Who am I?
My name is not Josef K Blum.
I have another name and another life which is rich with many facets. In that life, I am surrounded by loved ones and have many things to occupy my mind other than missed fatherhood, parenting rights and the wrongs of a faulty system. I will leave that life to myself and share with you the life of Josef K Blum.
Josef K Blum? That’s an odd sounding name
Blum was the name the family court picked for me. The Family Court publishes its judgements under a pseudonym. Mine was Blum. Besides the poetic justice in using their name to call for reform of this broken system (that nearly broke me), there is a practical reason as well. I hide behind anonymity because section 121 of the Family Law Act prohibits publication of family law proceedings (maximum penalty: one year imprisonment). While the aim of protecting children’s privacy is noble, the impact os s121 means that the stories and the experiences of parents going through Family Court stay out of sight and out of mind. I cannot speak in my own name but I cannot stay silent anymore. So, I will use the name that is already in the public domain. Blum it is.
I will find my voice by borrowing another man’s face.
I needed a face to go with my name and I found one that suited. On my first day on twitter, my cover came undone. It came in the form of the tweet below. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who liked the face I borrowed. His real name is Carl Nilsson-Polias though he seems cool with the idea of people using his profile. I would like to thank Carl for the face he has given me.
Josef (Joseph/Yosef/Yusef) is the name that comes from two sources. My first namesake was the son of Jacob and Rachel, owner of an amazing technicolour dreamcoat, and the first recorded character to be falsely accused of sexual misconduct. In 1889 BC he is sent to prison for a crime he did not commit. His story ends happily with him climbing the ladder of success from slavery to royalty and ending with him reunifying with his lost family. Some biblical stories have strong and inspiring characters — Josef is one of them. Over the past years, I related to his character and drew inspiration from his perseverance and resilience.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!”
But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. 13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. (Genesis 39:11–15)
My second namesake is Josef K, the main character in Franz Kafka’s The Trial (originally: The Process). Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. Josef K, a 30 year old banker is arrested on birthday. He never finds out what the crime is and is not given an opportunity to answer the charge. The dark read follows Josef K for a year as he navigates the dark corridors of justice, being stuck in a faceless system where process carries more weight than outcome and where truth and its inquiry are of little bearing.
“No,” said the priest, “it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.” “A melancholy conclusion,” said K. “It turns lying into a universal principle.”
I have never read a more apt description of the Family Court of Australia, a system that is Kafkaesque to its core. And so, this blog, which declares war on this court is called Kafka’s Court.
My aim is to inspire other fathers and mothers who have fallen victim to this court to tell their story. If enough of us talk, someone is bound to hear us.
On the last day of Josef K's life he loses his urge to resist and ends up leading himself to his own execution. My end will not be like his. I am using my voice to make sure I don’t lose my fighting spirit or my will to live. I want to end up like the biblical Josef, not Kafka’s version.
This is the story of Josef K Blum.
It starts off happily and will end off that way too. It has a painful and heartbreaking middle.
This is also the story of Kafka’s court.
It is a sad story from beginning to end.
