontline for some false ideological battle. That we’re free to come and go as we like and that all we can do is attempt to free others no matter how much they try and stick to the centre. That we have to free ourselves and those around us, in spite of the habits that we’ve been indoctrinated into and which we so easily fall into, in spite of the headache inducing moments that come along with that.

FORTHCOMING

For the past few months i've been haphazardly working on a zine entitled autosuggestion (after the joy division song). Owing to cost and other reasons the zine will be limited to 60 copies. At the moment its stalled owing to delays to do with waiting for others to get back pages to me. In other words normal, i guess, collaboration issues. That said it has been great and i love the idea of cutting and pasting and collating and putting together the zine. And love working with and seeing the way in which all these disparate and different pages and people have created something so beautiful. Even more given that the friend who's zine it is is of galavanting through the forests or the beaches of South america. Every time I look at the box or work a little on it I'm left thinking of him and the crazy and wierd and beautiful spaces he is visiting. This is an extract I've written for the zine. It's also the beginnings of another piece I still fantasise about writing. One in which all the buskers and street artists of melbourne are written about. Enjoy the article. If you get the chance check out phelixs site to: www.phelix.com [i wish i could remember the way to link this here detail]



THE STREETS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF ART

A Saturday afternoon in late April outside PSC, he stands cigarette in mouth talking to a passerby. His left hand outstretched pointing at one of his abstract paintings. He's offering an explanation of it to the couple before him. It's an attempt to draw a woman washing the dishes he says. An attempt to draw its beauty without it becoming too erotic, too sensual. I crouch on the ground listening in on this and wait to ask him questions about another one of his works - his blog. I only know of this man by the chalk address on the pavement www.pheelix.com. A couple of minutes pass. I read about the nostalgia of Easter now that he's no longer Catholic. As I read I continue listening in on the conversation. The couple are from Ballarat and want to buy the painting so Pheelix invites them around to his studio tomorrow. They're only down in Melbourne for the day but thank him nevertheless. I sit and continue reading his blog. My mind is filling with questions. What are people's reactions? Was there a struggle when the games were on? What's more important the process or the final product? Does he see the blog medium as a way of breaking down the barriers around the artist? Is there a grander purpose to the blog? I look up and find him standing over me. I freeze momentarily trying to think of the best approach to take to asking him questions. The first query that springs to mind is about the Commonwealth Games. He says he avoided the city whilst the games were on - too many people, too many hassles and not enough room for the street artist to live. He mentions though that people would often express their anger when learning that their rates were being spent on cleaning up graffiti. The conversation shifts and I ask him about peoples reaction. He answers that he's experienced everything from joy and congratulations to outright hatred. I ask him where he thinks the hatred stems from. He doesn't offer an explanation, just annoyance over what he's doing and over his artwork. I glance down at the blog before me, no graphic sexual exploitation or acts of violence, just images of the banality of life. Of the struggle to eat, of riding the tram, of the search for love and the depths of loneliness. I guess people are terrified of the dull reality of their lives and enjoy hiding behind the sensationalist images of the world. The conversation switches again and I ask him about breaking down the barrier around the artist. For him art is a process. The notion of the artist working away for one ot two years to produce some work of art for others to look and theorize over angers him. Art should be open and fluid, it should be continuing everyday. The blog for instance is a year long project with each page eventually being sold to raise funds for a children's organisation. I stand and listen forgetting to mention how much of a good idea that sounds. A friend of his walks over with a coffee and our conversation ends. I grab a pen and paper from my bag and write down his address, I'll be sure to check out the website online on Monday. I put the pen and paper back in my bag, read a couple of pages and then head off to the tram stop to meet up with a friend for dinner.

Notes are Theories, theories are notes.


so i've been thinking about guilt a lot lately and wondering where it fits into my life . as anyone who knows me will know i have a preoccupation with guilt, a preoccupation that is worse than any catholic you'll have meet and i haven't even been to a church service a day in my life. wierd? i know! lately it's been bugging more often than not and i've been wondering how i came to let myself be ruled by such a murky and cloudy emotion and mood as guilt. how i allowed myself to rational it has part of some white mans burden. i've been thinking about it and came up with a couple of little theories or thoughts about guilt. there just thoughts and will be left as that. nothing less or more.

GUILT and PARANOIA

In analysing my guilt i've come to realise that a lot of it is actually paranoid or imagined guilt. that a lot of it stems from my worry and concern about pleasing other people and what i think they feel or should feel. of course naturally no one feels how i feel and no one feels how i imagine they should and so when that happens i'm left with a hole to fill and well this hole is guilt. and over time this whole becomes increasingly filled until it's overflowing and i'm left with this dark murky cloud surrounding me.


GUILT and ARROGANCE

having been involved around the fringes of activist circles and politics for a couple of years i'm often left wondering how much of politics and society is based on creating feelings of guilt and worthlessness in others. that as activist our motivation came from the assumption that other people don't think or feel that way and they need to be made to feel guilty about that. the probably with this then comes if this is the sole motivation of a persons action then they may never give there all or give up some of that control and power.

GUILT and CONTROL

Essentially I see Guilt as a control mechanism implemented or instrumented by the Judeao-Christian western world i live in. It's an institution that runs as deep now as it did 2000 years ago when christ died even though the capitialist society in which we live is meant to be secular. we learn to act guilty or feel guilty because we are told that this or that is not right and when we do something that flags those constructed walls of emotion we fill this with guilt.


so there you go some notes on a theory of guilt.
read them. there's more to think and rework. what's yr take on the topic?