The Chasm of Cultures

It's been a while since my last post. I haven't really felt qualified to write in detail on many of the issues that have come up here. Every time I put pen to paper (or tip to pad, as I peck away on the smooth illuminated surface of my ipad) doubt rises about how real my insights are. I wonder if what I write is the truth or just another colonial who chooses to condemn an unfamiliar culture rather than understand it. The feeling of unfamiliarity, so heady when traveling, never leaves you here. The confusion that exists between yapa (indigenous) and kardiya (whitefella) culture is a breeding ground for toxic and parasitic beliefs whose lifespan I do not wish to further through misguided rantings. But I'll have a crack at describing some of the challenges.

Two yapa hand signal each other from across the road. They have obligations to each other - you can tell from the directive movements. One enters the store, while the other sits and waits outside. Vehicles pass, dogs bark. The sun beats down. Kids are throwing stones at the rubbish bin. Some of them have big, pussy sores on their arms or faces. A vehicle pulls up to the loiterer. Hushed words, and exchange of a package. Agonizingly, he lumbers off. There will be no tucker today. 

This interaction, like countless others, is mystifying. I have lost count of the number of times something appeared to pass through the space - something big, amorphous and powerful yet totally imperceptible to one such as I. The simple fact is that I DONT know what is going on under the surface with so many of my interactions, and while the what I observe appears at times capricious and chaotic, this is probably because I am not seeing the whole picture, or don't share the bedrock of cultural understanding from which to base the meaning of my interactions off of. This is a precarious position to be in to be sure - to balance trusting my experience and insight (i.e. Sanity) with all that I do not know (i.e. The void). 

Whitefella opinions on "the issues" are in no short supply - every punter that has spent any significant time with the locals seems to write a book about their own take on things. But there is not a consistent theme or narrative between accounts other than deep misunderstandings, waste and disappointed expectations between the vastly different indigenous and settler cultures. Some paint the settler culture as evil; most the other way round. So far the best counsel has been to pay attention, resist judgement and attempt an empathic view of things. This is good enough advice but doesn't help with the anxiety induced for one such as I, who likes to have a framework of understanding in place when tackling a new problem. There are no guides, no forerunners who have trodden the path ahead and can show you the way. There is no Anthony Robins' of the inter-cultural settler/indigenous world. This is new terrain an no-one knows how it's done - not really. We're all muddling through, one at a time, committing the same mistakes, over and over again as burnout and apathy claim yapa and kardiya alike. 

What does this look like, you ask? Let's take a dynamic that causes a lot of consternation between the two cultures. In Anglo society, information is considered a nearly inalieble right - our children are always asking 'why why why' and this hunger for knowledge is fed with answers in our learning culture. It is very acceptable to question why something is the way it is for the purposes of seeking knowledge or understanding. 

In contrast, yapa culture considers knowledge a privilege that is only bestowed to the deserving according to lore and law. Knowledge about certain issues as widely ranging from health and reproduction to how to treat different family constellations is considered sacred and protected feircely. Asking why is often regarded as a lack of respect; in the sense that you are helping yourself to what is not rightly yours, and in the sense that you do not trust the person to tell you what you need to know. Yapa learning encourages a state of questioning that is self-directed, only receiving answers from others when they believe it is the right time for you to receive it. 

Thus begin the crazy-making intereractions. I lost a worker after a show of disrespect on my part - in this case asking why he needed to access the company vehicle on the weekend. My actions were viewed as an unacceptable lack of trust; and sorting between what is culturally  appropriate and tantrums, jealousy and plainly inappropriate behaviour can be head-wrecking.  

Knowing that the very act of asking can cause offense is tricky. It feels kinda like being lost in the dark, groping around for something to guide you, and then realising that you are in a razor shop. 

What do you make of THAT? Do you dare comprehend it??

I could tell you anecdotes. This evening I drove a group of kids home whose dog had been run over. They kids were loud, playful, boisterous as they threw the dead dog between themselves wrestled each other. The smear of blood on the ute tray came off with bit of pine o clean. Last week we had a mediation which was interrupted by a rival family member grabbing a screwdriver from the backseat of his car and stabbing one of our clients. The dispute in question arose from an allegation of black magic. In a related community meeting, it was about 40 minutes before I realized that I was facilitating a real life actual witch hunt - some ladies from south camp were having trouble sleeping an had attributed the bother to sorcery from north camp, which has led to 2 violent outbreaks so far. 

I don't know what to make of these incidences. It is easy to fall into horror at the fear of ruin/the unknown when confronted with something disturbing. But that label prevent any further understanding - and understanding is sorely needed out here. 

From the amorphous and murky gap of vastly different cultures, this is Icarus, lost.

In the Desert, They Don't Remember Your Name

This is a break in the usual aspirational musings regarding the pursuit of societal excellence as I, Eudemoniatic, turn my lens and laser to the remote indigenous community of Yuendumu. 

While I was at first unsure as to whether this blog was the right space for my reflections on how to mediate conflict and violence in a remote community, I have decided that the coalface and field of flux found in between two vastly different cultures is in fact the perfect location for musings on human flourishing. I will however be taking a more reflective tone, as it is important that I regularly buff my cultural lens to be sure of my own bias. If I start pronouncing "universal truths" somebody please flick me on the nose or ear.

A brief update: since I was last active on the blogosphere, a few shifts have occurred. In my life's search for meaning I have been preoccupied with the question of justice. What is it? What does it do? How do we know when a situation is just? This was sparked from an early age through a feeling of being somehow wronged. This feeling of castigastion, from a seed of rage in my childhood germinated into vicious and self-destructive ideation in my early twenties. After a two year depressive period (internalised rage), many hours in therapy and what felt like many hours in the plant-induced psychospiritual space, I got to a place where I confronted  the root of this feeling of injustice that had been present since early childhood, and put it to rest. I no longer feel oppressed by a sense of injustice, but rather motivated to help bring more balance, wellbeing and justice into the world. I am as happy, fulfilled and full of hubris as the next hippy starchild. 

I've discovered that assisting people to negotiate interpersonal challenges in a way that empowers is the kind of justice I was seeking when I enrolled in Law. Unlike the legal process, which locates power in an external 'judgment' of right or wrong, conflict resolution locates power within the people having the conflict, and assists them to make empowering decisions - to own both the process and the result. 

A series of leg-ups from unnamed but deeply appreciated benefactors has put me where I am today: an accredited mediator, working as the Community Safety Coordinator in the indigenous remote community of Yuendumu.

Yuendumu is one of the larger remote communities in central Australia, with a population of roughly 1000. I say roughly because indigenous mobility values mean that the tides of people ebb and flow daily, as the shifting sands of relationships and alignments sculpt a new permutation of extended network of Walpiri people in a moment-by-moment mediation of what it means to be connected to kin. Family is King here in the heart of Australia, and without wrapping your head around the strength of kinship ties, nothing makes much sense.

Main st, Yuendumu

Wrapping your head around anything out here is a challenge. From the slicken green and gray of the easy streets of Melbourne to the red dust expanse on the southern edge of the Tanami Desert, acclimating has been a steep process. The light is harsh here. No cloud cover means that shadows are stark and unforgiving. The desert people - Walpiri - don't typically make eye contact, but they have a way of looking right through you and seem to see all the mixed motivations that can bring a person here. There is nowhere to hide in the desert. 

Some inter-cultural tensions are already manifesting, brewing inside me as well as fomenting through the town. The appropriateness of: violence, welfare, accountability, aspirations and deep oppositional cultural assumptions are already on my radar as 'hotspots' to keep an eye on as my thoughts and feelings change in response to lived experience shared with Walpiri. 

One moment between myself and a Walpiri coworker serves as an apt example: when talking about visiting a neighboring community for the day he asked me if I could give him some money for lunch. This is very normal and known as a 'humbug'; pestering for money. For us western mob, the fact that we earn the same amount of money and are grown adults make the request ridiculous. Self-sufficiency is valued highly. But for Walpiri, everyone shares everything, and denying a request is a denial of relatedness. So he was asking me as he likely had given his paycheck to his relatives. I explained that I had given my paycheck to the petrol barons of the Stuart highway and offered him a packed lunch instead. "Same problem as the last boss" he mutters. "Bugger offers me food when I ask for money". 

So here I am. I have my work cut out for me. My first day on the ground saw an inter-family dispute escalate to a multi-car smash up: twenty or so family members descended on the house of an opposing family, smashing cars, throwing rocks and punches as the sun set over the footy oval. This is not uncommon, though not the norm. Conflict and violence is a part of life here, and assisting the community to find other ways of relating is impeded by many things; some of western artifice, some that were already here. 

But more on that later.