Frigiliana: the brightness of the ‘white village’.

 

Almuncar, Spain: by the beach

 

Getting to know Frigiliana - Part 2

Frigiliana is one of the ‘white villages’ in which three cultures converge - Jewish, Muslim and Christian. However it remains to day the most Moorish  of all towns in the province of Axarquia. 

It was in the 9th and 10th century that its Arabic urban design can be experienced today and celebrated. In the 15th century the arrival of the Catholic Monarchs witnessed the start of a repressive campaign against the Moriscos for conversion to Christianity. 

Despite attempts at overthrowing the Catholic regime including the Battle of El Penon in Frigiliana, in which 7000 Moriscos did, their resistance was defeated. Today Frigiliana celebrates in August the Festival of Three Cultures in what is regarded as Spain’s most beautiful and well-preserved village.

 

Flying low: the trials and tribulations of air travel.

 

Associate Professor Hans Baer, friend and former University of Melbourne Honorary colleague and a committed eco-socialist has strong if not sometimes strident  views on air travel that keeps me flying low when I am with him! His research into the frequency and the exponential increase in carbon emissions from air travel has him writing papers on the need for us to reconsider air travel if we are to save the planet. His paper titled ‘Grappling with flying as a driver to climate change: strategies for critical scholars seeking to contribute to a social-ecological revolution’ lays out the argument for universities to seek and act out alternate means of communication. Keywords: academics, anthropologists, air travel, climate change, socio-ecological revolution

The reality of air travel  does not equate with the hype and the fantasy promoted by the airlines of air travel. In fact as consumers of air travel we are also party to the fantasy mostly because we w ant to ‘get away’ and also the price we pay to be taken to another place. My recent experience flying from Melbourne to Singapore and on to London provides ample reasons why air travel not only harms the planet but also the body! 

Singapore Airlines has managed to manage its marketing so it is often seen as an exemplar amongst airlines. Certainly that other airline that still promotes itself ‘by calling Australia home’ treats its citizens and no doubt others as aliens. The check in at Melbourne airport was chaotic largely because passengers turned up in large numbers before staff had put in place signage for the delineation of passengers - first to last! The crowd moved forward as staff scrambled to gain some control and the self service kiosks had to be over - ridden by manned (sic) desks. 

The rest is common to all passengers; the wearisome and often confusing pathway through immigrations an customs. Looking back after that experience in Singapore there is certainly no uniform approach to customs. It is computers out iPads in, hats off hats hats on, belts on / off and shoes on / of have no consistency. Staff are over zealous or disinterested in the cause of protecting us all from each other. 

The flight to Singapore was broken up with food to disappoint and those who ordered in advance of the flight were left waiting for beverages until the rest of the passengers were catered. Still the time went and the landing in Singapore’s labyrinth and extensive airport of malls, shops and food outlets. 

The usual pass through customs was stressful. The relief of passengers having made it to the other side was palpable though for some as would be revealed later on board the plane were still suffering. The boarding was again chaotic due to the static filled announcements for boarding and once again passengers feeling that a free for all was better than queuing in line with an unlikely expectation of being first to board. 

The result was passengers entered the aircraft in opposite directions so the aisles became a confrontation between those heading to the south and those heading to the north. Eventually order was achieved but for a passenger finding a hole in the  plane beside their seat. This was too much to bear for an already very stressed passenger and for those who were wanting to take off and get to their destination. 

The passenger in question was in the row in front  ot mine so I was not only privy to his concerns and that if his wife but had some personal  interest. The passenger called on the staff to inspect what he said was sufficient to see the ground and he and she demanded that they be put on another pane. 

We then had a conga line of stewards, an engineer (I assume as he was wearing a fluro jacket)  and a person who appeared to be a pilot with obligatory stripes They all inspected the offending hole.  The engineer returned with what appeared to be an adhesive patch and stuck it to the plane. 

This  was too much to bear for the couple and with shrieks of ‘we are not flying in a plane held together by sticky tape’ to a demand that ‘we should all have a vote’ they decided to disembark the plane. With cries of ‘we will call the BBC’ and the International airline authority’ they took their on board bags and left. There was a combination of a sigh of relief and a feeling of ‘what if’! 

The crew pilot included returned to their allotted roles and  plane then taxied down the runway and we took off as meals and drinks were served. We all took a collective deep breath and settled back for the bumpy ride to London. 

We landed successfully and disembarked pleased to be at our destination and putting aside the reality of air travel. 

Air travel will be a thing of the past or at least limited to those who are in need for personal,  professional or perhaps even academic reasons.  But I suspect it will be that air travel will  finally be seen for what it is; bad for the passenger and the planet! 

Frigiliana, Spain - Part 1.

Saturday 30 March:  We arrived in Malaga during the break of a long drought! It poured as we made our way from the arrivals area at the airport to the car park to pick up our Fiat for the hour drive to Frigiliana. 

In the heavy rain we signed the soggy paper sand set out on our journey along unknown freeways in the pouring  rain. It did not stop for another 48 hours. 

Sunday 31 March: The Easter Parade was cancelled on Sunday morning but perchance we came across the Iglesia San Antonio De Padua Church where we were able to experience the sight of  two of the floats and the accompanying band heralding in the Easter message. The irony was of course not lost on followers who found their beloved procession having to be a cancelled because of the breaking of the drought restoring life to the region. 

Monday 1 April: This was a sun  filled day! With the rain stopping the town was revived with both locals and visitors  venturing out to enjoy the many shops, cafes and restaurants that dot the old and new town.

The sun extenuates the light and heat of the sun as people stroll and climb up and down the narrow lanes and stairs that connect the homes to street life. Approaching the town from the south one can see the snow capped mountains that border the region.

It is a town that has a resident population of around 3500 made up of 2000 Spanish born and the remainder mostly the EU, Europe and America. That resident population must swell to 10 times that number during the high summer season.  

‘No Country for Idealist’ - a memoir to remember!

 ‘No Country for Idealists. The Making of a Family of Subversives’ by Boris Frankel is a memoir that is tragic, mind boggling, inspiring, heart-rending and engrossing! It straddles the life the times of a period in Australia and the Soviet Union that provided circumstances that infected the Frankel family and brought sadness and not hope, cynicism not idealism. 

Boris, who I had the fortune to spend some time with as an Honorary with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne, weaves an extraordinary life story with personal anecdotes dotted through the forensic analysis of ASIO and Federal Government machinations. Names such as Menzies, Downer, Casey, Spry are the adversaries who along with KGB agents bring much pain and suffering to the family. 

I was fixated on the national and international events that were played out on an innocent father whose only failing was that he was an idealist and believed in social justice and equity. Neither Australia nor the  Soviet Union were up to the challenge! It was a painful realisation for Abraham Frankel that his idealism was not just misplaced but that he had been hoodwinked by the Soviet propaganda and disinformation. 

In Australia the authorities meted out punishment based on innuendo and fabrications. It left me in awe of the Frankel family’s resilience and survival in the face of incompetents and malicious people on the left and right who served their own bureaucratic or political ambition rather than humanity. I am reminded of the many families and individuals who suffer systemic injustice and vilification today.

Will the real Fran Leibowitz please stand up!

 

Labouring under Leibowitz. It was a night not to remember much. In front of a packed out Hamer Hall, Fran Leibowitz was upstaged by the lack of staging and engagement with an often bewildered audience. Perhaps most were hoping from the New Yorker insufferable, acerbic, caustic and life bending comments! She was billed as providing ‘opinionated, insightful and hilarious social commentary’ and to cast ‘a disdainful gaze at  revolting spectacles of celebrity’. But it was repartee that was often the long winded ordinariness that was underwhelming. In an opening that started badly Fran Leibowitz and Crikey Editor in Chief, Sophie Black, sought to spar in 30 minutes of ‘hard’ interrogation. But Fran fielded the questions with ease and there were few challenges and only the occasional opportunity for the Leibowitz barbs we have long got used to and longed for. 

It was an introduction to Leibowitz that generated little of the anticipated ‘razor wit’ nor insights into issues of gender, race, gay rights or the media’. 

Fran was then left on stage to her own devices and to become a combative with the audience. If only. But it was a controlled ‘audience’ that filled the Q&A session that seemed to have been programmed prior to the event. The questions came mysteriously via a floor monitor (from whom?) that where underwhelming in their content and failed to illicit anything other than long winded and slightly embarrassing stories that seemed to never end. 

No punch lines here or anything to remember. The highlights were few. On Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Leibowitz response was ‘Couldn’t she do better than that’. On Trump,  ‘He’s worse than Putin’. On why are you in Australia. ‘It’s the money’. And in the most searing and perhaps expectant question ‘What’s wrong with America?’, her quick answer was ‘Americans’. That got a laugh. However it did not match up with her previous comment that she is always being asked to explain America! How dare they. I'm not to blame! 

On New York there was very little or of her life, her extensive  library that required a larger apartment than she could really afford; she’d stop going to parties as the people she would want to be with were all dead (now that’s kinda funny), and no mention of her past, current or even her future writings. She barely moved from the lectern and was tied to a standup microphone. At least we could hear her as in the Crikey interview hand held microphones were used! 

Overall it was a bit blundering, lacked the expected absurdity and acerbic commentary and often overplayed so the one liners became lost in the telling. Barbs at Australia (why is it good to sound local?)  including us worrying about fruit fly or cigarette smoking were overplayed and on our distance from New York. Wondering if we’d ever been to New York clearly failed to come to grips with the audience and us  knowing the name of the Governor of Florida seemed to come as a shock.

My question, if there had been a live Q&A went something like ‘what do Taylor Swift, Donald Trump and Fran Leibowitz have in common?’ I’d like to think that would have raised the bar.