archive : s0metim3s

That - “Under the beach, the barbed wire” - was the title I momentarily thought of using for a piece on the Cronulla pogrom. Obviously, it seemed a good way to talk about the figuration of beaches as a pre-political or apolitical space and, more obliquely, a critical reference to the May68 renderings of the spectacular as inauthentic, against which one might strive, in existential fashion perhaps, for a ‘more real’ or ‘less mediated’ life. Also, barbed wire is a direct reference to internment camps and fences, without which Australia would not be what it is today.

And, in thinking this through, I’m starting to think that the analysis which doesn’t go beyond the beach risks reinstating that very depoliticisation as a problem of ‘beach culture’ and not, say, the state, or the constitution of the ‘public sphere’ in which racism is the main currency and idiom, the production of commonplaces and community, or the economics of property and proprietorship, among other things.

Indeed, it’s because the object of ‘beach culture’ invites the plays of identification and difference at such a pre-political level that it bothers me. To be sure, it is crucial to insist that white women are routinely the targets of harassment by white guys on beaches, against any suggestion that the Cronulla riots were defending those women against ‘Muslim’ guys. And, undoubtedly, it’s worth taking a moment to wonder about how comfortable beaches actually are for a whole lot of people. But, those rampaging against the otherly-complexioned were hardly the picture of the body-beautiful in all cases, and there were enough white women who engaged in the bashings and the rest of it to suggest the play of gender and racism is more complicated than suggesting that women (or even white women) might have something in common.

But, what really convinced me that confining one’s analysis to ‘beach culture’ was insufficient is that I realised, for all my conscious, critical thoughts about ‘authenticity’ and beaches, for all my previous plays on barbed wire, I too was channeling my own, really very literal, scars in a way. About a year ago, while holidaying on a beach which was whiter, wealthier and older than I’m used to, I stepped through the dunes and onto a rusty piece of pointed wire, which went over an inch up and into my foot. Deep wound, blood and sand are not a good mix. But this particular injury was not quite as remarkable as were the responses of the few others on the beach to my being in some distress. Which was that they offered no help or queries or shifted away, almost imperceptibly, as I hobbled in tears some ways back to our tent.

So, I guess my point - the sharp point, if you will - is that this moment which invites identification and/or difference cannot, simply, do just this in order to make sense. ‘Beach culture’ as the only or limited object of analysis inclines toward just as depoliticising assertions that there should be community on the beach, that the beach should be a place beyond or before politics, before difference.

One version of this is apparent in the claims that it was neo-nazi “infiltration” of Cronulla that was the problem. Other versions are the attempts to refound community (or draw lines of identification) as if some kind of identification is the only vector of solidarity, as if community and identity might be accomplished without obliterating or suppressing the differences that would make such community inoperable. Sure, I was reminded in that moment of pain that I didn’t belong on that beach - but if belonging and identification are the conditions of solidarity, then heaven help us all. The nexus of apostrophisation, appropriation and property ownership has to be undone, not remade anew - as in, more inclusive, better assimilation, smoother integration.

I might stay with that title. I might not. But I’m pretty sure that identity, community and some pre-political (antipolitical) notion of the beach - or the wish to make it so - are not the places I would take up residency in.