Between continents: the book
This body of work represents the last four years of my writing. Like Seen and unseen: a century of stories from Asia and the Pacific, in places it delves into the past. So, it is not confined to the last four years.
Living in Singapore presents an opportunity for reflection from a unique vantage point, a globalised space on the margin of the Asian continent. It also provides an excellent view of the south, Nusantara, Melanesia and my own continent. Being here has also given new perspectives on New Zealand, particularly its connections with the Malayo-Polynesian languages of this region.
This is a growing body of work. It’s not all that I’ve written but what I feel are some of the more important observations I’ve been able to make.
These observations come from the perspective of a foreigner living in Singapore, someone who has now spent 23 years resident in the region and is looking for a new synthesis. I do not write as an ‘expat’, from the point of view of one still carrying the ‘Whiteman’s Burden’. I reject terms that are still imbued with the taint of colonialism.
As an Australian, I must look outwards. Not everyone adopts this view. There has long been a tendency in my country to avoid embracing the other, to fear the other, to seek the protection of rich and powerful friends. Often this comes at a high price with a manifest loss of autonomy. Accompanying such an attitude is a tendency to look inwards and not to learn, to be naively comforted by the notion that our land abounds in nature’s gifts. This is well illustrated in a rejection of climate change and global warming by significant elements within. Unfortunately for those of this orientation regional and planetary systems are unfettered by such introspective cultural constructions.
The first of these stories is Memories of fires past. It comes with a link to the audio version.