{"id":560,"date":"2009-09-22T15:47:48","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T15:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/?p=560"},"modified":"2024-01-02T10:50:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-02T10:50:51","slug":"margaret-joan-holmes-a-m-1909-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/margaret-joan-holmes-a-m-1909-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Margaret Joan Holmes, A.M., 1909-2009"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Margaret<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

so much has happened in the last 3 weeks – the 090909 UpStage festival<\/a>, the eclectic tech carnival<\/a>, exploring istanbul & visiting friends in belgrade (where the pride parade<\/a> was stopped), & now in munich at a workshop … but i can’t write about any of this until i write about granny, who died in the middle of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

my grandmother, margaret holmes<\/a>, lived an incredibly rich life for 100 years: she was born into white australian privilege, had an excellent education, travelled the world & was happily married for more than 50 years, raising 6 children. she had many friends & never wanted for anything. she could have been content with all of this & enjoyed a leisurely, comfortable life – but from an early age she was keenly aware of the injustices of the world & chose to use her time & resources to work towards making the world a better place.

at first she was actively involved with the student christian movement and in particular christian pacifism; later she established the NSW branch<\/a> of the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom<\/a>, becoming a leader in peace and human rights issues, for which she was made a member of the order of australia in 2001. the 1960s was when she really came into her own as an activist – organising protests against the vietnam war, against nuclear weapons, for aboriginal land rights and for women’s rights. she intensely lobbied politicians and other notable figures, earning herself an ASIO<\/a> file several inches thick, & at times the family’s phone was tapped.

letter-writing was one of granny’s most powerful tools, & i have strong childhood memories of her exclaiming loudly & indignantly about something she’d just read in the paper then immediately leaping up & grabbing paper & pen to dash off an articulate letter to the appropriate person. if you know me, you’ll know that immediate action is something i’ve inherited from my grandmother – don’t just talk about it, do it, & do it now. another strong childhood memory is the rear view of granny’s mini – a brightly coloured patchwork of stickers demanding the closure of pine gap<\/a>, promoting WILPF, suggesting the airforce should hold a cake stall to raise money for new planes and so on. granny fought seriously on all these issues but always kept her sense of humour; she loved a good slogan or a theatrical demonstration <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

i was in istanbul when i heard from my aunt that granny had had a fall & was in hospital with a broken hip. it seemed like this was “it” – she was given a hip replacement but didn’t have the will to carry on, & why should she, at 100 years old? so i was prepared for her death, & i know that granny also was. i don’t think she had many (if any) regrets about her life, apart from not achieving world peace ; ) but she contributed so much, & got to see a lot too. in february 2008, while i was the granny-sitter for a week or so, she asked me to wake her up uncharacteristically early (8.30am) in time to see the live broadcast of kevin rudd publicly apologising to the indigenous people<\/a> for the injustices they have suffered as a result of the colonisation of australia. this was a small but hugely significant step in the slow road to reconcilliation, & granny was delighted to have lived long enough to see this historic event finally happen.

she also lived long enough to read my thesis<\/a>, which she understood quite a lot better than my mother; i’m honoured that she read it, & that even at the age of 99 & with almost no real experience of the internet, she could imagine cyberformance. but that’s the kind of woman granny was – she could imagine anything, even a world without war & without injustice & suffering. if you can imagine it, then anything is possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

so much has happened in the last 3 weeks – the 090909 UpStage festival, the eclectic tech carnival, exploring istanbul & visiting friends in belgradeRead More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feminism","category-life","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1355,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/1355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}