Iskander: Blog

Here in Australia, there is a feeling that we are, perhaps, past the worst of the pandemic. The number of new cases has been falling for days and the deaths are now in single digits each day. As we look around the world, it is clear that, compared to many similar countries, we have passed relatively unscathed (fewer than 7,000 cases and about 80 deaths, so far) through this first infection wave, in part through the luck of being an island nation. But the experts are reminding us that there could so easily be a second wave and they point to the problems Singapore is facing. With care, Australia is capable of avoiding a second wave as, sometime in the next few weeks with strong tracking and tracing in place, we slowly relax the lockdown, piece by careful piece. But there is no real end in sight until one of the seventy or so vaccines under development is deployed - if even one reaches that stage.

As dawn broke yesterday, we Australians - residents in my street and people across the country - assembled in their driveways before 6 am, holding candles. At 6 am, we heard the notes of a distant Last Post float across the still air: ANZAC day, our most important memorial of those that have died in conflict. It dates back to 25th April 1915 when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (hence ANZAC) rushed ashore on the beach of what is now called ANZAC cove, playing their part in the debacle that was the Gallipoli campaign. It is an interesting commentary on this country that one of the founding myths of our nation is of a military defeat and retreat.

Today is particularly poignant as we obey the social distancing required by the pandemic: there was no Dawn Service, there will be no parade by the bemedalled veterans, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren through flag-waving crowds followed by "Two Up" and beers, no gathering of peripatetic Australian youth in ANZAC cove itself or on the battlefields of France. But this year we are also remembering the deaths occurring from the pandemic and saluting the sacrifice of those around the world on the front line of the current campaign - not just the doctors, nurses and care workers, but all the essential workers needed to keep our society working, even at this very constrained level, who in their service risk infection, unlike we who can shelter in place.

Perhaps this unusual stillness provides us with a chance to think about the sort of society we should rebuild on the other side. Wound into the ANZAC myth is the veneration of mateship born in the trenches of Gallipoli and France - a belief in supporting and standing by your mates, along with a disdain for rank and privilege. According to my grandfather who (unlike his brother) survived four years in the British army on the western front, Australian soldiers were renowned for their larrikin ways and refusal to salute. This mateship created in Australia a yearning for 'a fair go', for an egalitarian society where what you do matters more than who you are, although the recent decades of neo-liberal 'the-individual-is-all' social philosophy have tried to drown that yearning in increasingly feverish consumerism where the economy is all that matters.

But now, in the unusual stillness of an ANZAC day, there is time to think. In this emergency, we are discovering that it is not the bank and industry CEOs, celebrities, social influencers, politicians, the self-inflated shock jocks and their ilk that matter; it is the doctors, nurses, cleaners, scientists, shelf-stackers, check out operators, delivery drivers, rubbish collectors, posties, paramedics and police that are keeping us safe at some risk to themselves - many of them seriously undervalued until now. We are also seeing the injustice inherent in a hugely casualised workforce, over a million of whom are, by fiat of the government, relegated to lesser government financial support or no support at all as are the temporary visa workers originally brought in to support our economy who, like the foreign students, have been bluntly told to go home - when there are no flights.

In this quiet pause, we should be asking what we want to build on the other side. Do we want to rebuild a society of increasing inequality and injustice or do we want something kinder, gentler, more people-centric? A country where the clean air we are enjoying as a result of the shutdown persists? A country where we can once again trust our government to serve all the people rather than the interests of a few?

For all its horror, this pandemic presents a tremendous opportunity to reset our society. It is to be hoped that it will be a long, long time before something akin to this pandemic creates a similar societal shock.

We have a generational duty not to waste this opportunity.

A reader pointed out a small but important error in chapter 14, which has been corrected.

Spike Milligan, when asked why he wrote, claimed that God's finger pressed on him and he had to write. As a fully paid up atheist, I am pretty sure there is no God, so I do not have that excuse.

Robert Heinlein famously said:
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

And that, in part, is certainly great advice in today's virus-infected world. Humour aside, I think Heinlein was suggesting that most writing should stay private due to its quality - or rather lack thereof. It may well be important to the author, but that does not make it worthwhile to others.

I - and many, many other authors - write and then publish their work for free on one of the many internet sites that exist to facilitate this. So it is clear that writing, of itself, draws people to it. I can only speak for myself, others will have their own reasons.

I learned to read at age 6 - quite late compared to my children (but much earlier than my dyslexic brother). Interestingly, I can remember it all coming together and the shapes on the page becoming words, sentences, stories. Against this, I do not remember learning to read music: it is as if I could always do so - which is manifestly not possible. But I digress. Reading opened worlds to me - and I dived in to escape an unhappy childhood. I rapidly discovered a major disadvantage of reading: books end leaving me aching for more. To overcome this, I started imagining sequels - what happened when She returned as promised, more adventures like The Horse and his Boy with the Narnia four, a sequel to The Chrysalids. From there it was a short step to attempting to create my own worlds - a task given a much wider canvas as Science Fiction burgeoned during the 1960s.

But my attempts at writing all foundered early in chapter 1: I reread my work and it was severely lacking. In part, this was due to heightened self-criticism from my exposure to the great writers and their writings in several languages but mostly to an honest recognition that what I wrote was dross. For decades, this situation persisted.

I watched my daughter walk away from her completed Science degree to start a career in fiction - and she has succeeded. We have spent many hours talking and corresponding about her writing. I was privileged to read early drafts of her books and send back my thoughts. Through all this, she encouraged me to write - and eventually I sent her the first draft of what became the opening of Through my Eyes. Again. I sent her more and she provided more feedback, but at about Chapter 3, she told me that she did not want to read any more until it was finished. Training wheels were off, I was being sent solo.

As I approach the end of TMEA, it has been an interesting experience: parts of the story flowed easily on to the page, yet other parts were a huge struggle. From the release of the first chapter, the feedback I have received has been a significant extrinsic motivation to continue - please continue to provide it - but it is not the most important motivator.

I might disagree with Spike Milligan about God - but something intrinsic pushes me to write.

The world is changing fast around us: many of us are now confronting real fear for the survival of our loved ones, our friends, ourselves. There is even the whispered threat of possible societal breakdown in the future of some countries. Amid all of this, we are perforce learning new ways of living, interacting and working. A psychologist in private practice tells me that the levels of anxiety amongst the clients seen this week are higher than ever before. Yesterday I carried out our weekly shop and throughout that exercise felt something approaching tangible fear just from being out and about in what is normally a very safe area that is well known to me: a truly unsettling feeling.

As I sat working on the final chapter of Through my Eyes. Again. this week, I felt at odds with the world in many different ways: my book is set in the past, the threat of nuclear annihilation is one which has (hopefully) passed but most of all because Will's fictional problems seem insignificant in the light of what is happening around us.

And yet I find solace in writing: its forced involvement in a world apart allows some perspective when I return to reality and that is important at times like this. In the online world, we are bombarded with information, much of it very dark at present: being able to pull back has allowed me to maintain some personal balance in spite of the gales of change buffeting us. So far all my friends and loved ones are safe and, with a little gentle chiding in one case, they have adopted all the measures that give them the best chance of staying safe even though they are scattered across several continents and in many countries where Covid-19 is reaping differing dark harvests of sickness and death.

So, if TMEA is allowing you to escape and then provide some perspective when you return to our world from Will's, perhaps my writing is in a very small way contributing to the overall journey through this particular vale of tears.

Stay safe!

Physically (but not socially) distance yourself!

Wash your hands!

There is a curse: "May you live in interesting times!" which is usually linked to China, even though there is no evidence to support this. Wherever it is from, we are certainly all living in interesting times - far too interesting, I fear.

It seems that every country either is already or will shortly be affected by Covid-19. The extent of the disaster each country experiences is going to be determined in part by the decisions our leaders make or do not make and in part by how we, as humans in a cooperative society, order our lives in this new and very different reality. Unfortunately, it would seem that many of us are having a great deal of difficulty understanding the changes we need to make to keep ourselves, our loved ones and our society from the abyss.

The Angel of Death is abroad in many countries, reaping a surging harvest and he is poised to start his bitter work in many others.

My teenage years were spent in Europe with the ever-present possibility of a nuclear apocalypse. Indeed, that experience is part of the background to Through my Eyes. Again. My coping method then was designing a nuclear survival bunker and assembling lists of equipment and stores to stock it. We now find ourselves in a very different crisis and one we were given plenty of warning of with SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012. Some countries learned those lessons and made preparations and are bloodied but not bowed by Covid-19. But many countries did nothing - or worse.

In my country, we not only did not read the tea leaves when SARS and MERS appeared, but we also defunded critical areas of science and societal preparation. When Covid-19 came knocking, beyond travel restriction, we did nothing to prepare ourselves for the pandemic we are now suffering and we will pay a heinous price for this inattention.

Perhaps we will learn from this experience; I am certain that we will be living in a very different world in 2021 when, hopefully, a vaccine for Covid-19 will become widely available. But we have to get there and that requires … something. Perhaps not hope, for I have precious little hope. The words of the great cellist, Pablo Casals come to mind: "The situation is hopeless. We must take the next step." I may have no hope, but I can still move forward, one step at a time - and so must we all.

All we can do for the moment is hunker down, practise excellent hygiene and take the gentlest care of one another - from an appropriate distance.

Time enough to pick up the pieces when we get to the other side.