Domestic violence: we need some circuit breakers

A look at the progress; and what about circuit breakers?

It is very heartening to see domestic violence being taken seriously at last. I thank Rosie Batty, Australian of the Year, for this; and also Sarah Ferguson and the ABC team who produced ‘Hitting Home’ for television. Thank you Rosie; thank you Sarah and all on the ABC team. And thank you to all the other dedicated people working in this cause.

We need domestic violence on the ‘front burner’ of our consciousness. If this many deaths came about from terrorism, we’d declare a national emergency! 

And as long as domestic violence is swept under the rug, we are all prevented from seeing it as a whole-of-society problem. It is; because and it embroils the women victims, their children and the male perpetrators – and nearly all perpetrators are men.

For the women victims, life becomes a nightmare from which all too many never escape. Even those who do escape to make a new life will find that recovery takes a very long time.

Children are also the victims. The home is humanity’s biggest training ground. How tragic if the lessons learned there are fear, insecurity and that violence is a normal response to any of life’s problems. It is not; it should never be. Children from violent families can suffer trauma that lasts a lifetime. And children from violent families are more likely to become the perpetrators of tomorrow. What a poisoned chalice.  

However I ask you to consider, too, that male perpetrators are also victims of a kind. They are men who are locked out of rich and good relationships with women. They are locked out of emotional growth, and they are destroying their own families.

Most of the men I saw on ‘Hitting Home’ appeared to be in denial, refusing to see that what they had done was wrong – as if the break-up of their homes was due to some mysterious whim of their battered partners. Enough of this nonsense: violence is wrong.

So what circuit breakers can we put in place?

Surely one is teaching respect within families. This is where dads can step up and show by example that violence is never right. And respect needs to be on two sides: girls need to respect their fathers and brothers just as much as boys need to respect women and girls.

Then there is recognition: how can a young woman recognise the danger signs from a man? This needs to take place very early, long before a relationship develops and settles into a downward spiral. Such knowledge should be part of public education, perhaps in schools or through selected social media.  

What to watch out for are signs of controlling behaviour. They can be hard to spot. A throw-away remark such as, ‘Why can’t you be like that?’; a sneering, ‘So you reckon you can do that?’, or ‘What would you know?’ may seem innocent enough. But these are designed to undermine the hearer. Taken over time, they can mount into a negative campaign that will sap the confidence of the intended victim and leave her vulnerable to further abuse.

So women, if you meet a man (however charming) who makes controlling remarks, move away very fast. These seemingly incidental signs are the tip of the iceberg, If there are one or two of them, know that there will be more to come; nothing will get better. Indeed things could become very much worse.

My novel ‘Finding Felicity’, due out in 2016, is about a family dealing with domestic violence.

Angkor Wat – an exuberance of creativity in stone

Yes, I’ve been there at last. I’ve joined the throngs of visitors from around the world coming to admire the impressive evidence in stone of Angkor Wat’s ‘golden period’ of temple building. Such expressions of artistic and architectural brilliance are rare in world history. And this is one of them. I’m sure you’ve seen the marvellous photos, just as I had, but I found that actually going there was really awe-inspiring.

The ‘golden period’ of temple building at Angkor – experts date the ‘Angkor period’ from about 802 to 1431 AD – saw a flowering of creative brilliance as, under royal direction, architects, artisans, builders and sculptors created abodes on earth, firstly for the Hindu gods, and later dedicated to Buddha, when the people embraced Mahayana Buddhism. 

Please take my advice and plan to spend some time there. Angkor is really a series of temple complexes over quite a large area of land. I felt sorry for the people who went on one-day visits. That’s really not enough time to take it all in.

I went with my Marisa, my daughter, and her husband, Kovit (see photo left, at the Bayon temple), and we stayed for three days and two nights. We found that about the right amount of time. The nights were spent at the Tara Angkor Hotel in Siem Reap, the modern small city close to the ancient sites. The city is clean, orderly and easy to get about, and you can take the local version of the samlor around town. We even saw a party of visitors going out to a temple in a convoy of samlors.

There are plenty of good hotels in Siem Reap, and more being built. The Tara Angkor had very comfortable, attractive rooms and everything you could want – and more – for breakfast. However, tired after walking and sightseeing on the second day, we paid an after-lunch visit to Raffles hotel to fortify ourselves with tea in their lovely Colonial-style establishment. They served us excellent tea and there were even cucumber sandwiches on their refreshments platter.

For sightseeing in Siem Reap, there’s the bright hurly-burly of Pub Street and the quieter elegance of the small French quarter. We found an excellent bookshop with both Angkor-period and modern history books. The food offerings for lunch and dinner were of uneven quality. But I do have one strong recommendation: dinner at Palate Restaurant & Bar at Lyn Naya (www.lynnaya.com). Every course of our dinner was delicious and meticulously prepared as, our waiter said, their chef has worked for 20 years in a five-star hotel. Very believable claim.

We were lucky to have a wonderful guide in Mr Keo (one of their registered guides) who was very thoughtful and kind, as well as knowledgeable. And having hired our own car was a real bonus, giving us the option of both getting about conveniently and avoiding ‘the rush’ of other visitors (most of the time). Do consider this ‘guide and car’ option. It really is a good investment.

Dr Beat ‘Beatocello’ Richner, a medical ‘saint’ for Cambodia

On Saturday nights in Siem Reap, Cambodia, there’s a cello concert of real note. It’s given by the remarkable Swiss doctor Beat Richner who, over the past 23 years, has performed medical ‘miracles’ to benefit the ordinary people of Cambodia. Over that time, 13 million outpatients have been treated at the Kantha Bopha hospitals he established and runs, and 1.56 million seriously ill children requiring hospitalisation have been cared for.

A considerable amount of the money required has come from government, NGO and other donations. Some has, and does, come from Dr Richner’s Beatocello performances on Saturday nights.

What an inspiring story. Dr Richner first came to Cambodia as a young medico sent by the Swiss Red Cross in 1974/75. That visit came to a swift halt when the Khmer Rouge took over. Dr Richner returned to work in Zurich Children’s Hospital, and he also developed his Beatocello performances as a poetic and musical entertainer.

In 1991, the Cambodian government invited Dr Richner to return to Cambodia to rebuild and manage Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital. In March 1992, he set up a foundation in Zurich to provide funding for this project and moved to Phnom Penh. The Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital opened in November 1992.

That was the first one. A second hospital opened in 1995, and today there are five hospitals, including one in Siem Reap, opened as an extension of the Jayavarman VII hospital. The needy of Cambodia – especially children suffering diseases or who have stepped on a landmine – have a wonderful champion and devoted carer in Dr Beat Richner. (It’s tragic to know that there are still unexploded landmines in the country, often in remote fields where children play!)

Much information about Dr Richner and his work is available online and donations can be made via his website www.beat-richner.ch  

I agree, Mr Turnbull

I agree, Mr Turnbull, respect is fundamental to getting rid of domestic violence in our society. Thank you for saying we need a change in culture. We do. The spate of murders of women and children in our society (in Australia) over the past week is truly shocking. To me, it indicates a society in crisis.

Respect is fundamental to any good relationship. That means within our families, in our schools and work places, in the community at large. Respect is not just about other people, either. Showing respect tells about who we are as people. It is a positive value that makes our own lives better.

I’m no angel and I’ve certainly made many mistakes and done plenty of things I shouldn’t have, but life does teach you things after a while. One of these is that good actions are much more likely to produce good results than bad actions.

We can see this in our families: treat people well and fairly and you’ll achieve good results. It happens on the international scene too. I’m amazed at how often national leaders think that bad actions will produce good results. Despite clear evidence to the contrary. The situation between Israel and the Palestinian states is a notable example of this. But that’s politics.

In our own families, I’m sure that showing respect, love and care is what gives us good families and allows our children to grow up as happy and well-balanced individuals.

Bad behaviour teaches people too, but mainly it teaches that bad behaviour is the way to go; and that can result in violence, crime and – as we see – death. Bad behaviour brings bad results.

So let’s reach for the best in ourselves; let’s be our best selves, our kind, loving, respectful selves. We’ll feel better about ourselves. And we will live in much happier families and in a less troubled society. Amen to that.

 

A Generous World

There has been an outpouring of generosity in our world and it’s wonderful to see. I applaud the courage of leaders such as Angela Merkel in Germany who have taken the steps to do what we all know in our hearts is good.

Around the world, human hearts have a balance of fear versus goodness; a worry that if ‘I’ give or do too much, ‘I’ will suffer for it, balanced against our compassion and fellow-feeling for others. That’s the paradox of the human heart.

Years ago, I lived in Thailand and a Thai friend said to me, ‘People are just people’. It’s true; we are brothers, sisters and cousins in the one human family, with the same needs, wishes and fears.

I’m sure all of us have felt moved in the past few of weeks by the plight of refugees fleeing to Europe by sea. Only the desperate would make these perilous journeys. They have put authorities and residents in Greece and Italy under severe stress because of their numbers; and we have all seen the determined would-be asylum seekers in Europe walking stoically along roads and railway tracks to reach their goal of acceptance and a new, safe life. Many I saw have called out, ‘I’m human! I’m a human being!’

We all are human beings and I believe we feel better for acknowledging that. My heart warmed when I heard German citizens clapping their hands, applauding the first refuge-seekers to walk into Germany after their long trek.

The way ahead for our world is clearly not going to be easy and I have no crystal ball about how matters will turn out. But I do truly believe that if you do your best, things will work out much better than if you do your worst.

Of course, as a Christian, I hold dear the teaching of Jesus: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Amen to that. 

The strawberry decision

Now, here’s my question: what is the yummiest way to serve fresh, delicious strawberries?

Is it strawberries with cream, or strawberries with vanilla ice-cream? With the Southern Hemisphere spring making our days beautiful, it’s time to enjoy a classic dessert. And what’s better than strawberries with cream or ice-cream? Unless, of course, you add a little rosewater or a splash of kirsch.

Strawberries and cream, I read on Wikipedia, were introduced to the court of English King Henry VIII by his advisor Thomas Wolsey. Henry VIII became king in 1509 and Wolsey soon gained an influential position in his court, and was the king’s Lord Chancellor from 1515 to 1529. It’s not certain which English summer it was when Wolsey’s chefs brought in the first bowls of strawberries and cream to tempt the royal palate. But for hundreds of years now, the English and their visitors have loved summer-time strawberries served with dairy-fresh, clotted cream.  

They might also have loved it with ice-cream – as we have it today. I’m sure Henry VIII, a man with a hearty taste for life, would have enjoyed it with his strawberries. But ice-cream was still developing. Chilled dessert treats were not new. The Chinese had chilled treats (of ice and rice) about 200 BC. People in the ancient Persian Empire poured concentrated grape juice over snow; and the Arabs had milk ices, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with rosewater, dried fruits and nuts. Not bad.

In Europe, the Roman Emperor Nero (54 to 68 AD) had ice brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings to create chilled delicacies. And records say that Catherine de’ Medici brought Italian chefs into France in 1533, when she came to marry the Duc d’Orlέ᷂ans (who became King Henry II). These Italian chefs are said to have had recipes for sorbets and ices.

Today, we are the lucky inheritors of this smart thinking and have a wonderful range of ice-creams. For my photograph, I’ve used strawberries with Gippsland Dairy pure double cream, on the left; and strawberries with Kohu Road ice cream vanilla flavour, made with Heilala vanilla, top and right. I can vouch that both variants were delicious, though I did have to go a bit easy on the double cream.

A short history of strawberries

I went back to Wikipedia to learn that the first strawberries our ancestors enjoyed were the woodland strawberries growing wild in the countryside. Such strawberries are mentioned in Roman literature for their medicinal purposes. The wild strawberry was seen in illuminated manuscripts and in Italian, Flemish and German art and in English miniatures. The woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, began to be cultivated in Europe in the early 1600s.

A great breakthrough came about when French explorer Amέ᷂dέe-Franꞔois Frέzier introduced a new strawberry variety, Fragaria chiloensis, from Chile into France in 1714. There it was crossed with the North American strawberry, Fragaria virginiana, sometime in the 1750s to produce the garden strawberry. The place was Brittany in France.  Our modern, cultivated strawberries, Fragaria x ananassa, grown around the world, come originally from this French cross-breeding.

Of course, the strawberry is not really a berry. Botanically, it is an aggregate accessory fruit. Each apparent ‘seed’ on the outside of the fruit is in fact one of the ovaries of the flower (which preceded the fruit), with a seed inside it.

Health benefits

Strawberries are rich sources of vitamin C, phyto-nutrients and minerals. They help fight infections and colds, are powerful anti-oxidants, contain folates, and are low in carbohydrates. So strawberries are good for you – although unfortunately, some people are allergic to them.

In Australia, we are lucky that strawberries are grown all year round to supply our fresh fruit needs; in our winter months, in Western Australia and Queensland, and at other times in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales.

The world’s biggest strawberry producer is the United States of America, followed by Turkey, Spain, Egypt and Mexico.  

Thank you, Dr Abuelaish

It’s humbling … I have just finished reading Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish’s book ‘I Shall Not Hate’ and I am dazzled by the spirit, courage and humanity of this distinguished Palestinian doctor shining through every page.

This book is a plea to our humanity - our common heritage as human beings - and the call we can all feel to be forces for good in our society. 

In Australia, as I write, we are facing ourselves in the mirror with the question ‘Are we a racist society?’ I certainly hope not. However, in all our societies there are people who see our shared humanity write large, and those who are disturbed by difference. There are even a few who fall into hatred. However, I believe that the great majority of human beings can learn to see beyond difference and grow in friendship and understanding.  

This is the prime call behind, ‘I Shall Not Hate’. It is a call to establish peace between Palestinians and Israelis through understanding, mutual respect and building goodwill instead of bad. In Dr Abuelaish’s case he sees medicine as having a prime role in this.

The book reveals in a very personal way the experience of deprivation, poverty and lack of opportunity. The doctor tells us how and with what determination – and help from his mother and certain teachers – he survived his childhood and rose to become a medical doctor and a specialist.

As a doctor, he worked in an Israeli hospital and made firm friends of Israeli colleagues. He worked hard to bring about understanding and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He calls the Israeli people brothers and sisters and notes how similar they are to Palestinians.

That is a remarkable achievement in the face of the provocations he faced: the destruction of his childhood home to make room for Israeli tanks to pass down the street; the continual humiliation and aggravation at border crossings; the rockets and the shelling; and, finally, the death of three of his innocent children and a niece. A lot of lesser people would have descended to hatred.

But hatred is an ignoble human emotion and we, all of us, are capable of rising above it. If we are to have good societies, we must do so. Being our best selves, as individuals, is crucial to building good societies. It is the pathway to peace – in families and communities, within countries, and globally. Hatred only breeds more hatred; and that is a lesson I hope we can all learn.

I was lent this copy of ‘I Shall Not Hate’ by my local minister – I’m a Christian and an Anglican, living in Sydney – which tells us that goodwill and sincere faith are able to rise above faith divisions.

Our world needs goodwill and people with the courage to give of their very best.

‘I Shall Not Hate’ by Izzeldin Abuelaish is published by Bloomsbury.