>[!INFO]+ Meta >Area:: [[Neverland - The Lost Continent of Australia]] >Date:: 2013 >Tags:: #text #Australia #Albania *When Shakespeare wanted to indicate a fabulous never-never land, he called it Illyria.*[^135] Eva Hoffman Though it looks quite unfamiliar, dried fruit from a Chinese store tastes familiar enough. Initially, at least. However, once it is your mouth for a while, it acquires a sharp bitterness that is quite foreign to the western palate. The dialogue between Australia and Albania follows a similar course. At first, the two countries seem to have little in common. Australia has six times the population and 275 times the area of Albania. Australia belongs to the modern west while Albania seems beholden to the Orient. But a closer look reveals compelling similarities. Both nations are stuck in a region where they don't quite belong. Albania is a fragment of the Ottoman empire left on Europe's doorstep, just as Australia is a piece of Europe that has drifted into south Asia. Look closer still, and you see national cultures that are more or less identical in age and quite similar in their tolerance of difference within their borders. And weirdly, Albanians call each other by a term that is identical to the 'wog' name for Anglo-Australians---'skip'. Here things begin to unravel. For Australian 'wogs', the word 'skip' is derived from the placid animal star of the popular television series *Skippy the Bush Kangaroo*. However, the Albanian 'skip' comes from the word for their country, *Shqipëria*, meaning 'eagle'---derived from their reputation as fierce warriors who would descend from the mountains to slaughter the invading Turks. Accordingly, initial similarity has often led to irreconcilable difference between Australia and Albania. And sadly, the rich potential for dialogue has gone largely untapped. Familiarity has bred contempt rather than an introduction to a mystical ethic of multiculturalism that might have been an Albanian Australia. In this case, I bear personal testimony of the backstage life of Albanians in Australia. The story begins, and ends, with ethnic radio. #### **On the far end of the dial** Switching over to a community channel is like playing cultural roulette---you never know what exotic world is on air at the moment. Sometimes the language and music is unrecognisable. You can guess it is Asian or Slavic, but your ears are insufficiently experienced to locate the specific nationality. If intrigued enough, you can prick up your ears for the mention of a place name or politician. Sometimes, even that doesn't work. One day, about fifteen years ago, I was bored with a talk show and switched my radio over to the ethnic community station way over on the far end of the dial---3ZZZ. I heard music. The instruments had a kind of Turkish rhythm, but their melodies sounded more Hungarian. The voice was plaintive and floating, going against the beat. I was mesmerised. I listened closely to the announcer, but could not recognise one word or place name. But I was sufficiently fascinated to call the station. 'Please excuse me, but I was just listening to the radio and wanted to know what language they were speaking.' 'Hello, we're Albanian, why don't you come over and meet us. We're here every Sunday, come after 12.' Their openness was immediately striking. How could I refuse? Here were people living in my city that I had no knowledge of. The meeting went well. I liked them, and was struck by their friendliness and boundless pride in their culture. Since then I have met hundreds of Albanians, both in Australia and abroad, including Albania and Kosova. After a while, they no longer seemed so exotic. They began to seem familiar, almost Australian.[^136] Local Albanians were surprised to find an Australian positively disposed to their culture. They would quiz me about my interest. I'd usually begin by alluding to my Irish background, and make parallels with English and Serbian repression. But this parallel lineage seemed a little too convenient. Personally, I've never felt more Australian than when in the island of my Irish ancestors. No, it was more the deep similarities with Australians that drew me to the Albanian community. Part of this is historical circumstance: both are outposts of abandoned empires. The history of colonisation holds us each back from embracing our neighbours---Australia with Asia, and Albania with Europe. And there are less tangible things we share with each other---a young nationalism, a crude egalitarianism and an easy-going secularism. Discovery of these surprising similarities, however, only leads to recognition of the very profound differences that keep the two cultures apart. #### **The Albanian virus** The idea that Australians are like Albanians may seem a joke at first. Albanians are the butt of much ridicule. In the Internet age, jokes are like semiotic viruses designed to replicate themselves through electronic communication. As such, they can be quite revealing. The other day, one came into my mailbox: > Manual Virus > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > Dear Virus Recipient, > > You have just received an Albanian virus. Since we are not so > technologically advanced in Albania, this is a MANUAL virus. > > Please delete all the files on your hard disk yourself and then send > this important message to everyone you know. > > Thank you very much for your collaboration. Like most email jokes, I'd read it before. First time, though, it was a joke about blondes (who seem to be the Irish of cyberspace). Now it has evolved as a message from Albanians---a Third World country anxious to join the West. It's a comfortable humour. In Hollywood, Albanians play convenient bit parts as hysterical figures that don't fit into the normal give and take of civic society. These are the people of blood feuds who put honour before human life. In *Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter*, a talkback radio host antagonises the hot-headed Albanian community by challenging their honour (in the original Mario Vargas Llosa novel, it was Argentineans). The New York comedy *You've Got Mail* foregrounds its romantic intrigue against the world-weariness that characterises a gathering in support of Albanian writers. And in *Wag the Dog*, the Albanians' histrionic displays of martyrdom are easily manipulated by the more worldly Americans.[^137] In cinema, Albanians represent the downside of America's involvement in the world---people who can't shrug off an insult and are unable to put their own local problems into a broader, global context. #### **Hello kind world** There's a little truth in this, but a larger truth is left out. In their long history, the Albanian peoples have been isolated from the West---naturally, by a wall of formidable mountains, and politically, by colonisers from the east. As a result, contemporary Albanians bought the occidental eschatology of enlightenment without the scepticism those in the West use to deal with its inevitable disappointments. They seem to lack the grain of salt that the sophisticated West uses to counterbalance the utopian promise of democracy. During the late 1980s, when communist Albania was beginning to crumble, thousands of young Albanian men---the larrikin sort that they call *alabak*---converged on the port city of Durrës. They commandeered boats to take them to the Italian city of Bari---their first stop on a journey to the divine world of the West. The only contact Albanians had with the West until that time were Italian game shows on satellite television. In a few weeks, Albania's entire generation of *alabak* departed, as described by Albanian author Ismail Kadare: > In the morning, a little before dawn, people discovered, in the wake of the buses, slips of paper with scribbled addresses and phone numbers, envelopes with photos inside, a bit of money or a keepsake. > On most of them, next to the address and phone number, there was a note from whomever might pick up the paper: Dear Friend, please give this message to my mother.[^138] They left behind a village-like nation and ascended to the bright world of democracy. They could have been flying to the moon. This exodus seems an inevitable reaction to the preceding communist dictatorship. Since 1946, Enver Hoxha had cut off contact with the capitalist West. Part of this isolation entailed confabulating a history of the West in which its relationship with Albania plays a critical role. In 1973, Hoxha responded to a complaint by a youth organisation that Albania should follow the course of European development: > No, comrades, we cannot and should not follow 'the European road'; on the contrary, it is Europe which should follow our road, because from the political standpoint, it is far behind us ... far from that for which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin fought.[^139] In the centre of the Albanian capital, Tiranë, is a glass pyramid known as the Cultural Palace. Originally dedicated to the great communist leader, the Enver Hoxha Museum has been disbanded, though the pyramid retains a secret room that holds the personal gifts donated by Western countries, including a boomerang from Australia. Hoxha's connections to the West were idiosyncratic; he dedicated another museum to his favourite English comedian, Norman Wisdom. Later in Hoxha's regime, the mouse roared to the east. In 1961, Albania broke ties with its main supporter, the Soviet Union, and made an alliance with the hardline Chinese. Under Maoist guidance, Albania experienced its own Cultural Revolution, in which folk culture was glorified as a State religion. Albania received regular missions from China, for whom Albania represented a European nation turning to a so-called 'third world' country for aid. In 1972, their alliance soured when Mao received a visit from the arch enemy of the worker's revolution, Richard Nixon. To Mao's disbelief, Albania filed an official protest. After the final break with China in 1978, the tiny Balkan nation enjoyed splendid isolation from the world. Ismail Kadare's novel *The Concert* explores the personal traumas that attended Albania's break with China. Its central character is Ekrem Fortuzi, one of the doomed classes of people who established careers translating between Albanian and Chinese. He expresses confusion about Albania's place in the world after Mao: > 'Let me explain,' he said. 'A West dressed up in socialist clothes would be safer, in my opinion, than it is in its naked form, as in Europe. Do you see what I mean?' He lowered his voice. 'That's the kind of West we need---one wearing masks and disguises. Otherwise we shall always be in danger ... Anyhow, perhaps we don't need Europe at all any more ... We're older, we've changed, Europe isn't for us any > more ... That's the point, you see ... Our only chance ... our only > chance was China \...'[^140] In the weeks before the 1992 election that led to the end of communist rule in Albania, building walls were covered with pro-Western graffiti, like 'Vote One Bu\$h'. Incoming president Sali Berisha's victory speech in Tiranë's main square concluded with the Beatles' lyric 'Get back to where you once belonged ...' The get-rich-quick promises of pyramid schemes fed the hopes of economic salvation. Bankruptcy was the inevitable result. While these antics evoke the comic picture of a Western parvenu, Australia does not seem too far away. In Australia there is the eagerness to 'compete on the world stage', the chase to adopt 'world's best practice', the sell-off of public assets to overseas companies who can do it better, the hysteria about Australian nominations in the Oscars, not to mention the fervour of Olympic gold. Why does the magic of the 'world' have such a hold over Australian life? Is this world devotion, like Albania's, the result of so much isolation? #### **Albanian Renaissance and the formidable Frashëri brothers** Before finding the common denominator between Australia and Albania, we need to account for the major difference: the violent nature of Turkish colonisation seems much more repressive than the enlightened approach of the British Empire. A closer look reveals that the Orient is not without an enlightenment of its own. Known by its Turkish name, Arnawutluk, for five centuries, Albanian culture was part of the Ottoman Empire until the early twentieth century. Albania began to develop a national culture independent of Turkey about the same time Australian poets and painters were nurturing a culture distinct from its English precursors. The Albanian Renaissance, *Rilindja Kombatar*, began with the League of Prizren in 1878 and ended with the declaration of Albanian independence in 1912. The League of Prizren was established to advocate for a united Albania at the Congress of Berlin. It was formed by the formidable Frashëri brothers. Blessed with the resources of the Ottoman Empire, the Frashëris were more scholastic than their Australian equivalents. Though born in a small village in the Greek region of southern Albania (named Frashëri, naturally), they studied classics in Janina before pursuing their studies in Istanbul. The five brothers mastered the languages of their world, including Albanian, Persian, Greek, Turkish and Arabic. Sami Frashëri wrote a five-thousand-page encyclopaedia of Turkish history. Abdyl dedicated his life to freeing Albania from the Turkish yoke. Mehdi and Mid\'hat both wrote novels about the blood feuds and adventures of the Albanian highlands. The most famous, however, was Naim Frashëri, who in some ways was the Albanian equivalent of the Australian bush laureate, Banjo Paterson. Brought up in the Bektashi faith, Naim was pantheist in outlook and demanded the emancipation of women and universal education. His poetry celebrated the Albanian landscape in the manner of Virgil. His 1886 classic *Bagëti e Bujqësi* ('Herds and Pasture', or as it was translated under communism, 'Livestock and Agriculture') has become a standard item in every Albanian student's repertoire: > O, mountains of Albania, you trees of towering height,\ Meadows broad full of flowers,\ You're with me day and night,\ You stately hills magnificent, you rivers bright and sheen,\ Knolls, boulders, rocks, crags,\ And woodlands clad in green. > You, Albania, bestow upon me honour and the name Albanian,\ You have filled my heart with flame and desire.\ Albania! Oh mother! Though I am afar,\ My heart has never forgotten your love. Naim published twenty-two books in his lifetime, including a Persian grammar in Turkish. In addition to pastoral verses, he composed epics depicting the great heroes of the Orient, such as Skanderbeg and Husayn ibn Ali. These poems were smuggled out from Turkey back into Albania like guns and transmitted as folksongs. They are etched into Albanian memories in the same way that 'Man from Snowy River' and 'Waltzing Matilda' are etched into Australians'. Frashëri's verses are still recited at Albanian gatherings, usually by a precocious child who accents the phrases with dramatic gestures in the mode of an amateur thespian. Most importantly, the Frashëris' linguistic talents helped codify the Albanian language---'Look, what a language! Like God's language.' Yet while Australian national poets were profoundly secular, the Frashëris adhered to a single faith---a doomed religion called Bektashism. Bektashism offers us a glimpse of how the Australian ethic of multiculturalism could be embraced as a faith it its own right. #### **Bektash speaks from the grave** Like many other Albanians of their time, the Frashëri family belonged to a dervish sect first established by the fifteenth century Persian saint, Haiji Bektash. Though Betkash subscribed to a Moslem Shia belief in the legitimacy of Ali, his practice lacked the austerity of Islam. Rather than mosques, the Bektashi established tekke, which served as libraries for study. Bektashi pantheism was expressed in song, poetry and ecstatic religious practices. While the whirling dervishes would achieve transcendence though rotation, the Bektashi turned to other devices, such as song and even alcohol. Tolerant of other religions, the Bektashi in the Balkans adopted Christian practices including confession and the sharing of bread. The Bektashi profess a neo-Platonist understanding of the world as a by-product of a higher order. Their doctrine of *Kuntukenz* ('I was a treasure') locates the origin of the world in God's wish to be known. For the Bektashi, this world is one of non-existence, behind which are buried God's treasures. One of the main forms of transmission for Bektashism are jokes, usually at the expense of a rigid Imam.[^141] Bektashism came to Albania through the Ottoman Janissaries, a colonising force made up of prisoners of war collected during Turkish conquests. Janissaries were the main interface for the Ottoman empire in Albania. A uniquely Albanian mythology began to develop about the power of Bektash, including miracle stories about blessed grain that would make barren women conceive. Tekke were administered by celibate priests called Baba, who offered advice and ritual help. Like Shinto priests, their assistance was not limited to believers but was available to all who required advice. By the time of the Albanian renaissance, the country numbered two hundred thousand Bektashi. Perceiving them as a threat to his power, Sultan Mahmud II had obliterated the Janissaries in 1826. Many Turkish Bektashi then migrated to the Balkans, and the centre of Bektashism moved to the Albanian capital, Tiranë. The communist leader Enver Hoxha himself came from a Bektashi family. Before all religions were made illegal in 1967, Hoxha celebrated the patriotism of the Bektashi. Hoxha described the wartime resistance leader Mustafa Faja Marteneshi as 'one of those clergy who wore the cap and cloak of a dervish, but who had Albania in his heart and in his hand the rifle for its liberation'.[^142] In due course Hoxha eradicated all Bektashi institutions in Albania, but their legacy is still evident. The most distinctive item of Albanian clothing today is a white felt cap, *kepenek*, which was worn by the Janissaries as a sign of Bektashi initiation. Giuseppe D'Avanzo, Italian journalist for *Corriere della Sera*, wrote about the posthumous role of the Bektashi in the KLA (Kosova Liberation Army, or 'UCK' in Albanian): > the soldiers of the UCK, before they go to Kosovo, pass first to visit Njeri i Mire, the Good Man. There's no street, it's a rocky path that climbs on the side of the mountain. When finally it comes out to the meadows of Bucaj, the grave of Rexhep Beli, the Good Man, is to be seen far away, protected by a roof of red stones. Rexhep Beli was a bektashini, a non-orthodox muslim. On both sides of the schpetare mountains he's loved and honoured as padre Pio in Italy. As padre Pio, the Good Man was omnipresent. Enver Hoxha put him seven times in shackles, and for seven times, on the same day, Rexhep Beli returned to his village. It's said that you could talk with him at the same hour in Koman, as on the other side of the mountains, in Peje in Kosovo; on the lake of Fierze, and in Gjakove. He had always a good word and good advice, his glance protected you of misfortune ...[^143] Soldiers walk around the grave three times in bare feet before they return to fight a hopeless battle against a hardened and technologically superior army. While the Bektashi on the other side might have helped in the fight to defend Kosovar Albanians, victory has been sour. In Kosova today, the old mosques and tekke are being demolished by Saudis, who consider the Byzantine architecture decadent and are erecting clean white cubes in their place. Yet the spirit of Bektashism endures in the tolerance towards the fundamental religious differences within the Albanian community. While this tolerance has a similar effect to Australian multiculturalism, it has a radically different flavour. #### **Guns and flowers** Bektashism reflects an Albanian attitude of lenience that complements the old Australian motto 'she'll be right'. At the same time, however, there is a floridness of language and style that seems almost feminine by contrast with the matter of fact Australian manner. During the Kosova war, a non-profit organisation called Balkan Sunflowers was created to provide opportunities for outside volunteers to assist improving the life of displaced Albanians in refugee camps. A diary at the time describes the surprising femininity among warriors. > Albanian men are macho's, like almost all men in the Balkans. But > somehow they are different from those in Croatia and Bosnia. They have > a kind of women-like thing in them. Often you see men on the street > holding hands, kissing each other or walking with a flower in their > hand. Also when an army truck passes by it is strange to see those > guys, in one hand their Kalashnikov and in the other a rose or jasmine > flowers, which they held for their nose. The other day I saw one of > this big guys guarding the building of the secret police with his > machinegun, sitting behind his gun with at least 5 or 6 different > flowers in his hand, which he held under his nose one after the other. > I was on the other side of the street looking at him, after a while he > saw me and made a sign that I should come over and smell his flowers. > He took me by the hand, and we sat down for a while, me smelling his > flowers and he with his hand on my lap, his Kalashnikov was 'parked' > against my other leg. In any other country in Europe, at least in the > north this would be seen as a homosexual way of contact, here it is > normal between heterosexual men. [^144] The revered leader of these supposed 'hot-headed nationalists' is the long-haired Ibrahim Rugova, who was trained in the Sorbonne under Roland Barthes and is never seen without his silk scarf. His enigmatic political language is reflected in lines such as 'a person in democracy often has to eat hot stones'. Rugova's Gandhi-like strategy of peaceful resistance found its final justification when he was made the inaugural President of the new Kosovar parliament. He is the antithesis of an Australian party-machine-made politician. While Albanians in Australia have largely absorbed the ocker rules of decorum, they retain elements that seem feminine to local eyes. Their language is filled with oriental courtesies, such as *falim derit*, which means 'I pray for your honour.' Though most traditional dress has been abandoned, even the burliest of Albanians wears a pair of crisp white socks. Though bristling with machismo and capable of great bravery, you cannot always say of Albanians that 'men are men.' Though there are no Bektashis in Australia,[^145] other Albanians also maintain a relaxed attitude towards religion. Most call themselves Moslems, yet they rarely go to mosque and happily drink alcohol. Albanians will never cease to remind anyone who is interested that there has rarely been conflict between religions in Albania. They boast of being the only country in Europe were no Jew was killed in World War 2---national identity is far more important to them than religious faith. #### **Clean minds in Carlton** This relaxed religious attitude has helped Albanians settle quietly into Australian cities. Melbourne can be mapped according to Albanian villages that have merged with local suburbs: migrants from Struga settled in Footscray; those from Monastir, in Dandenong; and from Prespa, in Yarraville. While this presence is largely invisible, they have one ostentatious presence in Melbourne. Inner-city Carlton has faithfully retained its Victorian terraces, housing Melbourne's liberal, intellectual class, but at one point their revered continuity is broken by a wildly incongruous minaret. It belongs to the Albanian mosque, built in the 1960s when Carlton was a poor suburb, housing recently-arrived migrants such as Italians and Jews. Albanians formed the first Moslem community in Melbourne. The mosque's Imam, Rexhep Idrizi, is ever-present in Albanian functions such as national day picnics. Idrizi sports an immaculately clipped beard that complements his neat office. He is dressed in a collarless white shirt and reclines into his seat, the headrest of which is covered by both a towel and a doily. Idrizi was born in Skopje and trained in Cairo. Reflecting the intense scholasticism characteristic of the Balkans, he has the distinction of being a *hafis*: at the age of fifteen he was able to recite the entire 6,232 verses of the Koran by memory, despite not understanding a word of Arabic. He attributes this feat to a 'clean mind'. Indeed, Idrizi sees hygienic thinking as one of the main contributions of the Albanians to Islam: 'Albanians were a small nation at that time, but clean in brain, very intelligent people, because the area we are living there with the mountains---people so clean in brain.' Idrizi kindly explains how Albanians have played key roles in *other* people's empires. They have provided two of the leading figures in Oriental history. Constantine the Great, born in the Illyrian city of Nic, established the Byzantine Empire, and Ali Pasha, an Albanian who rose to power under the Ottomans, established the dynasty that ruled Egypt until the twentieth century and turned back from conquering the Ottomans only after European intervention. Renowned warriors, Albanians provided talent for the military ranks of their occupiers. What is a source of cultural pride is also cause for dismay. The Albanian Imam smiles from the corner of his mouth, 'But for Albanians no-one works, just for the foreigners. We are good for others, not for ourselves.' Here perhaps is the greatest similarity between Australians and Albanians. Albanians provided the Ottomans with some of its best soldiers to fight wars far from home. Today's equivalent to this theatre of war is Hollywood, where Australian actors such as Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman perform roles that champion American values. Their presence in the Oscar ceremony is ultimate validation of Australian culture. Their glory is on a distant stage. #### **The Kanun today** Despite their affinities with Australia, Albanians have had a fraught time here, separated by half a world from their long-suffering people. Those who arrived have become model citizens, gaining a reputation as hard workers. This did not stop them maintaining an involvement in Balkan politics, however. During the period of Serbian occupation in Kosova, the Albanians in Australia played an active role in supporting the various forces of opposition, particularly Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic Party of Kosova (LDK). But they never resorted to political violence: the label 'Unaustralian' could never have been applied to their activities. They followed Rugova's methods of passive resistance through support of the shadow State he had established. In accordance with the ideology of the information revolution, communication was their main weapon. During one typical fundraising evening, after money had been collected from those in attendance, an announcement was made of the night's result---'Six more fax machines for Kosova!' Despite heart-rending tales of suffering in Serbia, anti-Serbian slogans were strictly forbidden in demonstrations on the streets of Australian cities. Like their mixed masculine identity, nothing is cut and dried in Albanian culture. The most notorious tradition in Albanian culture is the blood feud. The core book of Albanian tradition, the Kanun, is the basis for the interminable revenge cycles that can decimate villages. As its author Leke Dukagjini articulates the traditional ethic of *Besa*: 'Blood is never unavenged'. Yet this fifteenth century text is also the platform for Albania's essentially democratic society: 'In the Kanun of the mountains of Albania, every male child born is considered to be good, and all are equal.' One Melbourne function honoured a visiting elder, Anton etta, who had been responsible for ending many of the blood feuds. When I asked about his method, Anton smiled, 'It was easy. I am old, very old. When an old person comes into a village, all the young people have to listen.' During his visit, he signed copies of a new English translation of the Kanun, the very code he had helped to undo. This seemed a particularly Albanian stance---one foot in the old world, and the other in the new. To be Albanian is to transcend the many differences between them, whether religious, geographic or economic. The pathos of this contradiction is expressed in an installation by Arsim Memishi, the son of a Macedonian Albanian migrant. The work titled *Liria* is contained in a typical piece of migrant furniture, a squat lowboy. Opening the doors, you find a miniature city of orange striped buildings. In the drawers are more foreboding elements, including an imprisoned heart, a Chinese alarm clock and bullets. A photograph on the back panel of the wardrobe shows the family of Arsim's father, most of whom were killed in blood feuds. These contents speak for a cultural past that an Australian Albanian must keep buried deep. While Bektashism is absent, it is possible to read into Memishi's installation its neo-Platonist sentiments. The miniature oriental city conjures a utopian world of geometry and colour. As Naim Frashëri wrote in 1896: > The faith of the Bektash is a wide road lighted by wisdom, brotherhood, friendship, love, humanity and all goodness. On one side of it are the flowers of knowledge, on the other side are those of truth. Without knowledge and truth and without brotherhood, no man can become a true Bektash. For the Bektash, the universe is God himself. [^146] Until NATO intervention in Kosova, this innocence had left them ostensibly homeless in a wild world. #### **True blue Kosovars** As diehard converts, the most prevalent belief among the Albanian diaspora was the Western religion of freedom through democracy and information. This naïve belief came unstuck in the fate of the Kosova refugees in Australia. On their television screens, the Australian public had witnessed the scenes of mass exodus as Serbs pushed Kosovars out of their country. They were the unlucky ones. The ladder to the peaceful world of post-cold war democracy was cut short by a slide back down the snake to the violence of World War 2. Here was chance for Australia to open its heart and give succour to these victims. The response was astounding. State premiers vied with each other to demonstrate their welcome to the refugees. In Adelaide, the South Australian Premier, John Olsen, hosted a barbeque in their honour. The Red Cross received hundreds of offers from locals to show their guests around the city. In Melbourne, the Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, personally greeted the refugees as they arrived at Tullamarine Airport.[^147] On 17 May 1998, the mass circulation newspaper the *Herald Sun* carried its first and only headline in Albanian---*Mirse erdhet në Victori* (Welcome to Victoria)---above a beaming Kosovar boy cuddling a koala and making an OK sign. The refugees were especially welcome in Tasmania, the smallest state in the federation. Kosovars arrived on an island seven times the size of Kosova yet with a population only a quarter as large, and declining. Here, refugees were established in the town of Brighton. They would make regular visits to the city of Hobart and perform in the city square. The visitation of Kosovars was an opportunity for Australia briefly to take an American-style role in world affairs---to open its shores to the persecuted of the world. Australians are used to being on the receiving end of American confidence and largesse. Now it was Australia's turn to play grand Western host and win them over with BBQs, football and native bush. The succour of Kosovars was staged as conversion to the Australian way of life. A website dedicated to 4-wheel-drive sports features before and after shots of a besuited Kosovar refugee 'dinkumed' into a real bloke tearing around the bush: 'These series of photos depict the transformation of Fernando, from a shy Kosovar-style refugee arriving in Australia, to the dinkum, ocker Aussie bloke you see in the final photo!'[^148] The public expected appreciation was for this largesse. Most refugees complied, but there were some painful exceptions. Dissatisfaction with accommodation was interpreted as ingratitude. In June 1999, Kosovars refused to leave a bus in protest at their conditions in the Singleton army barracks, which had been criticised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as inappropriate accommodation. News reports stated that 'hundreds of angry Australians' rang radio stations condemning the refugees as ungrateful. Public donations dried up and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson urged the Immigration Department to send the Kosovars back as soon as possible.[^149] And there was just as much mystification at the other end. One of the local Albanians working at the camp, Suzanne Osmani, described how puzzled the refugees were by the psychologists provided as trauma counsellors. They took her aside to inquire, 'Tell us, who are these very nice people that ask for our stories and sit there saying "aha" all the time?' For the Kosovars, the idea that the State would take responsibility for someone's emotional life was much more foreign than kangaroos and BBQs. Osmani also noted that special arrangements had to be made so that the refugees could entertain visitors in their rooms---hospitality toward guests being one of the most sacred rules of Albanian culture. That code was not shared by their hosts. #### **The missing Tasmanian Kosovar** With the cessation of formal hostilities, the refugees were forcibly removed back to Kosova, well before those housed in other Western countries. Among the Australian media contingent that returned to Kosova to witness the plight of returned refugees was Tony Foster, the mayor of Brighton. Brighton's Bandiana barracks, set in gently sloping hills of the Derwent valley, was the first Australian 'safe haven' for refugees. Tony Foster looks like he's been in the game for a while---down to earth, but with a confidence-building smile. The Brighton mayor catalogues the extraordinary donations to the refugees, from a complete set of furniture to a hairdresser who drove up to cut hair two days a week. He leans across his desk, 'You have to understand about Tasmanian people: being a small place, we're all pretty community minded.' There were concerns initially that the Kosovars (as they prefer to be known, rather than 'Albanians') would have religious restrictions requiring special cooking arrangements and limiting their capacity to assimilate. > It took us a while to realise that 'Hey, they're not that much different to us.' They did enjoy having a hamburger and a sausage and a beer and all that. As time went on, they became really Australian about all those things that we think are unique to us. It fitted in > really nicely for them.[^150] In Tasmania, the Kosovars are still remembered fondly as converts to the local culture. The Brighton mayor is fostering a sister city relationship with the Kosova town of Ferizaj---the town that rapturously received Bill Clinton in November 1999 as he asked the citizens to think of their children and 'Give them the tomorrow they deserve.'[^151] Foster is organising the return of expelled families, who are trickling back into Tasmania. But in his regular trips to Hobart airport, there is one Kosovar that he will not be greeting---Akif Lutfiu. Akif was a 19-year-old Kosovar who had lost his family and had no real life to return to in the former Yugoslavia. With nothing to lose, he refused to depart and for twelve weeks eluded capture. He had initially approached the Tasmanian Greens for use of their Internet facilities, and they took up Akif's cause during his time in hiding. A network of twelve safe houses was established, despite the risk of \$100,000 fines and ten years gaol for harbouring an illegal alien. Meanwhile Greens leader Bob Brown took a residency application for Akif to the Minister of Immigration and pleaded for half an hour on his behalf. With brute authority, Philip Ruddock proclaimed, 'He will be removed from Australia.' Akif drew the attention of Richard Flanagan, whose film and novels feature the soulful Balkan culture abandoned on an island at the other end of the world. 'His friends had nicknamed him "Keith," as Australians do', Flanagan explained. Akif was eventually discovered by police at a Hobart nightclub. The Tasmanian Premier had pleaded with the Federal Government to allow the refugees to stay. In an unprecedented move, the State government sponsored Kosovar families to return to their place of refuge. Jim Bacon called on the federal government to do more for others like them: > Whilst the Kosovars were here and we have a special feeling for them, we should remember that there are people from many trouble spots in the world who would like to come to Australia, and we need to think of > those people as well.[^152] He was joined by voices around Australia, calling for a more generous treatment of refugees currently incarcerated in detention centres around the Australian outback, such as Port Headland and Woomera, managed by the American-based company Australasian Correctional Management. Akif's story has powerful undertones for Tasmanians, who live on an island infamous for its recent extinctions. The Black Line in 1830 led to the expulsion of full-blooded Palawa people to Flinders Island, where Truganini was mourned as the last remaining Tasmanian Aboriginal. Later, the Thylacine, known as 'Tasmanian Tiger', was hunted to extinction. The last remaining example died in a local zoo in 1933. Given the impenetrable wilderness that has remains on the island, there is still the hope that the Thylacine will be recovered. Despite its absence, the animal has become a state emblem that features on its beer labels and tourist advertisements. Akif follows an ignoble lineage of beings hunted off the island, and he inherits the hope that this extinction might be reversed. #### **Alex Buzo's Norm and Akif** The sudden reversal from warm hospitality to cold expulsion evokes a fear of difference that seems buried deep in the Australian psyche. Akif's own plight had been anticipated in dramatic form by Alex Buzo, who is Australia's most prominent person of Albanian stock. Buzo's father was born in the ancient Albanian town of Berat in 1912 and was educated in American schools before arriving in Australia in the 1930s. The name 'Buzo' means 'diver' in Spanish. Alex Buzo's mother was of Irish descent. Buzo's first play, *Norm and Ahmed* (1968), anticipated the denouement of the Kosovar's Australian reception. A construction worker asks for a light from a passing Pakistani student. The ocker host tries to loosen up this deferential visitor and introduce him to Australian ways, but he is intimidated by the student's formal way of speaking. With almost sadistic pleasure, Buzo lures the audience into thinking that there is some real rapprochement occurring. This is swiftly undermined in the final moment of the play, where Norm dispatches the Pakistani with the epitaph 'fuckin' boong'. The play was recently revised as *Normie and Tuon* (1999); the foreigner has become a Vietnamese, who confronts a war veteran.[^153] Buzo compares the friendly/hostile switch to the Kosovar story: 'The big thing in the Kosovar case was the lack of perceived gratitude.'[^154] Despite the parallel theme, and his Albanian ancestry, Alex Buzo has never been called on to speak about the Kosovar refugees. He is better known as an expert on the peculiarities of Australian culture, with publications such as *Real Men Don\'t Eat Quiche* and *A Dictionary of the Almost Obvious*. In this respect, Buzo is a prime candidate for the position of 'Albanian for the other'. With gentle mockery, he documents the idiosyncrasies of Australian culture. Buzo is a proud nationalist; his 1972 play *Macquarie* passionately upholds the reputation of Governor Macquarie above the mean-spirited policies of Samuel Marsden. Yet at the same time, there is a fatalism running through Buzo's writing about the possibility of reconciliation between Aussie and foreigner. His pessimism remains a challenge to the bright-eyed parade of Aussie icons that stands for national pride. #### **Bread and salt in your own country** Several months after I had first heard that haunting Balkan song on the radio, I was in the home of a couple sharing a typical Albanian meal of butter soup and flaky pastry. I had talked my way into attending some political functions with live Albanian bands, where I made the acquaintance of an excellent musician, Qasim Menxhiqi. Like the Frashëri family, the Menxhiqis had realised the traditions of their hosts in a peculiarly Albanian way. Qasim's brother Mehndi was in Krakow studying under the Polish composer Penderetski and had successfully produced a mass for the anniversary of the Pope in dedication to Mother Theresa. Qasim had been a very successful singer in Prishtina, but in Melbourne he worked in a plastics factory in Footscray. Despite the freedom, his life in Australia was almost as cruel as in Kosova. He was put on a machine without adequate training and subsequently crushed his hand, so he was unable to play the traditional two-stringed instruments known as *qiftili*. On returning to the factory, he was forced back to the same machine. He surmounted this ordeal and attended classes in radio production at night. Now he works as a professional sound engineer for SBS. His family has moved out of Yarraville and has taken up comfortable family life in Templestowe. He rarely performs. At the dinner I heard the same song that had sparked my initial interest in Albanians and set off the chain of events that led to this dinner table. I asked what the song meant. My host Shpend said, 'Didn't you know, this is Qasim's song. It is Mërgim, means exile. Very sad.' So what had caught my attention as the sound of an exotic country had its source in Melbourne. I was not the only one to be entranced by Mërgim. The song was a number one hit in Yugoslavia: an English band, Mustapha 3, heard it played from the student apartments in Pristina and subsequently made their own recording. Mërgim's gentle rhythms underscore a plaintive voice: > Bread and salt in your own country > Makes you strong like iron. There is perhaps something in Albanian culture that will always be in exile, even from itself. Today it echoes along the empty hillsides of the Derwent valley. #### **Sources** Special thanks to Alex Buzo, Tony Foster, Rajab Idrizi, Eric Lloga, Arsim Memishi, Qazim Menxhiqi and Shpend Osmani for their contributions. Leke Dukagjini, *Kanuni* (trans. Leonard Fox), New York: Gjonleka Publishing Company, 1989 (orig. 1933). Robert Elsie, *History of Albanian Literature*, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Raymond Hutchings, *Historical Dictionary of Albania*, Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, 1996. Ismail Kadare, *The Albanian Spring: The Anatomy of Tyranny* (trans. Emile Capouya), London: Saqi Books, 1995 (orig. 1991). Ismail Kadare, *The Concert* (trans. Barbara Bay from French of Jusuf Vrioni), London: Harper Collins, 1994 (orig. 1989). H. T. Norris, *Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World*, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1993. Ashi Pipa, *Albanian Socialism: Ideo-Political Aspects*, Boulder, Co.: Eastern European Monographs, 1990. ## **Travels with the ALA** Let's face it. Australia does not have a wonderful reputation in the rest of the world. Thanks to racist demagoguery and near-totalitarian border protection practices, other countries see Australia as a 'white fortress', clinging to its British apron strings, fending off the heathen hordes. Let me guess. You are probably one of the vocal minority who are not happy with this picture. If so, then you are quite possibly feeling a little powerless in the light of the popular conservatism that keeps its shoulder to the door, determined to resist the flood of aliens. While yours is a noble anger, it is powerless to resist the paranoia being primed by populist leaders. Have you ever considered a more direct way of dealing with the problem? Would you be interested in finding a place where Australia stands tall in the world? I know such a place. If you like, I can show it to you. It will be a rough ride, but you may find something of interest. Shall I be your guide? Good. First, you must become a lecturer in Political Science with a wife and daughter in a three-bedroom terrace in Adelaide. It's a leap of the imagination, I know, but a relatively small one, dear traveller. And it will get easier, I promise. Are you with me? Good. Your PhD was on the relationship between privatisation and the rise of the One Nation Party, which you managed to milk for a few articles, enough to keep the bean counters in the department happy. Your wife is on maternity leave from her job as a physiotherapist, and your daughter is just beginning to find her first words. It's been a struggle. Any questions? Good, let's go. You're on the highway north to Parachilna and happy to be away from things for a while. Your aunt has not been in the best of health and the recent terrorist activity is making her quite agitated. You told Helena---that's your wife, by the way---there's no risk as long as you keep to the main highway. Stay on the road for a couple of hours at least. Pass the service station at Hawker. The car's a bit old, Volvo 1991, but you've had no major problems with it and thankfully the air-conditioning still works. The radio is out of range so you'd better look for a cassette. It's always a little dangerous to be fumbling around in the car. This must be the turn off. Turn right here. You retrieve a cassette, but you'll have to find the rewind button. Now things get a little tricky, I'm afraid. This area doesn't look familiar. The road is turning to gravel---you must have taken a wrong turn. Four motorbikes approach. They encircle your car. Stop the car. Maybe they'll see the baby seat in the back and let you go. A guy with a big moustache gets off his bike. He's wearing a blue T-shirt, moleskins, a felt vest and a straw hat. In his hand is an automatic rifle. It's pointed at you. Sorry. Raise your hands in the air, just like you've seen on television. He motions the rifle to the left. Now slowly get out of the car. Avoid any sudden movements. They look pretty edgy. 'Away from the car!' Move a little further away, still with your hands in the air. 'Fadim!' Another man gets off his bike. He strokes his moustache and grins, flashing a gold tooth. Maybe it's a movie set. You can't see any cameras. The man pulls out a piece of cloth and tears it in half. One half he stuffs into the petrol hole. Fadim strikes a match---'Bloody Swedish cars, you drongo. No bloody good.' Fadim comes over to you and ties the other half of the cloth around your head, covering your eyes. Then he grabs your wrist and with a little more force than necessary pushes you over to his bike. Soon you're away. For the first and only time in your life you hear the sound of a Volvo exploding. This is a fascinating moment, isn't it, when you face the possibility of immanent death. Hold on tight. Treasure the rich assortment of memories that now parades through your consciousness. The sound of firecrackers gets louder. Or maybe it's gunfire. You'd heard of terrorist networks, but there've been no reports of open battles. Imagine, Australia like Afghanistan, with militant fundamentalists and civil war! So what do they need you for? Perhaps as a hostage, tied to a rocket launcher like a human shield. The bike weaves through some very sharp curves. The gunfire now sounds like it is around you. You're probably in Wilpena Pound, the huge saucer-like formation in the middle of the Flinders Ranges---one of the trouble spots, you've heard. The bikes pull up and you are roughly hauled off the seat. They tie you to a tree, hands behind you like Saint Sebastian. What if they just open fire without saying anything? Will it hurt to be shot? Or will it be soft and hazy, like falling asleep? What's-his-name with the gun pulls the blindfold off. They've all got moustaches. Thick black ones, on craggy, proud faces. Dressed like real bush Aussies, but with big foreheads. They just stand there looking at you with burning hatred in their eyes. Don't take this personally, please, but you must have done something really terrible to earn their loathing. Looks like you're going to pay for it. Sorry to get you into this trouble. You're a bit stunned by this scene. There's still shooting going on, but the trees obscure your vision. One of the men---the skinny guy---is quite excited. He's squinting at you and biting his lip. He tightens his mouth and launches himself towards you like you're a soccer ball. A couple of others try and hold him back but he still lands a mighty kick in your guts that knocks all the wind out of you. Gasp for breath---your lungs are a vacuum. In a haze you see them comfort the guy who kicked you, stroking his hair as he breaks down in sobs. Air comes back in short bursts. 'What's this?' You hear a new voice and slowly focus your eyes. A tall man enters the circle, must be six foot two or so. His clothes are different -- felt pantaloons, embroidered vest and white cap. 'This is a wedding you're interrupting!' 'Sorry mate, we found this man driving a Swedish car towards our camp.' 'What's wrong with him?' 'Asim got a little carried away. He is burning with revenge.' He goes over to the guy who kicked you, kisses him on the lips and hugs him tight.'Pommy bastards, mate. Never trust them.' Then he looks your way. 'Look at you, Calvin Klein jeans, Nike T-shirt---so who made your jacket, George W. Bush?' Everyone laughs. I forgot to mention what you were wearing---hope you don't mind. At least they are laughing. Quickly, try to explain your situation. It's difficult. Your stomach is on fire and you don't know their rules. You're tripping over your words. 'Maybe you think this is a Nintendo game and you can quit out. You flamin' English live in a dream.' 'But I'm not English ...' take a quick breath now, 'I'm an Australian.' Your audience erupts in hilarity. A thin man steps forward and mocks you in a toffy English accent, 'Please sir, do you mind, ah'm an Awe-strah-lian, just ahsk Queen Lizzie.' When laughter dies down, their leader looks you in the eye. 'So what do you do?' This is a chance to extricate yourself. Tell them about your job. 'You work in a university, but doing what---as a manager, a cleaner?' Talk about your research. 'Oh yeah, so what do you research? C'mon, *tempus fugit*, I have a wedding to attend.' Mention Pauline Hanson, globalisation, that kind of stuff. 'Mmm, so you read books do you? Have you read the sociologist called Pierre Bourdieu?' Yes, you know the work well. 'Ever thought of applying his analysis of cultural capital to Australia?' Yes, you can mention that chapter in your PhD---'Bourdieu's analysis of class resentment and Queensland populism'. He holds up his hands to the others. '*Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet*. A learned man always has wealth within himself. Our friend brings gifts. This man is no longer a prisoner. This man is my guest. Welcome him to your hearts, *persona grata*.' When Asim protests, he explains, 'Please, this man may be a bloody idiot, but he comes to my door as a lone stranger. And you know one of the most sacred rules of Australians---the guest is god. *Deus vult*, he is a reader.' Feel a little better now? But perhaps revered guest and despised villain are two sides of the same coin---the currency of honour. You've just been invited to play the game. Do you know the rules? I'll help you where I can. You are taken through some bushes and see a clearing with a large tent. A group of musicians plays a rhythmical tune, punctuated by the occasional shot into the air. A circle of dancers slowly rotates around them. You are given a glass of strong clear liquor and a plate of skinless sausage. Drink and eat. Now is the time to enjoy yourself a little. Don't worry, it's in the rules. Looking around, the scene reminds you of ethnic television. The band is moving among the dancers. The clarinettist is blasting a note into the ear of the lead dancer, sending him into a frenzy. An albino drummer is creating a booming beat with a long stick hitting some kind of stretched animal skin. A couple of guys in pantaloons are playing one-stringed guitars while a woman in a gold embroidered dress is singing in the most ethereal fashion, with an oriental lilt, soaring above the instruments. She is quite glamorous, like Sophia Loren, with a string of coins tied across her forehead. The boss is out there dancing. Don't even think of approaching her, yet. Moustapha seems to be looking after you. He offers you a cigarette. You went through hell two years ago to give them up. You're almost over the cravings. Wrong move. 'So, are you not my friend?' Go on, take it. It won't kill you. Moustapha is happy and empties his packet on your head. You have his trust now, so ask him about the boss. 'That's Ibrahim Kilmendi. He's a very proud man. His father is from Mitroviça. Was killed by the Serbs. Ibrahim worked hard in Australia---used to send ten thousand dollars a year to Kosova. Just ate rice, for ten years. Worked in the abattoir during the day and studied by candlelight. Since his father died, and Kosova is free, he has decided it is time to liberate Australia. He's a good man. He's proud, just like a real Kilmendi.' 'But why do you need to liberate Australia?' 'Sorry mate, don't take it personally. Like Ibrahim said, you're our guest and I don't mean to offend you. If you were any other Englishman, I would kill you on the spot right now. But you are my friend and maybe a bit confused. I don't think you've heard the full story yet, have you?' You feel a bit dizzy with the nicotine. A young girl wearing a gold-embroidered waistcoat comes around with a brass tray, offering small glasses of black tea. Very strong. Drink it, you'll feel better. 'Ok, let me explain. But remember I'm not a reader like Ibrahim and yourself, so my story is simple, but it is true. First, this James Cook comes all the way from Yorkshire and claims a whole continent. Did he ask any of the people who lived here already? No. The Pommie bastards starve the poor off the land and then lock them up when they have to steal to survive. Chuck you in prison for ten years for a loaf of bread. So the snobs get tired of their smell and decide to dump them in this desolate place, as far away as they can be. Such contempt for the most ancient land in the world! When the people who owned this land don't commit suicide at the mere sight of Pommies, the Pommies help them along with small pox, starvation, cyanide and genocide. Ancient nations, more than forty thousand years old, are lost to mankind forever.' Listen politely. 'And what do the Pommies put in their place? Another flamin' England. How dare people of such small minds try to inhabit such a big land. How dare they! 'Listen my friend, near the end of the year it will be scorching hot, perhaps 40 degrees in the shade. Your poor wife will be incarcerated in a hot kitchen roasting turkeys and potatoes. Sorry ... I assume you have a wife ... handsome man like yourself.' Talk about the family, it's an invitation to gain trust. 'Lovely, and children?' The more generations the better. 'Oh, boy. What kind of future does she have to look forward to, I wonder? With your wife, Helena, putting fake snow on a fake tree. Your daughter will sing songs about a reindeer and sleigh. And you call yourself an Aussie? The Pommies don't deserve to be called Australians. We should put them on a ship and send them back to where they came from. The Last Fleet, eh?' You can smell the tea on his breath. 'Sure you put on a show for outsiders. You put on some green and gold. But look at your real flag mate. Bloody Union Jack! You had the chance to get a leader of your own, didn't you? So what happened, mate? I can't believe it.' Moustapha's waiting. It's time you said something yourself---showed your colours. Have a go. Tell him how you think Australia is a peaceful country where ethnic groups can leave their violence behind. Moustapha smiles and shows you the palms of his hands. 'I don't mean to press the point, you're our guest, but don't you think you're hiding an even bigger ethnic problem right here. I mean, didn't the Poms simply wipe clean another culture, forty times older than theirs, for the sake of dumping their human garbage.' 'But that was a long time ago, eh?' 'So what's taken its place then?' 'Australia, you know, a multicultural country.' 'So, please, I'm just an ignorant person, please tell me what is Australian, then?' C'mon. We're waiting. Can't you think of anything convincing to say here? 'I'm thinking ...' Ibrahim comes up and saves you the trouble. Moustapha stands and wipes his hands on his trousers. You do the same. 'So cobber, how're you going then? You being well looked after? Feeling comfortable.' He puts his arm around your shoulders. 'Yeah, Moustapha's just been explaining a few things do me.' 'I guess you didn't realise the whole situation, did you? *Mundus vult decipi.* The world likes to be deceived.' You're not totally convinced by this Latin ostentation. But he seems friendly enough now. Maybe you can be a little more assertive. 'To an extent, but I can't understand why you care so much about Australia, I mean you ...' He puts his hands on his hips. 'Albanians, you mean? Why should us wogs be calling ourselves Australians? I know you mean well. We are grateful to be in this big country. Well, you know most of us were born here and we love it. It's a beaut place. But when you are born of Albanian stock, you have blood of honour in your veins. You have to live honourably, wherever you are. You know what Al Capone and Mother Theresa have in common? Both Albanians. Proud people. 'And living under an English government, watching BBC dramas, going to American movies, wearing American baseball caps---where is the honour in that? Maybe we Albanians are a little thin-skinned, I admit, but someone has to put up the fight. And we're not alone. Come with me.' I think you've started something here. You might be surprised by what is going to happen next. Follow Ibrahim. Ibrahim takes you to another tent. Inside is a table, and sleeping bags are strewn on the ground. Four people look up and smile at him. 'We have a new mate. He's still learning though.' You'll be pleased to know, these people seem just like you. They have warm smiles and you feel a flush of welcome. 'This is Reg. Reg was a local farmer whose property has just been bought out by Monsanto. And Sally. Sally was a Melbourne tram conductor before the public transport system was privatised. And Mike. Michael was a producer on ABC radio before it went through corporate reforms. And our dear Bill. Bill used to be mayor of a small town in Tasmania that fell in love with their Albanian refugees, until they were brutally removed back to a desolate Kosova.' 'And finally, Adbul, a Shi'ite who had fled the Taliban in Afghanistan and found himself incarcerated in a local concentration camp. See those marks around his mouth? That's where his lips were sewn up. He tells some horrific stories of the life for inmates there---the child sex trade, filthy conditions, stifling heat, prohibited contact with outside world, humiliations from staff. Not in Afghanistan. Here in Australia, mate, you wouldn't bloody believe it. 'Anyway Brian, I'll leave you here, mate, and let you chat with a few other Aussies.' Perhaps there's someone you can talk to. They look like pretty ordinary people, sitting around in director's chairs sipping stubbies of VB. You could almost afford to relax don't you think? Sally gives you a friendly smile. She must be in her mid thirties, with long red hair up in a bun and lots of freckles. 'So you're Ibrahim's guest, are you?' There's a knowing tone in her voice. She pats the sit next to her. It's fine. You're in familiar company here. 'Are you?' 'No, I got here myself. There are networks, you know. I can guess what you're thinking.' 'Really?' 'You don't need to be cagey. You want to find a way out, to get back home. It's possible, of course. Ibrahim will get pretty upset. What an ungracious guest! He'll send out some of the boys to track you down, but you could slip through if you were fit enough. There's a lot of ground to cover. Not to mention the Pommie snipers on the other side.' She gives a wry smile. 'Guess you didn't hear about that on Radio National did you? Just some crazy refugees trying to elude deportation. Now you know how serious it is, don't you.' You're with your own kind of people now. You can be a little more frank. 'Look, I can understand some of the points, OK. But it doesn't seem real to me, all this guerrilla stuff. I feel like a kid playing cowboys and Indians. Except with real guns. Surely there are other ways of changing things.' 'Yeah?' There's a question in that word. What are the other ways of really changing things in Australia? Write a letter to the paper. Vote for someone else. Turn off the radio when the Prime Minister is speaking. Don't give in so easily. Be persistent. 'It's mad. Are you just going to go down in a blaze of glory like martyrs?' 'You'll be surprised at what we can do. Next week we are really going to change the landscape. Everything's carefully worked out and by 3am Thursday morning we'll have liberated the inmates of the Willochra concentration camp. It's all been designed so that it is swift and there is no loss of life. Mothers with children will be farmed out to safe houses, while those who wish can join the ALA and continue the struggle. There's a lot more of us, you know. Once we've liberated our Bastille and shown the world, there'll be plenty more.' 'But where is it going to end?' 'Well, is that the kind of question that stopped Nelson Mandela fighting apartheid? Or George Washington fighting the British imperialists? Or do you want to sit back and watch as fortress Australia keeps building walls to keep out the world, an enclave of white trash doped out on smack, Hollywood and Packer? 'I know it's a lot in a day. It will take some time to change a whole life of thinking. Believe me, it's worth it. It's amazing what a difference it makes to have something to fight for.' Time to start giving it some serious thought. What sort of uniforms do they wear? What about family? But surely these people all have family too. They'll be worrying about you terribly back at home. Helena will be mortified. Sally takes you by the arm. 'Look. There's an open door. Go out and get some fresh air. No one here will say anything if you're not back in a hurry.' Take a walk outside. Breathe the cool, clean air. It's a relief just to be by yourself and collect some urgently needed thoughts. There are so many stars in the sky. That must be Mars. You don't get to see them in the city light, or perhaps you just forget to look up. This is the sort of place where you like to go camping with the family. Lucky you kept a photo in your wallet. There's something else in your coat pocket. Take it out. Your mobile phone. There' still enough battery for one call and the reception is working. Ring 000, get on to the police, let them steer you out of the pound, warn them about the breakout and get home safely to Helena and Anna. No wait. Go back in the tent, initiate a mass movement, get word to Helena and help steer the country to a compassionate and proudly independent nation. And so you ...