January 26.

Yesterday I awoke to the city blanketed in smoke. Not the familiar eucalypt sting of open forest, but the ashy smell of ferns and moss. The Otways fire had broken containment.

Fire season runs from November to March, more or less, though it’s getting longer each year now. 20 days ago, when the last heat wave barrelled through, catastrophic fires flared across the state, five of which – including the Otways – continue to burn.

Rainforest is on fire, the high country is on fire, and tomorrow will be 45^oC here in the city, and so much worse north of the ranges. Places I love, that nourish my soul and bring me joy, are being destroyed. Irrevocable changes to ecosystems that never evolved with fire.

I am so sad.

…

January 26.

I also awoke to news of another ICE murder in Minnesota. I read the stories, horror compounding on the kidnappings, beatings and murders that came before; countered by admiration for the people refusing to comply, calling fascism what it is, and taking power back from the MAGA goons.

I wondered why it took a white man’s death for voices with actual power to speak up: Obama, Clinton, the few non-complicit media org. Why aren’t black bodies, latino bodies, women’s bodies, ever enough? And yet I’m relieved that – finally – Americans are waking from the reassuring delusion that this is just something to be withstood until more elections roll around.

The discomforting truth is that US institutions have fallen and the world has irrevocably changed. The old equilibrium is destroyed and a new stable point will need to be fought for, not just by Americans, but by all of us.

I am so anxious.

…

January 26.

The date a fleet of ships bearing the flotsam of England in crisis, landed to establish a prison colony on Gadigal lands, in the place now called Sydney. The imposition of colonialism and the commencement of genocide, ecocide and brutality that continues today; our national holiday – “Australia Day”.

Today, Nazis marched through the city known as Melbourne and naarm, land of the Kulin Nations. White supremacist scum repeating the tactics of Trump and his team swell their ranks here, selling simplistic solutions to complex problems to the angry and ignorant. Lies that justify their feelings and fan hate toward everyone outside of their tribe. First Nations people, non-white people, intellectuals and activists: targets to blame and distract attention from those growing rich off discontent and discord.   

Five days ago our Parliament passed poorly-drafted new “hate laws” that allow the criminalising of dissenting opinion and suppress valid criticism of the genocidal Israeli occupation of Gaza, equating political critique with antisemitism, yet do nothing to address this white nationalist trash in our streets with their “March for Australia”.

I am so angry.

…

January 26.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I don’t feel like celebrating. Instead, I’m reflecting. What am I doing about the climate crisis? What am I doing about rising white nationalism? What am I doing as authoritarianism creeps into Australian politics? Where do I stand as techno-fascism ravages resources and reshapes minds into mush incapable of sitting with discomfort?

I didn’t go to the Invasion Day marches today. I tell myself I’ll write to my MPs,  yet I haven’t. I’m not a member of Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, despite understanding just how much is at stake. I tell myself I’ve dedicated my entire career to fighting for things to be better, yet I understand how much of that is a privilege: that I’ve been able to choose work that aligns with my values, and to make a middle-class living off the public good.

Dissonance.

While raging on social media to an audience of my peers won’t change anything, neither will numbing out my feelings, nor feeling powerless and dejected. If I’m not choosing the frontline, I risk being sidelined, ineffectual and cotton-wool wadded against these hard truths and an unravelling world.

Chaos seeds opportunities for once-unimaginable change, and the direction that change takes depends on who is fighting for it. The times call us to stand for what we believe in. So how do I fight? What privileges and protections am I prepared to shed? At minimum, I must be aware of my choices and self-justifications.

I am anxious, frightened, heart-broken, horrified, furious and exhausted. I am NOT powerless; it is NOT hopeless.

So then, choose something different.