巨變中的書寫
巨變中的書寫

駐墨爾本的自由運動觀察人.

安慰的台階

邁克爾-格雷-格里菲斯 在墨爾本的台階上季下點點滴滴。


他走過三次,戴著口罩,好像在趕著去一個已經遲到的地方,然後他在台階的邊緣停下,一個經常坐在議會台階上的人,問他是否還好。

那人說,我的整個家庭都反對我,因為我不願意接受疫苗。我是一個被拋棄的人,而且現在我已經失去了工作。一但開口,因為有人在聽,他開始說了不停。沒過多久,他吃別人遞過來的水果拼盤里的一些西瓜,這時另一個新人拿起大聲公,是一個年輕的科學家,現在也失業了,他繼續滔滔不絕地說著,說發生的一切都沒有遵循科學的原則。

在這里,這種情況每天都在發生。在一起我們就像一個難民營,一個善良的人類島嶼,普通人在這里絕望地暫時逃離這個城無法被諒解的無情和社會的殘酷。

與我交談的另一位年輕婦女說,她來是因為她覺得自己在家里快被負面情緒淹沒了,淹沒在正在失去的悲痛中。

小提琴家馬基揚走下來,拉了幾首小提琴曲。一位老人站起來唱了《奇異恩典》,然後盧克拿出他的吉他,彈了一些新舊的抗議歌曲,這一周的時間就這樣流逝了,直到我們親切的領導艾比意識到今天是星期四。

今天,很多人都在談論電台的訪談,其中一位政府部長談到了如何削減未接種疫苗者的救濟金。媒體上沒有任何報道,只有這些采訪。

這是真的嗎?還是政府在試探公眾的反應?

有幾個人他們的眼神中充滿地向我坦誠絕望,他們現在正在考慮自殺,後來我想,當我坐在那里聽演講時,還有多少人在那里,在郊區的人聽到了那個采訪但不知道我們,或者無法聯系到我們,而選擇離開。

達米安給我打電話說,這位政府部長曾經聲稱自己是一名基督徒,這讓你再次搖頭,因為你想知道耶穌的所有教導和我認為理所當然的我們國家豐富的同情心都去了哪里。

同樣,沒有任何宗教的精神領袖賴到這裡提供支持幫助,哪怕只是願意傾聽這些人的心聲,和他們坐在一起。

他們是否也害怕連帶責任?

不,當這些人坐在冰冷的台階上時,他們所擁有的只是彼此和他們個人正直。他們所擁有的是自由,但這種自由的代價每天都在增加,因為這暴政的浪潮越滾越高,渴望打垮他們。要把他們變成奴隸。

因為這就是這些電台采訪的內容。政府透過媒體有系統性明確表示,它完全準備好提高賭注,直到這些挑釁的人只剩下兩個選擇服從或死亡。

這是一場宣戰。一場沒有炸彈的無聲的戰爭。這場戰爭的目標是摧毀人民的獨立。而且是一場想要奪取他們靈魂的戰爭。

世界各地都在進行同樣的戰爭,意大利、法國和以色列也在進行大規模的抗議,但在這里就在這個城市,只有這個遊擊隊的小島提供了短暫的安慰,因為大多數人已經有意或無意地屈服了,他們走過或開車經過。

大多數人可能仍然會繼續默默地走過,即使一旦這個使緊急權力永久化的法案被通過,當局就會到來,把我們都帶到集中營去。

然而,為了應對這種深不可測而又清晰逼近的可能性,我們開起了玩笑。誰會得到哪個鋪位,難民營會不會是男女分開的。

但是,撇開玩笑不談,我今天比較安靜,因為傑伊。這個年輕的女人在我們的節目中說,她相信我們有一個道德責任,無論情況有多糟糕,但不要賣弄無望的態度。

現在,我不僅欽佩這一點,而且同意這一點,但是當你也相信撒謊是毫無意義的時候,而且由於我們的人數如此之少,怎麽可能做到這一點呢?在這里的台階上,我唯一能找到的答案就在一個無家可歸的人手中。

不管他是誰,他顯然是個瘋子。他一整天都在我們身邊跳舞,說著用他自己的語言交談,但有一次,當我坐在台階上感到在民主的邊緣迷失時,我注意到他正在吃一塊比薩餅。這里有人從分發的盒子里給了他一片,他站在那里吃得很平靜。

這是一個小小的善舉,在一小群善良的人中間,他們被一個城市所包圍,恐懼在這似乎不再發現任何意義或價值。

今天,星期五,我們將再次來到這里,所以如果你被困在這個寒冷的墨爾本,並且迫切需要一些短暫的避難所,我們歡迎所有的人;打過疫苗的和沒有打過疫苗的,為什麽不下來呼吸呢?

The Steps of Solace

Three times he walked past, mask on as if he was racing somewhere he was late for, before he stopped on the edge of the steps, where a man, who often came and sat on these steps, the steps of parliament, asked him if he was ok.

My whole family has turned against me, the man said, because I won’t take the jab. I’m an outcast, and now I’ve lost my job. After this, because someone was listening, he wouldn’t stop talking. Then before long he was eating some watermelon from a fruit platter that others were handing out, as another new person took to the microphone, a young scientist, also now unemployed, who went on to rant, articulately, about how nothing that was happening was following the correct protocols of science.

Down here this happened every day. Together we were like a refugee camp, a human island of kindness where ordinary people, desperate to momentarily escape the city’s now unforgiving and socially acceptable cruelty, washed up.

Another young woman I spoke to said she came because she felt like she was drowning at home, drowning in the grief of all that was being lost.

Markiyan came down and played some violin. One old man stood up and sung Amazing Grace, then Luke pulled out his guitar and played some protest songs old and new, as the week ran away with itself until Abby, our gracious leader, realised it was Thursday.

Today a lot of the talk was about the talk back radio interviews where a government minster had spoken about how the dole was going to be cut for the unvaccinated. There was nothing in the press, just these interviews.

Was it real, or was the government testing the waters to gauge public reaction?

Several people, admitted to me with a taut desperation in their eyes about how they were now contemplating suicide, and later I wondered, as I sat their listening to the speeches, how many other people out there, people in the suburbs had heard that interview but were unaware of us or couldn’t reach us, had instead chosen to leave.

Damien called me and said this Government minister had apparently claimed to be a Christian, which again left you shaking your head as you wondered to where all the teachings of Jesus and or, what I took for granted was our country’s abundant and natural empathy, had gone.

Once again too, no Spiritual Leaders from any religion came down to offer support, even if it was just a willingness to listen to these people, to sit with them.

Where they also scared of guilt by association?

No, all these people had, as they sat on the cold steps, was each other and their personal integrity. All they had was freedom, but the cost of this freedom was growing every day as this tide of tyranny rolled in ever higher, hungry to break them. To turn them into slaves.

For that’s what these radio interviews where. They were the system stating clearly that it was fully prepared to raise the stakes until these defiant ones were left with two choices, comply or die.

This was a declaration of war. A silent war without bombs. A war that’s goal was to destroy the peoples’ independence. A war that wanted their souls.

Around the world the same war was being fought, mass protests in Italy and France and Israel too, but here, in this city, there was only this island of partisans offering momentary solace as the majority who had already knowingly or unknowingly succumbed, walked or drove past.

The majority that would probably still continue to silently pass even as, once this bill to make the emergency powers permanent was passed, the authorities would arrive and take us all away to the camps.

And yet to deal with this unfathomable yet clear and approaching possibility, we joked about it. Who would get which bunk, and would the camps be unisex.

But jokes aside I was quieter today because of Jaye. This young woman had stated on our show, that she believed that we had a moral responsibility, despite how dire the situation, to not sell hopelessness.

Now not only did I admire this, but I agreed with it, but when you also believed that lying was pointless, and since our numbers where so few, how was it possible to live up to this? And here on the steps the only answer I could find lay in the hands of a homeless man.

Whomever he was he was clearly insane but harmless, and he’d been dancing around us all day, talking mostly in his own language, but at one point as I sat their feeling lost on the approaching edge of democracy, I noticed he was eating a slice of pizza. Someone here, had offered him a slice from the boxes been handed around, and calmer he stood there eating it.

It was a small act of kindness, amidst a small group of kind people, who were surrounded by a city that, thanks to fear, no longer seemed to find any point or value in this.

Today, Friday, we will be here again, so if you are stuck in this colder Melbourne, and need desperately some momentary refugee, all are welcome; vaxx & unvaxxed, so why not come down and breathe?

Michael Gray Griffith

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 版权声明

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