A Beginning and An End


It’s too easy to conclude that lifelines are of concrete: fluid and flexible to begin but at a later time hardened.  People get set in their ways as they age, it is said, and opinions, it follows, eventually date rather than develop.  It’s not so straightforward.  It can as easily be that a beginning comes within a nonagenarian end.

Azaleas were for the springtime, the air sweet with the pungency of gardenias.  Impatiens kept the colour through the year.  In Grandma’s garden, phlox and hollyhocks, snapdragons and dracaena coaxed from cuttings kept the days filled.  It was annual and perennial.  It was growth.

The side gate was wooden and immaculately grey, and upon stepping into the garden she’d greet me with a ‘G’day mate.’ The greeting stood out as an older Australian tradition, historical at the least in Sydney’s suburbia. 

She’d likely spent hours in sun-hatted toil, trowel turning, digging, weed removing and thinking; for her efforts there was talk, not only of the plants but of the blue wrens for which the bird bath had been bought.  It was the result of hours on a mat on her knees. 

We’d wander inside and the reddish linoleum-topped table was set with deliberation, the tablecloth positioned diagonally and the homemade biscuits and sour tasting sandwiches of pickled onions, mustard or relish at home on the particular decorative dish she’d chosen. There’d be a plump, patterned glass on its coaster for soft drink.  Tables aren’t set so precisely anymore, not for morning tea.

Always neatly dressed, Grandma kept her hair short, curled into a perm with hot rollers; and after the food she’d bring in the teapot to rest upon the wooden teapot board.  The pot would be dressed in a hand knitted cosy to keep the tea warm.  Such detail! Perhaps I only wish to show that there was much about her to seem old-fashioned.

And there was contrast, for hers were not the only morning teas in those busy years that bookmarked the millennium.  In the government department where I worked there was, scheduled once a week, a morning tea for team-building.  There was a cake roster but we’d each arrange our own cup of coffee.  Naturally, those morning teas were hastier and marked by slightly forced chat that overshadowed the stress of deadlines.  The bosses rarely attended.  They were busy. 

Meanwhile, Grandma used to have a doctor, a hairdresser, several others visiting her home.  She’d mark up their scheduled comings in her diary.  That’s how many westerners like to imagine their old age, staying independently.  I know she enjoyed those visits because they brought company in the daytime hours.  But on the day I arrived while the doctor was visiting, I was surprised to see Grandma embarrassed. 

Once the doctor left she said, ‘she’s a good doctor but she always talks badly about the Greeks and Italians.  But they do alright here, don’t they?’  The doctor thought they used too much concrete and tiling in their Mediterranean gardens, Grandma explained, but she didn’t mind their style.

I never heard her speak badly of any nationality, but we never spoke of such things.  She seemed somehow distinct from society.  Nonetheless, on that day I thought perhaps she was at the start of something.

What was more surprising happened at the time she was admitted to hospital for a minor procedure, just for a few days.  She found herself in a ward in a suburb of Sydney that is predominantly Turkish.  The ward she shared with a talkative, middle aged Greek-Australian woman, and in the bed opposite, a woman of Somali origin. 

Grandma thought to make mention of how the Greek lady kept her company.  She’d sampled homemade Greek food and liked it.  And she lent towards me to whisper, ‘but that other lady, she is so dark that sometimes when I see her face after waking up I forget where I am and I get scared.  She tried to talk to me.  I don’t understand a word.’ She was being totally honest.

‘But I suppose she’s alright,’ Grandma said, ‘We are who we are, aren’t we?’

It’d never occurred to me how much Australian society had changed since she was born.  In the span of her ninety plus years, change wasn’t only a matter of electricity, cars, vacuum cleaners and microwaves.  There’d been the migration waves too: amongst them the Italians and Greeks from the 1950s and Africans since the 1990s.  When Grandma was born, assuming it was in a hospital, it’s probable that all of her baby-contemporaries shared her fair complexion.  It was a largely British-Australian society into which she was born.

As I said goodbye in the hospital, I leant in to kiss her and at the same time shook her hand; and after that, instinctively and accidentally, put my hand to my heart.  I was embarrassed by the small gesture she hadn’t noticed, because it’s not an Australian custom but a welcome habit from the Bangladeshi village. 

Meanwhile at the office there was contrast.  It was strange the day one of the bosses not only found time to attend morning tea but embarked upon a small speech about how it was that Muslims would never fit into Australian society.  ‘They think differently,’ she said to her team.  It was her main point.  As it was known I had friends in Bangladesh, the little speech may have been for my benefit.  Or it was simply a personal view that needed airing.  Either way, I think differently too.

I’d not bother to mention it but it wasn’t the only time I heard senior public sector managers talk like that.  Such displays in Australia are, in practice, in reality, accepted.  A bit of racism might even be considered a good way to get ahead.  It’s mistaken for national loyalty by some. 

In a broader sense there would appear to remain some confusion between racism and leadership in Australia.  Sadly, ironically, the department I write of has responsibility for anti-discrimination legislation.  It was disturbing that even there Muslims could be on the outer.

Grandma meanwhile had a spontaneous side.  The woman who would never forget a birthday, having presents wrapped and tied with ribbon sometimes months in advance, was also the one who thought to crawl under her dining table to hide from her great grandson.  He had to find her.  Her mind stayed sharp and her bone joints were not unwilling to bend.

The last year of my father’s mother was 2001.  Her grandchildren had grown and Sydney had become a post-modern, multicultural society.  It was the year of the terrorist attacks on New York’s twin towers, her last.

Some people adapt.  Others don’t.  And it’s interesting because just as Grandma’s tolerance of others seemed to be on its rise, so it quickly faded, as if there was no place left for it.  And there was loss.

But at a time when tolerance in Australian society was in steep and rapid decline maybe there really wasn’t any place for it.

At age 93.
One could say it’s still the nation’s foremost security risk, the type of ‘us and them’ exclusion that prevents any society from flourishing and creates all the other security consequences.  It remains well-protected, the ‘us and them,’ because down under the ‘us and them’ retains many important advocates.  Some degree of extremism is not a problem as long as it’s of the white kind.

Some people adapt.  Others don’t.  I wonder if Australian public processes will ever catch up to Grandma. 

It can be that she waited, several months later when she again went into hospital.  Her hair was long, straight and tumbled down over her shoulders when I saw her last.  I never knew she had hair like that.  If it had been of a colour other than white she might’ve looked as a teenager. 






Of course it's all about learning to think, appreciating different ways of thinking and, well, adding a little heart. 


This article also published in Star Magazine, here: A Beginning and An End

5 comments:

  1. There is much I don't like about Muslim culture, largely around attitudes to women. It is like there was no equivalent of the European Renaissance in thinking and development and at least an acknowledgement of the concept of freedom. In saying this however, as there are Muslim Extremists, the "White and Right", predominantly Christian fundamentalists in US society, are even more extreme and that's ironic really and potentially dangerous.

    Good piece Andrew and social comment on Australia today.

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    1. Thanks for your comment. I think the main issue is about tolerance and accepting people for who they are, warts and all, as we would wish others to accept us. I definitely agree that fundamentalist thinking is a problem no matter which tradition it stems from.

      I would not wish to speak for Muslim women but I suppose there being maybe 500 million of them there are a variety of views. Some might agree with your comment, while I guess the majority would not, and even those who do wish to raise issues of women’s rights or attitudes to women would do so from knowledge and experience, and would likely raise issues that perhaps non-Muslims may not even think of, and perhaps place less emphasis on those westerners might think more important. Different perspectives.

      I also think perhaps women’s rights are a human issue across all religions and cultures more than a Muslim specific one.

      And as for ‘freedom’ well again, a Muslim could respond better but I doubt there is a culture or religion anywhere without the concept of freedom in it. Perhaps if it is of a different shape and form however an outsider to that tradition may not recognise it.

      And then there is the issue of freedom in the west. That is problematic of course. It depends how one defines it and if we think of ‘who westerners like to say they are’ as opposed to the reality on the ground. And different western countries are different too.

      At the end of the day all people, religions and cultures are influenced by their history, politics and by the strengths and failures of people who adhere to it. This is why I think when cultures or religions are involved our level of acceptance should be greater and stronger than it would be between people of different views within a culture. When it comes to women’s rights in Islam, we would do well to listen. Muslim women do have a voice and there are women’s rights movements and histories in, I suspect, all Muslim majority countries. There certainly is here in Bangladesh.

      From the author.

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    2. my thoughts:

      What exactly don’t you like about Islam’s attitude towards women? Make sure not to confuse old middle eastern culture and religion. Old middle eastern culture (much like most cultures way back when) treated their women unequally. Almost all countries (minus Saudi Arabia)have progressed from that and treat their women equally. Now as for Islam itself? Islam treats the woman as equally as a man.

      Here are a few quotes from the Quran.

      On having a daughter (in old times, people thought it was a shame to have a girl instead of a boy):

      “Whosoever has a daughter and he does not bury her alive, does not insult her, and does not favor his son over her; God will enter him into Paradise.”

      “Whosoever supports two daughters till they mature, he and I will come in the Day of Judgment as this (and he pointed with his two fingers held together). “

      On equal education:

      “Seeking knowledge is mandatory for every Muslim”. (AlBayhaqi). This means both men and women of Islam.

      On treatment of a wife:

      According to Islamic Law, women cannot be forced to marry anyone without their consent. And men are told that “The most perfect believers are the best in conduct and best of you are those who are best to their wives. (Ibn-Hanbal, No. 7396)”

      On being treated as a mother:

      The Prophet advised a believer not to join the war against the Quraish (i.e. the pagan disbelievers at that time) in defense of Islam, but to look after his mother, saying that his service to his mother would be a cause for his salvation. The Prophet said: “Messenger of God! I want to join the fighting (in the path of God) and I have come to seek your advice.” He said, “Then remain in your mother’s service, because Paradise is under her feet.”

      “It is the generous (in character) who is good to women, and it is the wicked who insults them.”

      Economically:

      “Unto men (of the family) belongs a share of that which Parents and near kindred leave, and unto women a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be a little or much - a determinate share.”

      so now, how exactly do Muslims have a bad attitude toward their women? Islam puts women on a high pedestal.

      So those are my thoughts on the first comment. But i definitely agree with your comment about “Christian fundamentalists in US society, are even more extreme and that’s ironic really and potentially dangerous.”

      Ayah, Muslim woman living in the USA

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  2. Fabulously written article Andrew

    Eric (Australia)

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  3. Nice sentiment, well expressed with a delightfully personal perspective. Well done.

    Ross (Australia)

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