The collection of stories reveal the role women played in East Timor’s independence struggle on the guerilla front, the diplomatic front and in the student movement inside and outside the country and afterwards.

The opening story told by Ceu Lopes Federer provides a lens through which to read the subsequent twelve stories. The work Ceu and her compatriots did to meet the financial needs of the resistance inside and outside Timor, to keep it alive and strong, and to provide them with accurate information about what was going on outside in relation to East Timor gives the reader an insight into how important women were in the solidarity movement that was the backbone to the diplomatic front. Mica Barreto Soares’ story tells how Timorese studied in Indonesia and the work they did for East Timor inside Indonesia. The two show the importance of the women’s solidarity work to the survival of the guerilla movement inside Timor and segue into the stories about the work Timorese women did all over the world. They also provide background for the sometimes small but extremely risky activities of other storytellers when they speak of secreting letters and notes, medicines or food, inside clothing and bluffing their way through Indonesian positions inside East Timor and Indonesia.

The simple device of providing an introductory paragraph about the circumstances of their family and ethnicity at birth in all the stories yields rich rewards by giving access to the intricate and personal character of conflicts of this kind, making a broader reading of how women and their families experience conflict possible. The stories make it clear, that war was everywhere and everywhere they turned every aspect of personal life was affected by it. Their family histories and the location in time and place of the storytellers dramatically impacts on the destiny of the women and their children.

The most heart wrenching story in the book is of a child who wished her mother, Dulce Vitor, dead because it was her military were chasing, and because of her they were hungry and had to run every day.

This collection of stories tells what the everyday embodiment of a conflict in your own community is like for families. It was in the fertile ground of dire need and ambition, in amongst the secrets, on the boundaries of family relationships, political and institutional alliances, the seeds of fear and distrust could be sewn by enemies, or serendipitously falling there, cause discovery and tempt betrayal. However it was in similar fissures and trusted spaces deeply embedded in the community that the resistant impulses became active too. The stories show, it was from the domestic spaces that courage, adaptability, resistance and resilience grew and spread over generations to the clandestine movement inside the country and the solidarity movement outside the country.

The various reasons for these women getting involved in the struggle for East Timor’s independence gives an insight into why these stories are critically different from oral histories about women’s involvement in war I’ve read before. Most of them became caught up because of their experience of the forced oppression and violence against themselves, their family and their fellow human beings. Carolina Do Rosario “As Timor women we felt worthless, little more than dolls. We felt that slaves had a history we shared, … that’s why…. we never walked away from the struggle, we kept fighting”. And Laura Soares Abrantes: “how can one practice culture without human rights”?

A book of oral histories runs the risk of losing the reader because the writing lacks the page-turning pulse that dramatic tension provides in a woven narrative. However the power of these stories resides in the realistic immediacy and verifiability of their first person narratives, published as they are while the protagonists still live. This personal as political approach to a historical record of an international political conflict, adds weight to the gender struggle that is on-going in East Timor, a deeply conservative male dominated society. The women want us to know the fight for equality was not introduced by foreigners but has grown from the struggle for independence. It is significant the stories have been published for a broader English-speaking readership. If the stories were recorded and used for research before being abstracted into a history authored by Conway rather than edited as they are they wouldn’t serve the same function politically or be as satisfying for the storytellers.

One of the strengths of the book is the history of the editor Jude Conway. Jude worked side by side with Timorese in Darwin and Dili for twenty years and many of the photographs in the book taken by her, amplify the stories, showing somewhat disconcertingly, how social life continued; how love and marriage, birth and friendship, educational achievement and the women themselves were growing older and their lives were changing during the time of the stories. The photograph albums for each storyteller are available on Conway’s FaceBook page here: http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=746873182

Step by Step is a highly readable, timely collection of oral histories that shines a light on the pivotal role women played in East Timor’s struggle for independence and afterwards, inside and outside East Timor. I highly recommend it.

Jen Hughes is a writer and filmmaker. Producer/Director of The Circle of Stones (2001), Time to go John and Black Bullion (2003) as well as producer and co–author of http://www.suaimediaspace.org/ She has had eleven years involvement with East Timor, assisting the youth of Suai and the Friends of Suai: http://www.suaimediaspace.org/friends-of-suai-port-phillip/ set up a media training group YoMaTre:. http://www.suaimediaspace.org/youth/

The students were all aged between about 18 and their early twenties and there was a restlessness towards the end of the second week due to the fact that the students expected a ‘media workshop’ would involve video cameras and editing software. The third week therefore was dedicated to a simple animation workshop in which the students photographed each other and themselves with mobile phones and digital cameras and animated them to music in iMovie. The result is the collection of Comic Videos.

I met Melli through Annie Sloman. Melli is the lead singer of Galaxy one of the most high profile bands in East Timor. Melli writers songs and stories as well as poetry. you can see an interview I did with him in 2006 when he was in Australia for the Darwin Festival and the Sydney Writers Festival. Now I’m thrilled to bring you links to his story titled ‘The Hand’ or ‘Tangan‘, published on the Asia and Pacific Writing website.

In the same website you will find another story by Indonesian writer Linda Christanty. I met Linda at Melbourne Writers week many years ago and later discovered her friendship with Naldo Rei author of ‘ Resistance’ . ‘Maria Pinto’s Flying Horse’ or ‘Kuda Terbank Maria Pinto‘ is the title short story from Kuda Terbang Maria Pinto by Linda Christanty (Khatulistiwa Awards, Indonesia, 2004).

I returned to Timor in December 1974. The Portuguese intels were gone, and colonial rule was over, but local political manoevring created new problems in the early days of freedom to Timor. I was non-political but did what I could to help the situation.

In August 1975, the civil war broke out, and I worked for the International Committee of Red Cross, ICRC, and Australian Red Cross for humanitarain Aid as a volunteer.
At the same time, I was helping with interpretation for Aid organisations and journalists from Australia. Among them was Jill Jollife, who was in Dili at this time, and those who were killed in Balibo by Indonesian military.

In the early days after the Indonesian invasion I was working again as volunteer for Indonesian Red Cross for 6 months and later as a public servant.

When the Indonesian government decided to open East Timor for foreigners under the the mandate of former governor Mario Carasacalao in 1989, I planned to take part in the tourism development program. I had involved myself in tourism since 1967, in Hotel Baucau and moved to Dili in 1969 under a scholarship from Kensington Rotary Club from Sydney. Many politicians knew that . Vila Harmonia was just a residence before that, and I applied to set it up into accomodation with six rooms and I was successful. The Indonesian reason for opening up East Timor at this time was based on development and tourism

Jen: How I met Pedro Lebre

I met Pedro Lebre when I stayed at the famous Villa Harmonia in Dili on my way to Suai with Lee Kirk in 2003. You couldn’t find a friendlier place, Pedro and his family run it and look after everyone with great warmth. We celebrated Lee’s 30th birthday there and Pedro wrote a short history about himself and gave me the poems I have posted.

Villa Harmonia was home to many many activists who dared to visit East Timor during the Indonesian occupation and as you will read, he must have played host to the famous Balibo five. The group was made up of two Australians, reporter Greg Shackleton, 27, and sound recordist Tony Stewart, 21, and a New Zealander, cameraman Gary Cunningham, 27, for HSV-7 in Melbourne, and two British cameramen Brian Peters, 29, and reporter Malcolm Rennie, 28, working for TCN-9 in Sydney.

At the time of writing an official enquiry into the circumstance of their deaths has found, what many people working in solidarity with East Timor have known for over thirty years, that there was a massive cover up because the journalists were killed in cold blood to prevent them telling the world what was going on.

Shirley Shackleton, widow of Greg Shackleton is a resident of Pt Phillip and her story can be found in ‘Timor Ponies of Pt Phillip.’ Stories of persistence and solidarity from people well known to Pedro.