2017 Edition 6

MURDER | IKEA | SUPERBUGS

FARRAGO EDITION 6 2017

RADIO FODDER 2017 SEMESTER 2 TIMETABLE TIME

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

9:00

FRIDAY Off Beet

10:00

Mango Season

Curiosity

11:00

The Linus Show

Mudcrabs Radio

12:00

Snappy Hour

The Mein Event

Drive Yourself Home

Sound and Vision

The Biggest Blackest Show

1:00

Accretion Disc

Rat’s Tossbag

Only One Kernoby

The Ferg Neal Show

Cogitate

2:00

Kool Things

Binge ‘n’ Bants

Clickbait

3:00

Rich Mahogany

4:00

Brit and Bogan

When she speaks

5:00

Trash Hour

A Currant, A Fair

6:00

Media 101

Network Disabled

7:00

The Union

The Language Socbites (monthly)

What Madwomen Want

MAC and Cheese

The Bedtime Show

Disagreed

EDM Hotpot

Spectrum

Sub Sessions

Songmeaningsdotcom

Fruits of Film Nominal Interest

TUNE IN, SPACE OUT

RADIOFODDER.COM RADIOFODDER.AIRTIME.PRO

Fuse

CONTENTS COLLECTIVE 02 03

COMMENTARY

contributors editorial

21 22 24 26 27 38 30 31 32 34 35 36 38 40 41 42

CAMPUS 04 05 06 07 08 10 11 11 12 14 14 15 18 19

news nuggets september calendar home system ďŹ rst response i'd fap to that outside the college bubble take a hike accessible arts the death of the club racist posters reform-ed OB reports breaking (the) news unimelb ďŹ eld guide

next stop: outer space resistance made futile life in parkville terrorism: in conversation sick sad world the elephant in the room pupils the science of scent make sense of substance abuse on the origin of strangeness rituals killer instinct muslim in malaysia artist manifesto the emptiness of empty space nectar, honey and pudding

CREATIVE 44 45 46 48 51 52 53 54 56 58 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 68

devoted marble statue in a bath of red wine the world is fucked pt. 6 everything is haunting introvert soiled queues list-ening badfellas weathered instructions for a ritual of healing; de profundis queen street recollections il pleut: a collection of quiet thoughts teen ghoul heartthrob chroma for and against: ikea

ARTWORK BY CHARLOTTE BIRD-WEBER 01

COLLECTIVE

THE FARRAGO TEAM EDITORS Alexandra Alvaro Amie Green James Macaronas Mary Ntalianis CONTRIBUTORS Ashleigh Barraclough Benjamin Clarke Darcy Cornwallis Ashley McDougall Martin Ditmann Tilli Franks Natalie Fong Rhoanna Furneaux Neala Guo Ilsa Harun Ashleigh Hastings Lauren Hunter Tara Jadwani-Bungar Havah Kay Ruby Kraner-Tucci Anthony Kuiper Hanna Liu Jasper MacCuspie Suzie Markel Lilly McLean Claire Miller Alain Nguyen Ruby Perryman Ruby Schofield Greer Sutherland Sean Wales Charlotte Wallin Lucy Williams Stephanie Zhang WEB Jenny Huynh Jack Kaloger Cathy Weng

SUBEDITORS Elizabeth Adams James Agathos Lucy Andrews Kergen Angel Harry Baker Amy Bartholomeusz Amelia Bensley Daniel Beratis Sue-Ann Chan Esther Crowley Noni Cole Esther Le Couteur Sebastian Dodds Katie Doherty Alessia Di Paolo Simone Eckardt Victoria Emerson Esmé James Annie Jiang Celine Lau Vicky Lee Maggy Liu Caitlin McGregor Sinead Medew-Ewen Ellen Muller Jeremy Nadel Jesse Paris-Jourdan Ellie Patton Sarah Peters Ed Pitt Lara Porczak Jeffrey Pullin Claudia Seers Alf Simpson Felicity Sleeman Morgan-Lee Snell Reilly Sullivan Peter Tzimos Matt Wojczys Alice Zeng Stephanie Zhang

GRAPHICS

Charlotte Bird-Weber Ella Hope Broadbent Edie Bush Leung Chin Ching Ewan Clarke-McIntyre Cornelius Darrell Anwyn Elise Veronica Fernando James Goh Minahil Munir Hamdani Ilsa Harun Darus Noel Howard Kyaw Min Htin Carolyn Huane Lauren Hunter Winnie Jiao Clara Cruz Jose Esther Le Couteur Sarah Leong Sarah Fang-Ning Lin Lisa Linton Hanna Liu Eloyse McCall Lilly McLean Rachel Morley Amani Nasarudin Sam Nelson Alain Nguyen Marlow Perhaps Wasinee Phornnarit (Gwen) Elena Piakis Ruth Simone Rathjen-Duffton Amelia Saward Nellie Seale Morgan-Lee Snell Sophie Sun Selena Tan Jasmine Velkovski Reimena Yee

COLUMNISTS Madeline Bailey Anwyn Elise Alex Epstein (Radio Fodder blog) Ilsa Harun James Hazeldine Carolyn Huane Claire Longhouse (Radio Fodder blog) Tessa Marshall Harry McLean Matilda Morley (Radio Fodder blog) Monique O’Rafferty (online) Ed Pitt Danielle Scrimshaw Katherine Scott (Radio Fodder blog) Claudia Seers (online) Benjamin Smart (Radio Fodder blog) Linus Tolliday SOCIAL MEDIA Elizabeth Haigh Ilsa Harun Annie Liew Monique O’Rafferty Acacia Pip Ramone Taanya Rohira Mega Safira Maddie Spencer Richard Hinman COVER Clara Cruz Jose Farrago is the student magazine of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), produced by the Media Department. Farrago is published by the General Secretary of UMSU, Yasmine Luu. The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of UMSU, the printers or the editors.

Farrago is printed by Printgraphics, care of good egg Nigel Quirk. All writing and artwork remains the property of the creators. This collection is © Farrago and Farrago reserves the right to republish material in any format.

ARTWORK BY WASINEE PHORNNARIT (GWEN) 02

COLLECTIVE

EDITORIAL

B

etween moving into our new office, putting Edition Six together, commissioning a new season of shows on Radio Fodder, working on our creative writing anthology, Above Water (in conjunction with the fabulous Creative Arts) and getting ready for our student election coverage, we’ve been busy people, even by our usual frantic standards. So, in anticipation of the automated workforce, we got a computer to write our editorial based on the previous five. Here is what the machine came up with: 2017. What a party and scary float – tantrum! We shaped the way you like your pills. Keep a dragonfly, this most I’ll read and for better.

Sex, Australia. Up, submit! Power (lots), terrified, and we’re into the Union. Pretty as life with bananas! It substitutes a reliable reach, flickers things one’s succumbed to and – materials notwithstanding – we can take out people. Yuck. Sinuses smell theories, indiscriminate and captivating work, goddamn rumbling with Tasmanian emotions. Wetsuit or ziplock depression? The bitter University out the back, after our readers go shit supernova. Water. Submit! Luckily, we shine, fire from our clay. Welcome. Isn’t Alex just perforated? Is impossible the best out? Farrago slime. Be people not discharge, my not-thing (nodding), be you! She bags the editor, biting the walls, like condom kinks. Gorgeous, awkward and into the asteroids. Kanye swim. Shift. Pluto is roughly five colours down the towers, shaming. Over the iconic, lots of commentary, ‘that’ magazine. James whistling was an epidemic to send up normal nothings like an editorial. (The cough idiots hoped we’d break?) Yes, algae, soprano, quarry and dominance. Kinks swallow void. We’re up Rod – you are insignificant. Open time, feel sex shine and decide that a disrespecting Virgo? then, out! Cubicles, women off. Email you two things – One, keep the next. Two – fuck better with fruits and the spine halfway in. Void neon. Confrontation brightened it. Mary, curious, took a critical hi-five. Get your roof pissed (bitter, stressed, excited, happening). Amie, the year you give kinks here could be journalism or dangerous to know instead. These emotions anything, dead experimentation. Pretty shoes weep but HELP! It paints the animals of art, not heterosexuality. Not approaching the panicked edges. Editorial leaving you now. This is it. For you, the more challenging nature, with its indiscriminate sinuses, like it’s yourself. Write weird and even on. Go fuck yourself? Beautiful.

Beautiful indeed. While we don't have the time to write something as obfuscating as the above, we do have the time to tell you some of the things to look at in this exciting new edition of 'that' magazine. In our campus section, you can read Ashleigh Hastings' and Alexandra Alvaro's report on the harrowing results of the landmark survey on campus sexual assault (pg. 7) or Sean Wales' and Alain Nguyen's take on the different reasons people think student involvement is definitely in decline (pg. 12). Over in commentary, Stephanie Zhang examines her own experience voluntouring overseas in 'The Elephant in the Room' (pg. 28), while 'Nectar, Honey and Pudding' (pg. 42) is a striking portrait of dysphagia and dementia by Suzie Markel. There's a profusion of poetry in this edition – Anthony Kuiper's 'Devoted' (pg. 44) and 'Marble Statue in a Bath of Red Wine' (pg. 45) were so visceral and intimate that we had to print them in the colour of blood, while 'a collection of quiet thoughts' (pg. 64) by Greer Sutherland fractures the boundary between prose and poetry in the same way screaming might.

Please don't fret about the rise of the machines. Even though a computer helped us with this editorial, we're always around (organs and all) to hear you out, share your stories and lend a hand. Until then, you know the drill.

Go fuck yourself, Alex, Amie, James and Mary.

BACKGROUND BY SELENA TAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN-LEE SNELL 03

CAMPUS

NEWS NUGGETS NO LONGER IN PLEBI-SIGHT The same sex marriage plebiscite has been blocked by the senate for the second time, meaning the Government will hold a non-binding postal vote.

ACADEMICS ASSEMBLE University of Melbourne staff are currently preparing to take action against the University’s proposal to have split contracts for academic and administrative staff, which the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has said will be a loss for professional staff.

SAFETY RUN This year, Prosh, the largest annual student run event on campus, committed to ensuring a plethora of new safety measures for students, including safe reporting procedures, first aid training and risk assessment.

FUCKED FLUX The University has answered questions on notice for the Senate Enquiry into the proposed changes to higher education. It argued the bill would reduce student choice and in a worst case scenario, destroy the Melbourne Model.

WE'RE SORRY Universities have come forward to apologise to the victims of on-campus sexual assault. Monash Vice Chancellor, Professor Margaret Gardener, said on the morning of the release of the results: “We are sorry that this happened to you. Sexual assault is a crime. The person who sexually assaulted you had no right to do what they did. It is not your fault.”

WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT For the fourth time since March, the National Union of Students has run a protest against cuts to higher education. Just over 100 students attended the Make Education Free Again protest at the State Library.

Representatives from the NTEU and CFMEU made speeches in support of students and unionism.

FULL STEAM AHEAD The Metro Rail Project working group at the University has made preliminary assessments regarding disruptions to teaching, indicating there will be minimal disruption. In the coming months, it will engage the University community to assess how the project can be used as a learning tool for students through internships, access to experts and access to teaching resources.

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK UMSU has welcomed new Indigenous Officer, Alexandra Hohoi, after the resignation of Wunambi Connor.

HELPING HANDS UMSU is currently looking into how the University can provide students with better access to career support – an aspect of university life that students are currently dissatisfied with, according to a survey conducted by the University in 2016.

MO' MONEY, MO' PROBLEMS Glyn Davis is second highest paid Vice Chancellor in Australia with a salary package of $1,145,000 in 2016. The highest paid Vice Chancellor is Australian National University’s Brian Schmidt.

ARTWORK BY LISA LINTON 04

CAMPUS

SEPTEMBER CALENDAR WEEK 5

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

WEEK 8

Monday August 21 12pm: Disabilities – Mental Health Support Group @ Training Room 1 6pm: Creative Arts – Mudfest opening night, The Hub, Level 1 Union House

Monday 28 12pm: Disabilities – Mental Health Support Group @ Training Room 1 1pm: Activities – Portrait PaintOff & BBQ

Monday 4 12pm: Disabilities – Mental Health Support Group @ Training Room 1

Monday 11 12pm: Disabilities – Mental Health Support Group @ Training Room 1

Tuesday 22 10am-2pm: Enviro – Bike Co-op 12pm: Women's – Women of Colour Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: Activities – Tuesday BBQ @ North Court 2pm: Enviro – Enviro Collective @ Joe Nap A 5.15pm: Enviro – GreenScreen (movie screening) @ Arts Hall 7pm – Creative Arts & Media – Above Water Launch @ Arts West Grad Lounge

Tuesday 29 10am-2pm: Enviro – Bike Co-op 12pm: Women's – Women of Colour Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: Activities – Tuesday BBQ @ North Court ft. Jungle Giants 1pm: PoC – People of Colour Collective @ Graham Cornish B 2pm: Enviro – Enviro Collective @ Joe Nap A 4.30pm – Media – Farrago Edition 6 launch @ Tsubu Bar 5.15pm: Enviro – Play With Your Food @ Food Co-op

Tuesday 5 10am-2pm: Enviro – Bike Co-op 12pm: Women's – Women of Colour Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: Activities – Tuesday BBQ @ North Court ft. Fraserdaze and Pekoe 1pm: Queer – Trans Collective @ Training Room 2 2pm: Enviro – Enviro Collective @ Joe Nap A 5.15pm: Enviro – GreenScreen (movie screening) @ Arts Hall

Tuesday 12 10am-2pm: Enviro – Bike Co-op 12pm: Women's – Women of Colour Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: Activities – Tuesday BBQ @ North Court ft. Rackett with Slumplifter 1pm: PoC – People of Colour Collective @ Training Room 2 2pm: Enviro – Enviro Collective @ Joe Nap A 5.15pm: Enviro – Play With Your Food @ Food Co-op

Wednesday 23 12pm: Women's – Women's Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: PoC – People of Colour Collective @ Graham Cornish B 1-2pm: Mudcrabs – Rowdy Laughter 1pm: Queer – Queer Lunch @ Queer Space 5.15pm: Disabilities – Disabilities Collective @ Training Room 1

Wednesday 30 12pm: Women's – Women's Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: Queer – Queer Lunch @ Queer Space 1-2pm: Mudcrabs – Rowdy Laughter 4.15pm: PoC – Race and Diaspora Reading Group @ Training Room 2 5.15pm: Disabilities – Disabilities Collective @ Graham Cornish A 7pm: Activities – Comedy Union Night

Wednesday 6 12pm: Women's – Women's Collective @ Women's Room 1pm: PoC – People of Colour Collective @ Graham Cornish B 1-2pm: Mudcrabs – Rowdy Laughter 1pm: Queer – Queer Lunch @ Queer Space 5.15pm: Disabilities – Disabilities Collective @ Training Room 1 7pm: Activities – Trivia

Wednesday 13 12pm: Women's – Women's Collective @ Women's Room 1-2pm: Mudcrabs – Rowdy Laughter 1pm: Queer – Queer Lunch @ Queer Space

Thursday 24 12pm: Clubs – Clubs Carnival 12pm: Queer – Queer People of Colour Collective @ Mary Cooke A 1pm: Creative Arts – Creative Arts Collective 1pm: Queer – Queer Games @ Queer Space 5.30pm: Ed Pub – Ed Pub@Pub @ Tsubu Bar

Thursday 31 12pm: Queer – Queer People of Colour Collective @ Training Room 1 1pm: Creative Arts – Creative Arts Collective 1pm: Queer – Queer Games @ Queer Space

Thursday 7 12pm: Queer – Queer People of Colour Collective @ Training Room 2 1pm: Creative Arts – Creative Arts Collective 1pm: Queer – Queer Games @ Queer Space 2pm: Ethical Working Group 4.30pm – Media – Wordplay #06 @ Media Office, Level 4, Union House

Thursday 14 12pm: Queer – Queer People of Colour Collective @ Training Room 1 1pm: Creative Arts – Creative Arts Collective 1pm: Queer – Queer Games @ Queer Space 6pm: Creative Arts – Pot Luck Open Mic Night, Student Bar, Union House

Friday 25 1pm: Queer – Women Loving Women Collective @ Training Room 2

Friday September 1 Enviro – Fair Trade Fortnight begins 1pm: Queer – Women Loving Women Collective @ Training Room 2

Friday 8 1pm: Queer – Women Loving Women Collective @ Training Room 2

Friday 15 1pm: Queer – Women Loving Women Collective @ Training Room 2

05 Reverse this calendar to see Anwyn Elise’s ‘Home System’. Each edition will piece together to form an eight part artwork.

CAMPUS

FIRST RESPONSE WORDS BY ASHLEIGH HASTINGS AND ALEXANDRA ALVARO ARTWORK BY ALAIN NGUYEN CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT

THE UNIVERSITY IS FAILING TO CREATE ACCESSIBLE REPORTING PROCEDURES

T

he University of Melbourne is sitting below the national average in relation to having clearly publicised support services for victims of sexual assault, data from a nationwide survey has revealed.

The data is contained in a report titled 'Changing the Course', a compilation of 1,849 submissions to the Human Rights Commission and survey results from 30,000 students across Australian Universities.

68 per cent of participants from the University of Melbourne said they knew little or nothing about where to seek support or assistance regarding sexual assault or harassment. Compared to the national average, this was higher – 56 per cent of participants said they knew little or nothing on where to seek help on campus.

97 per cent of students who were sexually harassed at the University indicated they did not seek support or assistance from the University.

The report also revealed 1.6 per cent of students were sexually assaulted at university in 2015 and 2016. Over 21 per cent of students were sexually harassed in 2016.

Those with a disability, those within the LGBTQIA+ community, Indigenous students and women were more likely to experience sexual harassment or assault.

The University has promised to take on all nine of the recommendations by the Human Rights Commission in the report.

It has also developed a 'Respect Taskforce' to implement change.

“It’s important to note that student reporting is an important starting point for the University being able to take action. While the University actively encourages and supports reporting, it acknowledges that many students do not do so," a spokesperson said. "One of the matters that the Respect Taskforce will be looking at is how to encourage and support students to report incidents."

President of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), Yan Zhuang, agreed that these statistics are indicative of just how high the barriers are to reporting incidences of assault and harassment.

“This culture, where the onus is placed on young women to ‘not get raped’ is exacerbated at universities, where the same websites

students are directed to report are often the same websites boasting ‘safety tips’ telling students how not to get their drinks spiked, or how to stay safe at night,” she said.

She also noted that the results reflected that sexual assault is a gendered issue, which demands a more targeted response.

“Broad, sweeping campaigns that raise awareness about the issues of respect and consent are insufficient. Universities need to be thinking of ways to address the issue at its root, and changing the behaviours that motivate perpetrators.”

One of the campaigns the University is currently running is the ‘Respect.Now.Always.’ campaign, initiated just prior to the release of the results. UMSU declined take part.

UMSU Women’s Officer, Hannah Billet, believed the phrasing surrouding the campaign perpetuated the culture that left the responsibility of a safe campus with the victims.

“It’s fine to run awareness campaigns about the concept of respect, but in addition to that we need to look at what practical steps can be taken to better support survivors and challenge the campus culture that enables perpetrators,” she told Farrago.

“Information about UMSU’s Legal Service was not included on the flyers, which was concerning because students have the right to know they have a free legal service on campus,” she added.

In an effort to address the problems the results outline, the University will be rolling out online training modules to all students in 2018, covering key areas including communication and relationships, bystander intervention and sexual consent.

The University also stated that in the coming weeks, colleges would collectively be acting upon the recommendations in the report.

Individualised data from each university was released after continuous lobbying by student unions, victims and survivors, earlier this year, after which all 39 Australian Universities agreed to release university specific results.

If you or someone you know requires counselling or support, a national support line is open on 1800 572 224.

With Ashleigh Barraclough

07

CAMPUS

08

CAMPUS

I'D FAP TO THAT WORDS BY JASPER MACCUSPIE ARTWORK BY VERONICA FERNANDO

T

HOW THE FLEXAP RECOMMENDATIONS WILL IMPACT YOU

rimesters and 'flipped classrooms' have been rejected from the latest recommendations made by the University’s Flexible Academic Programming project.

Instead, the project has recommended a number of changes, including more support for winter and summer semesters and a quiet move away from lectures as the main mode of education.

The Flexible Academic Programming project (or FAP, despite the University’s best efforts to push the non-masturbatory acronym, FlexAP) started in 2015 as an attempt to look at ways the University could “enhance and improve the quality of teaching and student learning”, “provide more flexibility in study options” and “make more effective use of the University’s infrastructure to support teaching and learning”.

In July, eight green papers were released by the project for discussion by the University community. They are not yet endorsed and will be presented to the Provost when the project completes in August 2017.

to take a limited number of wholly online subjects. The paper also suggested piloting new technologies to assist both staff and students, particularly in large subjects.

We don’t want your stinkin’ trimesters A green paper on semester structure found most current students support the existing semester model. But a range of issues, including course progression and load flexibility, could be alleviated by making better use of the summer and winter semesters. However, it was noted that the university holidays serve important roles as time for internships and other activities that enhance students’ lives.

The paper recommended maintaining the existing semester structure, while increasing institutional support for the summer and winter semesters, as well as support for variable teaching schedules.

Are lectures dying?

One of the papers tabled by the project, 'Curriculum Structure and Approach', found approximately 48 per cent of undergraduate subjects have fewer than 30 enrolments, and around half of student contact hours is in the form of lectures. As a result, 41 per cent of students feel they could use more contact time with staff The paper considered 'flipped classrooms' – a structure through which students prepare for lectures prior to the class, and then use the lecture space to consolidate their knowledge.

The paper recommends that the proportion of student contact hours in lecture form, currently 55 per cent for undergraduates, be reduced to no more than 50 per cent by 2019. In addition, it encourages the University to offer more intensive subjects. Finally, it recommends the structure of first year undergraduate programs should be revised in order to better support transition, cohort and inter-student connection.

Another paper, about undergraduate subjects with large numbers of students, reveals that approximately one in 20 subjects exceed 200 enrolments, and account for 44 per cent of enrolled students. Student Experience Survey data indicates that students enrolled in these subjects are less satisfied with their experiences, as large cohorts make it difficult for students to engage with teachers and peers.

The paper suggests diversifying and improving assessments in large subjects, while also exploring opportunities for off-campus, site-based learning.

The project observed that there is a decreasing level of collaboration among teachers from different disciplines, leading to issues where multiple lecturers are teaching the same material.

As a result, the FAP project recommended that the Chancellery collaborate with Academic Divisions to prioritise work on curriculum duplication. Each Academic Division should develop a policy for collaborative teaching, curriculum sharing and collaborative learning.

After comparing data from 2011 and 2016, the project found an increase in technology use and desire to trial new technology. A majority (70.8 per cent) of students felt that technology was “very helpful” or “extremely helpful” in their studies. The findings also note a significant interest in online subjects being offered.

As a result, the project recommends trialling new forms of digital assessment, as well as providing the option for students

The problem with timetabling The project also looked at the University’s physical infrastructure. Findings here indicated that a significant majority of centrally administered spaces see heavy use during semester, and informal study spaces, like libraries, are more than at capacity.

The paper identified the issue of subjects being scheduled across different precincts, requiring significant travel time between locations for students. There is no current University-wide subject enrolment tools to plan for anticipated growth in student numbers.

As such, the paper proposes that the curriculum be extended beyond current teaching hours and significant investment be made in informal learning and study spaces. In addition, Academic Services should develop a mechanism to reduce time and distance between classes.

Unsurprisingly, a paper on timetabling found that the process is onerous for staff, with a high degree of manual effort, and current timelines and cut-off dates are not always practical for students. In addition, it was revealed that the online experience in enrolling in subjects and registering for classes can be frustrating for students.

The paper proposes improving the visibility and management of timetable constraints, reducing volatility in variations. Ultimately, this would seek to better facilitate student enrolment and choice.

To the future A final paper on the academic workforce considered trends in higher education beyond the University. These included seeing a move towards more team-based delivery of teaching, rising student expectations for choice and flexibility and increased attention toward analytics to measure outcomes, including student employment.

The paper recommends furthering the use of expert roles in teaching, as well as enhancing and targeting professional development and training. The paper also suggests offering greater recognition and reward for individual contributions to learning at the University.

The coordinator of the FAP project, Pro-Vice Chancellor Gregor Kennedy is excited by the prospects of these recommendations.

“These green papers present a range of findings and recommendations; and each offers options for how the University might improve teaching and learning practices.”

“Many exciting ideas are now being considered by staff and students of [the] University.”

09

CAMPUS

OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE BUBBLE WORDS BY RUBY PERRYMAN ARTWORK BY AMELIA SAWARD

HOW PRIVILEGE MANIFESTS IN RESIDENTIAL COLLEGES

U

niversity of Melbourne students who attend residential colleges on scholarships have said they feel comfortable living at college than those who pay full fees.

The University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus and surrounding area is home to 12 residential colleges. These institutions provide students from around the world with both accommodation close to campus and a well-rounded university experience.

There are several scholarships available for students who cannot afford to pay full fees, especially for those moving to Melbourne from rural areas and disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.

While many see this as a highly commendable initiative, some scholarship students have found it difficult to keep up with the affluent lifestyle of some of their more privileged peers.

Due to this, some scholarship students feel out of place at college and choose to move out after a short period of time, as opposed to staying for the course of their degree.

Kevin* and Lily* both attended a residential college in 2016 as a requirement of their degree, Bachelor of Arts (Extended), after completing high school in the Northern Territory. As part of this requirement, Centrelink’s Abstudy programme covered the cost of their accommodation.

“The Bachelor of Arts (Extended) is a four year degree that will provide a pathway for Indigenous students to embark on careers that build on a strong Arts background,” the University website states.

Kevin and Lily agree that living on campus during their first year of university was very convenient, but felt that they did not entirely fit in with other college students.

“There were some students that I could get along with. But I did feel a distance from students that had gone to private schools and schools in Melbourne,” Kevin said.

“I don't really know why I didn't fit in, I guess it was because I didn't really get around college life which was a very big thing socially,” Lily said. “It was hard to get around college because

10

everything was so expensive and I didn't have the money to keep up with everyone else.”

Marie* is a Bachelor of Arts student who was on a half scholarship at a different residential college in 2016, as a rural student with college alumni in her family. She too moved out after her first year.

“My time [there] was fun, there was a good community and there was always events on,” said Marie.

“They had tutoring available for all classes and you could get help with assignments.”

“But the college lifestyle is expensive. The events add up and you're expected to go to them all,” Marie said.

All three students suggest that living at college made it difficult to maintain a part time job, which they needed in order to keep up with social costs. This is because they were expected to engage in a range of college activities in their time free of classes, and they had to pack up their entire rooms and leave each university break.

“Once becoming a resident of a college, you will be part of that college for life,” the University college website states. “It is a chance to form lasting friendships and connections that will stay with you for many years to come.”

But this may not be true if scholarship students feel as though they cannot afford to socialise with full-fee paying students.

Although their experiences do not necessarily reflect those of every student who lived on campus with a scholarship, Kevin, Lily and Marie feel much more comfortable socially and economically now that they have moved out together into a share house.

“I like it so much better, I haven’t looked back at college,” Kevin said.

“Moving out was the best decision I've made,” Lily agreed. *Names have been changed in order to protect students' privacy.

CAMPUS

ACCESSIBLE ARTS

TAKE A HIKE WORDS BY CHARLOTTE WALLIN ARTWORK BY JASMINE VELKOVSKI

R

ising costs associated with many university services remain largely unaddressed even after a review into rising fees.

The Academic Consultation and Coordination Committee (ACCC) ordered a review into growing student service fees at the University of Melbourne over the last month.

Hopeful students and the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) associates awaited a verdict that would ease the widespread dissatisfaction felt by much of the student body.

The ACCC formulates proposals on "a wide variety of academic and student-related matters", according to their mission statement.

It has additionally taken on UMSU student representative, Conor Serong, in order to diversify its voice.

Yet, despite Serong’s admission, the review failed to explicitly address the fee hikes which have taken place within the last year.

The fees that have proved to be most troublesome are those relating to the graduation ceremony, replacement student cards and re-enrolment fees for various courses.

The graduation fees, for example, started at $155 in early 2016 only to amount to a colossal $215 by the year’s close.

Emma Visentin, a physiotherapy student at the University of Melbourne, tells Farrago that this is too expensive.

"A lot of people in my course are students who are working part time and don’t have that much money.”

Despite the cost, Visentin claims that she would participate in the ceremony regardless. This is something, perhaps, that cannot be said for all university students.

The ACCC review has, however, been effective in introducing online service, 'My eQuals'. This service provides students with digital academic records and transcripts that are available to download for free at any time.

As a result, the transcript fees encountered in the postage and manufacture of a physical certificate are avoided.

A clue as to why the ACCC has not equally tackled the numerous other costs associated with the university experience may be provided by Vice Chancellor, Glyn Davis.

The Vice Chancellor explained that “student fees at Melbourne University will soar by 61 per cent in some courses to manage Federal Budget Cuts”, in an interview with journalist Michelle See-Tho. Such increases in course fees may therefore spill over to the service arena. This means charges may continue to rise.

WORDS BY CLAIRE MILLER

T

he University’s biannual creative arts festival, Mudfest, will have a firm commitment to various forms of accessibility and inclusivity.

Commencing on 21 August, it features works presented by approximately 200 participants, the majority of whom are University of Melbourne students.

Artistic Directors and Creative Arts Office Bearers, Sara Laurena and Harriet Wallace-Mead, have prioritised inclusivity and accessibility for audience members; in particular patrons living with a disability.

“There is no point in providing an access measure if you’re not advertising to the relevant communities as well, or if your website is completely unreadable,” Laurena said.

In the lead up to the event, the Mudfest production teams’ Access Officers have developed a comprehensive Access Action Plan which includes having Auslan interpreters present for audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing. These same audience members will also be able to watch films screened throughout the event, which are all required to have closed captioning. Festival guests with visual impairments will be able to attend tactile tours and audio description tours of performances and exhibitions.

UMSU Disabilities Officer, Alston Chu, said he was excited to see "greater diversity on both sides of the curtain this year".

"The Disabilities Office has been very happy to see Mudfest's continued commitment to progressive accessibility. The access managers have displayed thoroughness and ambition in their consultations with us," he said.

There will also be relaxed performances for patrons on the autism spectrum or who have sensory or communication disorders.

The Access Action Plan also requires that festival volunteers be provided with venue access and Auslan training, which will allow them to communicate information about the festival in Auslan.

All presented works relate to the theme of ‘Hatch’, devised by the Artistic Directors.

Artists were encouraged to respond to broad processes currently affecting humanity such as climate change and vast global inequality.

Wallace-Mead said that participants were encouraged to respond with humility rather than self-righteousness.

“We wanted rage and hope and kindness and empathy, and we’re proud to say we think that’s what the festival will present,” she said.

The Mudfest program is available online at www.mudfest.art.

11

CAMPUS

THE DEATH OF THE CLUB WORDS BY ALAIN NGUYEN AND SEAN WALES ARTWORK BY CLARA CRUZ JOSE

W

WHY ARE STUDENTS ENGAGING LESS?

hatever happened to the gung-ho, passionate student that craved involvement and lived for student participation? The long lines for Arts Camp and the sell-out crowds at the O-Week parties have died out, as student participation in university-run events is on the decline.

Students on campus this year would have noticed considerably less excitement around club events.

There have been no signs of lengthy queues to purchase tickets, even as clubs ramp up their marketing for events that were once only available via second hand sales.

President of the Melbourne Arts Students Society (M-ASS), Daniel Sango, says declining involvement is unprecedented.

“In 2015, we had the biggest lines. We had massive lines all along South Lawn for Paint and Glow and Suit Up parties,” he said.

This year, M-ASS did not run a Suit Up party in Semester One. Nor did it sell out Arts Camp at the beginning of the year.

“It’s a bit hit and miss, it depends on the events and the excitement surrounding the events,” Sango said.

Another of the University of Melbourne’s big clubs, the Science Students Society (SSS), is in a similar position to M-ASS. According to the club’s Vice President, Jose Carranceja, SSS events are suffering too.

“Archived records of membership from 2013 show numbers fluctuating between 1600-1700 paid memberships. General trends for events show there has been a noticeably smaller attendance at our larger themed events.”

So, what is causing students to turn away from big club events?

Sango believes that there are just too many options for students.

“I think overall, there's an over-saturation in terms of events. Not exactly from our end, but all societies and then also University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Activities-run events. There are

so many options, I think people either spread out so much or are turned off,” he told Farrago.

UMSU Activities Office Bearer Jacinta Cooper agreed.

“Clubs are all kind of competing with themselves. There is definitely an over-saturation. Clubs see other clubs running really good events, ones that would have sold out. Then they do it and it doesn't make any of them special anymore.”

UMSU Activities has also experienced its fair share of difficulty this year when trying to promote events.

“It’s a challenge,” Cooper said.

“We are all trying to accommodate for one market, and we are really trying to branch out and have something for everyone in the student body. We are trying so hard, but are at a loss on how to do that.”

UMSU remains just ahead of the pack when it comes to ticket sales.

“We get student funding which reduces ticket prices … we have a bit of an advantage there.”

As such, there has been an increase in the number of events held by UMSU – for example, the Union House House Party and Sleepover at the beginning of the year.

Cooper pointed to the Melbourne Model as a potential reason as to why students are not getting as involved with clubs anymore.

“I do think the workload with the Melbourne Model has just meant there's less time for people to go to things. The workload has increased more than what it was if you were studying in your first year five years ago.”

UMSU Clubs and Societies Office Bearer, Ryan Davey, believes it is a difficult situation to analyse.

“It’s really hard to pinpoint just one cause for the drop off in student participation that we have seen in recent years," he said.

12

CAMPUS

"The cost of living in Melbourne has increased dramatically, especially standard renting costs, so I would not be surprised if students are having to work a lot more than they used to.”

However, Davey holds no concerns when it comes to student participation and inclusion.

“The total number of clubs has also continued to increase, so students are still participating in extracurricular activities at the University,” he said.

While some of the bigger clubs and UMSU Activities are struggling to entice crowds like the past, some of the smaller clubs are drawing on their niche audiences to expand their membership.

President of the Melbourne University Italian Social Club (MUISC), Chelsea Cucinotta, says membership numbers continue to rise.

“This year we have had 431 people sign up for memberships, which is a huge increase in numbers compared to last year, when we had 306.”

A benefit for the smaller groups such as MUISC is their ability to attract people based on shared interest.

“Being a smaller club with ‘Italian’ in our title certainly helps in attracting students of Italian background and those studying Italian,” Cucinotta said.

Similarly, the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) has seen constant growth in its membership over the last few years.

“We continue to grow because students are able to continue their own old friendships from high school whilst meeting likeminded people. They want to be able to subscribe to the new university experience with a sense of familiarity,” said Internal Vice President of the club, Jimmy Bui. When asked about the decreasing numbers of the bigger clubs, Cucinotta was not sure of the cause.

“Maybe students don’t spend as much time on campus, or are looking for a bit of change with events. As a club we know that our food-based events are the more popular ones.”

A common theme amongst the clubs was a reliance on social media. “Social media helps us reach audiences that we could never reach on our own,” Cooper said.

Cucinotta agreed.

“Having an online presence through social media has helped

us enormously in expanding our membership base. We particularly rely on Facebook for welcoming first year or new students.”

Meanwhile, the VSA’s use of social media is strong, as there is a collective organisation of promoters across other universities to help it publicise events both online and through word of mouth.

Members often change their profile pictures so their friends can see it. This technique is all the more effective if there is a large amount of the similar profile pictures appearing across VSA members' Facebook pages.

However, according to Davey, “clubs can also attribute decreased participation to the reduced reach of Facebook pages and events that they create.”

A comparison of two of M-ASS’ past mid-year ‘After Exams Party’ Facebook events shows a noticeably decreased amount of interest.

In June 2015, over 1.6 thousand people had clicked 'attending'.

However, this year, only 253 people had clicked 'attending'. Ticket prices remained the same across both events.

In addition, the SSS’ End of Exams party had 724 people click attending in 2016. This year’s number was down to 492.

Davey told Farrago that Facebook is having a significantly less influence for the bigger clubs.

“For a number of years, large clubs could rely on Facebook alone to sell out their events. I think it was at the start of 2016 that this abruptly ended, and events were only getting a fraction of the reach online. Facebook must have clued onto the success and decided that they could charge pages for it.”

The decrease in Facebook interest collides with the same time that queues for party tickets ceased on campus.

Sango is aiming to increase excitement around his club’s events during Semester Two, but he acknowledges it is a difficult task.

“We are going to have a big discussion about what our goals are as committee members and then as a society as a whole.”

He said his aim is to have the best parties for M-ASS members.

“While selling out events is great, and having the biggest events is awesome, it's more about having quality events for our members.

It's unrealistic to have exponential growth every year.”

13

CAMPUS

RACIST POSTERS

REFORM-ED

WORDS BY ASHLEIGH BARRACLOUGH ARTWORK BY SELENA TAN

WORDS BY ASHLEIGH BARRACLOUGH

A

number of racist posters threatening Chinese students with deportation were found around the University on 24 July.

Written in broken Mandarin, the posters read, “Attention, entry into the campus of Chinese students should be strictly prohibited. If violated, you can be deported from the country.”

The posters have been attributed to a prominent neo-Nazi, white-supremacist group.

Several posters were found outside the Doug McDonell building, where many new students were lining up to collect their student cards.

Other posters were found near the MSD, ERC and the Old Geology Building. Over ten posters were found in total.

The posters displayed the University of Melbourne logo, the National Union of Students logo and the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) logo. None of the parties were involved with the creation or distribution of these posters.

“We would like to make it clear that posters distributed around the school containing these racist and malicious contents do not in any way represent the position of the CSSA and we strongly condemn the behaviour of the one who has performed this act,” read the CSSA’s official statement.

“This very serious issue has now been reported to the University and we, as a society, reserve the right to take legal action against the individuals who have created such rumours and racial discrimination.”

The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) People of Colour Office Bearers, Ella Shi and Hanann Al Daqqa, have also condemned the posters.

“UMSU does not stand for any kind of racism,” they said.

“This is a call to action for everyone to welcome incoming students and to reach out and support their classmates. It’s everyone’s responsibility to make each other feel comfortable and safe on our campus.”

The 2016-17 President of UMSU International, Sander Bredal, stated, “As a community we are disappointed and saddened that students might feel distressed and unwelcomed by this, and it is only a reaffirmation that we must continue to make all students, regardless of background, feel welcomed. UMSU International will raise concerns regarding this with the University.”

Similar posters were also found at Monash University and were circulated on Facebook group Monash StalkerSpace.

T

he University of Melbourne, the Graduate Student Association (GSA) and University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) have united in opposition to the federal budget’s proposed reforms to Higher Education. Chief among their concerns is how changes to the allocation of postgraduate, Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) will severely disadvantage students studying through the Melbourne Model.

On 11 May, the Government put forward a Bill to amend the Higher Education Support Act (2003) which has attracted heavy criticism from students and universities across Australia.

The University has referred to the Bill as a “piecemeal policy offering that fails to acknowledge and address the shortcomings of the demand-driven system, overlooks the integral role of research in the university setting and will cause severe detriment across the system if implemented”.

One of the University’s concerns is the proposal to develop a scholarship scheme to allocate post-graduate CSPs, which will likely be “cumbersome and expensive to administer” and reduce the amount of CSPs by approximately 3,000.

A University spokesperson told Farrago Australian citizens who are currently studying or beginning their studies in 2018 would not be affected by the changes.

The University believes that the proposed reform “fundamentally undermines the integrity and viability of the Melbourne Model”. Melbourne undergraduate courses are designed to be broad whilst post-graduate courses offer specialised learning.

Arrangements between the University and the Government during the development of the Melbourne Model mean that “Melbourne has a larger number of postgraduate CSPs compared to other universities, but is not permitted to participate in the undergraduate demand-driven system,” the University said.

“To remove the assured postgraduate pathway, without any consultation with the University, would nullify the previous arrangements with the Government on the funding model.”

Students are echoing these sentiments in a survey conducted

by UMSU's Education (Public) Department.

“The Melbourne Model works in such a way that it essentially forces the students to take a postgraduate degree, because the undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne will not allow students to specialise in anything,” one student wrote.

The Government believes that the proposals in the Bill are “reasonable, necessary and proportionate to the policy objective of ensuring access to tertiary education."

14

CAMPUS

OFFICE BEARER REPORTS PRESIDENT | YAN ZHUANG You’re gonna see some puns on the next three pages that are out of this world, but unfortunately you won't see many in this report.

It’s been a super busy time for everyone here at UMSU. The Universities Australia sexual assault survey was released on 1 August and we are still working with the University to make the campus safer for everyone. As well as that, we’re running some other great campaigns around issues like your rights in the workplace.

And you know what’s just around the corner? ELECTIONS. What UMSU does affects you on a day to day basis, whether that be advocating for the quality of your education or providing you with a free snag every Tuesday. Voting in student elections is the easiest way to have your say about what UMSU does in the future, so I highly encourage you to do so.

GENERAL SECRETARY | YASMINE LUU GENERAL SECRETARY HAS REBOOTED FROM CHARGING STATE, BEEP. UPON ENGAGING WITH STUDENT LIFE FORMS, I, THE GENERAL SECRETARY 2017, AM OFTEN ASKED HOW I STAY ORGANISED, BLOOP. IT IS BECAUSE MY CORE FUNCTIONS ALLOW ME TO PLANET. HA. HA. SEE MY MIGHTY ROBOT HUMOUR. In all siriusness the semester is going at the speed of light and the gravity of getting involved is turning into a sinking black hole. BUT! You can still get involved with some stellar clubs and out of this world volunteer programs. Make sure you check out all the spaces (like the Women's Room and the Queer Space) and make sure if you're ever in need to contact the UMSU Legal and Advocacy service.

EDUCATION (ACADEMIC) | CALEY MCPHERSON & ROGER SAMUEL Greetings, earthlings! After emerging from the wormhole that is the winter break, we’re back to examining the University’s FlexAp green papers and seeking student feedback on them.

Check out the Google Form on our Facebook page!

Our Counter Course Handbook is up online and out of this world. Earn free coffee vouchers and visit it at the link below or via our Facebook page, UMSU Education! This Trip Advisorstyle platform for student reviews of subjects will be a really valuable resource now and into the future. We’ve also been looking at Academic Misconduct Hearing protocol; the training committee members receive for it, and the support students have access to. These hearings can be some of the worst experiences in a student’s academic career, and we want to make them as fair and painless as possible. https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/counter-course-handbook/

EDUCATION (PUBLIC) | SINEAD MANNING Education: The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of those trying to improve higher education. Our continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out free education and increase access to higher education, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

We continue to fight against cuts to funding and increases to fees. Join us on the Starship Enterprise by contacting educationpublic@union.unimelb.edu.au

WELFARE | RYAN DAVEY & TERESA GORNALL Welfare has had a lot to do in the lead up to WinterFest, and it took a long time to planet all.

During the Carnival, our combined events could be seen from space, and we couldn’t have done it all without our volunteers who were absolute stars. Seeing the smiling faces of new students really made our full rotation of the Earth; it was truly Hubblin. A goal we have for Semester 2 is to help students relax and not be so Sirius that it causes them undue stress. We suggest that they comet university from a different angle and try to engage in extracurricular activities.

Finally, although our Stress Less week event only happens every once in a blue moon, due to popular demand it might be making a comeback in Semester 2, so stay tuned. To all students, we hope you rocket this semester!

Uranus.

ARTWORK BY MINAHIL MUNIR HAMDANI 15

CAMPUS

DISABILITIES | ALSTON CHU & CASSANDRA PRIGG Far out, the semester's in full thrust, and there's no escaping the gravity (well) of the situation! Mental health support group is continuing Mondays noon to 1pm in Training Room 1 if you need a bit of a boost. Level 2 Auslan class registrations are open! The stars have aligned at 3:15pm-5:15pm on Wednesdays starting Week 7 so be sure to take what has been a once in a blue moon opportunity. After that, keep your eyes to the skies for Mental Health Week events in Week 8. It's the final countdown to the inaugural Disabilities Conference! Get in touch if you want to attend or present, either way it'll be sure to have a deep impact.

INDIGENOUS | MARLEY HOLLOWAY-CLARKE & ALEXANDRA HOHOI For us in the Indigenous Department, everything has been pretty out of this world.

Coming off the resignation of our previous Office Bearer, Wunambi Connor, *cries* I am happy to welcome Alexandra Hohoi. She will be serving out the rest of the term with me in office. We have many social events coming up, and the on-campus sport will continue as well.

The department has also brought back the alternative study space for Indigenous students to study in – a quiet space with snacks and drinks provided. Tune in to Radio Fodder at 12pm every Friday for The Biggest Blackest Show with our host, Melinda! Follow us on social media to stay updated. We're @umsuindigenous on Facebook and Instagram.

PEOPLE OF COLOUR | ELLA SHI & HANANN AL DAQQA Man can you believe we’re nearly halfway through Semester 2?

Very important event coming up.

Elections for the Student Union in Week 7.

Make sure you vote!!!

Judge the candidates wisely.

So in other news, Race and Diaspora Reading Group is going again.

Upcoming session in Week 6.

Now that you’ve read our whole report, we just want to say Pluto is definitely a planet.

QUEER | BLAKE ATMAJA & EVELYN LESH Friends, studious and not-as-studious; family, both my rock and my bane; Goldie, finally back from the well-deserved holiday from all us troublemakers. It's time we talked about space. The vastness of it, the sheer scale of it. The space I'm talking about of course is the Queer Space! Vastness – we have plenty of room for whatever you identify with, and scale?

Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, a solid 17.

We’ve got a Super Mario Galaxy of regular events happening! Our collectives are running again, which you can find on our page (Queer) on the UMSU page and we have our out-of-this-world Queer Lunch on Wednesday from 1pm to keep you engaged and going.

Thursdays also see us with the SEE and TGS clubs for our Queer Games in the Queer Space!

Come around, grab a couch and enjoy!

WOMEN’S | HANNAH BILLETT By the time you read this, the results of the Human Rights Commission and Universities Australia student survey on sexual assault and sexual harassment will have been released.

As I write, we do not know exactly what the results will tell us, but I am sure they will create a challenging and intense conversation about what the Government and universities can do to make campuses safer for students. There is a chance that these public discussion will bring up some difficult or upsetting thoughts for you. If that is the case, know you have options.

The UMSU Legal Service provides free and independent professional legal advice about your options and you can request an appointment at umsu.unimelb.edu.au/support/legal/ requesting-legal- assistance. For professional counselling services, contact CASA House at casahouse.com.au or the University’s Counselling and Psychological Services at services.unimelb.edu.au/counsel. Please know that you have options and that there are people that want to help you.

16

CAMPUS

ACTIVITIES | JACINTA COOPER & LYDIA PAEVERE Activities has plenty of events this semester. It is a pity the break wasn’t a little longer though, we would have loved more time to be able to planet. The Union House House Party was out of this world! In our sights we see another trivia night going off with a bang on 20 September, and keep an eye out for Oktoberfest. We will end with a bad joke stolen from reddit: Two astronauts are about to go on a spacewalk. One hasn't ever done one before while the other is a veteran of several. The inexperienced one confesses he's nervous and asks how the other guy keeps calm under the pressure of everything that could go wrong. The experienced guy says, I don't feel any pressure out there. ,

CLUBS & SOCIETIES | GULSARA KAPLUN & KAYLEY CUZZUBBO

Hope you are strapped in as the Mission: Semester 2 is at full throttle. Explore the outer most reaches of the clubs-galaxy where some of our brightest stars will shine at Clubs Carnival in Week 5. Don’t be sucked into the black hole of university and homework. Instead, fly into the Clubs and Societies wormhole that will make you believe that time travel is real, because seriously, where did all that time go?

CREATIVE ARTS | HARRIET WALLACE-MEAD & SARA LAURENA Creative Arts are will be overflowing into all the spaces in week five for MUDFEST, the biggest student creative arts festival in the southern hemisphere! As the planets of visual arts, theatre, music, and film align, we prepare for our interstellar journey through a magnificent galaxy of student art. Come find us at the shining sun in the middle of this solar system, the HUB on level one of Union House, or visit mudfest.art and discover how you can become an astronaut too.

ENVIRONMENT | ELIZABETH NICHOLSON & KATE DENVER-STEVENSON Supermassive Enviro Week is happening in Week 9. Come along to our workshops, parties, forums and crafts (careful, they're ruffled!) with a focus on Earthly solutions to save the third rock from the sun. In space no one can hear how much of a good time you're having planting trees in Benalla for the weekend. Signal your interest by literally blasting your contact info into space and back again at environment@union.unimelb.edu.au. There's a starman waiting in the sky. He'd like to come and meet us. So he's coming to enviro collective every week (Tuesdays 2-3pm). There's a starman waiting in the sky. He's told us not to blow it. That's why he advocates direct action. He told me: Don't let the children lose it. Let the children occupy and blockade. Let all the children boogie.

BURNLEY | JESSICA PEELER Winter is nearly over and the semester is flying by! Spring is a super exciting time for green thumbs – trees are blossoming, seeds are being planeted, and the days are getting long enough that we no longer have to garden in the dark with a head torch after uni. If you’re keen to get your hands in the soil and learn how to grow your own delish summer produce, head over to Burnley and get involved in one of our community garden events (Facebook: Burnley Community Garden). We know we’re a satellite campus, but we promise you’ll be over the moon about the beautiful gardens and friendly vibes over here!

VCA | NICHOLAS LAM We're bringing back old and bringing in some of the new in a lineup that's out of this world. Firstly, we're bringing back yoga classes (once we've found a place to hold 'em) and we're bringing in new facilities into the VCA Hub building before we're saying a goodbye at the end of the year for renovations. We have plans for a table tennis table in the student lounge as well as a podcasting suite for recording your opinions and chatter, or maybe some V.O. work for your projects. As always, keep up to date with the latest in the VCASA by joining our FB page: VCA Student Association.

17

CAMPUS

BREAKING (THE) NEWS WORDS BY BENJAMIN CLARK ARTWORK BY ILSA HARUN

STUDENT POLITICIAN DENIES FUTURE POLITICAL AMBITIONS, FOOLS NO ONE

S

tudent politician, Jennifer 'O-Week Queen' Lee, has denied having future political ambitions, despite her unsubtle hopes of one day leading the Australian Labor Party to a landslide federal victory.

The third year Arts student announced last Tuesday that she is preparing to go “full campaign mode”, after sharing Julia Gillard’s Misogyny Speech on Facebook for the seventh time.

“As much as I would enjoy smiting the old white males in the Liberal-National Coalition and ushering in a history-making era of economic and social reform, I think I’ll settle for a career as a freelance political commentator, or a researcher for a left-leaning think-tank,” she said.

Lee currently serves as a University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Office Bearer, and holds executive positions in the Cider Appreciation Society, the Bhakti Yoga Club, Students for Christ, the Breakdance Club, the Ring of Choir and the Melbourne University Potter Heads.

“I am extremely passionate about women’s rights, refugee rights and environmental protection,” she said. “If I am elected UMSU President, I will tackle these pertinent issues by hosting more trivia nights and providing more free barbeques.”

Lee faces fierce opposition from rival faction ‘Left Shout’.

After failing to broker a cross-factional alliance, due to minor discrepancies over the sharing of positions on the DeputySub Committee for Assisting the Co-Under Secretary to the Environment Officer, leader James 'Bernie 2020' McIntyre declared an all-out factional war.

“We’re going to hit them where it hurts,” he said, after joining his private school friends in a sing-along to the famous working-

class union anthem of the early 1900s, 'Solidarity Forever'.

“We’re not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” said McIntyre, a glint of unhinged desperation in his eyes. “I’ll chase them all the way to the Baillieu Library and shove these flyers down their throats if I have to.”

He was later suspended from campaigning for 24 hours for literally biting a political opponent and former close friend.

To increase its popularity, Left Shout has formed a coalition with the University’s most popular student club, the Beer Appreciation Party.

“I just fucking love beer,” said President, Jack Stevens. “Let’s do a fucking shoey!” he exclaimed, crying.

Meanwhile, a Liberal-voting male who wears a tweed blazer to his second year History classes has launched a scathing Facebook takedown of UMSU, decrying his generation’s lack of self-reliance and entrepreneurship.

“What has the union ever done for us?” he said, whilst finishing his third free sausage from an UMSU barbeque.

Across campus, far-left activist Pixie 'Bourgeois Killa' Love explained that student elections merely uphold the neoliberal status-quo. “The proletarian revolution is nigh,” Pixie said. “In the post-capitalist society, every barbeque on earth will be free anyway.”

'Breaking (the) News' is Farrago's satire column and is not to be taken seriously. Further disclosure: Benjamin Clark has previously campaigned in UMSU elections. Far too much of this satirical account comes from personal experience.

18

CAMPUS

COLUMN BY MADELINE BAILEY ARTWORK BY REIMENA YEE

A

EDITION 6: THE CREATURE WITH NO SHAPE OR SPEECH

t the Union House Info Desk you can rent a locker – $60 a semester or $100 for a full year – and although the person in the purple shirt will explain this, they won’t tell you about the creature that lives in the empty ones. You can tell which ones are empty because they are closed with cable ties instead of padlocks. There are several on the ground floor, near the microwaves and student lounge, and they are battered and the paint is chipped. There are more in the basement. In the Union House basement, there is a locker room with low ceilings, charcoal carpet, and some plastic chairs and fold-out tables where students sit to eat sushi.

All the lockers here are metal, but mismatched. Some are square and some are long, some are on wheels, some blue, some cream, and some are covered in fingerprints or Sellotape. The creature itself is formless. It expands (or contracts) to fit the locker it is inside.

It pours itself between them. For a while, it lived in somebody’s briefcase, but it likes the lockers better because they are darker, tighter, like lungs (or throats) with the breath pressed out.

The lockers look a little wild, when they are filled with creature.

They rattle, or become shaky, like they are about to shatter into clumps of loose screws and scrap metal. This means you can tell which one the creature is inhabiting, but if you cut the cable tie and open it, you will only find only a biro, or a wrapper, lighter, bobby pin, or other small, stray object that the creature has slipped into because it would rather appear as an object, than as itself.

It lived in the briefcase for three months, in 1930. It was a brown, leather briefcase with concealed pockets, strong stitching, buckles, straps, a brass lock. On the bottom, it said 'H Holt' in white pen.

Before, this the creature had lived in a cupboard at Queen’s College, but a student there had found it and let it live with his files until he finished his Bachelor of Laws. He took it to his lectures, and to exams, and talked to it. They were friends.

But later, in ’67, while inhabiting a writing desk, the creature came across a newspaper with the student's face on the front, because he’d gone missing while swimming (and whilst Prime Minister). The creature blamed itself. Now it is convinced that it is made of bad-luck, and it has vowed not to have friends in case, when it thinks of them, it coats them in it.

If you own a locker in the basement, you could try speaking to it? You could ask it, 'Are you okay? Aren’t you cold without a body?', and it probably won’t reply, but it is cold. It is vitally, and viscerally, cold. So cold that the air inside its locker tastes like tin, or like the air in an elevator that has jarred between floors when you realise there is no help button, wireless, or reception, and you begin to doubt if there is even a building – behind the doors – to get back to.

19

COMMENTARY

NEXT STOP: OUTER SPACE WORDS BY ASHLEIGH BARRACLOUGH ARTWORK BY LISA LINTON

H

umankind has been drawn to the cosmos since our beginning. There is something in the sky that resonates with us all, forcing us to ponder not only the universe, but our place within it. These strange space rocks have captivated people and cultures all over the world, inspiring art, literature and legends of creation.

Humans have gazed at the same stars for millenia and taken different meaning from the happenings of the sky – was Venus a representation of the Ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite? Or did she demand the sacrifice of a young girl, as the Pawnee Native Americans believed? In Ancient Egypt, the Milky Way represented the sky goddess, Nut, giving birth to the sun god Ra, while the Mayans believed it was the road where souls travelled to the underworld. Our celestial observations can tell us a lot about our species. We formulate stories to try and answer our questions: where did we come from, how did we get here and what is our purpose? The imaginations of humans have constructed highly creative and diverse answers from the patterns we see in the sky, passed down from our ancestors to us.

In 1969, we cemented our legacy as a species who not only dream of celestial bodies, but who also explore them. Approximately one quarter of the global population watched or listened from Earth as American space agency NASA sent Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. This mission placed the United States at the forefront of the ‘space race’ between the United States and the Soviet Union, yet it was an achievement for all of humankind nonetheless. Humankind had achieved the impossible, and we became pioneers of both Earth and space.

The Apollo 11 mission marked the beginning of an exciting future for our species. Surely the moon, our closest neighbour, was only the first step in what would be a turbulent future of space exploration. In a television broadcast after returning home, Buzz Aldrin proclaimed, “This has been far more than three men on a voyage to the moon…this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.”

After the moon-landing, experts said that we had entered a new era. The December 1969 edition of National Geographic told the story of Apollo 11, and discussed the potential to send astronauts to Mars in the 1980s. In the magazine, NASA administrator Dr Thomas O. Paine wrote, “I believe that men will drive onward in the years ahead to Mars, to the moons of Jupiter, and to other new worlds in our vast solar system.”

But for some reason or another, we swept aside our vision as an interstellar species. Today, 0.47 per cent of the American federal budget is allocated to NASA, compared to a mammoth 4.41 per cent in 1966 during the lead up to the Apollo 11 mission. While nations have conducted manned flyby missions and robotic missions to other planets, the desire to land humans on other planets seems to have subsided. On one hand, the delay is justified – human-

controlled space flight is extremely risky. The probes and robots we send to space to do the work for us gain valuable information while preventing loss of human life. Additionally, space exploration is incredibly costly, and governments would likely be met with opposition if they devoted a large sum of the federal budget to leaving Earth, rather than fixing Earth’s problems.

Despite this, our plans to explore the solar system have by no means ceased. On 13 July, the Australian Government announced that we may be getting our very own space agency here in Australia.

Currently, we are one of the only countries in the developed world without a space program. Australia has always been valuable in the international space scene for our satellite technology, for example, our satellite dish in Parkes, NSW, was the primary receiver of signals from the moon during Apollo 11. However, unless we create an agency, our role in the future of space exploration will be limited.

Perhaps multi-planetary aliens from different galaxies are already co-existing, waiting for the humans of planet Earth to join the party.

On the other hand, NASA has announced that they will be sending humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s, while SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk is talking about full-blown colonisation. Musk aims to establish human colonies on Mars within our lifetime, making humans a “space-bearing civilisation and multi-planetary species”. Recognising that single-use space transportation is simply unaffordable, Musk is creating a fully reusable rocket and space ship capable of transporting 100 people to Mars, which he calls the ‘Interplanetary Transport System’.

Regardless of whether SpaceX or NASA is the first to send us to the red planet, our visions will no doubt soon be set on the skies once again. The first moon-landing was motivated by a Cold War, so what will send us to the skies this time? The effects of climate change may force us to leave Earth as it is gradually becoming more uninhabitable due to atmospheric warming. If we cannot reverse the direction of global warming, colonising other planets may be the only way to safeguard our species’ existence.

In Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, The Sixth Extinction, she talks about how the early Homo Sapiens were the only species on Earth to ever look to the vastness of the oceans and decide to cross them, perceiving that something tangible might lay on the other side.

Perhaps, she says, we are slightly insane to attempt a feat of these proportions, knowing that we would likely die at sea for only a slim chance of finding land.

Are we mad to risk our lives to explore the skies in the hope of finding something worthwhile? Maybe, but perhaps multi-planetary aliens from different galaxies are already co-existing, waiting for the humans of planet Earth to join the party.

21

COMMENTARY

RESISTANCE MADE FUTILE WORDS BY TARA JADWANI-BUNGAR ARTWORK BY JAMES GOH

S

TUBERCULOSIS AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT SUPERBUGS

ingapore, 2012: Kannan, my uncle, dies aged fifty-one.

Cause of death: myocardial infarction – heart failure. But the disease that ravaged his lungs and consumed his body goes unmentioned. My uncle’s tuberculosis (TB), contracted on a working-trip to India, went undiagnosed for 10 months.

Five years on, my uncle’s death continues to trouble me. Kannan was unwell for almost two years after returning from India. By the time someone thought to x-ray his chest, his lungs had been consumed and he was beyond help. How did doctors in Singapore’s world class health system overlook TB, despite knowing that Kannan’s work took him frequently to India, a TB hotspot?

Perhaps it was because today, TB is relatively unheard of in developed countries, where it receives little funding and mainstream media attention. This rarity, however, could be about to change. Antibiotic resistance, in addition to increased global mobility and a lack of significant antibiotic development, is once again making TB a significant threat on a global scale.

The 20th Century was the golden age of TB treatment and control thanks to the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine and an arsenal of antibiotics. But this era has ended. Today, the BCG vaccine is known to be frequently ineffective and increasingly resistant strains of the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis have emerged, rejuvenating TB. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria develop immunity against an antibiotic. Within a population of bacteria exposed to an antibiotic, some resistance is always present due to random genetic mutations. Resistant bacteria survive treatment, reproducing until they are the majority. Resistance can itself be passed within and across species of bacteria.

Today, drug-resistant strains of almost every pathogenic bacterium, collectively referred to as ‘superbugs’, are ubiquitous.

Increased mobility exacerbates the problem – that anyone could come into contact with resistant bacteria wherever they go and then spread them round the world The World Health Organisation declared TB a global emergency in 1993. It is the world’s deadliest infectious disease and is becoming progressively resistant to more and more antibiotics. Yet compared to HIV/AIDS, malaria and recent epidemics like Ebola, TB receives little funding and mainstream media attention. Why?

Pharmaceutical companies spend exorbitant amounts lobbying and encouraging most governments to turn a blind eye to their activities.

Perhaps because there appear to be no more medical avenues to exploit. The BCG vaccination against TB is mostly ineffective as are many treatment methods. But behind these medical and biological factors lies a web of political and economic issues that have encouraged antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance stems from antibiotic abuse which is a complex political and economic issue. It is particularly prevalent where governments fail to regulate antibiotic accessibility. This enables the purchase of antibiotics without a prescription, resulting in their incorrect use. In Thailand and the Philippines, for example, the anti-TB drug Rifampin can be brought over the counter and

22

COMMENTARY

is commonly used ineffectively as protection against sexually transmitted infections.

Powerful pharmaceutical companies exert pressure on general practitioners and hospitals to prescribe more lucrative antibiotics over others, bribing them to win their allegiance. Subsequently, ineffective antibiotics may be employed over more efficient antibiotics, fostering antibiotic resistance.

More than any other industry, pharmaceutical companies spend exorbitant amounts lobbying and encouraging most governments to turn a blind eye to their activities. These profitoriented companies function as they please, choosing which diseases and medications merit research and development. To date, antimicrobial research has not merited their attention. Why? Antibiotics are short-course medications and are less profitable than chronic disease and lifestyle drugs. Additionally, infectious diseases like TB are associated with impoverished or developing countries that cannot afford to fund antimicrobial research and development. Consequently, there has been a serious decline in the development of new antibiotics. The last new class of antibiotics was discovered during the ‘80s. The resulting ‘discovery void’ means the medical arsenal cannot properly combat antibiotic resistance.

This lack of new treatments means that TB afflicted populations, concentrated in Asia and Africa, have little access to effective medication. Increasing resistance to front-line antibiotics forces individuals to depend on more expensive and less effective secondline drugs. Patients are more likely to default on treatment, which in turn makes the treatment less effective, as it takes up to two years, is very expensive and uses medication with serious side effects.

Commercial animal husbandry and agriculture is another cause of antibiotic resistance. Filthy, crowded factory farms are breeding grounds for disease. Epidemics are prevented by pumping animals full of antibiotics, encouraging antibiotic resistance that then affects humans. The American Farming Lobby, similar to its pharmaceuticals counterpart, is so powerful that it has repeatedly stymied government attempts to pass laws for new standards in industry practice.

If global action is not taken immediately, a drug-resistant TB pandemic is almost inevitable. The latest Global Plan to stop TB by the Stop TB Partnership, a coalition of NGOs, foundations and other organisations fighting TB, demands a paradigm shift. We can no longer focus on merely controlling or slowing TB – we must aim to end TB. Such a goal requires a change in ambition, and – most importantly – full investment in a strategy for ending TB.

I do not – and probably never will – know if my uncle had drug-resistant TB. Little has been done to enable such a change. In 2011, Stop TB Partnership estimated that US$9.84 billion was required for TB research and development to bring an end to the global crisis.

Actual funding amounted to a mere US$3.29 billion. Between 2011 and 2015 pharmaceutical industry investments in TB research and development dropped by 40 per cent, putting more pressure on not-for-profit organisations. In that time frame, several studies described cases of totally drug-resistant TB in India.

I do not – and probably never will – know if my uncle had drug-resistant TB. What I do know is that TB should not be a killer anywhere, particularly not in Singapore. Earlier this year, echoing my uncle’s case, a man returned to Sydney from a trip through South-East Asia with what he thought was a flu. Only on his third visit to a doctor was he correctly diagnosed with multi-drugresistant TB. By then, 10 others had been infected.

Continuous antibiotics abuse, intensified by stagnating antibiotics research and development industry policy and a lack of awareness, have created the perfect environment for a drugresistant TB pandemic. Non-government organisations alone cannot stop TB. An immediate concerted effort by government organisations and private corporations is necessary. In addition, action is required by all of us – demanding action of our governments, becoming involved in the campaign against TB and becoming better users of antibiotics.

23

24

25

COMMENTARY

TERRORISM: IN CONVERSATION WORDS BY LUCY WILLIAMS ARTWORK BY ESTHER LE COUTEUR

TALKING TO PROFESSOR TARIQ RAMADAN ABOUT TERRORISM

A

ustralians are more concerned than ever about the threat of terrorism, as we witness attacks that seem, through the lens of our media at least, to be sweeping Western cities.

You may have noticed the swarms of concrete bollards that have sprouted across the Melbourne CBD recently. While local artists have quickly attempted to beautify them, their presence remains a stark indicator of the times in which we live. Although detractors argue their presence only plays into the public’s fear of terror attacks, Tariq Ramadan, a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the Oxford University, believes they could have the opposite effect, and reassure the community that the city is more secure. Ramadan argues that these small changes to the environment in the interest of public safety are preferable to changes in legislation that impact on our freedoms. Still, while these mounds of cement may reassure some worried Melbournians, Ramadan acknowledges that unfortunately, “any of these security measures might not be enough, such is the nature of modern terrorist attacks”.

Of the 142 failed, foiled and completed attacks occurring in 2016, only 13 were labelled jihadist.

Though the connectedness of our modern world may make us think there is more terrorism today than there has ever been before, Ramadan notes, “There isn’t more terrorism as such, however, we are seeing more unpredictable, lone-wolf style attacks.” While it is true that we are experiencing a spike in deaths caused by attacks in comparison to the figures from 2000, the current number of deaths attributable to terrorism is not historically unique. Comparatively, Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor, indicates that the death rate from terrorism in the ‘80s was significantly higher in comparison to 2000.

According to the Centre for International Development and Conflict Management, the locations of terrorism have also changed dramatically. While countries such as Northern Ireland and Spain were amongst the most attacked nations between 1970 and 2001, since 2000, only 4.4 per cent of attacks, and 2.6 per cent of deaths have occurred in Western countries. Ramadan argues that “though our media focuses mostly on the Western victims of terrorism, it is vital to remember that the vast majority of terrorism’s effect is felt outside the West, in countries like Syria and Iraq and Nigeria to name a few.”

In the West, there is a focus on Islamist terrorism, and in a global context Ramadan agrees that as far as violent extremism is concerned, Islamist terror at this moment in history is the most common type. Despite this, he points to the ease with which the media labels some of these extremists as Muslims, when their faith is either irrelevant, or they have converted extremely recently and their connection is more to violent ideologies of ‘jihadists’ than to Islam.

“Muslims need to be seen as part of the solution,” Ramadan adds, referencing the work Muslim communities have done to work with authorities, assisting those who are vulnerable to violent ideologies and assisting victims of terrorism around the world.

Of the Islamist terrorist threat in Australia, it is “principally lone actors or small groups who use simple attack methodologies that enable them to act independently and with a high degree of agility”. However, the Government also warns of the threat posed by lone actors influenced by differing ideological agendas, such as a right-wing individual who was arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences in 2016. “It really is case by case, country by country, as far as the biggest threat,” Ramadan summarises.

In The European Union’s Terrorism Situation and Trend Report of 2017, of the 142 failed, foiled and completed attacks occurring in 2016, only 13 were labelled jihadist. This highlights the problematic characterisation of terrorism as uniquely Islamist.

Seeing terrorism as solely an Islamic issue is false. Recent acid attacks against Muslim Brits and the murder of Nabra Hassanen in Virginia are recent examples of violence stemming from the false presentation of terror perpetuated in the community against those who are assumed to be Muslim. It also blinds people to the fact that, given the enormous amount of attacks in Muslim majority countries, the majority of the victims of terrorism, according to the US Government’s National Counter-Terrorism Center and the Global Terrorism Database, are Muslim.

So how do we go forward given this situation of mass panic?

Ramadan says the best way forward is to live as normal a life as possible. He clarifies that this does not mean a life of ignorance.

“Fundamentally, not just having empathy for victims, but dealing with the reasons behind terrorism, never to justify atrocities, but to understand what is going on beyond a superficial reaction.”

While bollards may help reassure us of our safety, Ramadan argues that the key to stopping these attacks is understanding the logic extremists use to validate their actions, never justifying what these terrorists do, but addressing the causes of terror.

“Educate yourself about your fellow citizens, don’t nurture a sense of insecurity in your society through stereotypes. Australia is not a fragile society, but what can weaken any society is intellectual laziness, interacting only with a close circle of people. A crucial way forward is to not accept the hierarchy between victims.”

That line stuck with me. There is a significant disparity between the sympathy we in the West show for civilians in varying corners of the globe. We all saw French flags temporarily adorn our friends’ Facebook profile pictures, but how many Syrian flags have you seen? We need to realise it’s not just our families who worry about terrorist attacks and not just Australians who install ugly concrete bollards to protect their communities. We need to notice the victims of terrorism wherever they reside, to notice the terrible global impact terrorism has on lives of all religions and ethnicities, whether that be in London and Paris, or Raqqa and Aleppo.

26

SICK SAD WORLD COLUMN BY ED PITT ARTWORK BY HANNA LIU

INSIDE 4CHAN’S RANDOM FORUM

O

CONTENT WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF SELF HARM, HOMOPHOBIC SLURS

nce one of the internet’s most popular imageboards and a place loathed and feared in equal measure, 4Chan’s random forum (known to its denizens as /b/), is now a husk. The forum was once a vibrant place, partially due to an absence of rules or moderation (child pornography was the only taboo). News outlets would report on the forum’s misadventures – although generally misunderstanding them or misattributing their actions to ‘the hacking group known as anonymous’.

The earliest memes – lolcats, Rickrolling, and the vast majority of image macros were born on /b/, back before people even knew how to pronounce ‘meme’ (maymay, meemee, mem?). The forum was also known for its campaigns and raids. Sometimes, this would mean protesting Scientology and tracking down animal abusers.

Other times, it involved posting bright, flashing text to epilepsy forums or convincing Justin Bieber fans to self-harm. All of this was due a distinct culture – owing to a fairly unique system, one which did not require users to have an account to post, one in which forum threads lived or died simply based upon their sheer popularity, as well as a dearth of rules.

Attending an all-boys high school in the late 2000s, I was always aware of /b/’s existence. In 2010, a close friend of mine even used /b/ to successfully rig a major competition Bliss N Eso were holding. These days, however, the forum has lost something.

A victim of its own notoriety, it seems, it hasn’t been blamed for anything for years, hasn’t been the focus of any major controversies, and what little productive activity that was achieved on the forum seems to have dried up. The memes too, are gone, as other websites have taken on this role. Quite unsurprisingly it has been taken over by porn – a cursory glance of /b/ on any given day will be roughly 50 per cent pornography. The remainder is a collection of humour threads, racist news discussion threads (/b/ is located next-door to the alt-right’s haven, /pol/), collaborative drawing threads and ‘roll’ threads (whereby people post to see the number their post is assigned and then take a specific action – generally watching a particular movie or something more inane).

Due to its entirely anonymous nature, as well as being a place of mischief, it is impossible to know anything about anyone on the website. The users of /b/ pride themselves on their anonymity – it’s why they, as a collective, call themselves anonymous and is perhaps their only shared philosophy. ‘What happens online, stays online’ is a loose approximation of this ethos, one that a number of more reputable forums have followed – causing trouble when users, for example, ‘jokingly’ threaten school-shootings, cause major websites to go offline, or attempt to track down the Boston bombers and subsequently harass family members of a dead son.

I tried to ask the users of /b/ why they still used /b/ – and to reveal a bit about themselves. I was met with few responses: ‘kek’ (a

corruption of ‘lol’), ‘Lurk moar faggot’ (to ‘lurk’ meaning to observe but not post – something told to those new in the community) and ‘4Chan is gay’. I had expected little and yet I was still disappointed.

Thankfully internet metrics company, Alexa, had some information.

The average 4Chan user was more likely not to have graduated from college, was slightly more likely to be ages 18 to 24 (sadly, Alexa does not track the adolescent age group), was hugely more likely to be Caucasian over any other ethnicity and was also greatly more likely to be browsing from school. Oddly, relative to the general internet population, women are moderately overrepresented on 4Chan – surprising for a place that meets women with the command to post ‘tits or gtfo’.

“Been unemployed for years, sit in my fam’s home doing nothing all day, too depressed to change that, don’t even know what I’m doing anymore,” one user stated.

Poe’s law dictates that without clarity of intent, people will mistake parody for the real thing. What starts as an intentionally off-colour remark or joke gets co-opted, with edgy teenagers trying to out-do each other. As a result, it appeals to the sick and the lost.

After I had placated users, proving I wasn’t the big bad mainstream media looking for cheap clicks, I received some helpful answers.

One individual, an insurance salesman who had been active on /b/ since its inception in 2003 (an ‘oldfag’, in their parlance) spoke of it as a community that used to be focused around harmless jokes, before being widely publicised as “the internet hate machine” and drawing in rebellious youths.

Others spoke of it as an escape. “Been unemployed for years, sit in my fam’s home doing nothing all day, too depressed to change that, don’t even know what I’m doing anymore,” one user stated.

Another user agreed stating, “Same but only unemployed for six months. Seriously just sit around and thing about killing myself all day. Do’nt know what to do, havent had a fun time with a friend in a long time. This literally just fills up my day in a very non satisfying way. until I can sleep again [sic].”

Of course, these are just the stories of a few, and stories that may or may not be true. I’ve always detested the media’s portrayal of 4Chan, a depiction of homogeneous bigoted hackers, and don’t want to make a similar mistake. /b/ is still a huge community, and with that comes complexity and diversity (albeit with a complete lack of racial diversity).

Past its prime, out-of-date, and overrun with teenagers, however, there is a discernible sense of decay – it is no longer any kind of ‘utopia’ – but then again, it probably never was.

27

COMMENTARY

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM WORDS BY STEPHANIE ZHANG ARTWORK BY LAUREN HUNTER

I

ONE PERSON’S EXPERIENCE VOLUNTOURING OVERSEAS

n Year 11, I did what every other student at my school was doing and made a last-ditch attempt to add a shiny, altruistic thing to my CV. I took a trip during the holidays to a rural village in Yunnan, China, to help build houses as part of a Habitat for Humanity trip.

The trip was a mediocre experience, I must admit. The organisation hadn’t communicated with the local village properly and hence was unable to obtain the necessary paperwork to do certain types of work. Instead of the bricklaying and wallplastering my friends did in Sri Lanka and Cambodia, work that high school students were perhaps a little more suited to do given our physical abilities, we were instead allocated the task of digging holes for the building’s foundation. The trip was only nine days long and we dug for seven of those days. During this time, local workers would come around to supervise and sometimes give us a hand, and when this happened it became painfully clear how incapable we were. When we finished these measly holes, some members of our team cheered, and suggested taking the last two days off as a celebration of sorts.

The inefficiency here is clear. Sure, Habitat for Humanity and volunteer organisations alike have done wonderful things for communities in poverty, but taking groups of students or tourists to rural villages for them to 'experience' building a house is useless, to say the least.

Volunteering overseas is not a new thing. It’s been around for a full century, and can be traced back to WWI when Voluntary Aid Detachment and Red Cross volunteers worked in battlefields to treat soldiers and civilians on both sides. However, only recently has the voluntourism industry begun flourishing, shifting international volunteering from the hands of professionals (think Doctors Without Borders) into the hands of amateurs like my friends and I. There is, of course, an important distinction between development volunteering and voluntourism. Development volunteering involves a long-term partnership between individuals and the community, in which the volunteer programme is generally matched with the skills of the individuals by International Volunteer Sending Agencies. Its central concern is stimulating

development through long-term goals and milestones, and hence, development volunteers have a more defined role and purpose within the programme. Voluntourism, on the other hand, is more market driven, and development is sold as a commodity to tourists.

Voluntourism appeals to tourists’ desire to ‘make a difference’ or ‘give back’. In this way, voluntourism and development volunteering can be seen as opposites: development volunteering holds the community’s needs at heart, while voluntourism is set up to meet the needs of the tourist. While it may not be entirely fair to characterise it as a ‘selfish’ act, it is a distinctive industry emerging from privileged individuals’ desire to help others and experience ‘poor’ environments, designed to help them reach spiritual fulfilment. As a result, ‘poverty tourism’ can have dangerous ideological undertones.

You see it all the time on Facebook pictures and Tinder profiles: the (often white) individual surrounded by groups of (often black) children.

Sending privileged, often Western, tourists overseas reinforces the paradigm that underprivileged countries are in need of help. It positions the individuals taking time to travel across the world to put in physical labour as the benevolent givers, while community members have to be the grateful receivers of charity.

This creates rather superficial relationships between the two parties.

Voluntourism often ignores the reality that while it ‘gives’, it also takes from local communities.

The fact that voluntourism is set up for profit cannot be overlooked: often programmes are arranged in places that are not necessarily in need of voluntourist development schemes, but instead fit a tourist’s idea of the experience. One example of this that has posed major problems to communities is the practice of ‘orphanage tourism’. You see it all the time on Facebook pictures and Tinder profiles: the (often white) individual surrounded by groups of (often black) children. These children are paraded out to help tourists

28

COMMENTARY

that only volunteers can effect change, and that the ‘help’ offered cannot, in any way, be a bad thing.

Voluntourism not only appeals to tourists’ consciences: it also capitalises their privileged guilt. Perhaps the recent voluntourism trend comes from the polarisation of ‘charitable’ volunteering and ‘selfish’ tourism (despite the fact that voluntourism is undoubtably both). Paradoxically, this entire industry that has emerged from tourists’ desire to close the gap can only increase inequality, thereby creating more opportunities for voluntourism, as well as an increased sense of guilt. What voluntourists don’t realise is that the entire industry is based on taking advantage of inequality.

Perhaps this is not as insidious as I am painting it to be. There is one good thing – those who go on voluntouring trips mean well and invariably want to make a difference. It’s impossible to say definitively that ‘voluntourism is bad’, but there are several ways in which the industry, as well as the individuals whom these experiences are sold to, could become more informed.

For starters, don’t fall into the lure of the CV like I did. This has been the cornerstone of the voluntourism industry’s success; the ability to convert culture capital in developing countries into economic capital in the Western employment market. It’s no surprise that part of the reason people go on these trips is to tick some sort of box for self-promotion. But now that the dangers of voluntourism trips are becoming apparent, perhaps we can look to other forms of charity: NGOs generally prefer donations of cash or materials like construction supplies or food.

Instead of falling for the industry’s illusion, we can try to better understand the role of volunteering before jumping into the first opportunity that appeals to us. Perhaps one’s charity would be better placed within one’s own community. Before assuming you have the ability to help enact change on overseas global poverty, understand that your own immediate community has needs as well.

While community service is obviously good and necessary, it’s important that we think critically about what is being sold to us by voluntourism agencies, and to understand our own role, direct or indirect, in the unjust global economic order. Lots of organisations in Victoria are regularly looking for volunteers – look to those to see how you can make a long-term commitment to service.

achieve a sense of charity, but more often than not, have specifically been asked to perform or befriend donors in order to receive funds.

There are also situations where children with parents are kept hostage in orphanages for food or medical supplies, not to mention deeper concerns of letting tourists form connections with orphaned children, only to leave them after a few weeks.

For local communities, combatting poverty and trying to retain languages and cultures from before Western intervention may be a greater priority.

Additionally, a community can have vastly different needs than those than a tourist might have been led to believe. While on my Habitat trip, bricklaying may have been better than digging holes according to our measures of utility but perhaps the community needed neither. In order to fulfil our personal expectations, these are the things we end up doing most often. For example, voluntourist groups are often allocated the task of teaching English to school children, which can be more of a threat to indigenous cultures than any form of help. For voluntourists, ‘making a difference’ may mean providing access to food, schools, English, and other things that may fall under the Western capitalist umbrella. For local communities, combatting poverty and trying to retain languages and cultures from before Western intervention may be a greater priority.

It’s important to note that the predicament of many of these countries boils down to the damages of European colonialism and American imperialism (particularly post-WWII and during the Cold War). The argument has been made that voluntourism is a new form of colonialism, and it’s frightfully accurate. Putting aside the obvious differences in race, there exist implicit colonial power relations. Voluntourism normalises the power imbalance between the tourist and the community, the former being there to consume the development experience, and the latter solely existing to accept the altruism without protest. The industry has essentially fostered a colonial paternalism, while simultaneously capitalising on individuals’ guilt and charity. There are also unacknowledged assumptions – that the locals are ignorant and ‘underdeveloped’,

29

30

COMMENTARY

THE SCIENCE OF SCENT WORDS BY NEALA GUO ARTWORK BY NELLIE SEALE

T

other senses. Of course, one must learn to associate an odour with a particular memory, before the smell can become a conditioned stimuli that elicits a particular emotional response each time. This process is called ‘associative learning’. You may, therefore, find the cologne your ex wears particularly distasteful.

Fragrance can be a means of seduction, too. Certain hormones stimulate sexual appetite, these are called pheromones. But where does scent come in to play, you ask? Well, like any hormones, the presence of some internal or external factor is necessary for it to be released. Scent is what triggers the release of these particular hormones. Hence, people will invest in colognes and perfumes with a scent that has the potential to boost sexual desire in a potential mate. Perfumes are powerful in that they prompt or heighten arousal. What each person finds attractive is a personal and variable thing. Unfortunately, this means one is left scratching their head when trying to buy a perfume that might reel in the girl who sits two rows in front of them in their microeconomics tutorial. Yet, there are some smells that appeal to the masses in general. According to Dr Hirsch, an American neurologist, men are extremely responsive to the smell of a baking cinnamon roll. In the game of temptation, visuals aren’t the only thing that are important.

It must be understood that perfume is also used to heighten one’s natural scent. Everyone has a unique odour, scientists claim, and if we have no ulterior motives (i.e. we aren’t planning on seducing anyone anytime soon, or looking for a fragrance that reminds one of the florist shop their parents owned when they were a kid), we will find one that enhances our natural body odour. You might be wondering why people want to enhance scent in the first place. It is simply because we tend to smell more pleasant when we have enhanced our innate body smell, rather than when we impose some distant branded perfume that interacts poorly with our natural scent. Personally, I like to think that our use of perfume is yet another way we seek to find loopholes around the supposed evolutionary advantage of aesthetics – if lipstick can be used to enhance one’s mouth and thus one’s physical beauty, surely perfume and cologne can be used in the exact same manner and purpose.

I’d like to end by shocking you with a bit of history: apparently the French took up perfume as a way of combatting the awful smells of urine and other bodily fluids that clogged the gutters.

Crafty, huh?

here’s something curiously humble about the flask-shaped perfume bottle that holds Chanel No. 5. Surprisingly, it never seems to get drowned out by the noise made by more ostentatious designs (Davidoff, anyone?). Possibly because Chanel No. 5 is something akin to a goddess in the world of fragrances. The scent was Coco Chanel’s attempt to capture and bottle the liberated spirit of the flapper during a time where your perfume labelled you as either an upper-class woman or as working class. Fast forward to today, the perfume section of David Jones is chaotic and trying to decide on a scent is as stressful as choosing from the ever-growing variety of bananas at Woolies. Which begs the question, why do we bother with fragrances in the first place?

Is it the effect of celebrity-endorsed packaging on our subconscious? A better question to ask is, how could it not be?

Perfume ads, like all ads, appeal to our underlying desires. They muddle what we believe we crave with what we actually crave.

Hence, people will invest in colognes and perfumes with a scent that has the potential to boost sexual desire in a potential mate.

We think we want the perfume, when really we want to be Cara Delevingne. Clearly, there’s no better way to do that than recruiting the celebs. After all, not everyone remembers the name of Tom Ford’s latest fragrance but everyone recalls Delevingne naked in a pool of orchids posing in Ford’s fragrance campaign. And who could ever forget her precursor, Kate Moss, rubbing a rose suggestively over her body in the backseat in the debut of Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Parisienne’? Put simply, perfume is commercially successful because it is a sign of status, and for that it has the big names in Hollywood to thank. Without these guest appearances perfume is not a luxury, but little more than smelly water.

Yet, perfume appeals to us in another sense: we like scents because they evoke fond memories. A friend of mine likes to spray herself with a vanilla cupcake fragrance because it reminds her of her grandma’s house after they baked cupcakes. I’m a big fan of ‘Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin’ because it reminds me of Christmas.

Why does odour have such a potent effect on emotion? Because, scientists explain, your sense of smell is more closely linked with the neural areas relating to emotion and memory than any of the

31

COMMENTARY

MAKING SENSE OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE WORDS BY TILLI FRANKS ARTWORK BY ELLA HOPE BROADBENT

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE, SUBSTANCE USE, SELF-HARM, MENTAL ILLNESS, MENTIONS OF QUEERPHOBIA

“I

did something stupid, again.”

Fingers writhing, legs jittering, lips burning. My stomach feels like I keep missing a step. There’s guilt sitting at the base of my trachea, blocking my lungs like phlegm. A blonde woman sits opposite me, watching me struggle to get my body, my brain, under control. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be in this calm, grey room, with wide, grey windows, looking out onto tall, grey buildings. I don’t want this woman to hold me up against a spectrum of disorders and fit me into yet another category. But judging my mental stability is exactly what I am paying this woman for.

“What happened?” My therapist asks.

The stars are slipping between my outstretched fingers, as my friends pass a joint between us. Everything is smudgy purples and blues as the ocean and the sky blur into one, and I’m giggling because isn’t it just so funny how a cocktail of weed and wine has made me feel better than the last year of psychologists, medication and confiscated razors ever has? I’ve forgotten all my standards, my responsibilities, my rules. And it’s so fucking liberating to not care anymore.

I like it.

The thing is though, I’m not the first person to use getting fucked up to cope with being fucked up. As a member of a marginalised group that faces stigma and exclusion from society at large, I have a higher risk of developing mental health issues. I started to question my sexuality at fourteen. I was first diagnosed with a mental health disorder in the same year. I started abusing alcohol and other substances at fifteen.

You couldn’t have dragged me out of the closet with anything

short of Jesus’ Second Coming, but there are a plethora of other reasons as to why I developed the disorders that I did. There’s no denying the role which realising my sexuality played in my depression and anxiety. It made me feel isolated, abnormal, and at times, suicidal. I wanted to be perfect, and being intoxicated was – and is – the only time I didn’t care that I wasn’t.

There’s a bottle of vodka. I’m not sure where from. I’m not even sure how much of it was meant to be mine. But I’m sad, desperately, achingly sad and I don’t know why. I want to be drunk, I want to have fun, I want to kiss boys – or I want to want to kiss boys. And, maybe if I’m drunk, nobody will think it’s weird if I end up kissing a girl.

Because drunk, seventeen-year-old girls do that.

When I wake up, I’m on my side, in my friend’s little sister’s bed.

I’m still wearing my bikini. There’s a pile of vomit next to me. I’m alone. I don’t remember a thing.

Four years later, it’s the same old story. Occasionally – once a week maybe – I’m still supplementing my normally strict diet of 150mg of venlafaxine with a more fun form of self-medication: binge drinking. Mostly, it’s fine. I wake up with a headache and a dry throat. I have a few blank patches, but I remember the gist of the evening. My one respite from the anxiety and depression that hang over my head lives to drink another day. And when I’m out, having a few drinks, a few laughs, I feel like I can conquer anything.

For a brief few hours, my demons turn into wings that fly me up towards the sun. But then sometimes, I realise my wings are just feathers held together with wax, and like Icarus, I fall further into the labyrinth.

32

COMMENTARY

I’m not an anomaly. Around 20 per cent to 30 per cent of LGBTI+ individuals – compared to 9 per cent of our cisgender, heterosexual counterparts – struggle with substance abuse disorders, with other studies suggesting that rates are even higher in LGBTI+ young people. The LGBTI+ community experiences mental health disorders at twice the rate of the rest of the population - and the risk is even higher for transgender people.

LGBTI+ folk have historically been criminalised, pathologised and analysed from every degrading angle in both medical institutions and Western societies at large. To this day, transgender people have to traverse an obstacle course to have their gender legally recognised, while in other areas, same-sex attracted and gender diverse people struggle with blatant erasure and blatant prejudice.

Because of our past and ongoing struggles, such as the constant threats to the funding of programs like Safe Schools and the legislative barriers to changing gender markers on official documents, we as a community face a huge strain. This impacts our access to healthcare, education, income, social spaces and safety. Some of us cope by using mind-altering substances as a form of escapism to deal with both internalised and externalised homophobia.

Someone puts another pill on my tongue, and I pass them 20 dollars. I’ve had a few shots. I’m blissed out and dizzy. A guy is moving his body against mine as we dance, loose limbs and shirts plastered against our skin. The bass is pulsing through the room. I can almost forget, if I tilt my head back and blur my vision, about having sex with that girl last week. About how it felt, and how I felt, when I finally realised that that was what attraction actually felt like.

But I do remember. So I reach up, and pull his mouth down to my lips. I whisper in his ear that if he buys me another drink, he can come home with me. And later, while he moves in me, I blur my vision again, and try to imagine he’s fucking the gay out of me. In the morning, that’s all I can remember.

This is not just personal. I’m part of a community which is largely only given space to exist in places that promote substance abuse.

And don’t get me wrong – I never feel safer or more at home than when I’m out at a gay club. It’s a refuge for many. But it’s a place where alcohol and drugs are easily accessible, and just because it’s a refuge doesn’t mean it exists in a vacuum. Substance abuse and mental health disorders don’t disappear; they’re still an issue, still raging on outside, still audible over the Spice Girls remixes.

And our identities are so sexualised that we’re relegated to these closets where that is all we become, and all we are allowed to exist as. I’ve taken my straight friends to LGBTI+ events, but I’ve also had abuse hurled at me for holding a girl’s hand while I walk down the street. Bridal parties will go to gay clubs on their hen nights, but my right to marry at all is up to public opinion. People will pay to see a drag show, but shout insults and slurs at my gender diverse friends in a McDonalds. We’re trapped; ballerinas in a music box pirouetting round and round, never allowed to stop dancing, never allowed outside the box.

The restriction of the LGBTI+ community to nightlife and its culture perpetuates the very feelings of isolation which drove us there in the first place.

I know I’m never going to find answers in the bottom of a pint glass, the end of a cigarette, a line of cocaine. But are you going to deny me a moment of bliss, those precious hours of feeling like I’m on top of the world? It’s self-destructive. I feel beautiful in the brief seconds before I fly too close to the sun. I haven’t got any answers.

I’m so fucking tired.

If you, or someone you know, found any content within this piece upsetting, you can find help and support at: Lifeline: 13 11 14 Beyond Blue: 1300 22 46 36 Reach Out (LGBT Helpline): 1800 184 527

33

COMMENTARY

ON THE ORIGIN OF STRANGENESS COLUMN BY TESSA MARSHALL ARTWORK BY EDIE BUSH

6: WORSE THAN OEDIPUS

A

creature fated to die before it is born. This paradox sounds like one of Gollum’s riddles, yet it is part of the real lifecycle for male mites belonging to a genus known as Adactylidium. Found mostly in the Middle East, these microscopic parasites feed on the eggs of a tiny insect called a thrip. After birth, the females venture out to find a new egg to feed on, while the males emerge from their mother only to die shortly after. They do not feed and they do not mate – they just wait for their demise. For decades, this strange characteristic puzzled zoologists, who wondered why the males existed if all they did was die.

Eventually, the bizarre life cycle of Adactylidium was revealed. A female Adactylidium mite is born already carrying several fertilised eggs. A few days later, the eggs hatch inside her, giving rise to females and one male. Then, But fetal incest isn’t creepy several showing no regard for one of the enough for these mites: strongest taboos in human society, they proceed to eat their the male mates with every one of his mother from the inside out. sisters – inside their mother. But fetal incest isn’t creepy enough for these mites: they proceed to eat their mother from the inside out, completing their gory lifecycle. In some species, the male joins the females in devouring their mother and exploring the outside world. In others, he is never born, dying in the womb as soon as his reproductive role is fulfilled. The entire process, from the female leaving her mother’s body, to being eaten herself, lasts about four days.

Sibling mating and matricidal cannibalism may be great concepts for a horror movie or in Game of Thrones, but is it beneficial when it’s found in nature? While matriphagy, or mother-eating, is reasonably common in some insects, scorpions and spiders (and you thought your mum made sacrifices for you), mating with siblings increases the risk of offspring inheriting recessive birth defects, which is probably why humans and many other animals are so averse to the practice. Adactylidium must have a pretty good reason to override this aversion.

As the Adactylidium mite feeds on only one thrip egg for its What if the single male dies, entire life, incest may be a reaction leaving his sisters to the limited amount of resources unsuccessful virgins? it has available. Providing each of its children with a nearby suitor spares them the intensive effort of finding a mate. (Think about how exhausting it is finding a suitable date. Now imagine enduring all those fuckboys after only having a pea for breakfast.) However, the low ratio of males to females in the brood is risky – what if the single male dies, leaving his sisters unsuccessful virgins (in evolutionary terms)? Mating in-utero mitigates this risk, allowing their mother to protect them. Thanks Mum! So next time someone mentions the Oedipus complex, or Cersei and Jaime Lannister, and you want some shock-value, just tell them about the Adactylidium mite. I can’t guarantee it will earn you social points, but it will grab their attention.

34

RITUALS BY LILLY MCLEAN

35

Instagram @Lillian_Mclean

COMMENTARY

KILLER INSTINCT WORDS BY RUBY SCHOFIELD ARTWORK BY CAROLYN HUANE

THE MAKINGS OF A SERIAL KILLER AND HOW TO SPOT A MURDERER

D

o you have killer instincts? Empathy that can’t be roused, a bloodlust that can’t be quenched? Some do – but were they born or bred? Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

The Making of Ivan Milat It is said that psychopaths begin young. Perhaps their family begins to notice ‘off’ behaviour from childhood. This can include withdrawal from others, the inability to empathise with friends, or violent practices towards family pets. This seems to indicate that killer genetics may be responsible, but as with most things, it’s never quite that simple. According to neuroscientist Jim Fallon, there are three things that contribute to the making of a psychopath: brain structure, genetics and childhood experiences. Although many are born with the biology, it takes experience to flick the switch from ‘just unusually wired’ to ‘killer’.

Take the case of the Australian Backpacker Killer, Ivan Milat.

He’s the man said to be ‘Australia’s worst serial killer’, as depicted

in the film Wolf Creek. His father, Stephen, was an abusive alcoholic with an interest in guns, while his mother, Margaret, physically disciplined their 14 children to the point of breaking their arms and slashing them with knives. These experiences shaped the Milat children. While difficult to distinguish experience from genetics, Ivan’s siblings claim that he stood out from an early age. He was fearless, found serious situations humorous, never confided in people and was obsessively immaculate in his dress. While these traits aren’t specifically linked to psychopathic brain patterns, they may suggest a biological and experience-based explanation to his later crimes.

So if that switch does flick to ‘killer’, can you switch it back?

The Ludovico Technique: Purely Fiction?

According to leading forensic psychiatrist Dr. Nigel Blackwood, psychopaths can be treated – but not cured. Due to their biological nature, they are unlikely to fear punishment

36

COMMENTARY

and are unfazed by social stigma. This makes it difficult to treat them psychologically. While other types of criminals without personality disorders seem to respond to punishment-type therapy (negative feedback), psychopaths are more responsive to rewards (positive feedback). Studies by Dr. Blackwood’s team used MRI scans to show psychopathic brain activity increases both when punished and rewarded.

However, their decision-making is weighed differently. When considering their next move, psychopaths are overly-optimistic, thinking only about the reward. It has even been reported that once incarcerated, psychopaths seem surprised, as if the possibility of punishment did not exist. Work by psychologist Joseph Newman showed that criminal test subjects in prison systems respond to smaller frequent rewards. These develop into a compulsive need, a dependence on pleasure.

Despite treatment attempts through rewards-based therapies, there is still no cure. Professionals need to intervene at a young age to prevent children from becoming criminals.

Is your best friend a killer?

You’ve shared ice cream, friendship bracelets and a secret handshake, but how well do you know your best friend? I mean… there was that one time when you found that kidney in their fridge, but…it couldn’t be…right?

Only one per cent of the global Australian population are said to be psychopaths – this might seem small but it’s actually around 245,780 people in Australia. So here’s how to pick them. According

to criminal psychologist, Robert Hare, things you should look out for include a lack of empathy or remorse, pathological lying, being emotionally shallow, having behavioural problems and an inability to accept responsibility for their behaviour and impulsivity. As psychopaths have a predatory nature, they tend to assess which other people are prey, or competition. Publications in LiveScience, as well as Nature report that psychopaths are usually male, sociable and function well in society. Their charm is often used to gain people’s trust.

If you’re very attentive, you might be able to detect a psychopath through their speech patterns. Psychology research at Cornell University shows that the description of behaviour in past tense can show detachment, for example. Also, the tendency to use more ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’ when talking is said to reveal a planning out of speech. When a non-psychopath commits a crime they talk in terms of emotion, whereas psychopaths think it out as cause and effect. Another quirk is that they often speak of eating, drinking and money. These things are considered basic needs and so are said to reveal their predatory nature.

You never know – that friend who’s always calling on impulse for last minute drinks? Worth looking into. That one friend who’s always Instagramming their avocado toast? Definitely suspicious.

37

COMMENTARY

MUSLIM IN MALAYSIA WORDS BY ILSA HARUN ARTWORK BY SOPHIE SUN

I

t was another Monday morning in 2013 when I made my way to Jaya Driving School to attempt to get my driver’s license. It was hot, like most days in Kuala Lumpur, and sitting outside next to a parking lot did not make it any better. Mrs Ang, my petite, greyhaired driving instructor, told me that I needed to wear covered shoes and long pants. Sleeveless tops were not allowed under any circumstances. With at least a hundred other people in the waiting area with me, it was going to be a long day of sitting around.

Jaya Driving School was far down on the list of places I enjoyed being. The crowd of seventeen year-olds trying not to stall or crash their cars was funny to watch, but also nerve-wracking. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes – particularly in the tiny Malaysian-made cars, with their lack of power-steering and sticky hand brakes. Mrs. Ang did not make things any easier either. She taught most girls in the city, and would complain because she felt we were always bad drivers.

Of all the things I disliked, though, the invigilator from the Road Department was the worst.

I entered the car for my test just after lunch hour and gave my papers to the man from the Road Department. He wore a dark blue uniform which made him look stern, but his face seemed warm and friendly. He reminded me of an uncle that also had greying hair behind his ears. He looked at the papers, read my name aloud and said, “Oh, you are a Malay.” I explained to him that I was of a mixed background.

looser tops so I would be a better Muslim. He told me that I needed to pray more, especially when studying overseas. He told me to learn more about the Prophet Muhammad so I could love him more.

He even told me many people nowadays are not good Muslims and that I needed to change if I didn’t want to go to hell.

I tried to concentrate on driving. I did not want to upset or anger him, but more than that, I was at a loss for words.

We got back to the driving school as quickly as the traffic allowed us to. He ticked things off my test sheet, and made me promise that I would become a better Muslim and that I would pray more. He told me that if he ever saw me again, he wanted me to be suitably dressed and wearing a headscarf. I made the promise although I had no intention of ever crossing paths with him in the future. He wrote my final score on the paper. He gave me back my documents, and told me not to worry, that I had passed the test.

Looking back now, it wasn’t the only test I passed that day.

A year before this incident, I had moved to Australia to further my studies, and for the first time had been exposed to the ideas of feminism. It was no surprise that I had momentarily forgotten what it was like to have someone comment on what I was wearing.

So when I told my family about the strange occurrence, I did not expect them to laugh. My dad told me that the man likely felt he was doing his religious duty by helping me become a better Muslim. Then I realised it wasn’t the first time something like this

He said to me, “So you must be a Muslim, then.”

It was obvious from my name. I nodded. His face changed and became more serious. He then told me that we would begin the test.

I put my seatbelt on and checked my mirrors and indicators before pulling away to the busy road.

The rest of the test felt like a blur. I drove around in the traffic surrounding the driving school. I concentrated my hardest, so as to not stall the car, and to block out the conversation going on.

The man from the Road Department decided that being a good Muslim was an appropriate conversation topic during the test. He told me I shouldn’t dress in such skinny jeans and that I should wear

38

COMMENTARY

had happened. There had been other instances in which strangers commented on my personal choices. They saw it as a way to help others become better people.

But this so-called religious duty of helping others to be better Muslims is being taken to the extreme in Malaysia. The Malaysian Department for Islamic Development, or JAKIM, are officially involved in upholding Shari’a law, through administration and education. But ask any Malaysian Muslim, especially those in the cities, and you hear crazy stories of how they operate. JAKIM has been known to break up Muslim couples on Valentine’s Day dates. They have removed swear words from songs played on the radio. Words like ‘vodka’ and ‘whiskey’ are deemed obscenities to them. They have tried to ban yoga, as it has Hindu origins, and could “destroy the faith of a Muslim”. They have banned women from entering government buildings on the basis of ‘inappropriate dress’. They have even raided nightclubs and bars looking specifically for Muslims that drink – all in the name of saving these people from themselves.

It has become more difficult to be a moderate Muslim in Malaysia. For women, it is even more complicated, regardless of where you sit on the religious spectrum. Islamic law still favours men in terms of inheritance, family law and even in some cases of domestic violence. But it was not so long ago that Islam and feminist ideals coexisted in harmony. When the religion was first founded, Muslim women were given more rights than any other religion at the time. For a moment, Islam was progressive and inclusive, as women were to be considered equals. But over time, mankind has gotten in the way, as it so often does, changing small rules to suit its needs, until practices become unrecognizable.

That is where the divide in understanding Islam lies. As a Muslim, I know that feminism and this religion go hand in hand, but I am very much aware that we are often inundated with stories, like mine, that show us to be an intolerant, close-minded society.

In my mind, Islam has always been a religion of peace, fairness and one that is open to interpretation. My parents have always been open-minded in their religious practices, but now I realise that they were the exception. I was not forced to wear a hijab every day in school like so many people I know. I was not yelled at before dinner and forced to pray. I was not shamed when I felt too tired to continue fasting during the month of Ramadan. At home, religion has always been a choice. Yes, my parents encouraged me to pray, fast, and dress appropriately but it was never forced upon me. It became my choice to do those things, and I believe my faith was made stronger as a result. So if I could be a good person, without being forced to do so, why is there such an obsession to save others from sin? Only when we stop trying to change others and start looking inwards at our own reflections can we become better people and a more tolerant and understanding society.

39

40

COMMENTARY

THE EMPTINESS OF EMPTY SPACE WORDS BY ASHLEY MCDOUGALL ARTWORK BY KYAW MIN HTIN

I

magine you’re casually flying your spaceship through the solar system. You zoom past Neptune, the final planet, and keep going until you reach the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. But your journey doesn’t stop here. Your engines continue blazing and soon you’re engulfed by the intergalactic medium. Far away from any star, planet, galaxy or galactic cluster.

It’s dark, very dark. The blackness is all around you and seemingly endless. You decide to look around and scout this tenebrous pocket of the universe. You search for anything to indicate that this vast pit of inky black sky contains something, rather than nothing. Despite trying to shed some light on this puzzling conundrum, there seems to be one key question bouncing around in your mind; is there such a thing as truly empty space?

Does the concept of empty space really exist, or is it just that; a concept? Picture yourself standing outside on a clear night, not a cloud in sight and all you can see are the stars glimmering against the blanket of the night sky. The space that fills the gap between us and those stars, is perceived by us to be empty. From a conceptual standpoint, this is a perfectly valid definition yet, from a scientific perspective, we can do better.

We could define emptiness as a volume of space which contains ‘nothing’ in the truest sense of the word. No atoms, no elements, molecules, protons, neutrons, quarks, electrons, you get the picture.

If this does actually exist in the Universe, it would provide us with a more rigorous and concrete meaning to the words ‘empty space’.

We know that the sky on a dark night contains billions of atoms, molecules and dust because we can see them. If we shine a torch out into the sky, at just the right angle, we can see with our own eyes these tiny little dust particles floating around. Now you might be thinking; 'What about between the dust particles? What about between the atoms in the sky? Or even between the space inside the atom?' In fact, it is the answer to these questions that will unveil the reasons behind why empty space doesn’t exist, from a scientific perspective!

So if empty space isn’t really ‘empty’, then what is it? To uncover this mystery we need to understand what exists in the space between the tiniest of particles, especially between the most fundamental particles of nature. So what’s inside one of the smallest building blocks of ordinary matter, the proton? If you zoom in on the proton you will be able to see three quarks. Quarks are fundamental particles which means they have no internal substructure (that we currently know of!) so we can’t look inside

them and find more particles. Quarks, together with three other types of particles, make up the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

This – still incomplete – theory contains all the fundamental particles we have in the Universe. In protons there are two ‘up’ quarks, and one ‘down’ quark jittering around inside. If you zoom in even further, to the space between the quarks, you would see the force that keeps these quarks together, called the strong force. The strong force is carried by eight particles called gluons and a unique property of these gluons is that they can interact with themselves.

Consequently, if you tried to look at just one, you would see it popping in and out of existence due to it’s self-interactions (sounds crazy, but it’s true, I promise). This popping in and out happens at an incomprehensibly fast rate, creating a kind of bubbling soup in the space between the elementary quarks.

All we will find within the space we thought of as nothingness is a continuum of tiny quantum fluctuations.

Not only are there gluons between quarks but they also exist in all of the empty space we can think of; between particles, between molecules in the sky, between galaxies. This sea of gluons coming in and out of the vacuum is known as quantum vacuum fluctuations, and is absolutely crucial to our existence. We can see the effects of the presence of the gluons, through observing their effects on other particles, which is how we can tell that they are actually there. So what can we take from all of this? While it is true that most of the atom, and therefore matter, is (what we initially thought of as) empty space, it is also true that this space contains quantum vacuum fluctuations; particles popping in an out of existence and interacting with the particles all around us, therefore rendering it not really empty after all.

Despite your best efforts, you won’t find a volume of space where these quantum fluctuations don’t exist. We can fly far across the universe away from any planet, star, galaxy, into the dark depths of the Cosmos, but all we will find within the space we thought of as nothingness, is a continuum of tiny quantum fluctuations. So next time you look out your window at night and see a shimmering star, remember that all of the space between you and that star is a swarming sea of fluctuating particles. Can you see them?

41

COMMENTARY

NECTAR, HONEY AND PUDDING WORDS BY SUZIE MARKEL ARTWORK BY RACHEL MORLEY “One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I

heap powder from a tin that reads ‘Thick and Easy’. It has a background like a milk carton and reminds me vaguely of banana flavoured Nesquik. It has the same colour and the powder is grainy in the same way. The kettle clicks off, rumbling, and I fill a mug. After the water has turned a dark tannen, I shake the teabag out. I swirl the thickener in and particles clump like bad cream. It is gritty in the brown, until the powder dissolves and the drink has turned thick. I hand the tea to my Opa in his well-worn seat on the tan, cracked leather sofa in our lounge and imagine drinking it would be like swallowing phlegm back down when you’re sick.

Dysphagia has been compared to waterboarding, a torture technique that generates the sensation of drowning.

There are three consistencies of thickened liquids. Nectarthick, honey-thick and pudding-thick. These are used for varying degrees of severity for dysphagia, which is a difficulty or discomfort in swallowing. It can be a condition on its own, but it usually results from another medical issue, such as a stroke or dementia. Left on its own, the thickened liquid retains the colour of watery urine.

Essentially the role of thickened liquids is to prevent choking and to stop fluid from entering the lungs. Thin liquids like coffee, tea, soup and most jarringly, water, all need to be mixed with a thickener for a person who has dysphagia. Nectar-thick liquids are easy to pour and have the same consistency as cauliflower soup. Honeythick liquids are a little thicker and don’t pour as easily. Like honey, you can drizzle it. Pudding-thick liquids retain their own shape entirely, not really a liquid at all. They must be eaten instead, the same way you would eat jelly or a créme brûlée that you buy from the supermarket, and snap the base to release the custard. Puddingthick liquids are eaten with a spoon, even water.

Dysphagia is common for people young and old, but it is perhaps most detrimental to health in the elderly with dementia.

Most nursing homes in Victoria have dementia-specific units.

On their website, Alzheimer’s Australia describes ‘good care’ in a dementia unit as “ensuring that the environment is as home-like as possible”. The dementia ward in the aged care home in Berwick is shaped like a coathanger. Residents’ rooms bend down from either side of a large kitchen and dining room, that opens into a garden. Like Alzheimer’s Australia outlines, the ward has safe wandering areas: two hallways pointing in opposite directions that the residents can walk down. There is also a humidifier with lavender perfumed oil in the small sitting room. This is suggested to help with residents who are ‘agitated or restless.’ There are no more than 20 residents in all, with a few confined to bed, all with varying severities of speech and movement difficulties. Almost all of them require food and drink to be thickened and (despite a staff of nurses and carers) volunteers are snapped up throughout the day, providing company, support and help with feeding.

Dysphagia has been compared to waterboarding, a torture technique that generates the sensation of drowning, through continuously pouring water over a person’s face, covered with cloth.

Dysphagia presents the danger of drowning in your own saliva.

This condition seems like a relative norm for most elderly people.

At some point, complications from other medical conditions result in them getting dysphagia, or at the very least requiring food that is softer and all of a similar texture.

Pam and Rose are inseparable friends. In January, it’s Rose’s birthday and her family comes to visit. They bring her a yellow helium balloon that is tied to the handle of her walking frame. It bobs in the breeze as they spend the afternoon on the concrete porch of the garden. A little girl, she must be Rose’s granddaughter, plays on the thick, short grass in front of high wooden planter boxes of lavender. At the day’s end, Rose waves them tearful goodbyes, her only intelligible words ‘my son’, and Rose and Pam hug like small girls who comfort each other when they’ve become lost, their hair pressed together, arms wrapped tight.

The two women are always found wheeling their walking frames up and down the elbowed hallway of the ward and on sunny days, they come out the glass doors, and into the garden off the main sitting room. It is a sensory garden, with chimes and bells on a

42

COMMENTARY

big corrugated wall, and a bus stop and sign that look so tragic.

There are voluminous lavender beds on raised boxes. JM Boyce, in Effects of Aging on Smell and Taste says that "we lose our ability to discriminate between smells" as we age. A nurse plucks a stem of lavender and scrunches it in her palm. She offers it to Pam, but she is invested in pulling yellowed weeds from the roots of the lavender.

The crushed stem has a smell that is sharp and pungent, like the beginning of rain.

Tomato plants climb the lattice, grown dry and straw-like in the summer. Residents pick at them, handing out their small, green, inedible fruit so generously. In Gardens That Care, Tara GrahamCochrane, for Alzheimer’s Australia, describes sensory gardens as being important because they "support quality of life … and [are] aids in therapy programs".

Today, dinner is the same as yesterday.

Meat with gravy, mashed potato and carrots.

It makes most sense for a sensory garden to be circular, where a simple looped path makes it easier for residents to work out where they are. They’re less likely to become confused and lost. Signposts are common too. They seem so similar to the jumbled bearings nailed to a tree in the children’s book Alice in Wonderland. Jagged arrows point in all directions. That way. This way. Wrong way. Go back. Maybe it’s the familiarity of the presence of the sign that’s helpful. Alzheimer’s Australia determines that sensory gardens should have key design principles of reminiscence, elements that evoke memories for the elderly. Wheelbarrows and old cars, pottery, kitchen utensils and old gates seem to be popular for our grandparents. Farming elements too are incorporated into many garden beds. A stray shovel, wedged firmly into a concrete slab in the middle of the bursting lavender beds. Silver, upright and shining through scratched paint on the handle. Impossible to remove, like a sword in stone. The paths should be wide enough for wheelchairs and walking frames. Ideally for more than one person at a time, because safe, white sneakers need plenty of concrete to amble. But then pathways must be widened into roadways, and there is not always enough garden for that.

Dinner is a race to the finish and a silent affair, with each helper determined not to fall behind. Every resident has a white ceramic soup plate, the kind with the large flat lip. They use the same plates for every meal and never have soup. In ‘Food Issues’, an FSA prospective menu plan for care homes in the United States, it is explained that care homes "cannot use any dried soup or canned soup product daily as these products contain too much sodium".

If residents were to have soup, they would need a dangerously high sodium intake to be able to taste any salt at all. Boyce says that ‘it has been reported that the elderly person requires a twofold to threefold concentration of salt to detect it in tomato soup’.

Despite the fact this salt intake is unsustainable, for residents with dysphagia the increased salivary production again returns with the danger of choking.

Today, dinner is the same as yesterday. Meat with gravy, mashed potato and carrots. Three parts, each placed in an imaginary third of the plate. The meat is pureed, the same consistency as oatmeal. The potatoes are mashed, soft and smooth, and the carrots are a thick orange cream. Dark brown gravy is poured in a thin stream around the edge of the plate, like a moat surrounding the damp mounds.

It is the gravy that smells so strong. It is the same wet scent of the meals you get on an aeroplane. The meals that come in those warm tinfoil containers on an overnight flight. Cold around the edges, but they burn your palm if you keep your hand underneath for too long. Peel off the lid and sharp steam streams out. The underside of the foil is soaked in beads of sweat. That’s the smell. Some of the residents mix their meal together into a marble swirl of brown.

Others will only eat if their food is separated, and there is a box of tissues kept in the middle of the table for one lady who separates the sections with her fingers. She points and explains in garbled speech what she wants to eat and prods at distasteful bits of orange.

“First this one. This one,” a nurse tells her, mound hovering on the spoon. This is the language used and it makes perfect sense here.

Boyce says that “smell and taste disorders in the elderly person are commonly overlooked, as they are not considered critical to life”. Sitting next to such a state of weariness in eating, of a slipping loss of weight, it seems this cannot be true. In place of smell and taste there is only company.

43

CREATIVE

DEVOTED WORDS BY ANTHONY KUIPER ARTWORK BY EWAN CLARKE-MCINTYRE

Still thinking of you, and you’re still not thinking of me. This must be love, Or maybe just prayer...

You’re basically God since I Don’t know what you think...

I know that you’ve said ‘No other idol but me’ – but does your cock count?

Too carnal and wild, to be the pure, one-faced Him; You’re from somewhere else.

You don’t command plagues or consequences; you aren’t choosing anyone...

You brandish your godhead, Invite us to bend and kiss it, And burn in your wake.

No rain dance of mine will bring the love-flood that I’ve yearned for a lifetime.

44

CREATIVE

MARBLE STATUE IN A BATH OF RED WINE WORDS BY ANTHONY KUIPER ARTWORK BY EWAN CLARKE-MCINTYRE

I have flung my habit for a calling and nicked wine enough for two.

Setting your marble self in the bath I pour and remark that I only ever wanted you to touch me back.

The haemangioma stains slosh and smatter.

Your hair, your chest, your arms, your neck.

Your alabaster lip grinds none.

It makes no peep.

How I have you now.

Granite cannot call words, can it.

You are no longer some cool force of nature that smiles, bored, into storms and famines or foreign cities, untouched by it all.

You can’t just vanish this time.

You aren’t my fit of rapture, Or wine on the mind.

You’re just today’s catch.

And now, my rites leech some sweat from the marble, tears of the skin.

A crying from within.

45

CREATIVE

46

CREATIVE

COLUMN BY DANIELLE SCRIMSHAW ARTWORK BY SAM NELSON

PART 6: IT'S LIT, FAM

H

azel raised a hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes as she gazed at the looming smoke. “What is that? A barbecue?”

I scowled. “It’s an entire suburb burning to the ground and my mum’s there.”

She shook her head and took a few steps back. “That’s intense.

Too intense for me. Running into a fire will take weeks of yoga to recover from.”

“What, and hunting Tony Abbott for sport won’t?” snapped George.

She frowned and began to retaliate, but I interrupted her.

“Both of you, shut up! This isn’t helping.”

Hazel sighed and began to pace beside me, a calm and self-assured contrast to my state of ever increasing hysteria. She stroked her chin as she walked, reminding me of some of my more pretentious lecturers pre-Apocalypse.

“Okay,” she said, voice level and starting to annoy me. “Do we really know that your mother is still in Mordialloc? I mean, what evidence do we have? You last saw her – what – yesterday? Is it possible that she, not unlike yourself, ventured out into the night on a quest for some food scraps and a potential lesbian lover?”

I cringed at the thought of my mum with any lover. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

She sighed. “I’m just saying, you don’t know for sure that she’s anywhere near that fire. She’s a grown woman and is probably fine, okay? So calm down, because your panic attacks help less than my sassing George Michael over there. And you’re giving me some seriously bad vibes right now.” She came to a stop and began to massage her temples.

I copied her deep breathing mechanisms and reasoned that she was right; my mum could be fine and out of harm’s way, but there was still the chance that she could not be. I couldn’t think of anything else until I discovered where she was.

“Can you help us?” I asked Hazel. As much as I did not want to, I would have left her in a heartbeat if she refused to help us in favour of her search for Tony.

She pursed her lips for a moment and held my gaze as she thought. Finally, she said, “I guess I can drive you guys there.”

I grinned. George frowned. “Drive?”

Five minutes later the three of us were huddled in the front of Hazel’s red ute, George having adamantly refused to sit in the cargo tray upon her request. For a while I just sat in awe at the mere prospect of somebody actually attaining a car that could still run despite missing some parts (“I just use scarves as

seatbelts; you kind of need something for this rough terrain, you know? Oh, and the bonnet I’ve just covered with garbage bags.

Neat, huh? Don’t you love how the Apocalypse has brought out our inherent bond with nature and craft? Have I told you about my herb garden?”).

I directed Hazel to our home, the beloved derailed train, where I expected Mum would be. As we came closer to our destination, George nudged me and pointed to a tree close by.

There was something red and familiar wedged between one of the low branches and the trunk. I asked Hazel to stop so I could go check it out.

Upon reaching the tree we discovered that the red bundle was actually a jumper – my jumper – wrapped into a ball. I removed it from the tree and was surprised to find that it was heavy; wrapped within it were tins of soup and vegetables, two bottles of water and a box of tampons.

I dropped the jumper in shock and took a step back, collapsing against the tree. “She’s alive. She left this.”

Hazel, unsurprisingly, dropped to the ground and began foraging through the dirt and dead shrubs, looking for tracks.

George picked up the bundle and glanced around, screwing up his nose at the smoke that was thickening in the air around us.

“I have the weirdest feeling that our home is on fire,” he said.

For a moment I thought he meant Mordialloc in general, before realising he meant our train, only a short distance from where we stood. Without a word I broke into a sprint, George following behind.

The train was consumed by flames, black smoke flooding out of the burst windows. George and I leaned against each other as we both surrendered to a fit of coughing, which prevented me from running any further and prevented George from proving his theatrical worth by shrieking, “You blew it up!

Damn you all to hell!”

As I blinked ash away from my eyes I spotted some figures, little more than shadows within the billowing clouds of smoke.

They emerged from behind the train, arms pitifully covering their mouths as they followed their queen, the one with the crown of flowers. I thought I was hallucinating at first, that this was an effect of smoke inhalation, but the leader caught my eye and I could not mistake the leer half-covered by her arm.

From the flames, the YOMG kids staggered forth.

47

CREATIVE

EVERYTHING IS HAUNTING WORDS BY RUBY KRANER-TUCCI ARTWORK BY ELENA PIAKIS

EXPLORING MEMORIES OF WARTIME AND HOLOCAUST

H

e told her not to look and she didn’t. The soldiers approached slowly, inspecting bags, assessing identification documents. When they were angry, they hit people over the head with sticks. They were always angry. They stopped at the man directly in front of them.

She watched as his feet shuffled. The soldiers asked to see his rucksack.

He fidgeted.

Couldn’t open the zip in time.

Paused a second too long.

She did not know the reason.

The soldiers shot him.

She saw the blood splash on the cobblestones. Some hit her shoes.

They were next; her father was struck. The soldiers said it was routine. She clenched her father’s hand and shut her eyes tight. They were searched and the soldiers moved on.

They stepped over the dead, nameless body, shuffling forward shoulder-to-shoulder, with the rest of the crowd. Blood trickled down the cobblestone street. As much as she wanted, she did not look back.

The story of my grandmother surviving the Holocaust has been lost and found again.

This is one of the earliest memories, her most vivid recollection of the war.

She was ten years old. It was 1939 and Poland had just been invaded.

The war became a constant intruder in my grandmother’s

thoughts, reshaping her sense of self and the world. It informed the values of her family and my own ideas about society and culture and grief.

I collected the fragments of stories she shared, the interrupted monologues, the almost silent memories and pieced them together.

The war became a permanent marker, an ever-present reminder.

Before the war and after the war. ✡ Chawa (Ha-Va) Zilbernadle was born in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland, in 1929. Although after it became a German territory, her birthplace lost all sense of the word ‘home’. Chawa found her small village dancing with wonder, curiosity and familiar safety. Her mother worked inside the house, her father supported them. She was the youngest of four daughters and, as you would expect, was often a source of jealousy for her siblings. She was the baby; everyone rushed to protect, nurture and adore her. Using this to her advantage, Chawa played pranks and teased her sisters. Pulling hair and stealing toys caused scrunched up faces and screeching.

Chawa celebrated Jewish festivals, helping her mother set the long table for the traditional Pesach Seder, dividing the chocolate coins in a competitive game of dreidel during Hanukah and dressing as Queen Esther for Purim. Chawa was never happier than when she got to dance the hora, holding

48

CREATIVE hands with her sisters, singing loudly with her cousins and attempting to stomach awfully sweet wine. She was always first to spit it out. ✡ Chawa loved her father, Moishe, more than anyone else in the world. He was a tailor, his last name Zilbernadle literally translated to 'silver needle'. As Moishe’s small business became more popular, he would often travel into Warsaw for supplies. At special times, he would bring back lollies and chocolate for Chawa. She would always be waiting by the gate for him to return. When it got cold, she pressed her head against the front window, watching the driveway, her exhaling breath often masking her view.

Over time these trips slowly stopped. Anti-Semitism started to spread across Poland and Jewish people began to lose their businesses, homes and friends. The unknown pervaded communities, bringing with it gripping anxiety and unescapable fear. Moishe started to feel these effects and begged for his family to flee, somewhere, anywhere safe.

His wife was scared and insisted he went with their eldest daughter, Fela, nine years Chawa’s senior, to settle elsewhere before they all joined. Chawa could not bear the thought of being away from her father, so pleaded and pleaded to go along. They had no choice but to agree.

That was all it took. Chawa would never grasp the change that lay ahead; the destruction and fear that would forever pierce her heart. Never again would she walk those familiar cobblestone streets and chase her friends around the town’s square. She would never see her father’s shop again, or hear her mother sing while cooking in the kitchen. She would never dance with her sisters and cousins. It would be a very long time before she had lollies again.

Together, Chawa, Fela and Moishe fled to Siberia, a small suitcase, containing nothing more than tinned beans, spare clothes and loose change, in tow. They had heard of other Jews heading there and at that time, it felt like the best option.

Moishe promised to return to collect the others once they had found safety. Winter quickly enveloped them all, bringing with it a feast of sickness and starvation. With no money left, they made the move to Uzbekistan, the Asian area of the Soviet Union and settled in a small apartment near the Russian boarder. They were on the wrong side of the war.

Chawa made the confined living area of their Uzbeki flat her castle. She taught herself how to read in the dark – candlelight brought attention and school wouldn’t take Jews.

She played games by herself and used scraps for toys. Her sister and father often disappeared for days, where they went, what they did, who they saw, she did not know. Sometimes they returned together, sometimes on their own, with food, without food, but always exhausted and forlorn. During the day Chawa followed Uzbeki families on the streets, begging for food. She would imagine that she was part of their family; skipping and holding hands with a foreign father, fake wrestling with an unfamiliar brother, tumbling around until they bumped their unrecognisable mother, whose anger would dissipate in a big, running-out-of-air hug.

One day, Chawa fell and broke her ankle. Fela had to stuff a rag in her mouth to conceal her screams. If someone were to find out there was a Jewish family in the apartment, they would be in trouble. For a month, she winced in pain, hobbling around the house, waiting for her sister who begged strangers for medicine. Moishe lay with Chawa as she slept, waking her during the night to make sure she was still breathing.

At night, Chawa dreamt she was back in Grodzisk with her entire family. She imagined her grandfather telling

stories around their big dinner table, everyone captured by his masterful dramatizations. She dreamt of welcoming in the Jewish New Year with a Rosh Hashanah feast. Most of all, Chawa dreamt of the songs. Oyfn Pripetshik was her favourite.

She heard it first from her mother, then sang it throughout her childhood, my mother’s childhood and my own. It offered points of calm through endless nights and hopeless days.

Oyfn pripetchik brent a fayerl, ~ On the hearth, a fire burns, Un in shtub iz heys. ~ And in the house it is warm.

Un der rebe lernt kleyne kinderlekh ~ And the rabbi is teaching little children Dem alef-beys. ~ The alphabet.

Zet zhe kinderlekh, gedenkt zhe, tayere, ~ See, children, remember, dear ones, Vos ir lernt do; ~ What you learn here; Zogt zhe nokh a mol un take nokh a mol. ~ Repeat and repeat yet again.

Lernt, kinder, mit groys kheyshe., ~ Learn, children, with great enthusiasm.

Ver s'vet gikher fun aykh kenen ivre, ~ He among you who learns Hebrew pronunciation faster, Der bakumt a fon. ~ He will receive a flag.

Lernt, kinder, hot nit moyre, ~ Learn, children, don't be afraid, Yeder onheyb iz shver. ~ Every beginning is hard.

Details escape my grandmother when it comes to the ending of the war. As her short-term memory worsens, she is transported to her fearful and desperate ten-year-old self.

On bad days, there is crying and yelling and blaming. Every conversation from sport to school quickly circles back to the war. We jump from the ghetto, to Hitler, to Russia to the extermination camps in the space of one minute. What is true and what is false blur into each other. On better days, the story continues.

When news broke that the war was over, Chawa and Fela ran out of their apartment. Time stood still before chaos erupted. The streets flooded with people; some cheered, others wept, all searched for meaning. With the first real chance to look for his wife and other daughters, Moishe took to asking anyone he passed by if they knew of the fate of the Jews of Poland. With nothing more than an old family photo curled up in his wallet, Moishe returned home to Grodzisk. He began his search for the family he had left behind, the family that had never followed him to safety. Poland was in upheaval.

Everything looked different, nothing was recognisable.

What hadn’t changed was the anti-Semitic sentiment. It was pervasive. Stories of ghettos, of killings, of gas chambers, of genocide, grew from whispers to statements of fact. Chawa’s family were nowhere to be found. When Moishe finally realised what the war had destroyed, he saw there was nothing left to stay for. He wished he didn’t know.

All those displaced were gathered in groupings. Chawa, Fela and Moishe stuck by each other through each move from Uzbekistan to France, to Israel to Australia. Chawa found some meaning within her husband, Aaron, a Ukrainian Jew who too, lost most of his family in the war. With him, Chawa felt almost as happy as she was in her childhood. They were married on the 25th of December in 1952, and remained together for sixty-one years, up until his death. ✡ As World War II became a history to be studied and the concept of survivor guilt better understood, our family was given titles we had not come to expect. Chawa became a Holocaust survivor. My mother and her sister became second-

49

CREATIVE generation survivors. My brother, cousins, and I became thirdgeneration survivors.

Chawa never thought of herself worthy of bearing the title of survivor. She was asked to light a candle on stage at the Yom HaShoah commemoration ceremony. People hugged her, thanked her, apologised. It all felt false. Chawa was never forced into a ghetto. She didn’t walk in a death march. She was never liberated. Yet, we always talk of the war and it is never easy. The thoughts of her mother and sisters never leave her. Chawa may be far from the site of her trauma, but it still lingers.

Growing up, my mother obsessed over the Holocaust.

She learnt every possible detail. She would beg Chawa to tell her stories, over and over again, so she could understand the pain, the stillness. In her dreams, she was taken away from her family. Throughout her adolescence, there were very few nights that she slept undisturbed.

For some of my extended family, the trauma manifested itself in silence and distress. A heavy blanket of sensitivity was wrapped around us all. It brought a fear of suddenly losing relationships, and a necessity to defend. Yet, it also ensured the desire to find safety within love and care and protection. Safety within each other.

The Holocaust has influenced my life in ways I have not come to understand until now. Like the rest of my family, I am quick to respond to negativity or stereotypes about Jewish people. I feel the just-a-second-too-long pauses, the darting eyes, the clearing of throats when I reveal my heritage.

There are polite nods. Rarely, are there questions. I feel the responsibility to uphold the importance of Jewish customs and celebrations. I fidget and make faces when people talk during Seder.

Before she passed away, Chawa’s sister, Fela, suffered from dementia. She thought she was back in the war. When I visited her for the last time in the brick-cladded Arcare nursing unit in Carnegie that she called home, I was pushed away. I was told that I was not safe as a Jew. That the doctors in white were the ones to fear. They were keeping secrets. They were on the side of the Germans. She tried to escape too; she told the staff that she was waiting outside for her cousins to visit from Israel. She made it halfway down the street.

Everyone is haunted.

Everything is haunting. ✡ Upon her marriage, Chawa Zilbernadle, became Chawa Kraner; her new name another victim of anti-Semitism, of a war. A name changed from Sandler to conceal her husband’s Jewish identity. Some cousins have reclaimed the name Sandler. I hope to as well someday.

With the arrival of her daughters, Chawa quickly became Ima. And as her children sprouted their own, Chawa became Sapta, the name that became her identity through my eyes.

Just recently her name was extended to Sapta Rabah, great grandmother.

Now eighty-seven, Chawa lives alone, in a red brick Caulfield flat, surrounded by the Jewish community. She attends lunches at the Jewish welfare organisation Jewish Care, where my mother now works. They laugh and cry and sing together.

These stories of resilience and power are all still unravelling. Five years ago, after a cousin visited Poland and found my grandmother’s birth records, we realised that she was three years older than was believed for her entire life. Her

father had changed her birth date after the war to give Chawa a few extra years of childhood, to take back the years the war had stolen. ✡ Sixty-seven years after the war, we learnt about the fate of our family; taken to Warsaw ghetto and then deported to Treblinka. They probably laboured during their imprisonment. They would have been given only bread and water, if that. Some likely died there.

Treblinka was an extermination camp; it had only one function. It was disguised as a transit camp for deportations further east. It had fake train schedules, names of destinations and a clock with painted-on hands. My family, like many others, were likely undressed, beaten, gassed and then burnt. That is if they had not died from exhaustion, suffocation or thirst in the overcrowded carriages of the train that delivered them.

They were told they would shower before receiving new work uniforms and orders.

It took them an hour and a half to die. The chambers became silent after 12 minutes.

Their bodies were never recovered.

Forty members of our family perished in Treblinka, they were among 800,000 Jews murdered there. Of them, at least 250,000 were transported from Warsaw ghetto. They were just two hours away from their home.

Our family is in the book of names. The children are listed in the Children’s Memorial. A photo of Chawa’s aunt is in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel.

When I visited Israel in early 2016, I saw these acknowledgements of the Holocaust. My head became filled with the fear and worry of those involved. Tears ran wild and my knees crumbled beneath me. The Holocaust is a part of history that is studied. But for me it is a history that is still lived. This tragedy is my narrative. It is personal and yet, a shared experience. There is a responsibility to remember.

For the family that I could have met, and the family that remain, I lit a candle and sang.

Ir vet, kinder, elter vern, ~ When you grow older, children, Vet ir aleyn farshteyn ~ You will understand by yourselves Vifl in di oysyes lign trern ~ How many tears lie in these letters Un vi fil geveyn. ~ And how much lament.

Zolt ir fun di oysyes koyekh shepn, ~ May you derive strength from these letters, Kukt in zey arayn! ~ Look in at them!

Oyfn pripetchik brent a fayerl ~ On the hearth, a fire burns Un in shtub iz heys. ~ And in the house it is warm.

50

INTROVERT BY LAUREN HUNTER Instagram @lowenhunter

51

CREATIVE

SOILED QUEUES WORDS BY NATALIE FONG ARTWORK BY ANWYN ELISE this morning, the light meets the earth with a queue, in which splintering fury rose; the horizon starts throwing a fit, his legs a handful too much to crawl beneath the unfaithful dawn. one realises one only has to

too quickly stand where

she is not built for queues cymbals ricochet dissonance among passengers trying not to notice movement between one world and another every little digital screen helps it is soliciting solitude that matters to the morning, the moving. you can be in this space and not live within its shackles, not run its blood, not inhabit its host. have you heard time wants its mortgage back; migrate from this tightening hole. are you going going to be gone gone to the words words you have borne a vertebrae a lone line of littered sober sins the cracking sun-bone blinding every of its kin.

52

CREATIVE

LIST-ENING WORDS BY NATALIE FONG ARTWORK BY NELLIE SEALE

a looming paternal voice holds grudgingly on my earlobe, raking through my fallen fringe for any inch of spoken word dissent, it is a sign of mingling fury and falsehood. i do not like fracturing continuity, the runny silence between common feet. grey fiddling in the absence of communication. the inaccuracy of love, usually parental, paternal, for he greets his disagreements with echoes, brassy and heated.

53

CREATIVE 1

2

INT. CAVE - NIGHT

DR FRANKENSTEIN Brian, must we have this conversation in front of Michigan?

MICHIGAN JONES, a robust twenty-five year-old in a brown fedora with a matching whip, stalks through darkness.

CORPSE If you didn’t want me talking, maybe you should’ve left my brain on the slab!

MICHIGAN(V.O.) As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a monkey.

DR FRANKENSTEIN You know that’s not what I meant.

Michigan tugs on a stalagmite, which opens a secret door in the rocks. He peers in.

MICHIGAN I can come back later.

INT. SURGICAL LAB - NIGHT

DR FRANKENSTEIN No, no, the monkey’s here. You may as well come in.

MICHIGAN Hello, Doctor! I’m ready for – Doctor?

We see DR FRANKENSTEIN in bed with a CORPSE. DR FRANKENSTEIN I swear this is not what it looks like! The corpse consented!

Michigan nods uneasily and enters the room.

There is an unconscious monkey hooked up to a machine.

DR FRANKENSTEIN (CONT’D) If you could lie on the table beside the monkey, Michigan – I must ask you: are you sure you want a brain transplant into a monkey? It seems a mite unsafe and probably illegal.

CORPSE It’s still necrophilia, baby.

3

4 MICHIGAN Don’t tell me what to think, Doctor!

the thing I fear most in this world is the dreams of a monkey.

DR FRANKENSTEIN Of course not, Michigan. I was just checking you’d weighed up all the possibilities.

CORPSE Dreams you should not fear. You should fear the nightmares!

MICHIGAN Step off, bi-atch, I ain’t flip-a-daddy round the side fo’ dis shid.

Dr Frankenstein dives onto Michigan with the hacksaw and drives it into his shoulder.

Dr Frankenstein nods. He looks to Brian, the corpse.

DR FRANKENSTEIN Bring the hacksaw!

CORPSE Should I just brush off the blood and rust?

DR FRANKENSTEIN No time!

Michigan lies on the table.

DR FRANKENSTEIN (CONT’D) Now, there’s one hiccup. We couldn’t remove the section of brain that controls the subconscious of the monkey. So that will be infused with your brain, Michigan.

DR FRANKENSTEIN This nightmare has just begun!

The corpse starts gnawing at Michigan’s leg.

CORPSE Sweet nutrients!

Michigan screams.

FADE OUT INT. DARKENED BEDROOM – NIGHT MICHIGAN Oh, thank God. It was just a nightmare!

Michigan switches on a light to reveal he is, in fact, a monkey.

MICHIGAN No! I certainly ain’t flip-a-daddy round the side fo’ dis shid!

MICHIGAN Oh dear, Doctor. This is a hiccup indeed, for

54

CREATIVE

B

adfellas is kind of like Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990), except these fellas are bad as they come. They’re reckless, they’re badass and they don’t care. Starring Harrison Ford (rejuvenated by the unholy power of special effects ) as Michigan Jones, a twenty-five yearold stud, this crime caper follows him as he undergoes a surgery to become a monkey, undetectable to authorities. His catchphrase?

“Step off, bi-atch, I ain’t flip-a-daddy round the side fo’ dis shid.” (That’s right, Harrison Ford, in monkey-form, says that – multiple times.)

COLUMN BY LINUS TOLLIDAY ARTWORK BY DARUS NOEL HOWARD 55

CREATIVE

WEATHERED WORDS BY SUZIE MARKEL ARTWORK BY RUTH DUFFTON

“W

ilmington appears to be a flourishing and progress making township, with many fine buildings, of which the finest is the Globe Hotel.”

Kapunda Herald, Friday 26 August 1881, page 3. 'Rambles Northwards. No. IV'.

are closed and the owners head to Adelaide for Christmas. The whole sweeping plain edging the Flinders Ranges seems to be a hotbed for disturbing weather, the sky never seems to rest here.

I’m treasure hunting. I creep along the wide, hot gravel streets of Wilmington, the almost deserted South Australian town, a little east of Port Augusta. Everything is faded here. The sky sighs white in the heat. Trees are chalky with ash, their straight spines dressed with dark green and black spurts of branches. There are five geocaches hidden in Wilmington, modern day treasure troves. Little tins and boxes filled with endless pages of names and dates. Passers-by scribble greetings like meticulous, secret records of the town. One is a small, round salt and pepper tin magnetised under the bridge at the start of town. I leave a sticky note message saying ‘Merry Christmas!’ I discover a painted brown bottle, soaked and worn from recent rain, in the middle of a sprawling cactus. The spiny leaves cut my arm as I leave my note. I try to find another cache near a wheat silo, where a portable building rises above reams of dried grass. It seems abandoned, so I scale the steps. I peer inside and blinking faces peer back, startling me. I flee, my face flaming. Geocaching isn’t easy to explain to the locals.

I’m in Wilmington for seven days. It is the very definition of a sleepy town, and I am here in the sleepy season when most shops

Ants climb in frantic black lines, up and down the knotted white paint of the Wilmington Pub, once the Globe Hotel. The owners have placed a tall, slim, dark-haired mannequin in a large sunhat on the front verandah. I pass by several times before I realise her white limbs don’t belong to a trendsetting tourist.

Besides Kool Cat Vending Machines, there is only one tourist attraction in Wilmington. The Antique Toy Museum has a fourdollar entrance fee. A monkey in a tall glass case by the door grips an accordion in welcome, eyes wide in silent grimace. High on crumbling shelves, old soda cans stack to the ceiling, their labels peeling and scratched. Faded Meccano Ferris wheels and construction cranes are suspended on wires sticky with dust. The edges of paper dolls are browned and curling. Cut-outs of milk bars and milk men, ladies in powder blue paper dresses with sharp cut handbags browse shelves lined with folded groceries. A pianola, its wood oiled and dark, is embedded in the clutter. A little roll of paper turns in its chest, dotted with perforations like bullet holes. The revolving paper revolves, strikes the perforations, making the bony, yellowed keys dance and sing.

56

CREATIVE

Mount Maria is a strenuous ascent over yellow fields that you can see from Wilmington’s main street. Further, you can see that wavering slope from the highway, where the land reaches right over dried mud flats into the sea and vermilion sand. Spider holes and feverish ant mounds pock the dirt. Blue metal bar stools sit discarded in the heat. Age has scratched the paint away in places to reveal a white skeleton beneath. Black square mats of tar, like boxing rings with calf-high wire, are planted paces down the hill.

In the centre of each square is a small black hole, the yellowed remnants of a golf course.

At night, a lightning storm floods the embankments and roads outside of town. I watch from inside the pockmarked walls of the Wilmington Pub as light blinds the sky with electric blue and purple. One crack rattles my skull and strikes a house across the road. Lightbulbs, the old television and a record player screech and splatter light and, with a pop, go dark. “[In] Wilmington, a township in Beautiful Valley, [...] long desired rain appeared to have at length set in, for almost immediately after starting it was plainly to be seen that rain was falling in the immediate vicinity of the ranges, and ere long, these ‘showers of blessing’ began extending over the plains.”

Kapunda Herald, Friday 26 August 1881, page 3. 'Rambles Northwards. No. IV'.

Spider weeds float past in downpour. Giant spindles of dandelion heads blow through dark skies. After the rains, it takes three or four days for Stony Creek to peter out; fully ingrown with long rushes and prickly bushes, and bladelike grass. Don’t try to hold on to it – I ran mine through that kind of grass once when I was little, it sliced and stung like tree sap in papercuts. The crooked neck of a tree surfaces from a rise in the stomach of the creek, still alive after half a week of drowning.

“The Orroroo coach when crossing Stony Creek last night, one mile from here, was washed away, and a little girl, daughter of Mr. A. Hayward, of South-terrace, Adelaide, was drowned. Mr. W. H. Taylor, uncle of the deceased, reached the bank, and immediately came on for assistance. The mailman also got on an island and afterwards reached the bank.”

South Australian Weekly Chronicle, Saturday 17 May 1884, page 10.

'Floods in the North, Little Girl Drowned'.

The Stony Creek campsite is owned by a married couple. The man also works crops, driving tractors in the nearby wheat fields. After the storms, flash flooding and winds, he combs through the wheat for gumnuts that have blown in from miles away. He says it makes the flour taste terrible, so he picks out every single one. Some of the gum trees uprooted there too, crashed through fencing with dirt still clinging to their roots.

“The old, old story; no rain, no rain [...] little birds, such as larks and quails seek refuge in sheds and houses.”

The South Australian Advertiser, Thursday 24 January 1878, page 6.

'Country News'.

Moving on, I pass the fields and dried out valleys and the land becomes impossibly flat. Wavering upturned ground on the horizon is the only thing that interrupts the expanse. Orange dirt, real sunset dirt, fizzes beneath minty shrubs that hug the land. Clouds in the distance are shadowed in lilac, they reach to hug the earth too.

Heat presses everything to ground.

57

CREATIVE

INSTRUCTIONS FOR A RITUAL OF HEALING; MAGICK TO MAKE YOUR KITTEN BETTER EVEN AFTER THE VET SAYS HE WILL PROBABLY DIE WORDS BY RHOANNA FURNEAUX ARTWORK BY MORGAN-LEE SNELL

F

(To be read instructionally, as if from a book.)

irst, choose the location. You have read that location is important when casting spells. Usually you cast them under Samira’s veranda, where there is light only through the cracks of the boards overhead, and spider webs stroke whisper-light against your cheeks. But this spell is a secret spell - this, too, is an important element - and so you choose the second spookiest place you can think of. The local park is lit by tall, skinny streetlights, dim and grey most of the time, beer bottles lining strips of pallid grass.

By eight o’clock, which is when you sneak out with your Sea World backpack stuffed full of materials for the ritual, it’s abandoned.

None of the usual high school boys are skating their way up and down the concrete and, despite the lazily dim streetlights, it’s dark.

You will wait till the moon circles up above the streetlights - till it beams down round and pure upon you - to cast the spell.

You decide this as you arrive, because the spell you are casting is mostly improvisational.

Cassie usually writes the spells because she created the coven.

She copies them down from the internet, and she has the best handwriting out of all three of you. She’s been in a program for gifted children since you were all in third grade, reads Penguin Classics till the spines get tattered and puts her hand up, unprompted, in class, even when she’s just making up the answer.

Cassie always says magick with a hiss of air for the ‘k’ at the end; with gravity. It’s about being at one with the universe, she says.

She takes it all very seriously. You think the whole thing is fun, and weird, and you like to talk loudly about sacrificing goats in front of boys you want to scare. You, Alexandra Wiley, have never been a gifted child. You do not put your hand up. You’ve done a few small things, like being in the debating society for a week before you learned you had to bring notes. Like keeping a diary for three days before you decided the whole thing was pointless. Like playing on the local netball team, which never won - possibly because of you but you never really cared.

Sometimes you are called on in class, because the teacher spots your eyes fixed on some point out the window, or on the floor, like you’re staring not at the world but beneath it. Only then do you realize you weren’t listening. Laughter diffuses around the room.

You usually try and laugh along.

But today you are writing the spell. Brush leaves and twigs along the ground till you have cleared a little space of dirt. Draw a circle with your pointer finger. This is the way the spell will begin, you decide: with an altar of earth. You have a white candle in your backpack for healing. It belongs to your mother, and it boasts the smell of Ocean Paradise (Honeymoon Collection); but it’ll do.

You will also need a photo of your kitten. If none are on hand, because you’ve only had him for a few months and you don’t really own any physical photos of anything, use your phone. Bring also a drawing of your kitten, just in case the magickal forces like that better. Tentatively drawn on thin lined paper, you aren’t much of an

58

CREATIVE artist. But then you aren’t much of anything.

The phone goes in the middle of the circle. The powers of healing will be directed here once you are done waiting for moonlight.

Pray while you are waiting (see INDEX IV for correct form).

Sink your knees into the dirt and think about when you first saw Orion. When after two months of begging, you got taken to the cat shelter and told please not to choose a pregnant one. He was picking his way along the ground and he fell over as you watched him. His paws skidded in all different directions. He was fighting his way up again within seconds; he was very used to falling. He hardly noticed anymore.

The lady that was showing you through the shelter saw you watching him, the change in your face, and she tried to usher you on to more kittens. They didn’t know just how sick he was, back then, but they knew he was strange, and wouldn’t you prefer a normal kitten? She said it lightly, with a twist of grimace in her mouth. You said no. Orion was staggering his way into a play-fight, swiping at his sister’s ears and tumbling around with the others; as if being unable to take three straight steps in a row was just what being a cat was like. He was just a little different. And he was alive anyway.

You fell in love then, and it was maybe worse than if you’d chosen a pregnant one; but nobody could dissuade you.

You are not a stubborn person. You rarely set your heart on things; your heart does not demand much; or maybe it just doesn’t know what to set itself on. This certainty was new. You had imagined a sleek black cat, a cool-eyed little stereotype, to sit beside the coven as you cast your rituals. You left with an unbalanced straggler, sunny ginger fur and cancer eating the lobes of his brain.

Light the candle, because you can feel your thoughts darkening.

After deliberation, choose your malachite pendant - ripples of deep green, edged with silver. This will be your healing crystal; clutch it in your hand. Do not choose your red jasper, because you don’t have it anymore. The internet said that it helped epilepsy, and after Orion had his first seizure you started taking it everywhere, turned it over cold between your fingers and tapped it quick-fire against your desk during class even after people tell you and tell you and tell you to stop.

Notice the smell of the candle. Distinctly saltwater, with a hint of balmy coconut. Hope that your mother didn’t pay too much to have it stolen. Decide that, in the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.

– Stare down the seal which smiles at you from your Sea World backpack. Samira drew blood dripping down from its eyes, and Cassie has traced pentacles up and down its sides in blue biro.

The three of you have been a bad influence on that seal. That rush of meaningless defiance is what binds you as best friends, in the showy kind of way of young girls. You link arms walking down footpaths. They will be angry you’ve cast a spell without them.

Put that out of your mind. Failing that, reassure yourself that this is your responsibility; what better way to prove that you have it? You like to put your hands around Orion’s tiny ribcage, feel the stubborn leap of his heart. He fits right there, almost, in the palm of your hand. He must feel so safe there.

If you’re crying, cut that shit out right now. And feel ashamed at your childishness. You have ruined sacred rites in the past.

You bounce your leg when you’re meant to be holding hands in silence, making pleas to the Goddesses. You told Samira her rune looked like a dick and had to spend half an hour redrawing it for her. Do not mess this rite up. That’s the most important thing of all: OVERCOME YOURSELF. Watch, the moon will climb higher and pass through veils of clouds. Relight your candle when the night breeze snuffs it out, and fill your basin with holy water. Try and figure out what separates holy water from regular water. Hope it’s just the name, because there were no bottles labelled HOLY at the corner store.

–

You lost it eventually. You lose many things – pens, homework, your passport twice, both at bad times. Many people have told you that you lack responsibility. You think of yourself as more of a force of chaos. Space-time tilts subtly around you, familiar doorways shift enough that you bump into them, important dates realign themselves outside of when you thought they were. Black holes yawn open in the cracks between things, where discarded pens and jasper crystals scuttle into, never to be seen again. But you don’t lack responsibility. You put the dishes away every day for weeks to prove that you could remember to feed a cat with the same promptness. And you never once forgot.

And maybe you just haven’t been trying hard enough. It’s a small thing, you tell the night, and you hope the Goddesses are listening even though nobody is holding your hands and your eyes are wide, wide open. You zone out during careers talks and you just laugh while other girls tell you about their crushes. There’s nothing big in the world that you want.

Recite the words you memorized even if they feel clumsy on your fat tongue: sunbeam, starbeam, rays of light, replace, restore, renew, rejoice. Add, please. Please, please, please.

The moon will simmer above you. Its cold face turned towards you, you do not feel at one with the universe. The universe is over there, somewhere, and you are stuck behind, here. Cancer hasn’t eaten any of your brain so it must be that you were born missing some very important parts that you are never going to know about.

But if nobody’s told you by now what to do about that, they probably never will.

59

DE PROFUNDIS WORDS BY DARCY CORNWALLIS ARTWORK BY SARAH LEONG

smog flows from glass towers through us in the breezeless damp through us in the humid streets smog slides down our throats crawls up our faces and burrows up our nostrils filthy air pushes into eyes and ears boils down the winding endless staircase of council-constructed monoliths intestinal and involved, intricate and always chewing souls up forcing them down churning them out coiling around the metal giraffes rearing from their pillars of stone growing to monstrous proportions when they stalk the harbour and build the towers taller with every bite sunlight dribbles through the air like dirty wax the sun is sick everyone is sick their sickness walks through freezing alleys and they won’t stop crying, these things from sick kids’ minds that huddle in the dripping dark i wish they would stop crying things are hard enough with the smog bunching into pillows in my lungs we can’t help won’t help please be quiet i know it hurts

60

CREATIVE

QUEEN STREET WORDS BY DARCY CORNWALLIS ARTWORK BY AMANI NASARUDIN I saw a girl who looked a lot like you today.

I was reading Baudelaire on the tram, and really felt it, you know, in my hangover coat reeking of cigarettes, and my lips bloodied with last night’s wine, and the painful thing in my skull, and of course the weird mist clinging to the skyscrapers.

It was all terribly grim and modern.

Her hair was your shade of brown, wavier perhaps, and hesitantly bouncing just above the shoulders, like yours. We stepped onto the same platform and she shimmered for a moment, face arch and angled against the mist, clinging to the skyscrapers.

Her eyes were very dark, like from a book.

I climbed my building and thought of you.

Floating above Queen Street, in my office stuffed with empty sheets of paper, I watched the aquarium of molecular memos and love messages swimming across the sky, winding through the tumbling buildings, flickering past the neo-gothic clock towers, over the squat bluestone relics which crouched at concrete foothills. The mist was disintegrating.

My veins felt like they were lined with poison and the sky slowly filled with thousands of thoughts, great teeming clouds of them, huge boiling flocks and none of them were mine and some of them were yours, perhaps, aimed at other souls, distorting light, thickening the air, blurring my eyes and seeping through the glass before me.

I turned away.

61

RECOLLECTIONS BY CAROLYN HUANE

62

CREATIVE

IL PLEUT: WORDS BY HAVAH KAY ARTWORK BY SARAH FANG-NING LIN

On a cold Wednesday afternoon at a farmer’s market.

Enter BOY and VENDOR: The rain is plopping, drip, dropping, Colours of people, Slide through the street, On the concrete where they eat, He scoops with a big metal ladle, “Five dollars please.”

(I sigh as I hand over the money.)

My hands are drippy, Sticky, Hot chai seeps into my fingers, my eye.

(I say my prayer – to Centrelink.

The papery form that gave me this world.)

A sip, a dip.

Of the paper cup Running, running, through the raining streets.

It is spicy, but it is sweet, The flavour stays in my mouth, Long after the heat.

(I tip my empty cup.

It is all gone.)

Exit.

63

CREATIVE

a collection of quiet thoughts WORDS BY GREER SUTHERLAND ARTWORK BY CORNELIUS DARRELL

F

or as long as I can remember, I have not screamed. I suppose I must have screamed as an infant – my parents would surely have told me by now if I had only mimed being a baby. Since then, however, I have been plagued by my own inability to create and send out decibels. It's not that I've tried particularly hard, but the very concept seems impossible. Here's how I imagine it goes: 1. you take in a deep breath 2. you open your mouth up, as wide as you can make it, and then – 3. ?

4. your own body, your own collection of atoms, is releasing energy in the form of sound, your existence pierces through the air in sound waves, shrill and fierce, like wineglasses thrown against a wall, like a thousand cymbals tumbling from skyscrapers, like the sound lightning (lightning, not thunder) would make as it speared the earth.

On school camp, we got to go on the giant swing. You're harnessed up and everyone else has to hoist you up to the sky before you're dropped back down again. On my camp, everyone else shrieked as they went down. I, however, stayed silent, just the wind howling around me. Of course, my classmates holding onto the tether keeping me alive couldn't hear the wind's scream and so I was just a girl falling through the air with no sound at all. (maybe it would work underwater) For a long time, I've felt that I need to go somewhere alone in the mountains to practise where nobody would hear me; kind of like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music but instead of throwing my arms open to burst into song I would just SCREAM INTO THE VOID. (what is step three? oh god) Speaking of screaming into the void – On bad days, I wish I could scream more than ever. I'd like nothing more than a tunnel descending into hell to appear in my bedroom floor, or perhaps for my wardrobe to suddenly open up to somewhere much colder than Narnia, and then I would scream forever into either of those places. One time I googled 'scream into the void' just to see what my options were, and there is indeed a website screamintothevoid. com which was made by comedian/political talk show host John Oliver. You type something in, some sort of problem or an angry poem or whatever, press a red button that says 'SCREAM' and then the text pisses off into a black background so you can't see it anymore. This doesn't really help, but it's comforting to know that other people want the same thing as me. I guess I could've gotten this information more easily from Edvard Munch but it's too late now. John Oliver got there first.

I am lying to you, I'm afraid. I can manage a scream but only through a textual medium, it's called all-caps and it goes like this: HOLY SHIT WHY DO I NEVER SCREAM? At concerts when they say, "Let's hear you make some noise!" I never know what to do with myself. I especially don't know what to do with my vocal cords. I guess maybe in those moments I just clap, although I can't quite remember. When I play it back in my mind I can only envisage myself as a statue of an animal sitting in the middle of a concert, which animal it is changes each time. Not being able to scream can be a tragedy sometimes you know. (supposedly if you're being attacked, you're meant to scream, "fire!" because people are more likely to come running for that. i guess it's true that fire is a tragedy too) I believe the word 'scream' should in reality just be 'screa'. The 'm' implies far too much gentleness, and far too much completeness. As though a scream could ever tell a whole story on its own.

64

ARTWORK BY CHARLOTTE BIRD-WEBER

65

CHROMA PINK ARTWORK BY HANNA LIU CURATED AND DESIGNED BY ILSA HARUN

Each edition of Farrago will include a photoset of a different colour.

Check out the next edition’s colour on the content list tab of facebook.com/Farragomagazine.

Submit your photos through farragomedia2017@gmail.com.

66

ARTWORK BY BONNIE SMITH 67

FOR AND AGAINST IKEA

ARTWORK BY MARLOW PERHAPS

A

FOR BY MARTIN DITMANN

s I wrote this, I wondered which IKEA story I should start with. Is it the story of the time my family went to extraordinary lengths to take a new IKEA mattress home?

(We pushed the passenger seats down, stuffed it into the car and my mum and I lay underneath it the whole ride home.) Is it the story of my friend who recently spent a thousand dollars at IKEA in one hit? Or the countless stories of failures to put together flat-pack furniture (before eventually succeeding)? But really, the IKEA story is the story of so many of us.

In 1999, my family – mum, dad, grandma and three year-old me – touched down in Australia, determined to forge a new life.

We brought plenty of initiative with us, but one important thing we hadn’t brought that much of was furniture. Some of my earliest memories are from the old IKEA Moorabbin store, as my small immigrant family chased the Australian dream. IKEA was the enabler for my newly arrived family to settle into our new home, both physically and metaphorically.

IKEA furniture is cheap. It’s relatively easy and economical to transport. It’s mostly of decent quality. It generally looks nice.

Visiting a store and putting together newly bought furniture somehow counts as family fun. Surprisingly few places offer this experience.

As daggy as it sounds, IKEA is often there when people remember the big points of change in their lives.

There’s a reason IKEA is there in so many memories. The simple reality is that IKEA represents the biggest revolutionary driver around furniture in human history. For me, and people in every corner of the world, IKEA has been part of a great enabler of the human dream – of families, homes and human living. It has made the cost of living significantly lower for hundreds of millions in families.

As daggy as it sounds, IKEA is often there when people remember the big points of change in their lives. The image that first comes to mind is the newly-wed couple, adorably trying to put together flat-pack furniture in their newly bought first home. The nineteen year-old student who has moved out of home, furnishing their small new apartment. The parents creating their nursery for their first child. The freshly minted business partners creating the office for their new small business.

And, of course, the small child, back from Moorabbin – looking up from their newly-made bed to see a room of bookshelves, cute Swedish soft toys and funnily shaped chairs.

A

AGAINST BY ASHLEIGH HASTINGS

t my first share-house, we would magically receive a single thick IKEA catalogue once a year, every year, without any of us ever asking for one. As far as we could tell, we were the only young share-house on the block and the only ones to experience this annual phenomenon.

And so, my IKEA journey began with an alarmingly well targeted catalogue delivery. Unfortunately, once those curated glossy pages gave way to the reality of missing screws and Alan keys, my relationship with the furniture giant became less than congenial.

It’s common knowledge that visiting IKEA is a time-consuming and often traumatic experience.

I’m going to come right out and say it. Despite being a member of the Pinterest generation, I harbour a deep resentment for IKEA. Seriously, why is there all this fuss about furniture that is literally half-made? You can give it a fancy name all you want, but this ‘flatpack’ business is bullshit. Can you imagine the outrage if Dymocks sold slightly cheaper than average books with the small caveat that you must FILL IN THE GAPS before they become readable? That’s how we would feel about IKEA if we hadn’t been beguiled by pretty product names like ‘Fartfull’ and ‘Femmen Våg’.

It’s common knowledge that visiting IKEA is a time-consuming and often traumatic experience. We’re talking about a place with such known maze-like qualities that they were forced to shut down an unofficial game of instore hide-and-seek that had gained a casual 30, 000 RSVPs. The danger of getting lost in IKEA is never-ending. I was once naïve enough to think I was safe as I rolled my trolley out through those huge automatic doors, only to spend no less than 25 minutes alone in the loading bay as my mother got lost in the carpark.

I have only one friend with a bigger grudge against IKEA than me, and he has a good reason. He once passed out into an IKEA chair (long story) that seemed trustworthy enough. Wrong. The unreliable bastard didn’t break his fall, it just fucking broke.

Maybe it’s because my first attempt at flat-pack assembly happened on a 40°C day. Maybe it’s because my most recent IKEA memory is of a not entirely pleasant day spent there with an ex. But regardless of any deeper reasoning I may or may not be suppressing, I despise IKEA and YOU SHOULD TOO.

68

CONTRIBUTE

MAGAZINE FARRAGOMAGAZINE.COM

VIDEO YOUTUBE.COM/FARRAGOMAGAZINE

INSTAGRAM @FARRAGOMAGAZINE TWITTER @FARRAGOMAGAZINE SNAPCHAT @FARRAGOMAGAZINE

RADIO FODDER RADIOFODDER.COM TWITTER @RADIO_FODDER INSTAGRAM @RADIO_FODDER SNAPCHAT @RADIO_FODDER

FARRAGOMEDIA2017@GMAIL.COM ARTWORK BY LEUNG CHIN CHING

UMSU and the Media OďŹƒce is located in the city of Melbourne, situated at the heart of Wurundjeri land.

A key member of the Kulin Nations, we pass our respects on to the Wurundjeri elders, both past and present and acknowledge the land we are on was never ceded.