Hope is the active conviction that despair will not have the final word” – anonymous inspirational woman to Democratic senator on CNN

My friend rang me after the election and asked me – what happened? I accessed my leftwing genome and blathered for a while about Clive Palmer, big business and poisonous politicking.

“Yeah, but, I guess, I just don’t understand, Amethyst, I don’t get it, don’t people care?”

All the life went out of me and I soughed: “You’re absolutely right Naomi – I don’t get it either.”

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I have only just now dragged myself from the depths of my doona dive, which began on 19 May, assailed by a black mood that isolated me from others lest I infect them with my gloom.

I still don’t get it.

I can’t believe that the majority of Australians don’t care that not all their compatriots get to eat every day. That they are blithe to the horror of a $20 increase in rent that renders an elderly woman homeless. That they are insensitive to the statistics which report that more than 2,000 people have “coincidently” committed suicide after the receipt of a Centrelink robodebt letter. That there are people in Australia so entrenched in poverty that death seems the only viable option.

I’ve been thinking about left v right, about capitalism and its poisonous infection of the souls and minds of people.

In a world where every value is economic, human value is diminished. We become economic units of trade, no more, no less. The environment becomes something to be plundered and endangered animals are “more fun to hunt”.

There is so much pain, so much sadness.

When the testerical toddler Trump was elected, the shock rocked the world. We could explain away the nightmare by asserting that Americans were easily led, and/or the amount of lead in their environment had addled their brains, much like it apparently did with the Romans before their demise.

I believed that we were somehow different, that we cared about each other – I hoped for more.

Australia is headed down a dark path – further along than I would have ever believed we could go. I don’t recognise my country any more. During the darkness, we will lose many. Not all will survive the following years. More “unexplained” suicides will occur as the result of robodebts. Women will continue to lose their lives at the hands of their partners because they can’t afford to leave a violent home. Unmarried 27-year-olds working in job centres will continue to “breach” mothers with three children, thereby cutting them off from benefits and forcing them into homelessness. Manus Island and the souls left to rot on it continue to be “someone else’s problem”.

I wish I could stop it but all I have are words. Never have I felt so inept.

There is an unmistakeable war on the poor and it’s getting worse.

I walked my new buddy Digger past a primary school the other day. Digger loves children and immediately strained to greet them through the fence. A flurry of tiny hands reached through the wire to pat him. One little Indian girl stood apart, looking on in glee. I smiled and said “you can pat him if you want to”. She nervously touched his back and then a grin of delight transformed her face as she felt his fur. Quite literally jumping up and down with joy, she said: “That’s the first time I’ve ever patted a dog in my life! ALL My life I wanted to pat a dog!”

Her excitement was infectious and I was lifted. Hope opened in my heart. Although the world is dark and frightening, there is still happiness in the unknown moments. We must honour those moments, cherish them and keep them safe. We must share them with others so they too will feel the same joy.

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So I speak to the fearful, to those who didn’t get to eat last night and may not get to eat today. To those frantic with anxiety whenever a Centrelink letter appears in the letter box. To the mothers sleeping in cars trying to keep their children safe.

I love you. I worry for you. You are not alone.

I wish my words could become physical so they could reach you and give you the hug you so desperately deserve. I wish they could give you a free one-way ticket to New Zealand where the politics of kindness gives hope to all.

I wish they could make you safe. I wish for you, in the maelstrom of neoliberalism, every day a moment of joy enough to keep you breathing.

And remember ...

Illegitimati non carborundum.