How do sense of belonging and possesing affects our lives..

How do you feel when you do not have a place to belong? How do you feel if you crave for something that you do not have? The novel, The Divine Wind by Garry Disher has encouraged me to consider the importance of possessing something as your own in today’s society and having the feeling of belonging in today’s society. Although, the book talks about generally the effects of war, I think this book tells us that the war itself originated from people’s idea of belonging. The characterisation, plot or events, and the setting described in the novel have helped me to consider these ideas.

Have you ever stopped and thought about why people [countries] declare war with each other? The book’s plot is generally about the World War II and its effects on people caught in the middle. However, can you consider the real cause for this war? In today’s time, the basic reason for war is that the country wants something from the other country and ‘they’ will even go to extremes to acquire it. Therefore, we can say that war starts from greed and the craving of people for the things they want to belong to them. Greed and contentment are hard to separate once a person starts acquiring things that sometimes leads to discontentment, jealousy and war. “I looked at Jamie Killian, so healthy and vital in his uniform…And so I began to drift in life,” stated Hartley Penrose. Hartley’s feelings of insufficiency because he was handicapped had made him feel discontentment and jealousy. Because of this jealousy, he did not trust Mitsy’s love for him and remained blinded for such a long time although, Mitsy had once really loved him.

Greed and the desire to possess still exist in the society today. In 1991, the first President Bush issued a ringing statement calling on Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands", rise up against Saddam Hussein and the American Government will support them. Can you consider that every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, all signifies a stealing from those who hunger and not being fed, those who are cold and are not clothed? Hunger, death and divisions have come from a person’s idea of pursuing what he thinks the right thing to do for his country although in doing so might affect thousands of people. and greed. After all these kind of sufferings, it leads me to think that one’s idea of possessing and belonging are important in moulding a peaceful society.

The character of Ida Penrose in the novel provides a perspective of one of the ways on how an individual adapts to his/her community. The sense of belonging is an essential part of being a person. If you feel you belong to your community, socialising and mingling is easier for you. However, for example, what if you are the Ida in the real world. What if you do not like what you see in your community? You try changing it to a place where you will fit and into a place where it suit your preferences. What happens when you feel like you’re failing in changing it? You give up and run away, then conclude that the place does not want you to belong to it. “We were too careless, too democratic for her taste. Our lives revolve around the seasons and the sea…”, Hartley Penrose stated about Ida. That is how the character of Ida has been created in the book, but some people also do that in reality. People try to change anything to suit them and possess it as their own. They blame anything when they fail to do so. People who are fully involved and participating with their community, which means socialising and having a sense of belonging, don’t change anything. They simply accept it as it is and adapt with it. Belonging and adapting to a place is very important in today’s time because the only way to a nation to stand up is to have its citizens stand as one.

In one of the chapters of the novel entitled, ‘Dim the Moon’, Hartley described how the Japanese, Malay, Filipinos and many “non-white” citizens living in Australia back then had to be interned and arrested because of suspicions. “Hey, Penrose, I hear you’re running a brothel. Got a pair of Japanese whores.” This was how Mitsy and her mom had been treated when the war had started. People felt that because of their race and physical features they could be classified as “whores”. This is a classic example of racial discrimination and the community’s part in a person’s feelings of belonging. When people feel that they do not belong to a place and they are being ‘discriminated’ against, the feeling of being estranged exists. They feel that they lack something and they start to crave for that thing or they try to be accepted. This kind of feeling can serve as an inspiration to some people but sometimes it could also lead to antisocial disorders like sociopathy. Even though there are laws now that will ensure equal rights, there are always people who discriminate against foreigners and immigrants. Recently, I and a group of Asian students encountered a teenage group of ‘emos’ in the street and they scowled at us saying, “All you bloody Asians, go back to your own country.” Now, how would you feel if (you are on our own shoes) that happened to you?

Possessing things and belonging to a place are very essential for building one’s individuality and also, for building a society that is beneficial to everybody especially in today’s time. With the help of the novel’s characters, events described, and the whole plot, I was inspired to consider and to react about some of the real issues that should be important today.