Binary Opposition
Rashida Murphy
Some years ago, a writer told me she didn’t believe in binary oppositions. This wealthy, white, well-connected woman, a theorist whose intense dislike of de Saussure was reflected in her work, argued that she did not have a structural advantage over an immigrant brown woman in publishing. Race and resources were not a factor in literary success and the real issue, she insisted, was talent. Then came the clincher—stories like yours are the flavour of the month, she said.
For several years, I tried to believe the lofty ideal she had proposed. I focused on the real issue of talent as I navigated a new world of writing and publishing. Then came 7 October 2023. Two and a half years later it is hard not to believe in evil vs. good or heroism vs. terrorism. Binary oppositions are, for me today, the only sane way to survive. Like many people I know, losing friendships, jobs, and publishing opportunities in the wake of ‘becoming pro-Palestine’ are now par for the course. Being banned, blocked, lied about, is normal—as is the idea that we must all entertain the myth of exceptional suffering from the same group of people who ban, block, and lie about us.
Attempting to make sense of it all, I find myself staring at a black and white picture on my desktop. A young man (let’s call him K) poses with a toddler on his lap. K sits in a garden with my baby nephew. He is not wearing his trademark thick glasses, which means he probably can’t see the photographer. His smile suggests he expects us to tease him, and his easy hold on my nephew indicates the affection he bestowed on us, his default family. K was pathologically shy, but, in this photograph, he is at ease with himself; perhaps the baby in his arms helps. I think it is around 1977 or ‘78. The Iranian Revolution is more than a year away, but the ripples are already being felt among the student diaspora in India. K has been living with us for about 10 years by this stage.
Like other students from Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Sudan, K was initially overwhelmed by India. He learned to love it, and us, in small increments punctuated by long diatribes about noise, heat, and crowds. A sensitive soul, inclined to quoting Rumi and Firdaus and occasional fits of moon madness, K found us exhausting until I rescued a stray kitten from a litter and handed her over to him. I was ten years old and convinced the love of a good cat would cure his unhappiness. He accepted the ginger kitten in exchange for teaching me rudimentary Farsi. I learned to say chetori and bacche gorbeh, much to his delight.
He was part of a group of three boys brought to us by a family acquaintance who explained the boys had nowhere to live. My father decided that hosting foreign students in our sprawling, cobbled-together house would be a fine thing. My brother wasn’t thrilled about sharing his room with a stranger, and as the other two couldn’t share with girls, they were sent away to live with another family. Dad rapidly added more room-shaped spaces to our home. His enthusiasm for entrepreneurial landlording was matched by his desire to practice his rusty Farsi and Arabic with them. We became used to bearded boys at our dinner table and pretended we hadn’t seen them smoking in the garden or attempting to chat up local girls on their way to college.
Before student exchanges were a thing, my father decreed that as K was living with us, my brother should go and live with K’s family in Abadan. Dad wasn’t great at consulting anyone when his mind was made up, and neither K’s family nor mine had any say in the matter. Mum worried about inflicting my introverted brother on a woman she’d never met but Dad pointed out that K’s mother trusted us to look after her son. My brother would study at the University of Tehran and eventually make his way to the United States of America, the aspirational mecca of my family in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
My brother lasted three months in Iran, returning to India just as Saddam Husain’s displeasure over the Shatt-al-Arab fuelled an eight-year-long war and killed half a million people.
K was inconsolable when reports of his hometown burning filtered through. Two of his brothers were killed in the refinery blast. His father went blind and his mother retreated into muteness. In those days phone calls were expensive, and ultimately, pointless.
I think of those years and those boys now—from the relative safety of my suburban Perth home, as another war decimates K’s homeland. I wonder what he would have thought of the diaspora dancing in the streets when Israel and America bombed Tehran. I wonder what he would say to Persians in Australia who align so firmly with Israel. An avowed communist before the Islamic Revolution, K became a revolutionary when Iraq invaded Iran. He found solace in the communal meals and dabke around the fire with the same Palestinians from whom he had held himself apart. Fouad from Jordan told him stories of stone walls and the key his mother wore around her neck. Ali from Afghanistan told him about never being warm enough in Kabul’s winters.
I have no idea what happened to K. I lost him to a revolution. Ironically, I do know what happened to the Palestinians who walked around with keffiyehs on their shoulders and Nablus in their hearts. They studied, married girls from small town India, went back to Jordan and the West Bank, raised children, retained hope. And if hope exists in binary opposition to despair, so be it.
About the author
Dr Rashida Murphy lives in Boorloo/Perth on the sovereign lands of the Noongar Nation. She is the author of The Historian’s Daughter (a novel) and The Bonesetter’s Fee (collection of short fiction). She also writes poetry, memoir and flash fiction, and works with emerging writers engaged in a decolonial arts praxis through her organisation The Writers’ Collective. Her award-winning novelette Old Ghosts is available from Night Parrot Press in August 2026.