[xmca] Bush fires

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Just a short report on the bush fires in Victoria for people 
on xmca. Here in inner Melbourne we are 100% safe, and 
because of the strong winds which triggered the real 
devastation, we don't even see smoke here. But things are 
very emotional because the news is all around us. So far the 
death toll is 173 but may go much much higher. The whole 
state is a smouldering cinder box outside of the city.
Most of the dead died in their cars vainly trying to outrun 
the flames which have been driven by strong winds, and 
leaping forward by cinders igniting tinder dry foliage and 
spontaneous combustion after 12 years of drought. Many 
people have left their homes, their animals and sometimes 
their spouses, with hardly a shirt on their back, later 
having nothing to return to.
Despite all the grief, it is remarkable the spirit that is 
awakened in people by a struggle against a natural enemy 
like this. Capitalism is temporarily suspended as people 
whose neighbours have lost everything give everything away - 
supermarkets give away their stock, hotels accommodate 
people for free, people give away their cars if they can 
spare it and of course most of the firefighters are volunteers.
Once people start to get back on their feet and start to see 
if the insurance companies actually have the money to pay 
for these losses, I am sure capitalism will return with a 
vengeance.
The commercial media try as hard as they can to turn it all 
into a witchunt against fire bugs. Really, about 50% of 
fires have been ignited deliberately. But people are just 
not interested at the moment. Blame is not something people 
are willing to contemplate ... yet.
The fire culture in Victoria is "Fight or Flight." I.e., 
every person has to notify well in advance whether they are 
to be evacuated as soon as there is a fire threatening their 
home, or, they will stay and defend their house, in which 
case they get advice but when the fire comes, the 
firefighters flee the flames and wish the resident good luck.
But this fire has been different. It is just so big, so 
unpredictable and so fast, that people have been caught 
unawares and unable to flee, or have stayed to fight and 
found that it is impossible to save their house, but too 
late to flee.
Unlike the midwest USA where people live with tornadoes and 
have built underground bunkers, we have not had this 
culture. Some people did dig bunkers and some of these 
survived, but some didn't too.
These practices will have to change.

Strange tensions too around the fact that police are sealing 
off areas where people have died to count bodies and secure 
things etc., but people are left homeless and stranded in 
the meantime and this is generating tensions.
Also, as in previous fires, you see whole streets of houses 
(indeed entire townships) leveled, and then one lone house, 
with perfect white-painted weatherboard, an English garden, 
etc., etc., as if nothing had happened. Very trying on the 
emotions such things.
Andy

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
Skype andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm

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