Untethered...with Clementine Ford
Untethered...with Clementine Ford
SAMANTHA RATNAM - What Does It Mean To Be Politically Untethered?
This week, I’m joined by Samantha Ratnam, who resigned from her position as leader of the Victorian Greens to take on the increasingly precarious Labor seat of Wills in the forthcoming federal election. Samantha opens up about her journey as a woman of South Asian descent navigating the often rigid expectations of the political landscape. From her upbringing in Sri Lanka and England to her bold vision for substantive change, Samantha's story underscores the courage it takes to stay true to one's values amidst the pressures of incrementalism. As she campaigns for the federal seat of Wills, Samantha provides a deeply personal look into her motivations and the transformative power of bold leadership.
Our conversation also shifts to the evolving dynamics within Australian politics, particularly focusing on the complex relationship between the Australian Greens and the Labor Party. Highlighting the resignation of Fatima Payman over the Labor Party’s stance on Gaza, we discuss the critical need for genuine representation and the courage to voice diverse perspectives. Samantha and I touch on the significant yet often overlooked impact of younger generations, especially teenage girls, whose insights are crucial in shaping a more inclusive political future. This chapter shines a light on the importance of empowering these voices to foster a political environment that embraces true diversity.
Growing up as an identical twin and an immigrant in Australia adds another layer to Samantha’s unique perspective. We dive into the challenges of identity and belonging, from navigating the awkward teenage years to the influence of global events like the Sri Lankan civil war. Samantha shares poignant reflections on the twin experience, from the complexities of comparison to the broader themes of self-worth and individuality. This episode is a rich exploration of how personal identity intertwines with community activism, culminating in a powerful narrative about the interconnectedness of our paths and the collective wisdom necessary for meaningful change.
Follow Samantha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samantharatnam/
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Free Palestine.
Untethered is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this country and their elders, past and present. Remember wherever you are, know whose land you're on. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Untethered with me, your host, clementine Ford. Untethered is a weekly podcast exploring courage, choices and the catalyzing moments in a person's life that lead them to define themselves on their own terms. Whether you're desperate for some sage advice or looking to be inspired, untethered will nurture the hopes, dreams and goals you have for yourself and give you the toolbox to do so with confidence, while listening to some fucking amazing people.
Speaker 1:What does it mean to be politically untethered? Well, this week I'm joined by Samantha Ratnam, who resigned from her position as leader of the Victorian Greens to take on the increasingly precarious labour seat of Wills, which also happens to be my electorate in the forthcoming federal election. I talk with Samantha about her journey as a woman of South Asian descent who's navigated the often rigid expectations of the political landscape, and we also discuss her upbringing in Sri Lanka and England and her bold vision for substantive change. Funnily enough, samantha is a twin, and we get into that too. Welcome to Untethered Samantha Ratnam. Samantha Ratnam, welcome to Untethered.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here. Clementine, how are you? I'm really good. I'm really good.
Speaker 1:You're hot on the campaign trail.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the campaign to turn wheels green is in full swing. Although we are still months out from an election, there's a real move for change we can sense. So we're trying to have thousands of conversations about what people really care about, what they want to see change and who they want to have as their representatives.
Speaker 1:Excellent, we're going to get to that in a minute, but I really want this to be an opportunity for people to get to know Sam Ratnam outside of politics. So I'm going to begin by asking you a question that I ask all of my guests, which is what does untethered mean to you?
Speaker 2:Untethered means being aware, firstly, of expectations that are around you. Some of those are you're conscious of, some of those are unconscious and you don't come up against the boundary until you start to challenge them. So I think it's a work in progress to, you know, really become aware of, sometimes, the expectations that are imposed upon us and that shape us without sometimes even realising and it's something I'm really conscious of, having, you know, been in politics for a number of years now something I didn't expect that I would be in. But here I am and then suddenly you're in this space where there might not have been, for example, many women before, or people from culturally diverse backgrounds, from migrant backgrounds, and, yeah, then you come up against some of these challenges and you're like, okay, what do I do here? Do I stay within the norm or do I challenge some of those norms and expectations which need to be challenged at times?
Speaker 1:It's tricky because, you know, for me, obviously, the idea of being untethered is really getting to that point in your life, particularly for women, I think and obviously you have the additional kind of I mean, we live in a racist world and you're a South Asian woman and you have to make those compromises all the time doubly so, I imagine, because you're in politics those compromises all the time doubly so, I imagine, because you're in politics.
Speaker 1:But to be untethered from people's expectations, to be untethered from people's demands on your behaviour, is a little trickier for someone who has entered politics and who's made the decision as you have to. Well, I'm going to not compromise on your values, of course, but I'm going to compromise on how I might do things if I were outside the tent, because in order for me to get things done inside the tent, I'm going to have to sometimes suck it up and be a little bit tethered to this system, right, yeah, well, that makes me think about just how people construct the pathway of change for you, and I think about that more broadly than just me individually.
Speaker 2:But kind of politics.
Speaker 2:So, for example, I'm involved in the Greens, so you know, green politics has its own principles and its values and its guiding ethos.
Speaker 2:And in terms of what you're expected to do to get change, I find is often, you know, I feel it at that level where people are saying, well, this is not the pathway to get change, you're being too bold, you're being too ambitious.
Speaker 2:You have to go, for example, incrementally which is what we hear a lot from political parties or just little bits of change here and there, and that's all we can offer you, that's all that this world will offer you. And so I often find that when we're saying no, actually if you don't have ambition and if you don't have vision, you will never achieve that change. I often feel that, in terms of the compromises that they want you to make, in terms of your method of change, your theory of change, yes, and I think the things about expectations individually, and I felt that in different ways in my life, in terms of, for example, even choosing social work as a profession which is my background. Even that was a challenge to the norms and expectations of me. So that's what I feel like when I think about being untethered untethered to those expectations and then the pathways it opens up to you when you are conscious of it and you break that tie.
Speaker 1:You were born in England and you were raised in Sri Lanka. Yeah, and a lot of that from what I've read has you know, particularly your observation of community uprising in Sri Lanka has informed your, I guess, desire for political action and political involvement and engagement and I think that that gives you a really unique perspective, having come from outside not just the system but outside the you know the Australian kind of milieu. I, like you, did also not grow up in Australia and I'm we're sort of roughly around the same age. You're crazily to me, I found out you're a few years older than me, which just seems bizarre, and we're sort of roughly around the same age. Crazily to me, I found out you're a few years older than me, which just seems bizarre because maybe it's just I'm so used to saying such old fuddy-duddies in politics.
Speaker 1:Like you, I was not raised in Australia and I'm not going to pretend that I don't have enormous privilege being here, even just having white skin, having class privilege, All of these things open doors in this country. But I also see that kind of parochial Australiana that people hold on to this idea that there's some kind of that system. It gives you a really unique perspective because you can see all of the ways that I mean geographically, obviously, we're an isolated country, but you can see why people fiercely hold on to this idea of a unifying experience Because at the heart of it all, even when they are expressing it in the most deplorable of ways, I think what people really crave is community, and it's how they go about building that community that makes the difference right.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think with that yearning for community is a yearning for belonging, and with belonging often comes with it perhaps tethered to speak to the theme a concept of sameness. So that sameness helps create belonging, which then leads you to a sense of community which I think is almost like a natural instinct as humans that we crave that community. It's kind of part of us and I think that, as much as in politics it might be still relatively new to have first-generation migrants as part of the political decision-making space, I think it's really important to have it. I don't think it's new to Australia, because if you look at our community and you talk to our community, it's increasingly diverse, and my experience and my story is actually not very unique or sort of isolated.
Speaker 2:I speak to a lot of people who have gone through like really different life experiences and journeys that brought them to a place like Australia.
Speaker 2:But I hear from them too that they don't often feel reflected in the people making the decisions for them, or their lives are not reflected in the solutions being put forward by people, and so there's this increasing disconnect between what we're offering to support people in our community versus an understanding of how people actually experience their lives here. So I think I really pay very close attention to that, and my experience and our family's experience isn't the only factor that shapes what I do in my kind of political and community work, but it's one part of it. It makes me more open to hear people's experiences and I think that's a bridge that exists at the moment, which is why a lot of people are feeling left behind and feeling misunderstood, and we just have to look at what's happening in the world right now and why people are protesting on the streets in places like Melbourne, because they feel completely misunderstood and their leaders are not responding to the pain they're feeling.
Speaker 1:And that was what was so crazy about the Fatima Payman situation as well. And I mean, obviously, you are a member of the Australian Greens and one of the incredible things that you're doing in Wills, which is my electorate and where we're recording from, is that you are taking on the incumbent Labor Minister, peter Kalil, who, yes, has held the seat of Wills for a number of elections, but when you ran against him in 2016, you succeeded in really like narrowing that gap between the Greens and the Labor Party. And when I was reading as well about your decision to announce in April of this year 2024, that you were again, once again, going to be taking on the seat of wills again, once again going to be taking on the seat of wills, an unnamed Labor insider said well, goodbye, peter Kalil. So you are clearly perceived as a threat to the Labor Party, and the Labor Party from my perspective at least, as a voter loves to blame everything on the Greens and loves to prop up the Greens as a villainous kind of party who's out to steal their votes, which is ridiculous, because no party is owed a vote. But I think that that I suppose that personability that you have and the real vibrancy that you have is also reflected in your compassion and your embrace of human rights.
Speaker 1:And so to see you know what you're talking about before about this reflection of our politicians to see Fatima Payman Senator Fatima Payman from WA, who obviously resigned from the Labor Party because of their stance on Gaza and their refusal to sanction Israel, their refusal to even recognize Palestine as a nation and as a state, and for the Labor Party to turn around and blame her for not sticking to caucus rules, you know, and everyone who's a Labor hack saying afterwards well, that's how the Labor Party works, you've got to have binding caucus.
Speaker 1:It's unity.
Speaker 1:You don't get anything done without unity.
Speaker 1:And I remember just looking at that and thinking these are rules in quotation marks that are over 100 years old for a party that, at the time of its formation, did not allow, firstly, women in it, did not allow people of colour, and it was really yes, it was the workers' party, but it was a very specific type of worker. And it feels to me now that the Labor Party wants to present the appearance of diversity in its ranks and the appearance of reflecting the extremely diverse community that we live in in Australia, without actually welcoming those diverse perspectives into its caucus To say that people who have a vested interest, just in terms of humanity, in making sure that Palestinians aren't slaughtered, to say that they have to bind with the caucus. That's the thing is, who is making these decisions? So to get in there really amongst the mix and say, well, if we want to have, if we want to praise ourselves as a nation for being multicultural and diverse, we actually have to allow a real diversity of opinion and a diversity of leadership.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think that it has to be based in a foundation of acknowledging that people's experiences are really valid and they will help shape political decision-making and our community for the better if we allow for that difference of experience to be heard and if we are open to shaping us. So I think, yes, what you're talking about with Senator Payman was an example of that divide you know of, like establishment politics and the community, and Senator Payman was lauded as Labor, you know, reflecting the community until it became too hard for them. And so I think we're seeing that boundary and the expectation once again, you know, rear its face and a choice being made Do you go with the way things have always been done and you either have to fit in or you don't belong, or you as an institution or a political party or whatever organization it is I think it speaks to all those scenarios Are you willing to change and evolve and be open? And I think, like I said before, I think the divide that is opening up between who's representing us versus who the community is is laid bare in those examples, and I think the community is becoming very, very wise to it, a lot of the kind of migrant multicultural communities I speak to, especially over the last few months, especially seeing what's happening in Gaza and being horrified at the loss and the inaction of governments that can do things.
Speaker 2:They sanction other governments when they do the wrong thing, but yet when it comes to Gaza, you know labor in this country won't take the action that is necessary. And so they see that and they see the double standard, the inconsistency, they feel really really let down and they're saying to us you know these politicians come to our celebrations and our functions and want to take photos in the good times, but when we need them the most they're nowhere to be seen and they feel really let down. But you know, part of this campaign and I think politics changing in this country is about a community feeling like their voices are powerful, and that's what this campaign is hopefully going to be about and has already begun that way.
Speaker 1:Let's step back now many years and let's go back to Samantha Ratnam, sam, young Sam, as a teenage girl, and I'm so fascinated by teenagers at the moment I feel like I'm 43 years old and I've really started to think so much about the beauty and power of teenage girls in particular, and there's such an undermined, discredited demographic of people as well.
Speaker 1:But you know, I do tarot and one of the cards in the tarot is the high priestess, who is like the kind of magical being who sits in front of the veil between this world and the secret, hidden, intuitive world, and she's depicted as being this very kind of wise figure, inscrutable almost. But to me I always feel like the best representation of the high priestess is a teenage girl, because who is more intuitive and more connected to that interior world and that subjectivity than a teenage girl before the patriarchal society that we live in stamps it out of her and says don't trust your gut, don't trust your instinct. Also, you're rubbish and no one cares about what you think. So I'm really fascinated with teenagers at the moment and how we can support them and learn from them and empower them and to that end, I'd love to hear about what you were like as a young woman, slash girl. I mean. They're all girls to me, even 35 years old girls to me now.
Speaker 2:Well, firstly, I'm so excited to hear that you're fascinated with young people and adolescents because I share that fascination and I have for a long time, perhaps because we're talking about a moment, you're right. That is just so important in our lives that often gets kind of overlooked and we're in a rush to get out of our teenage years and other people are in a rush to get you to get out of your teenage years and grow up and be an adult. But maybe in that time I did become more interested in sort of how we work and I was very interested in psychology and hence why I became a social worker as well. And I actually continued that in my study, in my sort of study life, and did some work in youth sociology, my PhDs in youth sociology because I was really fascinated by young people.
Speaker 2:I still am fascinated by young people. I think they're so underestimated and we need to hear their voices more. And maybe that came from feeling like I wanted my voice to be heard and there were very few places I felt that could be heard. Yes, I'm really fascinated now in ensuring that we create more spaces where young people's voices can be heard in big decisions that affect their lives. So, if you ask me the question, so what was sort of the young teenage Samantha like, like a lot of other teenage girls growing up in Australia? But I think maybe some of the differences were that we arrived in Australia at the start of our teenage years and I talk about we because I'm an identical twin sister, so that's another phenomenon in itself. Maybe for another podcast, clementine.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that about you.
Speaker 2:So I'm an identical twin. We arrived here when we were just turning 12 and started high school within, I think, a few days of landing in Australia. So everything was new. We're in high school, suddenly having left. We went to Canada before coming to Australia for a couple of years and leaving grade six there, arriving here in grade seven within a couple of days.
Speaker 2:So massive change, growth, expectation, and you're an awkward teenager. So firstly I'd say it was a very awkward teenager, like many. And now I realize too that you know we all feel a bit weird and awkward as teenagers. I've certainly felt weird and awkward and then realizing that actually most people feel like that, most people feel a bit different actually as they grow up to be adults, but we don't talk about it enough. And then, the moment we talk about our differences, we realize how similar we are and it opens up the space to find people like you and I think there are people for everyone. But talking about those differences help us find those people.
Speaker 2:So I cared about the world a lot. We'd grown up with war, with the civil war that had broken out in Sri Lanka. I come from a Tamil ethnic background and that's the reason why we had to leave Sri Lanka. When we came to Australia, the Gulf Wars had begun. So I was thinking about this on the way to this podcast today, anticipating you might ask me a question like this, and one of the memories I have, you know, about the confines of expectation and what my early self told my later self, was that you know, for anyone who's gone to a school where you have to wear uniforms, you'd have some free dress days. I remember we had some free dress days when you used to do a yard duty and it was a big expression of our identity at that age, because you couldn't express it in many other forms. Because you're wearing your uniform all the time, and I remember on my free dress day, I chose to wear this T-shirt I don't know where I picked it up from which this massive peace sign on the top of it, on the front of it, and at that time, you know, people were wearing their t-shirts with their favourite bands or artists or, and I chose to wear this t-shirt with this big peace sign and I still remember it because everyone was looking at it and I didn't realise I was making a statement by choosing to do that, but obviously peace and war were part of our lives and on my mind, and Peace and war were part of our lives and on my mind and you know I really cared about inequality, because we'd seen inequality, we'd experienced inequality.
Speaker 2:And moving to wealthy countries like Canada and Australia to see opportunity for some and not others, it just made me wonder why does all this difference exist? I was so young, I was putting my thoughts together. You know why are there some countries that are peaceful and you can live a completely different life, and some countries are so riddled with war and conflict, and why do all those differences exist? So my curiosity had been piqued through those experiences and so, as a teenager, I think I was trying to process that in many ways, and like many teenagers, you know, going a bit inward as well.
Speaker 2:You often internalize that. So you know my mental health took a battering for, you know, a few years there in my teenage years and my early 20s. But now I realize, looking back, that that was all that processing of change, of difference, of seeking sameness, because I wanted to feel like I belonged, but being visibly different. I spoke differently, I had a different outlook on things, so I felt like the barrier to feeling the same and belonging was big and trying to navigate. How do I break through it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't want to. You know, labour too much on the name of the podcast that you know lends itself so well to platitudes and things like that. But that's kind of the flip side of being untethered in a positive way, isn't it? That? So much of those teenage years especially, we feel, particularly if we're kind of, like you know, abnormally in our minds passionate about social justice, you know, and I was kind of the same as you, surprisingly and it makes you feel very untethered in a bad way from the people around you. You know that you don't have that.
Speaker 1:I always wanted to be the kind of teenage girl on reflection as an adult when I was writing about those years, I would have loved to have been the kind of teenage girl who was just so cool that she didn't care, you know, like very Daria-like. But unfortunately I really felt and maybe it was as well something about having grown up elsewhere and so always feeling yourself to be an outsider in some ways. You know, I moved around a lot so I wasn't racially or ethnically an outsider anywhere I had to go, but I was culturally and socially not of those milios and I just always felt like I didn't really belong and it was excruciating at the time. All you wanted was to fit in.
Speaker 2:That's right. I imagine that's sometimes kind of even more difficult when you can't pinpoint why you feel so different and, yeah, people look at you differently when you might think you should be the more same. But I think that awareness helps you connect with other people who are going through that and you know. I think that's why these conversations are really powerful, because people want to hear that that feeling is normal. It's quite normal and in fact, it gives you this, I think, extra insight into caring and understanding what's happening for people when you've experienced that yourself. So, yeah, I think it's something that maybe we share more in common than we realise.
Speaker 1:It's interesting as well, the twin-ness and I know that twins just get it all the time, all of these repeat questions. It's like in a similar way I was saying this to a friend of mine recently who has twins and she was telling me how much they hate being asked about being twins and I said it's not the same, but it's kind of like. Growing up I always had people say to me have you heard that song oh my God, do you know that song? Oh, my Darling, it's like no, I've literally never heard that song before in my life.
Speaker 1:So I know that as a twin, you'll always be asked like oh my God, what's it like being a twin? Do you guys have a psychic link, et cetera. I'm not going to ask you that, but I am curious about how being a twin for you, particularly being an identical twin how it helped and or hindered that feeling of needing or wanting to belong, because, on the one hand, I imagine you at least had someone there who had not only your face but also a similar experience to you, but on the other hand, to want to. It's kind of like this strange hypocrisy as a teenager that you want so desperately to fit in at the same time as you want so desperately to be seen and stand out Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So you know, on the one hand, as a twin, you're often compared to each other, constantly compared to each other, especially when you're young. And because we were identical and we looked very similar when we were very young, people are looking at the differences all the time Without realizing it. They're always commenting on what the difference between the two is. So you become really hyper-conscious of your physical being because everyone's like, oh, that one's a little bit taller or a bit smaller, and maybe they wouldn't make the same comment for another young person. So you become very hyper-conscious of your difference with somebody else, but also the sameness at the same time. So you're absolutely right that you know the protective part about it, especially because of our experience in Sri Lanka.
Speaker 2:You know, when the kind of conflict erupted and the riots broke out in 1983 in Colombo, my sister and I were together, as we would be, and we were at my aunt's place and the rest of our family was scattered. My dad went to work, my mum went to work she happened to work quite close to where my brother was and when the riots broke out everyone had to kind of scurry into safety. So my dad found safety with somebody he knew, my mom and my brother. My mom was able to get my brother and go to somebody else we knew for safety and my sister and I were together for days on end not knowing where our parents were. So you're always together and you've gone through those experiences together. So it's so protective to know that somebody's lived that same experiences as you have.
Speaker 2:And then migrating, you've always got somebody in your level that you know during recess to go to and so at least you've got that company and camaraderie. But the other side of that is that you are different people and we're similar in a lot of ways my sister and I and we're also different in many ways and so sometimes I think with that you're like once again oh why am I different to this? So it accentuates some of that difference. But you know overall, you know it's a very special experience and to have someone who kind of really gets you and has always got your back like this you know always someone having your back is a very special thing and I feel kind of myself very lucky to have that in my life. My sister's a really amazing protector as well of our family and me and plays that role, so to have that is a really special thing, so wouldn't trade that for the world.
Speaker 1:I just have one more question about twins, just because I find twins fascinating.
Speaker 1:A few years ago, I remember seeing a really amazing exhibition at ACME, probably about 10 years ago, I think. It was a videographer, I think she was from Denmark, and she did this study of twins, where she filmed twins separately but sitting on the same couch and then she spliced them together and she was just talking about, I suppose, this idea of reflection, mirroredness, what it means to walk through the world with someone who is not you but looks like you, and separately. A writer who is a mother of twins, who I met a few years ago as well. She had something really profound to say about her twin boys, where she said I think it's hard for them sometimes to know that they were meant to be one person.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, which is such an existential kind of crisis moment, but also, at the same time, really really fascinating and puts to, I suppose, puts to bed this kind of idea that if you were genetically geared towards one thing, that that's it, that's your genetic makeup, that you know the nature versus nurture. If you were meant to be one person but for some reason the egg split and you became two separate people, you're not half people, like. There's something really fascinating in a spiritual sense about that evolution beyond what we understand biologically or on a cellular level. Anyway, this one woman who this one set of twins that was being interviewed in this art piece, identical both of them objectively beautiful by, you know, commercial standards, but one of the women said that she'd always felt inferior to her twin. She really struggled with it because she said, I always feel like she's the beautiful one and I thought that was really interesting because they obviously looked identical.
Speaker 1:But I mean, you know, as a twin and also every one of us who knows twins as well, there's something more. There's like a spark that informs a person's personality that obviously goes beyond their physical appearance. But I wondered for her and I'm going to ask you this as well I suppose, in that kind of growing up, coming of age, sense to look at someone who has your face, but it's not the face you see in the mirror, it's the reverse of that. I mean, obviously you've had no other experience beyond that. But is that tricky when you kind of have a sense of what you look like but it's always being just slightly messed with by the reality of what you look like. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's a fascinating question. That is such a good question. Yeah, what it makes me think about is that yearning to understand your difference and while it might be intensified when you're a twin, when you've got so much that's the same. And so then anything that's different, you're like asking yourself, why is that different? And you ask that question when you don't feel you know you're doing as well or as good, or you know, and that happens. That happens in all sibling relationships as well, maybe intensified as a twin. But then I think you know.
Speaker 2:Now I can look back and go oh, but that's what most people are thinking as well. They compare themselves to others. It's the source of a lot of angst, isn't it? You know, so much angst could be sort of reduced if we didn't do that comparison as well and, you know, really just acknowledged and valued all the things that we bring to the world. I guess it comes a time as you get older as well. But yes, I think you know what I did was for my own experience, was if there was any difference and I didn't feel as good, I'd be like well, what is causing that? Why is my life different in this way when kind of on paper it should be going that way, and so you really have to think about that. And you know, I think there's something about like the essence of who we are. Gosh, they're big existential questions, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Going back to your question before about Come and be on my Light Out of Podcast.
Speaker 2:I know it's great there's a whole other podcast with this one, but you know you talked about that concept of you know, thinking about you were meant to be the one person. You know I think about my sister and I now and you know we have a real love for life and a lot of energy. Both of us and we do different things, but we're very similar as well, I think, in our drive and our energy. And you know, I think gosh, it was almost like it was too much for one person so we kind of had to split apart.
Speaker 2:But you know, that's just my musings about. You know what makes it's a fascinating world and they're still finding out a lot about twins actually now that they didn't know when we were born, so that the study of twins is really changing as well, about why it happens, et cetera. But you know, yeah, there's a lot to think about there, but it does. It puts under the magnifying glass, I think, difference. That's my takeaway from it and I've been kind of fascinated with the concept of difference and talking about tethering and untethering, like it's all about. You know whether you feel like you want to be the same and you know subscribe to expectations and you know be kind of wedded to the machine, or what happens when you try to break away and defy expectations and do things differently. You know what happens when you try to do things differently. That's when you come up against some of those tethers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it requires an enormous amount of bravery as well that most people don't have. Most people don't want to do things differently. Most people want. I know we kind of live in this sort of world where all the pop culture that we consume reflects back to us this aspirational idea that we're going to be brave, we're going to speak up against injustice, we're going to fight for what we believe in. You know the movies that people like to go to watch, the heroic tales of conquest, and you know defeating the baddies and then coming out victorious. They're fantasies for a reason because most people, apart from being completely uncourageous in terms of how they are willing to fight for what they believe in, I think that they. It's a bit too hard really. You know. Look to be clear, these are my opinions. These are not the opinions of you who is running in the seat of will, but I feel like people want. It's very easy to make a society compliant, because you're already working with a human impulse to mostly be followers, and that's not a criticism. We need followers. You know, not everyone can be a leader, otherwise you've just got everyone fighting at odds, which is interesting, and I didn't do this intentionally, but one of the.
Speaker 1:I told you before we started recording that I'd pulled some tarot cards to kind of say what three questions should I ask Sam today? And the first one I pulled was the five of swords, which is not so. The five of swords is like really how do we use the intellectual power that we have, or the intellectual energy that we have, the skills that we may have, for good rather than bad? And are there times when we use that sword to hurt people unnecessarily? So it's sort of in the traditional card. It depicts someone who has there's three figures, and two of them are kind of like looking very mournful and lost in the background, and the one in the foreground is holding all the swords. So you get this idea that the person has used the skills available to them and really wielded them much more vigorously than they needed to just to win the swords.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I suppose I'm segueing there to sort of say, when you've devoted your life to the social good you know, firstly by becoming a social worker and then now by getting into the political tent and understanding that that involves having to make some compromises but also really fighting for what you believe in and for a party that is much more committed I think the Australian Greens to and I don't work for them, this is just my opinion much more committed to fighting for justice, that you will come up against those temptations in yourself to go a bit harder than you need to Like. How do you make that? How do you balance that? Because it's not something I've ever been very good at.
Speaker 2:That's a good question about responding to what's needed in the moment to create the change. That's what it makes me think about. You know, I always think about this work as not work I'm doing alone. I always feel it is a part of the collective project and therefore, drawing from collective wisdom is something that I try to practice every single day. So it's having those people around you that you check in with and you know check, is this the right tool, is this the right volume right now? And I've always found that collective wisdom has been right. It's, I think, one of the reasons why I got more politically active after I joined the Greens.
Speaker 2:So when I joined the Greens, I'd been a social worker for a number of years. I knew politics was important, but I never thought I'd be a politician. I thought that was for other people. I thought it wasn't something you could actually do, because the politics that we had been exposed to was for people who are rich, who had big connections. It's for other people, it's not for everyday people. You didn't have access to it. So I didn't actually think it was possible. But I knew we had to care about politics or things can really go badly, and we saw the worst outcomes where we grew up. So I knew it was important, did my social work, which is political work as well. Bad decisions governments make walk through the door the next day in terms of people suffering. But I joined the Greens when I couldn't fathom that we weren't doing more about climate change, because it was an existential threat and still is, like nothing else matters if we don't have a planet we can live on and breathe on and have a future on.
Speaker 2:So I joined the Greens, thinking I'm going to help and if they ask me to hand out leaflets at every election for the rest of my life and that's the best you know I can be of use and I'm happy to do that I'm going to go where they tell me to go. But joining them and talking about this kind of sameness and belonging, you know, I really found my people, I found my crowd. That made me feel normal, because I was like, oh, you care just as much. Great, we can, you know, do this together. So I didn't feel alone as much anymore and one of the kind of founding drivers of the Greens and one of the four pillars is well, one of the four pillars is grassroots democracy, but one of the driving principles is consensus decision-making, which means you're always making decisions with the group, you're not leaving people behind and you work very hard to get agreement and your people have to move here and there.
Speaker 2:But we don't actually call that compromise, we call that consensus. It's a much more positive concept of talking with and reaching an outcome together. So actually, when I think about compromise in politics, I often don't think that I've had to compromise in politics. I've had to try and reach consensus and I feel really good about that outcome because it means that we've taken everyone with us on that decision making pathway and not left people behind.
Speaker 2:So you know, in terms of knowing when to do, how hard to go, which sword to pull out, whether it's too much, because I always feel like I'm doing that with the movement, with my Greens colleagues and with the broader movement. You know I feel like that's the check and balance. That's the check and balance. And you know I think the group will often speak up and say, no, that's the wrong thing to do and just being open to hear that and sometimes your instinct will be like, oh, I really want to go because you're really feeling, you know, really passionate about that. But I found that a really good moderator and just to you know, to kind of release yourself to the wisdom and to be open to that wisdom of the group.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you say that because you know, in pulling my tarot cards and I know that for me, I've only come out this year as being, like, super into tarot and so I'm hopefully bringing some people along for the ride because, more than anything, they're a storytelling technique, they're a way to kind of like get to the nuts and bolts of a situation. So if you're not familiar with tarot, just go with me on this. The three cards that I actually pulled out before I met with you today to say, like, what should we talk about, were, by the way, I did have a plan for what to talk about. I'm not that disorganized, it's just that, you know, ask the universe and the tarot, what other ideas do you have? Well, I said the five of swords. That's the one I already explained, like you know, using too much aggression, just because you can. And then the next card, the centre card that I pulled, was the death card, which doesn't mean death, it means rebirth, it's reinventing ourselves, it's basically understanding, and in the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck as well, it's depicted as death on a horse, basically like visiting themselves upon this town, where the people cowering before death are a king, an old woman, a child, and so the sense is that no one is different. You know, death comes for us all really, so rebirth is also possible in all of us. We can all. We all have the opportunity to change.
Speaker 1:But then on the other side of that card was another five, the five of wands which is less aggressive than the swords. It's more about like if you could sum it up with one line, it's everybody's talking and nobody's listening. So it's about how we work, as you said, collectively and in operation, together, where, rather than kind of trying to win and dominate and beat someone and steal all their swords from them, we actually learn how to compromise and we learn how to listen. And in doing that, I think or rather in those cards appearing it's the broader message, and I think that what you represent and what you're trying to do is this idea that we can do things in a different way. And it doesn't actually mean that it will be the perfect way. It doesn't mean that it it will be the perfect way. It doesn't mean that it's not without its own conflict. It doesn't mean that it's not without people saying well, I have a better idea on that.
Speaker 1:But fundamentally, at its heart, you talked about being the kind of person, the kind of kid who wore a peace shirt to school and kind of being looked at weird.
Speaker 1:And obviously I've had the experience in my life too of being demonized for caring too much about certain things. And there's something really sad to think about the fact that we live in a world where caring too much is seen as a deficit and it's seen as something really nerdy and uncool that like, oh my God, here she goes on and on and on again about something that she's fucking interested in. You know, like, ooh, save the world, sam. But actually what do we have, I mean, apart from the earth, like you're right, with no planet, with climate destruction, we are all dead. But also, what do we have if we don't have care in our community, in our hearts, like, who are we if we allow ourselves to be perpetually and constantly drawn into this idea that success as humans means success as individuals and success against the collective, that to even be part of the collective is somehow taking something from us?
Speaker 2:Completely agree, clementine, with everything you've just said and in terms of you know what people need and people are yearning for and what they feel increasingly isn't reflected or offered to them in their own lives.
Speaker 2:You were talking before as well about courage, and it made me think about and you were saying you know kind of courage is becoming less common.
Speaker 2:You know, it made me really think about what are the conditions to be courageous, and in a society where we're making people more fearful for their own survival, where scarcity is becoming the norm and people have to fight for everything, there isn't a lot of space to be courageous because you're just trying to survive.
Speaker 2:So I think we will become a more caring and courageous community if we look after each other. It's very interlinked with each other, which is the reason you know we're talking about making sure everyone has a home that they can go to each night and enough food to eat and a safe environment to live and breathe and play in. You know, you get those fundamentals right and you get a society that looks very, very different and, I think, a society that people are yearning for and will contribute to, because I see it all across the community and one of the, you know, unique privileges of the role that I have is I get to go into all these different communities. They invite you in, you know, into their, you know the community hall that they're hosting an event and you get to see all these incredible acts of generosity and volunteerism and support.
Speaker 2:And you know it's not often reflected in our media and what our politicians say but it's there and I've seen it and I just know it's this yearning to be seen and supported.
Speaker 1:And that's the world that I love that. You're fighting for that world and I'm right alongside you, because without community we're nothing. I just don't think that we were put on this earth to go and work in an office building every day and make a lot of money for a billionaire, I agree.
Speaker 2:So let's get out there and make it happen. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Samantha Ratnam, it has been a pleasure to talk to you today about all things political, community activism, the collective, and also about the fascinating existential nature of being a twin.
Speaker 2:The pleasure has been all mine.
Speaker 1:Much in the same way that you see yourself reflected in your twin, I hope that your vision for the world will be reflected in you know future outcomes.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me. It's been a wonderful afternoon to chat. Thanks, Anne.
Speaker 1:Untethered is hosted and produced by me, clementine Ford, with audio production and sound design by the incredible folks at Cardigan Creative. If you love what you've been listening to, don't forget to subscribe and you'll get new episodes dropped straight into your podcast listening box each week. Please consider rating and reviewing the show as well. It really helps to get podcasts out there so that more people can listen. You can also find me, clementine, on Substack and Instagram, with all of the details listed in the show notes. Until next time, stay untethered.