Tongues of Hope

Editorial One

In her article titled ‘In times like these what would Oodgeroo do?’, Waanyi writer Alexis Wright briefly mentions a ‘self-governing literature’. As she states:

         I have often talked about a self-governing literature that is suited to this place, a belief in creating on our own terms, and recognising that all times in our culture are important and not resolved. This thinking comes from working with phenomenal law leaders in Central Australia and elsewhere, and their insistence on self-government, and of having always governed themselves.

Wright’s phrase ‘self-governing literature’ has prompted me to think about the autonomy of my practice and what that means for Portside Review. My engagement with Law leaders on this ngurra comes mainly from Birrida practices, which my gumbarli follows, inclusive of East and West Pilbara Elders, especially Ngarluma people. I have also visited Waanyi country when Wright herself was present, and went fishing with Murandoo Yanner, talking about the stars and politics, and have sat with Martu people in the Western Desert as well. But, if I know anything at all, it is that I know little compared to people versed in Law/s, and for readers of this journal, it is as a Malayali that I write to you now.

Our own self-governing literature in my ancestral home, which is a coastal strip of land in present day Kerala in south India, looks like a whole world literature - our own language with our own script and our own history of inscription (on palm leaves going back a bit); our own novels, poetry, and scholarship; our own great figures and minor ones; our own critics, editors, readers, translators; our own newspapers, publishing houses, printing presses; our own forms and themes; our own diaspora of which I am a part. Everything you imagine about a complete ecosystem, people, and world exists in literature in Malayalam. You can listen to more on it here with Anitha Thampi and Chandra Mohan S. at the 2020 Hyderabad Literary Festival. Needless to say, our mother tongue literature has a continuing sense of its rooted location even as it opens out to visitors that make it to those shores.

This edition of Portside Review speaks to that twin sense of autonomy and connection, and thinks about the question: what does a self-governing literature look like beyond a people, beyond us on Malayali country, Noongar country, Waanyi, Yawuru, Ngarluma country? The answers to that are open and made in collaboration. Portside Review is an attempt to create multiple senses of self-governance between and across peoples who nevertheless remain distinct as their own people reconciling themselves to each other and their own decolonised futures. Like you, we want freedom but our freedom looks different to yours. After all, self-governance is based on one’s independence as a way to relate across languages with our own stories, resolutions and continuities. It is about the ancestral resemblances and bonds of affection that transcend our identities, and how we understand and recognise our uniqueness beyond what the present nation can even imagine. And so, the utopian desire is that we can share a certain lifestyle as individuals who are comfortable in our selves, who have self-possession, self-confidence, self-respect, all of which form the basis from which to help out the Others who are our brothers, sisters, non-binary siblings across the waters that all too often keep us apart.

It means that Portside Review knows our love of the Indian Ocean can be found in many places that are not ours alone. It is to be found in the trade in spices and the swimming patterns of whales. In our neighbour’s homes and streets and boats. In the coral that continues to bloom no matter the bleaching. In our heartbeat when we dive and fish and walk on sand and reef. It is found in the desire for healing and justice for our peoples, for each other, for our worlds. It is found in the power of our selves and our literatures beyond these shores alone. It is found riding the waves of history into the contemporary no matter how high they crest and fall. It is translating our ancestors’ traditions into our own reality in the here and now. And it is arriving on that strip of land where myth, story, song, rock, moss have always been since it first rose up from the sea just as it did for others we call friends and family.

This issue of Portside Review is about that very thing. It is about what happens when we are self-governed and start mixing, not into the new, as if we could embrace an easy cosmopolitanism, or a paradoxical isolationism, or even a late-stage modernism; but a mixing into our very souls, our deepest selves. It is a truthful project that is seen, celebrated, enjoyed, shared, embraced as we invite you to come on a journey with us, even from afar, even when the doors seem barred. It is about what happens when we travel inwards and transcend the false boundaries that make our cages all too real in the darkest hours. It is a hope then, that in literature and culture and politics we find each other, talking in our own tongues, or simply sitting in silence allowing thoughts to lap over and over again, to be lost like grains of sand amidst waves. Or, that we share a table and a seat on the ground to eat fish or rice or pelicans instead of writing alone. It is to wade in and wait for the tides and times to take us on, where we always were; to take us somewhere else, to this place we call the ocean in our tongues of home, where hope rises from our lungs and grows. Breathe deep and swallow this water whole. Thank you for letting us go on so that we can hold hands with the world.

— —

In this issue of Portside Review, we make a feature of student activist voices from Myanmar. This selection of oral sources is collected together to form Diary of A Revolution, and is a first-person co-operative account of the unfolding historical moment with a focus on the two weeks immediately after the military coup on February 1st. It resonates with literature at the level of story and is important for thinking about the solidarity as we archive and platform the news of the day in the Indian Ocean itself. It also continues to matter, and we extend a hand of friendship to those people and assert their right to freedom in their democratic struggle. We also have essays on food and culture, stories of fantastical realities, poems about place, and conversations about what it means to belong in words and deeds, to be self-governed and to mix.

To begin, there is Weihsin Gui’s astute intervention in the very concept of the Indian Ocean, providing readers with a historical, materialist, and scholarly understanding of our complexities. Vinita Ramani reflects on myths and volcanoes, taking us into Indonesia and its braided reality, from past to present, rock to monkey. Cher Tan writes in an archipelagic sense about language with islands in Singapore, Australia and the Queen’s tongue itself. Devana Semayake locates herself in a television adaptation to reflect on the weaving together of relationships and identity. Annaliza Bakri reflects on colonisation, history, and land while she rides the train in a crowded Singapore, thinking of what it is to resist and go on. Kaya Ortiz travels routes of assimilation, home, resistance, popular culture, and the body as she reflects on spaces between, of, and from the Philippines. Kurnai memoirist Veronica Heritage-Gorrie gives us a powerful true account of institutionalism, weaving together thoughts on public health and Aboriginality at a time of ongoing crisis. And we have Jyotsna Singh’s timely reportage from the pressing farmer protests that have global consequences from their location at the centre of India, in the heartbeat of land away from the coast, which nevertheless flows downstream to the rice we eat and the people who help make this planet home.

There is plenty of writing on food too, with Karen Lee responding sensitively to the recent magisterial volume of East African cuisine called In Bibi’s Kitchen, listening to the stories of grandmothers we all want to know better. Maya-Rose Chauhan considers love and peanuts, thinking about what it is to be connected to family through East African roots and routes. Sandip Roy weaves the personal with the political to comment on history, internment, and taste concerning Chinese food in Kolkata. Frances An gives us an essay about leaving and returning, about heartbreak and hope, as she has a Vietnamese lunch in a city new to her. All of them understand the cultural, literary and political importance of the food we grow, share and consume.

For our stories, Maori trans man Alexander Te Pohe has written about liberation, where souls merge with a cosmic ocean, thinking of how to break free from cages that are often inside of us. J. Devika has translated feminist legend Manasi’s work from the original Malayalam with a story about breaking, resistance, and gentleness. Luisa Mitchell writes from Yawuru country, thinking about how we emerge and connect with each other, thinking too of characters that long to escape heat, suffering, and their youth. Yogesh Maitreya restores a sense of pride to Dalits by drawing on his own self-power to propel a historical depiction of life at the edge, which is subject to threats and violence but escapes to water nearby. There is a piece by Shahidul Zahir translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy that places us in Bangladesh with a rising tide that floats all boats, on the way to reflections on family, commodities and labour. These stories are remarkable for their narrative insight as they lay claim to territories of the heart and body while moving us to de-centre the human in this region as well.

For our poems, there are some set in Malacca (John Mateer), Reunion (Esther Xueming), Singapore (Boey Kim Cheng), Boorloo (Josephine Clarke, Nadia Rhook and Jerome Masamaka), and the ocean when viewed from Gunai country (Kirli Saunders). Perhaps most topical of all is Ko Ko Thett’s contribution, which speaks to the present political emergency in Myanmar with a sense of fidelity, rhythm, and importance. There are cross-cultural engagements in our feature with Renee Pettitt-Schipp knitting together Kinjarling and Cocos Keeling Islands to understand the pain and suffering of others while being enfolded into the coast itself. And, after many years of collaboration, Vivienne Glance and Afeif Ismail share a poem that crosses into Sudan, thinking about how we can work together for peace and harmony while standing up to dictators. Our poems in this edition attest to the strength of image, the clarity of vision, and the force of grace, all of which matter to the art writ large.

Finally, there is a conversation with Kerala’s living treasure, Satchidanandan, on the solidarity of language practices across borders and causes. And, we hear from Noongar statesman, Alf Taylor, drawing readers into a world of humour, pathos, and great insight, sharing too in an intimacy born from longevity itself. Last is Wanjeri Gakuru, the Managing Editor from Pan African writer’s collective, Jalada, in conversation with Marziya Mohammedali who both enliven the debates around nostalgia, lockdown, creativity, collaboration, and exchange. 

When taken together, all of these pieces reflect on our place in the world and the waves of thought that lap into a reality that is often overlooked. The aim is, of course, to enlighten and entertain readers, to connect people who are forgotten neighbours, to realise we have always been here, making art from language, and making ourselves understood to each other, that we have long been self-governed and connected to others. We hope you enjoy Issue One of Portside Review.

Thanks for reading and pass it on.