Proust

 

When he asked me to marry him, I knew that my dreams of a proper British academic life would come true. We had settled down immediately and his lecturer’s salary at the university was just enough to cover a small cottage in the back of an old church near a graveyard. I was 22 and had just graduated and my head was filled with dreams of musty 1930s books and vicars and rambles in the countryside. He was 48, already losing his hair and developing a bit of a stoop. But I loved him – or rather the idea of him- my dreamy academic. My childhood in India had left me plenty of time in old library of my girls’ school to read old books.

 

When we scrimped and saved for holidays, we found a cheap hotel in the Algarve where we went every year. His idea of fun was to read these Proust novels to each other. One day he told me that when we finished the books, he thought that we should start over from the beginning. And that’s when I saw the next 10 years of my life stretched out before me – the same as the last ten. I realized I had never seen the world. I had never figured out my own story. So I said to him – we’ll never finish these books. And then I packed my bag and left him.

Childhood Scenes

My mother straightened the collar of my blouse, tugging at it and licking her finger to wipe away a bit of chocolate smudged around my mouth from the candybar given to me as a bribe on the drive to the airport. "Now be a brave girl and don't embarrass us," she instructed. She stepped back and looked at me with a critical eye. 

"Why did you put her in that get up" my father asked, lifting a skeptical eyebrow and lighting a cigarette. I glanced down at my blue polka dotted suit - a bit tight and very shiny. The shorts showed my pink thighs, a bit chaffed from the vinyl car seat and goose bumped from the cool Irish rain. "They're French! We have to show them that we have some style!" she tutted at him, "we can't be sending her off to France in some dungarees!" "sure, but they aren't in Paris," he exhaled, "they live on a farm in the countryside." 

My mother ignored him and turned her attention back to me. "You won't understand a thing they say," she lectured. "You had better do us proud. You will make your bed every morning the minute you wake up. Don't eat fast, gobbling down your food like a starving piglet at the trough. And for god's sake, keep your hands and face clean." 

I didn't understand why I was off to the French cousins. Just last week I had been running around in the park, thrilled that school was over and now I was standing in the airport in this hot tight suit clutching a small bag with my belongings- told that I was on my way to France on an airplane. 

The stewardess came over and pinned a name tag to the jacket, pushing the floppy frills of the blouse out of the way. "Don't you look as a cute as a button," she smiled with a chipper cold voice. I frowned. My mother kissed me on the cheek and my father patted my head. 

"Don't forget!" my mother called after me as she waved, "Say Bahn Jar when you get there!"

Reflections on current allegations of racism at MSF

So recently, MSF has been in the news again - this time for their racist and colonial tendencies.  A sign-on letter circulated accusing MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.

I often encountered racist attitudes there and in fact worked on a national staff perceptions study where many of the national staff I talked with decried the colonialist attitudes of the organization where a naive young inexperienced Westerner might be the supervisor of a much older and experienced person from the country where they were working. Many of the expats that I met had an inborn belief that only a "Expat" (i.e. a Westerner or European) could truly be neutral.  I was actually instructed when I worked for them to note what pieces of evidence I had from National Staff vs Expatriate Staff as I guess the Expat staff wee more "reliable" .

In the words of my friend Saleem Haddad who I met when I worked at MSF "...make no mistake, like I've said before, MSF is one of the most colonial and racist organisations I've ever worked for. [The linked article above] also notes: "The statement follows fierce internal debate about racism and the Black Lives Matter movement. Some staff were angry at a recent statement released by MSF Italy, suggesting it should not use the term “racism” and that “everyone, starting with MSF”, should talk about “all lives matter”.

This article doesn't mention that after this, the statement goes on to say "because discrimination exists against blacks, whites, yellows, women, men, gays, old, young, etc."

Yellows, ladies and gentlemen. Yellows.

I'm not harping on MSF for any other reason than I believe in its mission, and believe that, if the institutions of white supremacy and patriarchy within the movement are dismantled, the organisation could do some truly revolutionary work. Ultimately, I don't mind speaking honestly about this because I've got no skin in this game. I have no intention to work for MSF again so long as these sexist and colonial structures remain in place. Others have more to lose."

I feel the same way. I didn't sign that letter. I whole-heartedly support the authors of the letter for sure. But I saw some of the same men I complained about in my my blog post on Cassandra Complexity. White men who had power (and still do) signing on to complain about something that they could have done something about if they tried. But its easier to jump on the bandwagon than actually do something.

I originally wrote that blog as a letter to the Director General of MSF Holland and UK in support of a woman of color who had complained about discrimination there. When I heard nothing back from management, I decided to publish it as a blog post to raise the profile. Since racism often goes hand in hand with sexism, I thought I would just put this blog post from Cassandra Complexity here as a reminder that the women of color working at MSF are probably the ones getting it the worst.

Holier than Thou: Is it time for MSF's #Metoo moment?

This is my témoignage about the sexist culture of MSF Amsterdam where I worked from 2007-2011. Its the product of a lot of thinking and processing since the #metoo hashtag appeared, re-triggering lots of toxic memories and suppressed emotions. – Sarah Martin

A Poem for a Corona Quarantine in Berlin in the Spring

Hobbling along the cobblestones of New Cologne, I notice the small purple bluebells push past the döner wrappers and cigarette butts. Butter yellow daffodil petals compete with the screaming neon of some American's latest electro-swing band flyer to dance in the wind.

Blackbirds sing over the garbage bins.
Swans squabble in the canal.

The corona erases our physical presence and turns our attachments to our loved ones into electrons vibrating across the Atlantic Ocean.

My love language is Zoom.

Your love language is Instagram Chat.

Plague ships haunt my dreams while you act as if nothing has changed at all.

Quarantine suits you. I"m kidding a bit. Shelter in place makes my hair glow like candles on a Buddhist altar.

Which flower will bloom tomorrow?

Socially distancing Germans line up at the Edeka to buy their geraniums but I prefer the wild trees bursting forth in the void that was the Death Strip.

Alone but together. Calls form Fiji where I sing of bombs bursting in air. Colombia sends me minions. But nothing from Sweden.

There was never ever anything coming from Sweden. So normality, at last.

--inspired by a book of prompts from Chen Chen and the poem Night Falls like a Button.  Prompted by the fantastic Jane Flett of the Reader in Berlin