那個蔓延的音調

那個蔓延的音調

邁克爾-格雷-格里菲斯

我在Café Locked Out的收件箱里有一條信息。給這個人打電話，現在他人在南非。我有一個名字和他所在的團體的名字，由於我們要做一個充滿國際嘉賓的節目，我決定還是要打電話，盡管這里幾乎是午夜。

因為每個人都在睡覺，我走到外面，發現由於宵禁，我已經好幾個月沒有這麽晚了屋前。

這里沒有行人。沒有晚上的遛狗者。沒有過往的車輛。只有路燈和寂靜，以及遠處某處巡邏的直升機的聲音。

他的電話響了。在一個我從未去過的國家，這讓我很不安給一個我不認識的人打電話。第一次嘗試的結果是我什麽都聽不到。第二次嘗試的結果是一個疲憊的聲音問："喂？"

我介紹了自己，由於他一定被告知我可能會打電話，所以他知道我是誰。當他開始說話時，我可以聽出有些可識別的事情和他語氣不對。

那是一種我最近才開始聽到的語氣，其中夾雜著反覆出現的不相信的沈默。

"它在這裡發生，"他說。"他們一定是在利用你的城市作為一個實驗的城市。我們看了錄像（自媒體人）魯克山的直播，"他說。"我們甚至不是一個抗議活動。更是一個集會。一個小團體去散步的人。但他們警察作為對我們攻擊很大。暴力是令人難以置信的。他們只是在阻止任何不同意見。然後媒體稱我們是反疫苗主義者。我們不是反免疫苗者。我們是支持選擇權的。我打電話給報社，問他們，你們在做什麽？你為什麽要撒謊？你們的讀者看到這個就會覺得...... "然後電話就沈默了。

"喂？你能聽到我嗎？ . "喂？

"是的，我在這里，"他又說了一遍，那種語氣讓我感到通過共同經歷而產生的聯系。

那是那些親眼看到美好事物永遠改變的人的語氣。我從亞拉河畔的一個家庭那里聽到了這句話，他們一邊試圖保持冷靜，一邊對我耳語，因為在我們周圍，成群結隊的警察湧來，有些騎著馬，有些穿著黑色防暴裝備。許多人成群結隊地對落單的抗議者撲倒在地，或站在他們周圍，因為被戴上手銬的抗議者坐在那里，他們的眉頭低垂，比握著他們肩膀的這雙手還要沈重。

前幾天我從一個參加過 "沈默站在公園里 "抗議活動的女士那里聽到了這個消息。他們所有人都戴著口罩。他們所有人都相距一點五米，都被不戴口罩的正在野餐家庭包圍著，他們喝酒、吃飯，慶祝這個美麗溫暖的十月星期六。

兩名警察處理了他們所有人。他們一個一個地走過，檢查他們的身份證，以確保他們在他們的區域內。他們都在。這就是問題所在。這是一次沒有違反法律的抗議活動，抗議者是由護理人員和護士、教師和其他相關公民組成的。沒有人被捕，但幾天後，他們都開始收到5000澳元以上的罰款。他們的罪名。抗議。

同一天，格倫（Glen Waverly）附近的一個小型集會，可能有40人拿著標語沿著一個十字路口排隊，在15分鐘內就被鎮壓了，因為有三輛大巴車的警察趕到，開始逮捕，其他趕來參加抗議的抗議者坐在車里，給其他人打電話提醒他們，他們都用現在常見的語氣。這種語氣交織著恐懼和不相信，被背叛者日益增長的憤怒已達到臨界點。

這是新的，還是古老的、經常低聲說話的難民的語氣？這是一個民族的語氣，他們可以看到他們速度很快失去了多少東西，但他們不知道該怎麽辦，因為他們沒有處理這種程度的恐嚇和暴力的經驗，特別是來自他們自己的人。

這讓我想起教會講道時教給我的一個宗教故事。魔鬼把耶穌帶到一座高山頂上，從那里他們可以看到幾個城市。"這一切我都會給你，"魔鬼告訴耶穌，"如果你願意跪下來敬拜我。"

幾年前引用《聖經》會是一個笑話，但現在它是一塊試金石。我們以為我們已經忘記了，或者永遠不會需要的保留這深刻教訓。在我們的城市，所有這些嚴酷的改變都是不可能的，如果沒有我們的警察部隊強制執行。

"他們（警方）很殘忍，"我的南非新朋友說。"他們沒有必要這樣做。我們是一個小型的、和平的遊行。我可以聽出，他重覆這句話並不是為了我，而是為了他自己，因為他試圖處理所發生的事情，合理化甚至接受這樣一個事實：他自己的警察部隊，他自己的人民，為了一份工資，推翻了他們服務和保護社區的誓言，反而積極地執行南非迅速重新出現的專制統治的意志。在那里，對國家的新威脅是和平的不服從者。

一名墨爾本警察被拍到，她的靴子壓住了一名抗議者的前列腺頭，在當她的同僚們則按住這抗議者。

"她在臉書上吹噓，"她的一個親戚聯系我說，重複那語氣，現在這種沙啞的語氣把這麽多人團結在一起，因為那些大聲慶祝他們新地位的人，叫做自由，公開宣稱，在他們被隔離的城市，這些麻煩制造者應該得到一切。

"你還在那里嗎？" 我問道。

"是的，"他打破了長距離的沈默，說，我研究了鄰居窗戶上亮著的幾盞燈，並決定回到屋里，以防他們中的一個人聽到我的談話，看到我在外面就報警了

Orignal article:

That Spreading Tone

Michael Gray Griffith

I had a message in Café Locked Out’s inbox. Call this man, now. He was in South Africa. I had a name and the name of the group he was with, and since we were about to do a show full of international guests, I decided, despite the fact it was almost midnight here, to call.

Because everyone was asleep, I went outside and realised, because of the curfew, I hadn’t been outside the front of the house, this late in months.

There was no one here. No late dog walkers. No passing cars. Just the street lights and the silence with the screw of a patrolling helicopter somewhere in the distance.

His phone rang. It was a bit of a buzz to call someone I didn’t know, in a country I’d never been to. The first attempt ended with me being unable to hear anything. The second attempt ended with a weary voice asking, “Hello?”

I introduced myself and since he must have been told I might call, he knew who I was. And as he began to speak, I could hear something recognisable and wrong in his tone.

It was a tone, I’d only started hearing recently, one punctuated by the recurring silence of disbelief.

“It’s happening here,” he said. “They must be using your city as a test city. We watched the footage. Rukshan’s,” he said. “We weren’t even a protest. More a rally. A small one going for a walk. But they hit us hard. The violence was unbelievable. They were just stopping any dissent. Then the media called us anti-vaxxers. We aren’t anti-vaxxers. We are pro-choice. I called the newspaper and asked them, what are you doing? Why are you lying? Your readers will see this and think . . .” and then the phone went silent.

“Hello? Can you hear me? . . Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here,” he said again, with that tone that made me feel connected through a shared experience.

It was the tone of those who had seen, first hand that something good had changed forever. I had heard it from a family on the banks of the yarra who were whispering to me, while trying to stay calm, as all around us, hordes of police streamed by, some on horseback, some wearing that black riot gear. Many working in groups to tackle lone protestors to the ground, or stand around them as the handcuffed protestor sat, their brow low with a weight heavier than these hands holding their shoulders.

I had heard it the other day from a woman who had been in a ‘stand in the park’ protest. All of them had been masked. All of them had been one point five meters apart, all of them surrounded by families picnicking without masks, as they drank and ate and celebrated the beautifully warm October Saturday.

Two police officers had processed them all. Moved through them, one by one, checking their IDs to make sure they were within their zone. They were. This was the point. It was a protest that broke no laws and the protesters were a mix of paramedics and nurses, teachers and other concerned citizens. There were no arrests, but then a few days later they all began receiving $5000 plus fines. Their charge. Protesting.

That same day, a small rally near the Glen, perhaps forty people with signs lined up along an intersection had been quashed within fifteen minutes, as three bus loads of police arrived and began the arrests, as others protesters, who had arrived to join the protest, sat in their cars and called others to warn them, all of them using that now common tone. The one interwoven with fear and disbelief and edged with growing anger of the betrayed.

Was this new, or the ancient, often whispered tone of refugees? The tone of a people who could see how much they were losing and how quickly, and yet they didn’t know what to do about it, for they had no experience of dealing with this level of intimidation and violence, especially from their own people.

It reminded me of the religious story I was taught in a sermon. The one where the devil took Jesus to the top of a high mountain from where they could see several cities “All this I will give You,” the devil told Jesus, “if you will fall down and worship me.”

To quote the bible a few years ago would have been a joke, but now it’s a touch stone. A reservoir of deep lessons, we thought we’d forgotten, or would never need. In our city, all these draconian changes wouldn’t be possible without our police force enforcing them.

“They were brutal,” my new South African friend said. “They didn’t have to be. We were a small, peaceful march.” And I could hear that he was repeating this not so much for me, but for himself as he tried to process what had happened, to rationalise or even accept the fact that his own police force, his own people had, for a wage, over ruled their oath to serve and protect the community, had instead aggressively enforced the will of South Africa’s quickly re-emerging authoritarian rule. The one where the new threat to the State, were the peacefully non-compliant.

One Melbourne police officer was photographed with her boot squashing a protester’s prostate head, as her comrades held the protester down.

“She was on face book, bragging about it,” one of her relatives contacted me and said, again with that tone, the hushed one now uniting so many people, as the louder ones celebrating their new status, called freedom, openly decree, in their segregated city, that these trouble makers deserve everything they get.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

“Yes,” he broke the long distance silence and said, as I studied the few lights that were on in the neighbours windows, and decided to move back inside in case one of them had heard me talking and seeing me outside had called the police