A friend was talking to me recently about, what was for her, the trauma of childbirth. Her aversion to the experience was made up of a few factors but what stood out to me was her difficulty with the fact that, despite the drugs and hospital gowns, there was no escaping the primal ‘animal’ struggle of the event. I suspect this was traumatic because the struggle to produce life became a reminder of the potential fallibility of the human body.
The brutal reality (or beautiful reality) of our human vulnerability is glossed over daily in the western world through mediation such as television to endorse a culture fixated with signs of cleanliness, healthiness, and strength. An example of this would be the proliferation of kitchen cleaning product advertisements which zoom in to a microscopic level to find cartoons of ‘germs’ that disappear with a poof when sprayed with [insert favourite brand here]. The fact that humans excrete waste isn’t even thought about when watching a roly-poly dog play with toilet paper, nor does the primitiveness of sex take precedence over the polished image of it created by popular culture. Through the media, western culture has pushed death, like birth, into the realm of hospital gowns and drugs; our own mortality is alienated, even denied.
In Race You There Tze Ming Mok describes Chi Phung’s controversial belief that all newcomers to New Zealand could have the right to live here though “entry by treaty” (23). Phung boycotted the march held following the racial attack against her when organisers weren’t willing to engage with this issue. They were not willing because Phung had touched upon what Mok describes as the “trigger point” (23)-
She believed that the root of white aggression against non-white immigrants and foreign students was premised on white Pakeha denial that they themselves are an immigrant people. (23)
This passage was useful for highlighting the fact that racism is “not as black and white as it may seem”(23), but what it made me think about was something broader than racism, which was sparked by the word ‘denial’. Denial – of death, of the possibility of ones own demise, of ones position of strength being potentially transient – is a problematic mindset for a society. It creates an unspoken gap between where we think we are and where we actually are now.
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They were not willing because Phung had touched upon what Mok describes as the “trigger point” (23)-
She believed that the root of white aggression against non-white immigrants and foreign students was premised on white Pakeha denial that they themselves are an immigrant people. (23)
Good point about the denial of us being immigrants ourselves. Its awkward accepting the idea of being a "New Zealander". I read an interesting article on this some time ago. It was Stephen Turner's "Once Were English" which made me think about what it means to be a New Zealander and what New Zealand is as a colonised country..
"New Zealanders cannot enjoy a good story of settlement. For them settlement is a fantasy of narrative. Outwardly they live as if they have good reasons for being there. Inwardly they grieve for their own lack of conviction. Their sense of self and place is uncertain because they do not believe their own best narratives. After all, what is a nation but a good story of place?”
Turner, Stephen. “Once Were English.”
Something to think about anyway.
There seem to be examples of this denial that you talk about everywhere. Little gaps in the way we see the world that just seem to be ignored or swept under the rug. This denial is like a sort of misnomer.
I find it hard to eat prawns. I love the way they taste, but i find it difficult because of their little submissive shape. I feel so big in comparison to them, like this great oppressor.
I'm sure everybody knows one of those people who are totally okay with eating meat as long as it isn't shaped like the animal it used to be.
I only have problems with prawns.
It's something that I'm working on
Sebald's oblique writing style was crafted as a way to talk about forgetting, loss and absence- qualities which he felt Germany (his homeland) has been founded on post-Holocaust. He somehow creates a beautiful, deeply melancholic way to talk about this horrific denial, without becoming merely sentimental (which to him, is a denial in itself, a kind of glossing over of trauma). I know your reading Sebald at the moment, so I really enjoyed this relationship your writing forms with his.
The story of your friend’s birth is quite fascinating. The sterilisation and denial of human reality is something that has interested me for a long time. There are only a few aspects of our modern western lifestyles that are still concatenated to our original nature as human beings. I have often thought it strange how brutal and primal a sexual experience can be, and then afterwards we get dressed fall back into our domesticated lifestyle. The fact the media is so powerful that can sometimes make us feel that these things (like your friend child birth) are un-natural is frightening.
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