Amra Pajalic

There is a cardigan named after me. I think it captures my personality quite well. Comfortable, stylish and a bit butch.

I’ve just spent the morning preparing a funding application. When I add up the hours I’ve spent preparing a two page document, it boggles the mind. But the fact is funding applications are really competitive and you have to give yourself the best chance possible to succeed. This time around I’ve also prepared an extract of the novel I’m applying for funding.

Last year I was too afraid of submitting something that wasn’t my best writing, but after reading a report by the panel where they said that the biggest mistake applicants make is not submitting support material in the genre that they’re applying for I decided to stop being precious. At this point I’m really happy with the extract and the proposal. While funding is not guaranteed the great thing is that I now have a very strong vision about what I want to do with this next novel and regardless of whether I get funding or not, I will be writing it.

It feels good to know where I’m going. I’m still working on the sequel to The Good Daughter and I’m happy with my progress, but it’s really great to have a future project waiting for me. To know where my career is heading and what I want it to be. I did a talk to students at Victoria University writing students and one of the things I talked about was that the ability to write a funding application is an art.

I did a workshop offered by Tom Cho at the Victorian Writers’ Centre and anyone who wishes to apply for grants should try to find some way of gaining insider knowledge. There is so much you need to think about and so many questions you need to answer and you only have two pages to do it in. While you can change fonts and move margins, you still need to use every single word to your best advantage and justify how your book will contribute to Australian literature and how it will develop and extend your writing ability. It’s a tight balancing act to talk yourself up and justify your aims.

I’m completely buggered. I need some down time for my brain to recharge.

Last night I went to visit Parliament as part of the leadership course. We  met with two leaders: Minister James Merlino, Minister for Sport, Recreation, Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Premier on Multicultural Affairs and Colleen Hartland, Greens State Member of Parliament for Western Metropolitan Region.

James said that Victoria celebrates its diversity and Multiculturalism and Premier Brumby has prioritised this as making it part of his portfolio in which he assists. One of the reasons that Multiculturalism is so stable in Victoria is the Multi Faith-Multi Ethnic Forum that meets twice a year. This forum represents leaders from different community groups and religions. Communities nominate leaders to represent their community and there is a turnover of the community to ensure broader access by different leaders.

One of the issues raised at the last forum was the need for young leaders to take up the reins and the program I am participating in was created to address this need. There is also a La Trobe leadership program for Young Muslims that Larry Marshall heads.

James went on to say that Victorian engagement in Multicultrulism is Bipartisan and Hansonism didn’t gain a foothold in Victoria as it did in some other states. When there is a possibly explosive issue in the media the Premier meets with leaders from the MultiFaith Forum to address it quickly.

We then had dinner with Colleen in the Parliamentary dinning room where we had the opportunity to have an informal discussion. Colleen said she comes from working class roots and was a life-long Labour supporter, but after the Tampa Children Overboard crisis she became a member of the Greens and entered politics. Firstly she was a member of Local Government and then went on to become a Member of Parliament.

Her advice for women interested in entering politics was to first gain experience through Local Council as it provides all the skills you need for a future political career. Colleen spoke about the adversarial political culture of Parliament and that the Greens Members of Parliament purposely avoid this in their approaches. She was very candid about her personal strengths and weaknesses and how she has managed these in her political career.

This was my first visit to Parliament house and it was an eye-opener. The building itself is absolutely beautiful inside and out. It was built during the 1850’s gold rush and is ornate and elegant. We had a tour of the building and sat in on debates in the Upper and Lower house.

Personally politicians and that whole sphere intimidated me. It seems to far out of my reach, but having the opportunity last night to speak to such warm and accessible leaders brought to life that they are people just like you or I and if they can do it, so can we.

I also realised how little I know about the history of Victorian politics and today’s Ministers. At university I studied politics, but my focus was Australian Federal politics and American Foreign Policy. I visited Canberra and toured Canberra House and so have a better frame of reference to understanding Federal politics, so now my goal is to expand my knowledge base of Victoria.

When we witnessed the Premier’s Portraits there was only one woman in a room full of women. Joan Kirner was the first female Victorian Premier and even though she is no longer in politics she is very active in promoting more women equitable female representation in Parliament through an organization Emily’s list.

I have lots of reading to do.

An article I wrote about discovering your voice as a writer published in Spinetingler.

I am doing a Leadership course funded by the Brimbank Council. The purpose of the course is to develop skills so that participants develop community projects in their communities. It’s amazing because it’s a real hands on/tangible action to affect change and involve the community. The course I’m in is for women of Muslim background and then it will be rolled out to other community groups.

At our first meeting it was an amazing sight to see 12 Muslim women really look like. We are all from a diverse range of backgrounds and there is no one way that a Muslim woman looks or dresses. Some don’t wear hijabs, some do, some wear a colourful hijab, others a black one, some have scarves draped around their heads, others don’t, some wear loose clothing, others are fashionably dressed in regular western clothes (including high heels) and a head scarf, some of us were Middle Eastern, others European, some Asian, others African, and some were Anglo, some of us prayed, so didn’t. In short we represented as diverse range of looks and expressions of Islam as you could ever imagine. I was struck by the thought that people accept there is no one definition of Christianity, yet Muslims are viewed as monolithic.

We got to know each other and each story is unique. One of the women is originally from Singapore and is a Kung Fu champion who won 3 national championships. She showed us some fighting moves and was the complete opposite of the meek, subjugated Muslim woman that Western society depicts as the norm.

Our first discussion was about what leadership means. I felt strange putting my hand up and identifying myself as a leader. It felt presumptuous, but that’s because we have a very patriarchal view of what leadership entails. Larry Marshall, our instructor, set the scene by debunking this view of leadership as an Alpha male who stands before a group to establish his dominance and makes pronouncements that others must follow.

We came to the conclusion that a true leader is a facilitator, someone who listens and does. Larry pointed out that most times its women who actually do the hard work of coordinating things, but the men are in the positions of authority and claim the glory. Women who do achieve leadership roles in Parliament end up mimicking this aggressive type of leadership and so our view of leadership is warped.

Our first speaker was Maria Vamvakinou, a Member of Parliament, and the first Greek born woman to be elected into Parliament in Australia. She had so many fascinating things to say that I’m just going to list them in bullet point:

• After September 11 Muslims went to sleep as migrants, and woke up as Muslims.
• She became a MP because she doesn’t mind her own business. She’s there to make a change. (This fact alone was so interesting because I personally view politicians so cynically because I see them as being in Government for their own power and glory, not because they actually wish to represent me.)
• There aren’t many women in Parliament because it’s very hard on families. She spends 20 weeks a year in Canberra from Monday to Thursday and doesn’t see her children for this time.

We spoke about the change in Australia today with the negative way Muslims are viewed, as a threat that needs to be subdued. Our policies toward asylum seekers are shaped by this fear of the Muslim terrorist and the possibility of a home grown terrorist, and that it is these policies that dehumanise people of a Muslim background that could actually make this very fear come true. If you keep treating people a certain way they will meet your expectation.

I raised the point that in Australia I sometimes don’t feel like I have the right to say I’m Australian. I’m always something else that I have to explain. Maria said something that completely blew me away. She said that when she stopped viewing her background as a disadvantage and instead realised that knowing to speak, read and write a second language was a good thing did she stop feeling self conscious. Now she feels that people who only have access to one language are at a disadvantage.

It made me realise that I have been conditioned to view someone of an Anglo background as the norm, and a person from an ethnic background as different. If we look at our media, our tv shows, our public figures, you don’t see many people of ethnic background. We’re depicted as an Anglo world, when we are anything but. Maria said that to be Australian is to be something else-whether it be Anglo-Irish, or Bosnian, we are all migrants. The only traditional Australians are the Indigenous people.

Maria also spoke about her experiences of living through the 60s where migrants were viewed negatively and expected to assimilate by dropping their culture and traditions, and then the 70s where the policies of Multiculturalism were created under Gough Whitlam’s leadership and with BiPartisan support. She doesn’t feel that this could happen again because politics has become very cut throat in the ensuing decades.

During this time the government funded the arts through which ethnic stories were told to the larger population. For example there was a play about a Greek girl that toured high schools and eased this transition. It made me realise the power of art, and responsibility that I have as an artist to create change.

Next week we’re going to tour Parliament and meet some more politicians. So excited.

So Robin Williams was in Australia and upon returning to America he did a skit on David Letterman about Australia. In the skit he said that Australians are English Rednecks and that if Darwin saw the animals here he would have said he was wrong because most of them are poisonous and made during Heaven’s happy hour. Kevin Rudd, our Prime Minister, waded in to defend Australia by stating that Robin Williams should go to Alabama before casting stones.

WTF. So we will laugh at stand up comedians poking fun of anyone, except us. It’s not as if Robin Williams doesn’t make fun of his own country-he does. And I can’t believe that our Prime Minister was drawn into this debate and then made his own gaffe by offending the state of Alabama.

This is an example of people not being able to differentiate between art and real life. Comedians exaggerate for comedic effect. They take something from real life and put a spin on it and take it out to the world. In the process of laughing at something we are also able to analyse it better and come to a deeper meaning of the world.

Is there anyone out there who is going to claim that  Australians are not racist? Just look at the media, the response from the government and police to Indian bashing-the police commissioner’s advice to Indian students-don’t get jobs in 7/11s and dress poor. That’s like saying to women-don’t work where there are men and dress like a slut in case you get raped.

What about the change in our language? To be un-Australian is to criticise Australia. You don’t have a right to do so. To be a true nationalist is to not acknowledge any flaw or point out anything wrong. In other countries-like Europe and South America to criticise your country and government is to be patriotic. You’re pointing out something that is wrong in order to fix it. Maybe that’s why this broohaw happened. Did Robin Williams poke a finger into a sore wound? Are we perhaps over-sensitive because we feel there is some truth to his words. Mmm.