This was my last Thursday in Melbourne for a long while.  In a few days, Yan and I will leave out for Sydney and then, with my father, who has not yet arrived, on to Adelaide and Perth and many a hiking trail and camping site in between.  So this final trip to St. Kilda was somewhat sentimental for me, as I honestly do not know when I will be able to witness that particular warm, beach-front, hippie spectacle again.  For that matter, I just don’t know when I’ll get the chance to come back to Australia.  My time here is quickly slipping away, and theoretically forever.

Yes, it appears that Yan and I will be making yet another move overseas; a transition of material possessions, currency, and hopes and dreams.  While we both fervently look forward to our new (in my case re-newed) life in Tucson, Arizona, there is more than just a little sorrow that we will be leaving a city and a people that have generally been very good to both of us.  The sadness of this reality would be difficult, to say the least, if I wasn’t already deeply familiar with the tiring process of packing up and starting all over again in a totally different place.  For me, and to a certain extent for Yan as well, this is old hat.  We’ve become accidental experts at not having a place to call home.

Quite frankly, I am thoroughly unsure as to whether or not this move from Australia back to the United States is really a good one for either Yan or myself.  It feels very much like a crap-shoot, a roll of the dice, and this after months and months of careful consideration and earnest conversation wherein we weigh the pros and cons of each culture, the ups and downs of the global economy, the value (or not) of my academic training, including this new Master’s degree, the pull or repulsion of a given natural environment, and the potential — especially the potential, blessed and heavy as it is — for both of us to accomplish the things we want to accomplish in this or that city, state, country, or in our lives as a whole.  It was not an easy choice, coming home, and I still hold many legitimate doubts as to the wisdom of our final decision.

I must say, mainly because the story is conspicuously present in the global media these days and I would be foolish not to address it, that I do take some heart from the recent election of Barack Obama to the office of US president.  While I have not bought in to the messiah-like status many of my fellow countrymen and women have ascribed to this man, I do feel that he at least appreciates the importance (and stress) of a needed change in direction.  The rhetoric is redundant in this regard, and sometimes quite tiresome, but it’s also, I think, especially pertinent to our collective circumstances in these complicated times.

In trying to correct the severe mistakes (I’m being very generous to leave it at that, actually) of the previous eight years, Mr. Obama is of course working on a macro level that extends out into the whole of the human species (I don’t think I’m exaggerating here).  My microscopic, individual little experience is certainly no match for this monumental task, but I do feel a certain resonance and camaraderie and empathy with Obama’s message of ‘change.’  It seems a significant change is coming in myself as well as in my country.  It’s probable that I am not alone here.  A change is coming… for us all.  It’s coming for Michelle and Ellen and her family.  It’s coming for Yan and for me.  It’s coming, and I accept it, even despite my sleepy heart.

This is my prayer:

May I meet the challenges of this and every change with the courage of my forbearers, the bloody razor’s precision of now, and the grace of an unimagined, ungrounded tomorrow… and may I have a little bit of fun in the process.

My hesitancy stems form the fact that OLPC News (among others–TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Engadget), has been reporting on what appears to be a major shift in OLPC values. It seems that Nicholas Negroponte–the co-founder of the MIT Media Lab and the proverbial grandfather of the OLPC project–has agreed to align himself and the initiative with Microsoft. The new generation of OLPC laptops will all include simplified versions of Windows XP.

The problem here, of course, is that this will happen at the expense of Sugar Labs, the newly-formed company that created the educational, open-source, GNU/Linux-based operating system that currently lives, albeit temporarily, on the OLPC XO 1. Moreover, this is a relatively clear departure from the stated constructionist mission of the whole OLPC project in that the use of proprietary software (Windows XP) subjects children, it is sometimes said, to “a regime of social control.” Windows, which makes up over 90% of all operating systems in use worldwide, represents a more hierarchical, capitalistic, top-down instructionism. Or at least that’s what the OLPC fans are saying online. 

Honestly, I’m on the fence about all this. The idealism behind Sugar, etc., is certainly admirable, but it may be a little foolish in the face of global poverty. There’s a tendency in the privileged world (ie, the United States) to confuse techy, middle-class intellectual discussions with reality. I would venture to suggest, however, that the heated debates taking place online now have very little to do with the impoverishment experienced everyday in the ‘developing’ world. Trying to choose between constructionism and instructionism, for instance, is a radically different bargain than choosing between your child’s education and food for the family.

My understanding here, also, is that the OLPC project moved towards XP precisely because poor countries were demanding it. Whether correct or not, government and community leaders in the ‘developing’ world felt that independent, open-source software like Sugar’s wouldn’t be as useful as XP. They wanted their youth to learn on an operating system that was considered ’standard’ around the globe, and common to practices within business, government, education, NGO, etc., of wealthier countries.

Despite the fact that it emboldens Microsoft’s monopoly, and contradicts the premise of the open-source OLPC project, I can’t blame the disenfranchized and impoverished for wanting XP. They are making pragmatic decisions that reflect difficult, real-world circumstances. In this regard, I suppose I would rather protect and promote the rights of marginalized people to make (potentially) bad decisions, than force-feed them an idea that may not be useful. I mean, the technology isn’t as important as the people.

However this conflict is resolved within the OLPC community, I do think it behooves social justice activists to educate themselves simultaneously about technological alternatives and real-world contexts. Not every good idea is a workable one. Were it so, we’d have discarded with neoliberalism a long damn time ago.

One of my favorites is TRAX, a youth media organization that is currently working on a “Market Value” project in the Preston Market, a series of inexpensive stalls in an open-air bazaar located just north of Melbourne. The goal is to create a multimedia exhibit featuring the work of local youth and others that addresses the changes happening at the markets themselves. It’s especially impressive given the challenges youth-made media projects face in the context of ‘economic development’.

I encourage folks to check it out. Bring your kid to the market or something! Download this flier and tell your friends. I think we really need to support these kinds of grass-roots, DIY media initiatives. A true community-led arts program!

Hopefully, someday soon, I can post an interview or two with the organizers of TRAX. It’ll inevitably show-up on the vlog half of the site. Be looking out for those in the future.

This week’s episode had an interesting interview with musician and filmmaker, Vincent Lamberti (no website available), a former Melbournian who now lives and work in Alice Springs, which is way out in the desert lands of the iconic Northern Territories. Among other things, Lamberti works with InCite, a youth arts organization, and he is somehow affiliated with an Aboriginal Media group called CAAMA.

Acording to the interview, Lamberti is directly involved in a film program specifically designed for indigenous youth (also no website available). I don’t know much more about this program, naturally, as I neither live in Alice Springs nor am I familiar with the organizations metioned in the show. Actually, I don’t know much of anything about the Australian youth media environment as a whole. A fact I hope to remedy soon enough.

But from what I can garner from the Jumpcut interview, Lamberti and his colleagues are particularly concerned about the economic realities surrounding their media initiatives in Aboriginal communities. At one point, Lamberti said:

“The whole idea of economic, sort of, empowerment is paramount, I believe, in trying to solve some of the social problems that are present in Alice Springs. Particularly in the town camps. Because people are basically struggling for survival…And so money and where your next meal is going to come from is paramount.” 

This unfortunate sentiment I can appreciate whole-heartedly. On top of the everyday burdens of the program participants, I am especially mindful of the economics of creating media itself. It is what I refer to as a ‘multi-tiered’ barrier. For media programs among marginal individuals, there are many constraints. Even if one is able to overcome the great obstacles of covering rent, bills, transportation, food, education, etc., then he/she is met with the challenge of obtaining technology and training. All of this costs money.   

I will be following InCite and CAAMA from afar, and hopefully someday I can keep up with the professional endeavors of Mr. Vincent Lamberti (assuming he gets a web presence). I’m even considering trying to contact the Alice Springs folks to see if they need a Winter (american Summer) volunteer or something. It would undoubtedly be informative to see life as it’s really lived in the famous Australian Outback, and even more so if I could get involved, maybe engage with a progressive youth media program.

Given the close proximity of the center to our house, Yan and I figured it wouldn’t be such a burden to throw a few hours their way.  I’ve been encouraging Yan (and myself) to think of our current unemployment as an opportunity.  My professor at the VCA has said on a number of occasions, “You’re time rich, if not money rich.”  Admitedly, this kind of thinking only goes so far in capitalistic societies like Australia (you gotta pay the rent), but I appreciate the sentiment none the less.

It turns out, I really like hearing people’s stories.  Asking questions, soliciting survey participants, etc., it was all very exciting and invigorating.  My Spanish and Mandarin leave much to be desired, of course, and my Aussie-English is weak, but generally speaking people responded kindly to me and my American sensibilities.  Every now and then we’d come across a guy with a terrible tooth ache or something, get rebuffed, and then have to slink back to our corner of the lobby.  But that was definitely a rarity.  Most folks, regardless of their background, like having their voices heard, if even through a three-page questionnaire.

Also, the NRCHC serves an especially diverse group of people.  The clinic is situated in a series of high-rise projects (what the Aussies antiseptically call ‘public housing’), and its inhabitants naturally reflect a wide variety of ages, languages, cultures, and nationalities.  Most come from East-Asia (China, Vietnam, etc.), but I also ran across some Italians, Greeks, Timorese, Indonesians, Sudanese, all kinds of Aussie natives, and one single-mother from Syria–a vibrant young woman who, upon hearing my accent, promptly disparaged president Bush and then implored me to visit Syria whenever possible.  ”We’re good!  We’re good people,” she said while nursing her young son.  

Yes, ma’am.  You are good people.