Thank you for writing and your perspective on what I still deem to be a very difficult/ interesting/devastating/revealing aspect of what happened at the forum.
Yes – and I do agree there is more that can be said always – and in the case of history it is an ever evolving and somewhat amorphous thing: the we grow further away from it with everyday and it is important to not romanticize nor invent in the memory aspects that aren’t fact.
And we are to understand fact with our growing perspectives that change: facts don’t change, but perspectives do, opinions do.
The fact is that we have a history which we feel great shame about because the facts of that history have revealed that there was an invasion of a populated country declared “terra nullius” – that fact is a solid artefact. Our conversation is fluid.
For me – in regards to the moment of the walkout or shut down or however we term that event – it is not the detail of what happened but how we dealt with it that matters the most – what are the actions and recovery points and conversations we need to have now.
When a crisis happens the most important (and for me the most interesting) thing is not the event, but it is how we learn, grow and recover from that event.
People make mistakes.
People say and do stuff they later wish they hadn’t.
People lose their temper or their nerve or their voice or their patience.
We are all, of course people –
But its what happens next that matters.

Later my blog-sister Jane Howard asked me why I walked out.
And I answered “well for many reasons, but I guess it boils down to who I am as a person: if I see someone in distress, I check to see if they are alright.” And that’s what I did. I checked on the members of our community that were upset – because I care about them.

I also later at the pub checked in on Leon to see if he was alright – after all I’ve known him for a long time (in the early 00s he slept on my couch and we played guitar together and last year he embarrassed me in a show he made by projecting a huge youtube portrait of me citing me as “evil.”) I checked in on him because he’s a part of my community.

An yes, a conversation was shut down – but it is up to us to open it up. And every time this intensity of idea/conversation or thought rises, we have to make a decision and a commitment to talking to each other.

And its not simple.

Its hard work.

But this is what a long-term relationship is.

And we’re having a long-running artistic conversation whilst being in a long-term relationship with each other. And the sooner we realise that sense of longevity about the impact of our words and actions the closer we’ll be to having real conversation.

(In my humble opinion)