My misadventures with some Steiner critics took a turn for the bizarre recently.
Since my last post, my husband and I wrote an open letter to all people calling themselves Steiner critics to guage what they thought of what had happened to us on Alicia Hamberg's blog and if they approved of the mobbing that had taken place there, or not.
Disappointingly enough, aside from the usual suspects, namely Alicia Hamberg, Diana Winters, Falk and “Thetis Mercurio*” , we didn't hear from anyone. Not that the above contacted us directly, oh no. We just happen to catch some conversation which we assume was about the content of the letter.
What happened next was so odd, that I find it hard to get my head around.
Alicia Hamberg posted a comment in which she said the following:
"The frustrating thing is feeling that you can’t defend yourself. People can make up any lie, and you can’t defend yourself, because if you do, you actually help them."
My thoughts exactly. How does Alicia Hamberg think it feels to post an account of something that happened to you only to be banned because of it accused of being "vile slander"?
My question is, why does Alicia Hamberg think it's vile slander? Actually, to be more accurate, it should be libel - you’d think someone with a law degree would know the difference. But none of what I wrote is false: I can back it all up, but if I were to bring my evidence into the open, it would expose "Thetis Mercurio*" . Is this really what Alicia Hamberg wants? I thought she, and many others, believed anonymity was sacrosanct and had to be protected.
Apart from insulting us further because we keep stating our point of view, Alicia Hamberg and her group have very little to go on it seems. So little in fact that they make a mountain out of a choice of words.
I wrote that I had asked Alicia Hamberg to hang up one or two posters my husband and I had been working on, around her home town of Stockholm. I then added that "nothing came of that".
She jumped on those words saying:
“Lies like that… implying I said something else, implying I admitted to obligations, and failed to follow through, etc. That is just nasty”
Excuse me? Who's misinterpreting what?
The words, "nothing came of that" are a way of saying it didn’t happen without specifying the reason. It could have been that Alicia Hamberg had said no, that we had changed our minds, that we got caught up in something else and forgot about it, or a myriad other reasons. It was certainly not a "lie", but the reason it didn't happen wasn't really important. What a meal she made of it.
I originally believed that since English isn’t Alicia Hamberg’s native tongue, she could have misunderstood, but that thought evaporated when Diana Winters, a publisher as far as I can gather, said:
“it reads that they asked you to do this, “but nothing came of that,” implying they had reason to think something *would* come of that.”
So obviously, it had nothing to do with what language was being used.
The subject of those posters then became a focus of how we “seem to not understand when they are told No.” (according to Diana Winters)
Here’s what Alicia Hamberg said this about it:
"I *immediately* said *no* to hanging anti-Steiner posters on town. I said NO. Not going to do it. It’s *not* like it didn’t happen because I somehow failed to meet expectations (being an unpaid propaganda worker?!) or it ‘ran out into the sand’ (as we say in Sweden — I’m not sure about elsewhere…!), I said NO, explicitly. Not doing it."
Sounds like she was very angry with us for having asked her at the time. But her actual words back then were:
“I'm afraid I can't help with the poster -- being the only open waldorf critic in Stockholm, I would inevitably implicate myself, and putting up posters on public property is technically prohibited (which of course the waldorf folks would happily take advantage of). [...] it would be more of a hazzle [sic] than it would be worth ;-)”
Back on her blog, Alicia Hamberg added:
“The posters are such a good example, anyway. This is a tendency — bizarre expectations and a near complete inability to take a no…”
What? Where have we written anywhere how angry we were that Alicia Hamberg had said no to putting up posters? Where are all the posts, comments, emails showing how wronged we felt that she had dared to stand up to us and our outrageous demands? Oh, I forgot. They don’t exist, because this never happened. We asked her on the 29th of January 2011, she replied on the 31st and that was the end of the matter.
Alicia Hamberg also wrote this about us:
“I don’t know if their reading abilities are impaired or if they’re pathologically misinterpreting things a lot”
Based on the above, this sounds like a projection to me.
In any case, following the outburst about the phrase, we amended it, replacing the offending words with “she declined to help”. In the interest of full disclosure and transparency, we didn’t delete “nothing came of that” but struck it through, to show what was changed.
Ironically, this was another opportunity for an attack from Diana Winters:
“Oh, so they’re [sic] put a strikethrough on “nothing came of that” and changed it to “she declined to help.” Well, all better now. Hilarious!”
How much do you want to bet that had we deleted those words, they would’ve attacked us for hiding the changes? Mind you, when you’re being attacked, you have to remember that the rules of the game change constantly to suit the attacker.
For instance, in our email about the poster, we’d also asked Alicia Hamberg about the possibility of her translating our site for us into Swedish. She mentions this in her post, stating: “I said no in the same email to doing translations for them”. What she actually wrote was: “I would consider translating to Swedish, if I have time.”
Maybe it’s selective memory loss.
Speaking of which, Diana Winters appears to be suffering from the same affliction when she wrote:
“All I ever had against you was that while I think a video project is theoretically a good idea, yours seems ill conceived”
Hmm, not quite: Diana Winters and Alicia Hamberg’s main problem was that they accused us of making people feel guilty because we were suggesting that it was worth them standing up, telling their stories and naming the school where it happened. This was the main issue and point of contention. It was when we kept making the same point politely that they started attacking everything else.
After days of this treatment on Alicia Hamberg’s blog, my husband wrote the following:
“people who keep quiet do have to share some of the blame because it could have ended a lot sooner, thereby saving many children. It’s a fact. You really can’t deny it.”
To which Diana replied:
“Yes I can deny it. That’s victim blaming.”
There are tons of other examples of their strong stance against standing up and doing something. They have a very strong opinion about this which led to the massive (guilt-tripping) attack against us... But I found it amazing that Alicia Hamberg herself wrote the following in 2010:
“I'm sick and tired of all the passive anthroposophists who believe they'd better not object to Sune's actions. It's just not enough to say 'blessed are the peacemakers' -- that's what I'd call self-satisfying gibberish. It's the kind of excuse of a lazy coward who wants to sit back and watch people get hurt and still congratulate himself for being a good human being. It's that self-congratulatory stuck-upped-ness so characteristic for some segments of the anthropsophical movement, actually. It's a comfortable attitude for people like Sune and those of his friends who hired him to 'monitor' (a euphemism, clearly, for his real mission) former students and parents, as well as for all of his supporters -- they think they're such blessed peacemakers for not getting involved. For not telling the bastard he's a bastard. If you see someone, even if it's just a complete stranger, getting beaten up by a thug, it's not really the moment for walking away, humming happily 'blessed are the peacemakers'.”
So is it ok to walk away or isn’t it? I’m getting confused. Or is it one set of rules for the anthroposophists and another for the Steiner critics?
The attacks moved on. Diana Winters wrote:
“A lot of people put themselves out there with plans or projects and cannot take the heat when someone disagrees with any piece of it. These people just moved with lightning speed from “What, you don’t agree with us?!” to rage-and-retaliation mode.”
Rage and retaliation? It took weeks for us to reply after the mobbing, sifting through Alicia Hamberg’s blog to gather the information we needed and come up with our arguments. If we were ragers and retaliators, we might have for instance outed Thetis Mercurio*, or even given her home address to Sune Nordwall, an anthroposophist who’s very keen to know who she really is.
Have we done that? So where’s the rage? It has in fact taken a lot of self-control to even read the nasty things that were said to us on that blog, and on twitter, let alone document any of it.
Actually, I think the rage lies with people calling us “demented fuckwits”, “steinermentarilly unstable”, our work “demented drivel” or “vile slander” and then telling us to “shut the fuck up” or “go fuck yourselves”…
More recently, Alicia Hamberg tweeted something interesting:
“Fascinating how someone who propagates against internet anonymity uses anonymous accounts & websites for harrassment [sic] & slander. Just sayin'.”
This is obviously aimed at my husband and I but it’s really strange: yes, we have multiple websites - as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s our way of filing information - but they’re not anonymous - anyone can also contact us from any of them… but harassment and libel? Again, we’re just going to have to ask you to prove that Alicia Hamberg.
What’s libellous about any of the things either my husband or myself have written? Oh, and how can we “propagate against internet anonymity” when we have been so criticised for going to great lengths to help witnesses hide their identity? Also by Alicia Hamberg - it’s so confusing.
Ironically, I wrote this to her during her mobbing of us:
“We offered people the opportunity to present evidence. We have put forward a reasoned argument (that you haven’t been able to refute), following our drubbing in the comments for why they should do so. If that is what you meant by “persuade” people, then that’s your word, but if that’s supposed to be evidence of us “targeting” families, then you should be called out, because that is BS and libellous. Please back up your claim of us targeting families or else retract that statement.”
To which she replied:
“The libel crap is indeed a very tired and cowardly routine. Legal clowning.”
So when we call something libellous, it’s laughed at as cowardice, but Alicia Hamberg can tweet off the same without having to back up anything. It’s that old switcheroo.
So to sum up the events of the last few months (greater detail can be found here and here): it all started when a Steiner critic - Thetis Mercurio - offered to help my family, promoting her local school, and offering my eldest daughter a place to stay in her house for a trial week at that school.
She also organised for her son to come and help us out during an extremely difficult time for my family since my mother was dying and we had to move constantly. Having originally planned to stay with us for a month, her son then changed his mind very quickly (which was of course entirely his prerogative), causing quite a few problems for us at the time, but those problems were overcome, he left when he wanted to and he and my husband took responsibility for any cock-ups that had happened.
Once he had flown away, the Thetis Mercurios terminated all communication. Having spent a lot of time raising my daughter’s expectations about the school during his stay, even building some kind of hope in her that that school could offer her a fresh start and trust education once again, she was then utterly abandoned. Thetis Mercurio* wouldn't even help me finish the article she requested I write for the Local Schools Network.
Publishing that article led to our mobbing on Alicia Hamberg's blog which lasted for days, where we were attacked because everything we had done, were doing and most likely would ever do was absolutely wrong. Thetis Mercurio* could have helped clear all this up by speaking, but she was notorious by her absence. So I decided to out her behaviour on Alicia Hamberg's blog. Alicia deleted the comment and banned us immediately, calling our statement lies. This led us to write our open letter to find out how others felt about what had happened to us.
Due to the fact we haven't gone away after having been beaten up but we keep calmly repeating the same thing, without deviating from the facts, Alicia Hamberg now states:
“The more I experience of this utter shit, the more I admire the principal of that NZ steiner school. Imagine having to deal with these people in real life. Month after month. I would not have had the strength of mind to just walk past them silently while they were sticking their nasty cameras in my face and harrassing [sic] me and everyone else around. Maybe the school did something wrong, at some point in time (I seriously doubt even that right now — I don’t think these people should be believed about ANYTHING). But the school certainly has nothing to be ashamed of. In the circumstances, it seems they have handled it quite elegantly.
There’s clearly a pattern in the behaviour and the way these people act towards others will land them in big trouble one day if it hasn’t already, that’s for sure. The question is how much damage they will do to other people along the way. Quite a lot, is my sad guess.”
Not only did she write this on a place where we are forbidden to enter and therefore cannot respond, but now she, a Steiner critic, utterly rubbishes the experiences of another, questioning our work and claiming everything we have written or exposed to be lies. Everything, even testimonials given to us by other parents from the school, like the one we received last week. Alicia Hamberg vindicates the school that gave my kid post-traumatic stress symptoms, and then expelled the bullied child. Alicia Hamberg's done this simply because her trusted friend, Thetis Mercurio*, cannot be wrong, so following on from that sterling logic, we have to be.
But where is Thetis Mercurio*? Why doesn’t she take some of the heat off Alicia Hamberg and tell everyone what happened? And perhaps her husband might like to comment from his perspective as a Senior Clinical Lecturer specialising in mental health issues? Don’t forget though that we do have evidence to back up our claims, so the "Thetis Mercurios" had better be accurate (unless of course, the person we met wasn’t Thetis at all, but an impostor - that’s the problem with anonymity: you often don’t know who you’re talking to).
Alicia's right about one thing though: sticking to the facts and standing up to gangs of bullies, be they anthroposophists or Steiner critics has got us into a lot of trouble because bullies don't like that, but somehow, I don’t think that’s what she meant.
The way Alicia Hamberg, Thetis Mercurio* and others, are dealing with this situation reminds me so much of how Steiner schools behave when confronted with something they feel threatened by. This behaviour has been documented many times all over the web, even on Alicia Hamberg’s own blog. Yet it seems her own blind loyalty means that she can't see that she is herself doing all the things she claims to abhor, whilst others “sit back and watch people get hurt” by her continued aggression, the very attitude that Alicia Hamberg seemed to be so critical of.
It reminds me of a saying I heard a while back: “If you have the truth on your side, pound the truth. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table.”
I think I'm finally starting to see the comedy in this situation... And it'll make a cracking documentary!
* NOTE: since writing this article, the person behind the anonymous avatar Thetis Mercurio has revealed herself to be Melanie Byng.
