I sent this letter to the Western Australian Police Commissioner and the Premier of Western Australia early last week. I want to add that the W.A. mainstream media coverage of veganism and animal rights issues in Western Australia has generally been rabid and paranoid, and part of a disturbing far-right stirring of nationalism that aims for aggressive suppression of any challenge to the industry.
Dear Police Commissioner
I wish to protest the ‘support’
given by police (as seen in today’s news) to a member of the public who
discharged a weapon near people who were filming animals on his property. The
moment the use of a weapon in any capacity is given the okay, you have opened
the door to injury or worse — advertent or inadvertent.
I have no connection to the
activists in question; I do not know them.
To side with the animal farmers
against the vegan animal rights activists is not the police’s remit — the
police’s remit is to uphold the law. There is no room for moral intrusion in
this process — you cannot take sides. Doing so contributes to polarising and
hardening differences, rather than helping toward understanding.
Activists’ intrusions can be legally
dealt with according to law — and should the activists wish to change things,
they need to work to change the laws. No one should feel threatened in this.
One could argue that animals’ rights
are part of this as well, and I would, but I recognise that until laws are
changed there are ways to go about these things that respect people as well as
animals. No doubt. But not to charge someone using a weapon in the vicinity of
people no matter how enraged, or even if the weapon-user feels ‘threatened’, is
unacceptable by the laws you yourself uphold.
I have been a vegan for approximately thirty-three years, and my wife for twenty-five years, and we live in the wheatbelt. We live
alongside others amicably, which doesn’t mean we all always agree on everything.
Ours is not to bully or cajole others, but to live our lives decently and offer
an example of a different way of living on the planet. Many have been
influenced by our choices, not because we have bullied them, but because we haven’t. As such, animals benefit as
well.
It is not right to threaten, deride,
or humiliate others in any circumstances, even if one feels they are doing
wrong. It’s s slippery slope in both directions.
So I would ask you to stand up
against vigilantism and respect non-aggressive vegans and animal rights people
as much as you do those who farm animals, and certainly more than those who are
armed and make threats (and yes, wielding firearms around people is a form of
threat).
Police actions in this have made us
feel vulnerable, as if farmers are being encouraged into aligning against
vegans, and we shouldn’t have to feel that way. We don’t make others feel
vulnerable, and are known to respect difference. Your job surely is to uphold
the law, and not to cast judgement.
Tyrant Spells in
Excessive Heat Sees Old Trees Uprooted Alongside Toodyay-Perth Road as the
Biosphere Collapses In a Heap to be Mulched (Seeds Collected for Later Resowing
in the Spirit Of...) in The Name of Safety
‘But a
tyrant spell has bound me,
And I
cannot, cannot go.
The giant
trees are bending’
Emily Brontë
These trees I see
now on this surveyed zone
are not ours per se, but we have responsibility
under the tyranny. Even if we plant
a seed and it grows to sapling and tree
we do not own the growth or even
the tree’s body when it deceases.
And so the local naturalist club does
a deal with government tree-killers incorporated —
‘give some up to save some’ — and ‘stakeholders’
who are informed make their cases and seeds
are collected and deep-seated flooded gums
are tumbled. Offsets.
In the jaws of the embodied
hologram of an arcade claw machine transmigrated
to do its coin-feeders’ bidding, always responding
where aimed and succeeding in grabbing the killed trees’
fluffy ‘all the same’ canopy and dropping down
the mulcher’s gullet — steel-capped grin. The personal agony
of failed protest before protest can even happen aside —
it’s on your doorstep and signed off on righteously
(road trauma is real but there are other ways of holding
back
the slaughter) — vested interests tearing down life-towers,
intensive housing project for non-human life along the
roadside —
and the compulsory reclamation of what’s
outside the reserve to enact the vision
of transport. Giant trees bend then are torn out
like teeth, the heavy snow of fallout in the overheating —
I cannot pass without the pain deluding
me into an acceptance of falls with machine’s
anaesthetics offering nothing more than a brief
respite from culpability — ‘the community’
having answered in all our names, Babbeled tree-talk.
Why not travel slower, speak slower? Take
curves gradually with shade against the burn?
Let life-growth show a way through office-decisions
all bravado in the field — suits mingling with work clobber
hard to get clean: break the
tyrant spell, and let us all go,
go through unbreaking unbroken less excessive less overheated.
Here are poems written in 'realtime' in support of James, Sarah and the other protesters who camped out, tree-sat, and were constantly present in resistance to the further destruction (it's not over, people!) of the Beeliar wetlands in Perth (on Bibra Drive in this case), late 2018.
These poems were intended to show that the protesters weren't alone, and that the effort to protect the environment needs to be a universal one; that ALL of our needs and interests intersect in this. As an extension of my notion of 'international regionalism', I am thinking more and more in terms of international responsibility regarding regional intactness, and cultural and identity intactness with respect to the natural environments in which they communalise and identify.
I think we need to be conscious of all language we deploy around this shared act of resistance to the damage being done, and that though the umbrella of 'extinction rebellion' covers many driven and passionate people (and I support the public push to show 'enough is enough' and to make positive change happen), it also fails in its naming. 'Rebellion' suggests a moment (that social-media burst of un-thought-out response that leads to chaotic action without focus, consistency or longevity), suggests an aggressive reaction to aggression that will yield little other than earth people's frustration.
I call this 'the buzz' - and once the buzz diminishes, people wander back to their flatscreens, their new phones, their consumerism. Change will come from non-violent direct action merged with language action merged with cultural and identity and gender-respect merged with thinking carefully about what we do and not letting the buzz create the peaks and troughs that have prevented a collective, concerted and long-term response to the rapacity.
Let's stop consuming as a form of 'equality' when consuming makes for inequality - wealth and privilege need to divest themselves immediately and 'property' be shared in common (and I don't believe in 'property' per se!). Let's stop participating in the consumerism ('western', 'eastern'... or any of its other manifestations within capital... culture is consumed by the consumer-machine of capitalism which purports to offer opportunities of consuming while deleting the basic universal freedoms of food, clean air, natural environment etc) ... the machine grinds to a halt without being fuelled. Let's concentrate on the priorities of social interaction: food, medicine, protecting the rights of the vulnerable, ceasing the exploitation, ending violent conflict, protecting environment and cultural rights attached to place (and spatiality)... and avoid as much unnecessary consumerism as possible.
Here are a few messages I've sent a couple of friends (especially James) in recent days:
*in protests for the environment there can potentially be a game of better-than-thou going on in which personal templates of 'best behaviour' and 'i'm less oppressing than you are' might be put on display, rather than a real deep caring for the natural world (privilege always allows such gambits - people living in the fallout of the new colonialism of the latest version of the international arms trade get little choice to participate in non-violent resistance to consumerism when they are dying, having their houses destroyed, and their cultures annihilated).
so much activism out of (primarily western) privilege is a performance rather than the grit of protest. it's happening in poetry, too. people display what they feel they must, and don't mean it. a poet should say what they mean as a poet - good, vital... but don't say what they think people want to hear in the arts set... just to fit the moment of angst as the world overheats and dissolves. it doesn't stop the dissolving; it ironically feeds the consumerism. it is a form of consumerism.
too many times shot at, too many times hauled away to the lock-up, too many times been abused to take this pseudo-activism without a vomit feeling. so the performance moves on to what next week? i hope i am wrong, and i know many are long-term committed activists, and some are becoming genuinely aware, but the show must go on and poetry plays its part in that show. poetry actually has purpose to my mind - and not just the purpose of being poetry that the best people will applaud. i don't want applause, i want change - i want the tens of thousands of flooded gums dying around here to stop dying. only one way to achieve that - put our poems where are mouths are.
*i am bothered by 'extinction rebellion' because it reminds me of the buzz behind occupy (i was involved with that in london and cambridge) that dissolved into various forms of 'acceptance' for many. it's the cadre zeitgeist buzz people get and then it gets too hard to just stop the abuse by non-participation (the internet and phones etc have led to more of the destruction than almost anything else over the last twenty years). true non-violent 'rebellion' is (as i have just been writing) not participating in capitalist gain, in refusing to participate in the state machine, in being non-violent, in standing in front of the bulldozers, in believing in EVERY tree and every creature. there is no middle way - there is to my mind :the non-usage of animals, the replanting of damaged areas, and certainly using as few 'resources' as we can (from commuting to travel to how we live in houses etc). we all move, we all use these machines... but even if we lessen our impact it helps more than a raging that vents angst but doesn't actually do anything direct. direct action is standing by that tree, it's choosing to ride your bike rather than drive, it's not buying a new phone or even using one... it's going offline...
*the kids coming out against the damages against climate/environment was a positive action. peace marches (as tracy says) that are silent, are powerful. such collective actions work, even if in the moment then gone. but 'rebellions' and 'occupies' that become hype about who is connecting with whom, bother me as shared events of buzz rather than long-term commitment. not to say they can't be, but the 'beeliar group' potential is there - once the hype shifts as cadre groups fall out, it fails. rebellion is not what's needed, non-participation in the corporate military state that is doing this (and people go along with it) is what's needed. the moment people get a buzz out of an action, the action becomes secondary. there's no buzz - only commitment. that good feeling you get - of being alive... is because it's outside the buzz, it's because you're connecting with what you're trying to protect. that matters. city-driven protests too often become about the entertainment zone and social sets of the city - not the dirt and the air and the water and the birds and life itself. same with any concentrations of people over other forms of nature. yes, social media has enhanced empowerment in marginalised groups, but the abuse of rights of self and community has also happened repeatedly on a cast scale. voices of the self should never be lost in the mass voicing of the many — small communities speaking with small communities and so on, rather than the loss of rights of self by 'faceless' (that is face behind the avatar) attacks when every person's situation is different within and without community.
*so often these things are propelled by older people feeding on younger people (social-media companies might be the face of the young, but they grow older the more established they become... and take on values of conservatism) - on young energy that isn't necessarily (though it may be, of course) focussed - rather than the reality of the event itself. extinction is being caused by ALL of us - including the participants in the 'rebellion'. they could truly rebel by changing themselves to start with (some will, many won't, not really). sorry, but i've seen too much of this movement shallow stuff that sparks then fades as lives change etc. the coming-together has an energy, then it morphs. hope i'm wrong! i truly do. to stop consuming outside what is necessary to live would be a good start!
*that is, start addressing the problems with capitalism and the state and never give ground, with peace as your best friend. no peace and there'll be no peace. 'rebellion' intimates violence even if unintended and that's why we have the problems in the first place. they use it as a 'hashtag' (potentially the end of liberty in too many ways for too many) because it buzzes and attracts young people who want to have the buzz and think they're also being ethical. there's a category error in it all. beeliar writ large. and one needs to come in and out of these well-meaning but often unseeing gatherings and keep a steady line. they will fade as fast as the world is fading. as committed life activists, our function is to be steady, coherent, consistent, and persistent. you are all these things - use this commitment to help others stay committed and to not just tune into the buzz then tune out.
Anyway... here are some of the poems sent through to the tent (of James) and the camp as it grew and to Sarah in the tree:
The destruction of native bushland around Western Australia is taking place on a vast scale.
This post carries a series of poems written across a number of different sites, and regarding a number of different bush areas across the Perth coastal plain area.
It's the same up in the wheatbelt. These poems are expressions of support for those resisting the destruction by an array of vested interests. Sometimes a city is resisting the damage (e.g. Kwinana with the Wellard sand mine issue — opposing the destruction of banksia woodlands); at other times local government is pushing the damage (Gosnells with the Kenwick wetlands and the destruction of the Edward Street cockatoo roost by Linc developers). This is what's just happened at Edward Street in Kenwick:
The Lemnos Street bushland in Shenton Park is being eroded and at risk of falling to/via the state government's 'sign off'. And now the Beeliar wetlands are under assault again from Main Roads on Bibra Drive — trees and wetlands to be deleted and replaced by roads/a roundabout.
But those who care about what's left are mobilised and peacefully resisting. This is a support for Paddy, Heidi and James and Nev and Nev's mum and dad, and the many others who are standing there, protecting the trees, the bush, life itself.
We need to think about this concerted, greedy, selfish effort to destroy what's left by the exploiters in government and business. Witness the length of Great Eastern Highway from Kalgoorlie all the way to Greenmount... the shaving off of thousands of hectares of vegetation (when it's all added up).
And roadside after roadside throughout the state, especially the wheatbelt, is falling like this.
But for every abuse of rare bushland, there are people standing up and saying NO MORE. We're down to the bare bones of earth now — NO MORE. Not a single tree needs to fall.
We ALL need to resist this destruction; we all need to acknowledge this assault on country. Listen to the Elders — they know, they have the knowledge.
Villanelle of Hell
Down on the Plain: the McGowan Government are As Efficient Destroyers of the
Environment as the Barnett Government Was!
Not that long ago we felt the reassurance of a marri tree’s
bark as a jiddy jiddy retuned the air around its ambience — alive!
Now images of tree slaughter are reaching us in the Valley.
The Edward Street Kenwick cockatoo roost has been consigned
to nothingness by Linc developers and the EPA, and its spirit struggles
above —
not that long ago we felt the reassurance of a marri tree.
Such betrayal of growth undoes us all, and the patterns of canopy
and feathers are more than flights of fancy — far far more than aggressive
acts of tree slaughter that are now reaching us in the Valley.
So when we come down to the once-roost, come down to the remnants of
city-
held bush, we will see the legacy of greed and profiteering — a grave
where not long ago we felt the reassurance of a marri tree.
Each subterfuge back-slapped into being, each epiphany
of outflanking the destroyers whipped-up around the table... to connive —
now images of tree slaughter are reaching us in the Valley.
A line in the sand they expose
to the air — its veinwork of roots torn away —
a line in the sand garlanded with decortication. Enough! No deals! Don’t
believe!
Not that long ago we felt the reassurance of a marri tree —
though images of tree slaughter are reaching us in the Valley.
Nev’s Tree is Now a Bloody Stump
No form can
contain the grief of this poem
this elegy
which is residue of a shattered tree,
a marri,
brought down with cuts and bruises,
dismembered.
Sounds gory, doesn’t it? — it bloody
well is, people! It is a slaughter, it is
disrespect
of ontogenesis
on a massive scale — small, big,
an eternity
to construct. Battered in a moment.
Not treated
with the pride bestowed on the big steel
sheds and
concrete aprons, the sump to catch
the creek
that still flows out of the wastes,
forlorn and
sclerotherapised, so beloved
and then
forgotten by the planners
and their
mates in cahoots with the profiteers’
endgame.
Nev’s mum said she put her hand
on the
dying stump and it bled an imprint,
her hand
lifted to show the blood of world.
Her pain is
all our pain — she has the pattern
of the
shattered tree inside her now
and carries
it around so we can remember.
How many
other lives will we let down?
Jiddy jiddy
flies manic, wondering where
it is now, where what was has gone, where
it will
land to contemplate its moods.
It catches
a fly, and lets it go. Lost.
Villanelle of Planning
‘I
tried to give a copy of your poem about Lemnos St Bush to the Minister for
Planning earlier this year but one of her close officers wouldn’t take it to
her saying she would not appreciate it. That is what we are up against!’
personal message from a committed environmentalist
We hear the fences have been reinforced ahead of a planning
decision
regarding the Lemnos Street bushland
— the minister remaking habitat in her own image —
the soothing
nature of concrete, the security of windowbox planters a mission!
If the puzzle can’t be solved you can switch the stickers
around to feign
a solution — make it add up?
Brick tones are the new bark, Colorbond is plumage —
we hear the fences have been reinforced ahead of a planning
decision.
Each patch of bush they write out of existence, each job
creation
that decreates in the long run — we are expected to bow down
before the signage —
the soothing
nature of concrete, the security of windowbox planters a mission!
Maybe someone half-hears the singing honeyeater, catches a
strain
of cockatoo call? Maybe they remember a banksia-lantern from
an earlier age?
We hear the fences have been reinforced ahead of a planning
decision.
The traffic pushes to ‘flow’
past as fast as it can — wary of inconvenience and the span
of a city that fits a future planned for heat and smog and redeveloped
language —
the soothing
nature of concrete, the security of windowbox planters a mission!
So the minister wouldn’t appreciate a poem calling for
restraint, for a plan
to conserve the bushland and give breath and nurture rather
than tracts of spoilage?
We hear the fences have been reinforced ahead of a planning
decision —
the soothing
nature of concrete, the security of windowbox planters a mission!
The tree offers to look over us
The tree
offers to look over us
and we cut off its hands, its arms —
down to its life before it was born.
Right back to the start, back
to when energy became sap,
and sap fed the zodiac.
That's what gives us sleep,
then wakes us, arms outstretched.
The Trees Alongside Bibra Drive
The tangle of branches
is the zest of conversation
over-arching the wetlands —
if we study the leaves, the branches,
the ravens interpreting the stories,
we will be able to say: Yes, this planet
is inhabited — we will set our lexicons
to synch with the many voices
that emanate from its green echoes.
But as for the aperçus
of the illuminati
of the Main Roads,
well, read them with caution:
they are dust rings, debris
orbiting the planet.
Sweeney Wonders Why Government Says You Can Have This Bit and We'll Have
the Rest?
for the gathering protesters at Bibra Drive
The ring-necked parrots carry messages from red-capped parrots
(who are on site) all the way up to Sweeney's mast in the smoky haze... word
travels
fast in birdworld! Sweeney is perched on an NBN tower because all the roosts
he's been welcomed to over the past year or so have been chopped down,
and the cockatoos have told him to find whatever 'branch' he can to rest on.
They add: There
are some people down there who want us deleted, once and for all. But
Sweeney says to them —
return to Beeliar and find refuge in what's left, a great reprieve without
bloodshed
was offered there and that's our hope. The red-tails say back to him, deeply
sad: Plenty
of redgum was spilt and saturated and glued the sandy plain, and surviving bits
not written
into the buy-off plan are being plucked at again — you know, a copse of trees
here,
a stand of trees there... the soul of the place eviscerated through a rolling
back
of wetland grasses, replacing with road and roundabouts that gloat like
compasses.
No way! Sweeney insists. No way, surely! But parrots and cockatoos
don't lie — not like humans anyway — so I am leaving this tower! he says, no
longer
huddled in fear and anxiety... I am going to swoop down and call the protesters
back
to the zone, to work with us, to grow back into the land, deny the tree
wreckers any feathers.
Sweeney Asks: What Am I Worth if I Don't Fly Again When All Wings are
Needed?
What the tree-killers fear most is the merging of flesh with cellulose —
they ask: Does it mean that a tree sitter literally merges with a tree?
Does
it mean that chopping it down might result in a charge of ... what... manslaughter?
But they need not worry — the state and its machinery, the terror
of private property, doesn't recognise such a condition. Up a tree?
Then remove them and that'll be that — tree and human separated.
But Sweeney knows better, flying past, heart swelling with pride
at seeing the human climb and meld into the tree's canopy. That's
how feathers are made, that's what keeps the world exhaling
and inhaling. Sweeney had always been confused by the separation
of symbol from fact, trilling, The tree of life is precisely that, the tree
of life. All life. Hovering above the tree with wattle birds and magpies,
with ravens and honeyeaters, Sweeney calls down to the wetlands — sweating
and alive in the caul it has spun against the spikes of development:
What am I worth if I don't fly again when all wings are needed,
when each sweep of a wing might combine lift and drag to drive off
the machines with their steel teeth, the engines that batter
the talk between trees and the life they are, they watch over.
John Kinsella
And if you want to see some footage of poems being read at the slaughter sites, try these (a few of me reading and one of J.P. Quinton reading):
