Dircksey ed. 6 vol. 1 "Hush Hush"

Editor and Design: Michael Donnelly editor@ecuguild.org.au Contributors: Hanifa Abdiraihan, Rishi Rawlins, Michael Donnelly, Andrew Douglas, Erin Fewster, Zev Weinstein and Michael Inouye Cover photograph and all inside photography taken by Zev Weinstein All inside illustrations by Michael Inouye Supervisor and Advertising: Tom Reynolds communications@ecuguild.org.au Disclaimer: Dircksey is editorially independent of the ECU Student Guild. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Editor, the ECU Student Guild or the Advertisers. The Editor reserves the right to republish material in Dircksey and its affiliated formats, as well as to make changes to submitted material for clarity or spacing consideration. Contributors retain all other rights of resale or republication.

Editorial

Firstly, I’d like to note that ‘Hush Hush’ is the most cohesive edition of Dircksey thus far. This edition is a big step up from the previous issue, with both the written and visual elements coming together to tell a story of reality and reluctance. It’s a credit to all the contributors for producing an edition that’s fluid and in my opinion, makes sense. Thank you guys.

Secondly, this is the last edition of the year and in all likeliness, the last of my editorship. I’m extremely grateful to have been offered this role by ECU’s Student Guild and equally as pleased I was able to fulfil my expectations over the majority of 2015. I’ve met a beautiful group of people through my work and have learnt things about myself and the world around me that I will hold onto throughout the rest of my life. Some of those things I never expected to learn.

I’d like to specially thank everyone who voluntarily made a submission and everyone who attended a meeting throughout the year. Without these kind and intelligent people, Dircksey would not have seen the light of day. The generosity and candid nature of everyone involved, including their genuine desire to be heard, is the foundation of a community that is fearless and incessantly inspired to share the truth. I did my best to encourage a visceral and forthcoming attitude towards coversation and I hope that readers can and will continue to set Dircksey apart from being just another student rag.

Applications for the editorship are currently open, please see the back for details. I assure you that editing this publication will give you the experience you hope for.

That is enough from me. A big thank you to the Guild for funding this magazine over the year and an honorouble mention for the editorial independence of Dircksey, decided upon by the Guild’s Senate.

It’s been fun.

Happy reading, Michael Donnelly

Contents Gatecreeper ... Page 6 Crazy in the Coconut Together ... Page 10 I Scream, You Scream ... Page 14 Hush, Hush ... it’s HIV ... Page 18 Out of Mind, Out of Sight ... Page 20 Everyone’s Business ... Page 22 Smile ... Page 26

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Gatecreeper Hanifa Abdiraihan Buckle up, folks. The data retention scheme is now in force.

The Australian government will be collecting your metadata – the data about your data – and storing it for two years. It actually has been for a while now, despite much opposition to the initiative. The scepticism is not without reason, especially considering how enormous the volume of information gathered would be. If the Director of the CIA was successfully hacked into recently, there isn’t much guarantee as to how much better the bank of data that the scheme will be holding onto will fare under cyber attacks.

The recent growing emphasis on cyber security also shines light on a new face of warfare – cyber warfare. A few weeks after Barack Obama broke presidential tradition by refusing to stay in a newly Chinese-purchased Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the US and China struck a formal agreement on “appropriate conduct in cyberspace”.

All this comes after a massive July data breach at the US Office of Personnel Management, the extent of which saw millions of current and former federal employees’ personal information compromised.

When one of the leading nations in the field experiences such significant setbacks, to put it very mildly, how can the Australian government be trusted to hold safe the data of their citizens?

It’s been widely acknowledged that the scheme would make for an interesting target for would-be cyber thieves. Other criticisms about the laws include the sheer ineffectiveness of parsing the information for its intended security purposes. While the information will be stored in encrypted formats, by and large it will be available without warrant to law enforcement and security agencies.

To make matters worse, there’s The Capability. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re not the only one, but numerous are those who’ve written about it and since pointed out how ominous that name is. It’s a fittingly threatening moniker for an equally threatening function – a facial recognition system with an ID photo database to cross-reference with facial images captured on accordingly upgraded CCTV systems (such as those in NSW… Sydney-siders, don’t forget to wave and smile).

That many governments, including Australia, are recognising the importance of privacy – or in their case, sovereignty – but have no qualms on spying on their constituents and allies’ constituents, occasionally upon said ally’s request, is purely hypocritical. While political systems are often already lacking transparency on their own, the government’s use and development of technology are veering them towards an even thicker fog.

As a result, there is little the average citizen feels they can do, as they have no way of navigating the machine directly. Faceless acronym agencies become the end-all when it comes to accountability, but that very anonymity feeds into their impunity. The shocking lack of discussion to something as massively intrusive as The Capability suggests this quite strongly. Whether it’s because one could not care less about it, or the fourth estate hasn’t brought it to public attention, the quietness shows that somehow, it is becoming normal to know that one is under a Panopticon-esque surveillance at any time and that is all right.

Legislating cyber technology to establish checks and balances is incredibly important, and the international treaties on cyber security clearly demonstrate that political bodies understand this. Checking security is, after all, what the data retention scheme and The Capability are meant to facilitate. However, there is a lack of provision for citizens to ensure their own checks and balances, whether it is an avenue to note concerns or sufficient providers of information.

Australia, don’t let yourselves down.

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Crazy in the Coconut Together Rishi Rawlins Mental health problems and conditions are not an easy subject for many people, but why? So many of us experience some kind of episode or condition at some point in our lives, or will be close to someone who does. So if it’s something we’re all exposed to, why is it so hard to talk about? My first thought was simply because many of the conditions have complex names that I have trouble pronouncing. After some thought I realised there is probably more to it than that.

People might feel embarrassed or ashamed to feel so out of control or vulnerable. Diagnoses are often complex and misunderstood and sometimes people just don’t want to be a burden. In some more serious conditions, people might not be aware of how far out of touch from reality they have become, or if they are aware they may not want to admit it to themselves or others. Also from the point of view of the listener, it can be unpleasant to say the least hearing stories of sleepless nights due to self hatred, stress or just obvious delusions.

So as you can see there is a pretty good explanation as to why people don’t talk about it! However, the fact is, mental health issues are common for all of us. For example, people have called me crazy because I say my toaster is trying kill me, but it actually is. I call it the burn-a-nator because it only pops up toast when it feels like it. Often it cooks the bread until it burns and smokes out the kitchen, if it weren’t for my ninja-like manual toast popping skills I’m sure it would burn the house down. The interesting part is it only does it with me. Say what you will, but for everyone else it works perfectly. My girlfriend wants to get a new one, but if I do that, the toaster has won. I also can’t afford a new toaster. But this isn’t about me specifically, it’s about the fact mental issues are common and we do need to find a way of building some kind of bridge across emotional barriers to help each other out.

I have known a few people with pretty serious conditions and also worked in psychiatric hospitals with mentally sick people. If there is one thing I would call a bridge, its the ability to talk to people in a respectful, non judgemental way. It is a skill that can take a long time to learn and something I still frequently fail at. When my good friend was having a paranoid delusion, they refused to talk to me because they said ‘I wouldn’t understand’ so obviously I had made them feel judged at some point.

All I could do was tell them I wanted to understand what they were going through. I asked them to be patient with me and tell me as much as they felt comfortable doing and when they did, acknowledged their feelings and thanked them for sharing. This has saved me from lots of hairy situations dealing with anxious people in hospitals, however definitely doesn’t work with everyone. If you want to make things worse and potentially lose your job at the mental hospital, you can agree with peoples delusions and tell them you work for the CIA. It can seem funny for a very short period of time but usually doesn’t turn out well for anyone.

Most cases of mental health issues aren’t severe enough to require hospitalisation. Most are just some degree of loneliness, anxiety, hopelessness or powerlessness but can be still be pretty horrible. Good news is there is always help around. There is always someone to talk to. Even if you’ve managed to socially isolate yourself and burn bridges with friends. There’s still lots of organisations, support groups, chat lines and websites for people going through some kind of issues, because so many people do. What I am trying to encourage by sharing my experiences, is an attitude in society where people are more open and supportive about things, which I’m sure you’d agree is a sensible thing to foster.

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I Scream, You Scream Michael Donnelly Australia does not have an ice epidemic.

This is one particular topic our politicians and media sources aren’t shy to talk about.

The truth is Australia has an ice problem, not an epidemic. The bigger problem is that nobody wants to talk about how to realistically fix it.

Let’s get the fact straight; ice is a very dangerous drug. It can potentially induce psychosis and this is well documented. Even those with a long history of use are sure to experience disturbingly drastic behavioural changes. Nobody in their right mind should ever willingly take the drug because of its cripplingly addictive aftermath.

But does that make someone worthless for trying it? Or dirty, or a waste of space? Or better yet, not even a worthy discussion topic? The big media in this country bangs on about how terrible the drug is, about how it’s taking over the streets and everyone’s life is in danger. Every now and then, a report on a horrible individual murder or robbery per say pops up where the drug was involved. This is front page news. But then they don’t say much else. And this of course, scares the living shit out of gullible people.

Australians believe somewhere between 30 and 100 per cent of our population have tried ice. But the more realistic statistic is only 7 per cent have tried the dug and our media giants are to blame for this blundering misperception.

Not to mention our politicians.

Our former PM Tony Abbott allocated a whopping $18 million to shut down ice syndicates. But what good is that really going to do? Shut down one, and another appears. That’s how it’s working and our national methodology is not working. And this regrettably paints the bigger picture for the entire war on drugs. If we’re going to spend the money, especially that sort of money, why don’t we spend it on rehabilitation and support for users and actually eradicate the drug permanently?

However, rehabilitation and support does not mean normalisation. Again, ice is a dangerous and addictive drug and in contrast to other drugs, ice should not be legalised. The reality is that regulation of the drug would surely encourage more people to try it. This will never be a productive outcome.

We’ve got that much right, but our general attitude towards the drug is all wrong. Most of the time, people try the drug due to circumstances. People can be easily pressured into drug taking this isn’t new. But drug users are not the wretched of the earth and we need to stop pretending like they are. Instead of naively gushing over how terrible the drug is like a pack of righteous idiots, we need to start implementing a real solution. This has become an issue where we all have our individual subjective opinions and we feel too uncomfortable to discuss them. We need to stop turning our backs and waving our fists.

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Hush, Hush... it’s HIV Andrew Douglas Exactly 30 years ago, the famous actor Rock Hudson announced he had HIV and became one of the first major public figures to do so. Since he had been a Hollywood ‘hunk’ of the 1950’s and 60’s, the general public took notice. He was followed by other notables in the entertainment industry including Liberace and the lead singer of Queen Freddie Mercury.

In those early days HIV AIDS tended to be associated with gay men (and, to a lesser extent, intravenous drug users) so admitting to this diagnosis was tantamount to coming out of the closet. But not all suffers, even in those early days of the AIDS crisis were gay.

I had a rude awakening to this one day when I read an article in the newspaper; it was about a HIV sufferer complaining about inadequate parking at the hospital he needed to attend regularly. The article was accompanied by a picture of the man. I was shocked to see it was one of my former university lecturers.

Although I knew he was a haemophiliac, I did not think he might also be an AIDS sufferer.

In those days, the prognosis was not good for anyone with the virus; basically it amounted to a death sentence within a few years. However, this was not the worst of it as the death was not an ‘easy’ one. For anyone who has seen the recent hit film ‘Holding the Man’, they will have some idea of what the end was like for so many often young men.

About twenty years ago, I had a shocking insight into this fact of living (and dying) with HIV AIDS. I was shopping in the city one day when I came across an emaciated man in a wheelchair at the GPO. When I came out of the post office, I walked right past and was able to take a closer look at him. I was stunned to realize that he was someone I had known in the past and had not seen for a number of years.

Given how much he had changed physically, it was not surprising that I did not recognize him at first. He was so emaciated, he looked like a victim of a Nazi concentration camp – more like the victims shown in old newsreels who had not survived and lay in masses on the ground rather than the ones who had. He looked so frail, I was scared to touch him. I thought of my former lecturer and all the other people who might be suffering the same thing. No one should ever have to go through such a terrible decline.

Fast forward twenty years later and drug therapies have improved so much that AIDS is not the death sentence it once was. Sufferers tend to survive much longer and it is not so much a public health issue as it once was. Despite this, it is a terrible burden for anyone to have, something like a ticking time bomb.

While there is no longer a panic in the general public, there is no need to be complacent as there is as yet no definitive cure for the virus. No one should take unnecessary risks whether it be in the area of sexual practices or intravenous drug use. Far too many people have been lost to this disease.

Drug therapies do not always work with everyone to the same degree. Even the remote possibility of someone going through what that poor man suffered is not worth the risk.

Stay safe.

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Out of Mind, Out of Sight Hanifa Abdiraihan 1965 is not a significant year for many. This is incredibly interesting, considering Indonesia was right next door to Australia, committing state-led genocide.

Doubly interesting that the 1965-1966 massacres are not very widely discussed, as a novel about it – ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ – was even adapted into a movie starring Mel Gibson, but then again it might have been more about Westerners kicking ass and finding romance in a scary third world country than about the native lives lost.

Following a failed coup that allegedly involved the Communist Party, there was a swift military response that led to a massive witch hunt for the Communists and eventually the rise of the 30-year-long dictatorship of Soeharto. What started out as a crackdown on communism then spread to a broader criteria of victims, such as progressive cultural organisations, including a notable example made of a ‘women’s movement’ group.

A conservative estimate counts 500,000 deaths, with the higher end at roughly two million.

To put that figure into perspective, the 1965-1966 killings wiped out a total similar to Perth’s entire population in 2013.

Indonesia today is still a young democracy – 60 Dutch-independent years old, but only 18 years free of authoritarian rule. Often touted as the multicultural, democratic success of Asia, Indonesia has functioning elections, the last one in 2014 resulting in the euphoric victory of non-political elite newcomer Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.

While in Australia he is now often associated with the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Indonesians recognize Jokowi as the first president to be completely detached from Soeharto-era ties. His election brought hope to much of Indonesia’s politics-weary citizens, in a country rife with corruption.

Many Western observers exhaled a collective sigh of relief as it was confirmed (after eyebrow-raising shenanigans concerning contested results) that Prabowo Subianto, former general and ex-son-in-law of Soeharto, would not be the next president. The implications of Prabowo’s victory was much too close to the days of Soeharto’s new order for comfort.

However, Indonesians are beginning to question if Jokowi’s presidency means much of a difference at all.

Bali’s 2015 run of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival has had to cancel several of its planned events centred on the 1965 purges under police threats of cancelling its permit for following years.

The news received an outraged response – the annual festival has never had such official intervention before in its 12-year history. A stigma remains around talk of communism in Indonesia, with a law prohibiting the ‘promotion’ of communist ideology, and the reason given by authorities for the cancellations was that the topic could only be discussed by qualified experts.

It has been 50 long years for the victims of this tragedy, with the vast majority never given closure or even proper recognition of their losses. The CIA has previously called it one of the “worst massacres” of its century – ironic, as there are well-substantiated allegations of its involvement in the events. The recent

releases of Joshua Oppenheimer’s provocative and often too-real documentary titled ‘The Act of Killing’ on Soeharto’s death squads and its sequel The Look of Silence exposed the sheer rawness the 1965 killings still leaves behind. This effect was multiplied by Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission producing a statement only mere months later, which acknowledged that serious human rights violations had been committed that year.

There is even an international tribunal – though without legal mandate – on the events of 1965 and 1966 to be held in the Netherlands in November. Some commentators have suggested that these have collectively placed undue pressure on certain figures in authority with an interest to keep a low profile on the topic.

18 years in history is not much time at all, and perhaps it is naïve to wish for so much justice and acknowledgement so soon after Soeharto’s fall. It’s true that it would be a heavy task to install such sweeping reforms, especially with the existence of figures in government with ties to the military, whose heavy involvement and subsequent conscription and propagandising of religion in the largest Muslim population in the world to bolster anti-Communist sentiment launched the killings.

However, it’s simply hypocritical for a country which endeavours to catch up in progress to continue to act this way, and unrealistic to do so when it wants to be considered an equal peer and a rising power in Southeast Asia, especially with Jokowi’s maritime vision.

It has been 50 years, and it will be a long road, but Ubud presents a sterling opportunity to reclaim history.

Indonesians will do well to grasp it.

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Everyone’s Business Erin Fewster Our new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched a multi-million dollar program to combat domestic violence in Australia. So, let’s talk about it. Yes let’s look at the ugly truth that 63 women have died this year alone, due to family violence.

To those that have not experienced family violence first hand, let me tell you how it works from my perspective. As a child, I spent time in a women’s refuge with my mother and brother. The rows of fold out beds and surrounding countless women remain a clear memory of both confusion and fear.

Privacy was key. Fights were not to be discussed at school, with friends nor even extended family. Because every family has fights and we ‘shouldn’t air out our dirty laundry’. Well, as you can see the first positive aspect of Mr Turnbull’s campaign is the fact that domestic violence is now that little bit more out in the public eye.

If someone had stepped in over the years, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps if that neighbour, teacher or friend had spoken up, and said ‘this is wrong’, then they would have made a difference to that family. Perhaps made a difference to that child and her brother. But as a society, I fear we are still trained to look away from conflict.

Historically, what happens behind closed doors is not anyone else’s business. Well this is no longer the case.

You may be aware of a friend that is in a similar situation, and perhaps you’re wondering how to help? Is it your place, is it any of your business? Well, yes it is. Domestic violence is everybody’s business and we can help by having the topic out in the open, to reinforce the truth that secrets of domestic violence are as damaging as the bruises on the faces.

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Silence. Something about silence makes me sick.

Because silence can be violence sort of like a slit wrist.

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Smile J.B You use your senses every day. You listen to people talking to you. Cars driving past. Your footsteps on the pavement. There is always noise, but sometimes there is silence. Silence meaning no noise. Stop and you can hear something. As the sounds of the cars and people disappear, the silent noise takes over. It's a bit like a buzz in your ears. A humming of the air around you. It's loud. Louder than any noise. It seems like it over powers you. You feel as though you can't hear anything else at all. You try cut the silence out, but it doesn't work. You proceed to be tortured by the silence. Tortured by the noise. It's like you're trapped in your own mind. Forced to think. Think about all the things you wish to keep in the back of your mind. The silent noise pushes you to think of things you normally wouldn't. To think of what you don't want to know. There is nothing else to listen to other than your mind. The silence overpowers it. You try to make it silent, silent with no noise. But is that even possible? You push through the loud buzzing. Wrapped up in all your emotions and memories. You fall into a deep trance. Slowly the silent noise takes over you completely and you fall into a soundless sleep.

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Applications are now open for the 2016 Dircksey editorship.

We are looking for enthusiastic candidates passionate about editing and designing an independent student magazine. No previous involvement is necessary. Candidates will need to demonstrate some relevant experience and a strong vision for Dircksey in 2016. The editorship includes an honorarium.

Applications close 1PM November 9 www.ecuguild.org.au