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Have Your Say on the Victorian Bushfires in the AWO Discussion Forums
I have lived in Greece for nearly thirty years, but am still irrevocably, unrepentantly Australian: just ask my three sons.
So I keep my telescope trained on the Wide Brown Land, and have never been more moved by her vulnerability as now, when my very own Victoria is suffering so greatly. But how right Dorothea McKellar was about geographical and meteorological variation: while Victoria burns, Queensland is drowning.
For telescope, read cyberspace. My friends in city and country email almost daily in order to keep me informed as to how things are going, or might go. Especially in times of crisis, and this is the worst one I can recall, even though 1983 was shocking enough. My brother is a volunteer in the State Emergency Service; his daughter works for the Bureau of Meteorology, so I am well able to keep my finger on the pulse.
The statistics stagger me. The number of houses gone, the area, three times the size of Hong Kong, that has been laid waste. The pretty tourist spots, so much part of memory, that are no more. And the terrible statistics of death: 170, my most recent email tells me. Then there are the all-too-human vignettes: the parents trying to save children and failing, the people who left escape just that fraction too late, the awfulness of the handsome and affable TV newsreader meeting his death in such a dreadful and arbitrary way.
It is hard to concentrate. I check on this country friend and on that relative, feeling a great gush of relief when the news is good, as it has been so far, thank God.
But because I am so removed in time and space, I have a certain amount of built-in detachment, and my cyber-correspondents also seem to feel some freedom in expressing email thoughts that might perhaps get lost over the dinner-table. One concern is that of overt sympathy expressed by politicians. My friends and I are much of an age, and we do not remember the politicians of our youth touring scenes of disasters, wiping their eyes, comforting victims, and promising largesse.
Don’t get us wrong: these visitations are a good thing, for all sorts of reasons, morale being just one of them. But a special friend, much blessed with the rare quality of empathy, emailed to wonder why it is that the very poor, the long-term unemployed, and the mentally ill are not so favoured. I would add the isolated aged to that list.
It is a question well worth pondering. One answer might concern human nature, by turns a simple but also complex thing. Despite the quiet life of Haworth, Charlotte Bronte knew what she was about when she wrote, via the character of Jane Eyre, that human beings ‘ must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.’ I do not doubt the sincerity of grief shown by Messrs Rudd and Brumby for a moment. And they are not alone: there are huge numbers of grieving people who feel helpless at this time. Politicians are able to take action. And so they do. But concentration of action may not last. Even though it needs to.
Another matter to ponder is that human nature also has a limited concentration span. Hence the success of so much guerilla action: a short plan, the wait for the opportunity, the strike, and then the withdrawal that is always joined to the hope of another strike. A direct threat is also so much easier to cope with; compare the Blitz with various wars of attrition. The case is made so much stronger if the war of attrition has nothing in particular to do with you: people quite simply lose interest.
So that may be the explanation for the lack of attention given to the aforementioned groups: they are always around. Nor are they ordinary; it is the average person, or the famous one in time of crisis that draws attention, not the long-suffering, the enduring, the patient, the deprived, the long-term ill, who are always with us.
In 1975 Gough Whitlam urged the Australian public to maintain its rage. Rage needs to be maintained now against those unspeakable people who are guilty of arson. But we also need to maintain our compassion. For the victims of the fires. But also for many others. And in the long term. My brother can have the last word here, because I think it about sums the situation up: Perhaps people will stop moaning about the economy now, and get on with helping each other.
Here’s hoping. And praying.
About the Author
Australian born Gillian Bouras was a teacher in Victorian secondary schools before unexpectedly migrating to Greece with her Greek husband and two sons in 1980. A third son was born in Athens in 1981. Gillian now lives in the Peloponnese, but still makes the occasional trip back to Australia. (She will always be Aussie!!).
As a journalist, Gillian has been published in six countries. She has also published eight books, six with Penguin Australia including: No Time for Dances: A Memoir of My Sister
Photo Credit: Tom Carrafa (The Australian) – www.theaustralian.news.com.au
Have Your Say on the Victorian Bushfires in the AWO Discussion Forums