Journeys of life- part the second

In 1967 we set sail for Australia. I was 14. I think none of us, parents included, had any idea of what was really ahead of us.
Nevertheless we had an exotic trip aboard the SS Orsova of the P&O line. Visiting Gibraltar, then Port Said......just before the Suez Canal was closed we passed through, , bypassing Aden (where an 'incident' had occurred...a soldier I think having been shot.... ) we went to Djibouti on the horn of Africa.  I remember being quite frightened as night fell and we were far away, and quite aware, for the first time ever, that we were white people on a black continent.
We went on to the exciting city of Bombay/Mumbai....we had never seen anything like it. Encapsulating as it does both the tensions of India and the still present tensions of the Raj with its great gateway to India.
The tension that India is both British and Indian.
In the midst of all this is poverty and porn....women in cages.....I had no conception of what this meant.
From there to Penang and the Temple of a thousand Buddhas   and the Snake Temple (here). The stupid taxi driver gave my brother R a baby snake. At least we had the sense to realise that there was no way we would be bringing live reptiles into Australia.
A couple of day later we sailed into the more benign Singapore. A pleasant drive around and my father had clever photos taken of my mother sitting in his hand....I will try to find these and post them later.
Then we landed in Fremantle, sailed on to Adelaide (the Bight was rough!) and then we drove to Whyalla ......what a shock!

UnAmerican & unAustralian

Today is the anniversary of the day Arthur Miller was convicted of "contempt" of Congress for refusing to 'name names' of supposed Communists
A story from the BBC is here
He was brought (as were many others) before a select Committee called the House unAmerican Activities Committee  (HUAC)because, like many others on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed in Australia he came to the conclusion that the only way to prevent the re-emergence of Fascism and to defeat social inequality was through Communism. History  proved them wrong in many (but not all) ways.
But the McCarthy witchhunts, so devastatingly allegorised in Miller's play "The Crucible", have passed into perpetuity as one of the least edifying periods of American history. Superceded only in Anglo-Centric societies by the history of slavery and racial discrimination in both the United Kingdom, the Us and Australia
One of the things that I find interesting is the use of the term unAmerican, because we live in a country where the term unAustralian is bandied around.
It is the sort of term that is used when ever people are losing their argument. You then claim that your opponent is unAustralian!
There can be no rational response to this since there is no clarity about what being "Australian" means either.
Most of those who use such terminology would resile from the idea that "being Australian" means that in the first you place you need to be indigenous!
What is perhaps interesting about the BBC article is that HUAC was not formerly disbanded until 1975!

Young and free...maybe a little indebted

Most people seem to be getting that to sing (as you do) our national anthem and rejoice that we are 'young and free' is yet another example of simply ignoring any idea that we have an indigenous culture. A culture which, depending on your reckoning, is 40 probably 60 and maybe even 100 thousand years old.
I am not entirely happy with the description that it is the longest continuing culture in the world, (though the case can be made and I am open to being convinced). That, I think, begs the question about whether Australian aboriginal culture has the consistency for such a period that would mean there is anything more than the tenuous link that we live on an island and so it must be 'continuing' in that sense.
But that there has been art, music, story, familial structure, aetiological mythology,is abundantly clear.
Mabo and Wik articulated from a legal point of view that as far as this country is concerned it was not an uninhabited wasteland just wasting for the young and free to some and rape it.

On this Australia Day remember we are both young and free, and also old and deep

The sticking place

I am finding it hard to discuss the recent developments in indigenous relations. So many conversations have the sense of people pursing their lips and obviously disagreeing with what is being said.
The righting of wrongs seems like such a good thing to do that it is difficult when people think otherwise. I don't understand why so many white people feel aggrieved by aboriginal people, when you tease it out they have often had little or no encounter with them. But how often conversations seem to drift from righting the wrong to curiously blame-laden comments like..."I just hope they will do the right thing now!" Often implying that they are not likely to do so.
This is the underbelly of the racism that pervades our society, it is deep, unacknowledged and unknowing.
We will come quickly to the point where we will need courage to front the criticism and the prejudice. I think Rudd has the ticker to do this. I pray it be so.
I was drawn to that conversation between Mr and Mrs MacBeth, when he is weakening and needs to be pushed to continue to the bitter end

MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!But screw your courage
to the sticking-place,And we'll not fail.
Macbeth, Act I, Scene VII

It is not a perfect match, but it will do for today. And so inevitably I googled my way into another couple of good quotes

Fear is the basis for everything terrible.

Fear is what causes all the horror in the world. No man achieves anything through fear. Fear isn't constructive. The only thing that can save people is to say I'm not afraid anymore. The minute they say they are not afraid they cannot commit a wrong act. There will be no such thing as a wrong act.
John Cassavetes

From a certain point on, there is no more turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
Franz Kafka

Good on us

Whilst some comment has been made on the various inadequacies of yesterday's events

• Mr Tuckey's facetious comments that it would not change a damn thing and his laughable rationalisations for not participating (here). He says he is 'horrified' that the Federal Parliament should be turned into a dance parlour. This from a man called "Iron Bar" because of his notorious (and deliberate) stance when it comes to subtlety!
• There is much angst about what Nelson should and should not have said
• There is a clear understanding that as wonderful as this event was, it is largely symbolical and we must move on to action
• I note that having received an apology from the Rudd staffers who should have known better than to betray the spirit of the day by turning their back on the leader of the Opposition, that Nelson is now whining because Rudd has not apologised to him for the behaviour of others. This is rich coming from the leader of a party who have for a decade said that they don't need to apologise for what other people have done. Alack, methinks we are back to game playing the political game

I'm glad nevertheless that there seems to be genuine energy and commitment to move on with vigour, innovation and dedication rather than nitpick.

Watershed

There is no doubt that an apology will be made, to whom remains to be seen, by whom and with whom (to use a liturgical formula) is also up in the air.

A lot of people still don't get this, that this is not a personal apology at all. It is a nation apologising for not holding itself properly to account, and presuming to treat people as though their lives and their opinions, their wishes and their values were of little or no worth.

So though there were people to blame, and some more than others...that is not the point; but rather that we allowed it to happen.

Given the fact that it is Government and not the Crown that is going to apologise it is probably important that both political parties are seen to be acting in concert. I am a bit disappointed that the Liberal Party has not opened themselves to this more wholeheartedly (here) If ever there was a case for bi-partisanship it is now. It is not unreasonable, I suggest, for Nelson to know the wording...the government should perhaps be deliberately inviting input ...but if they are too backward in coming forward it will be pretty poor.

Silly responses

I foolishly made the remark in a letter to the Advertiser yesterday that most Australians would be happy for a apology to be made to indigenous Australians.
Curiously there were six other letters making a number of alternative replies. One from the erstwhile mayor of Port Augusta assured the PM that he did not have her permission to include her in the apology, at least one other correspondent made a similar response.
Now that's as maybe but they rather miss the point. A Parliamentary response is notp one that is made on behalf of anyone as an individual it is made on behalf of the nation.
In a representative democracy one might ask who should make this apology, there are really only three persons who can actually represent the whole nation. The first is the Queen, the second the Governor General as her representative. They are both (in their roles) embodiments of the nation, but we are pretty confused about this. I think this is the purest option, but pragmatically many would be squeamish about drawing one or both of these two figureheads into this.

The third option, therefore, is the current Head of Government (as opposed to Head of State). Despite the protestations of Mayor Baluch et al, Prime Minister Rudd will not be offering her personal apology at all but the apology of the nation. There are many things an incumbent government will do which individual electors will not wish to be associated with. Too bad! That is the nature of elected government. We knew when we elected Labor that this was part of the agenda.

Personally, although this issue is littered with shades of grey and is not black and white(!); the gentle voice of Lowitja O'Donohue and of Fred Chaney (here) and other Aboriginal people welcoming this move (here for example) is enough to suggest we should do this and get it over and done with.

Media Blackout

A recent email sent to me (no reason to disbelieve it) told of an event in Adelaide on Sunday 25th November, the day after the Federal election.

Approximately 75 people attended an Aboriginal smoking ceremony in Hindmarsh Square to observe John Howard’s “political funeral”.

John Howard’s coffin was bathed in smoke as Aboriginal Kaurna elder Uncle Lewis O’Brien performed a funeral rite in the Kaurna language.
Niwili White Forrest held the bowl of smoking leaves as they circled the coffin together.

Members of the audience placed “detention centre” barbed wire wreaths, WMDs, and flowers for those who have suffered under his regime, on the coffin.
MC Tauto Sansbury addressed the crowd, explaining how John Howard’s evil spirit was being cleansed from the country after 11 bad years.

BUT NOTE THIS
Channel 7, 9, and 10 cameras filmed the ceremony, but did not carry it in their TV news that night – Costello’s “resignation” took pride of place…

Klynton Wanganeen from the local community addressed the crowd.

Professor Peter Buckskin gave a powerful speech that outlined Howard’s impact on Aboriginal communities.

Pilawuk White, from the Ngangiwumerri people of the NT, said, “We now consider the country to be finally rid of John Howard’s evil spirit, and are celebrating the birth of a new era.”


She took the audience through a water cleansing ceremony from her country in which water is placed on the forehead and then on the navel

The mainstream media ignored this important event that symbolises the burying of the Howard era and the subsequent moving on.

No one belonging to a sectional group like a church or minor political interest group will be surprised about the neglect of the media. We can all lament that such a symbolic event was not given the media exposure it should have been. Hopefully, though, we can move on.
Surely the much awaited apology must not be far off.

furious furore

It is difficult to imagine that John Howard expects to be taken seriously about his latest promises (here) to be more open to the process of reconciliation. Would that it were true! Even if it is, the electorate will have difficulty reconciling this (pun intended) with the image of the ever more furious Howard thumping the lectern at the Melbourne Reconciliation convention as senior aboriginal leaders turned their backs on him in defiance.
Would, indeed, that it were true that there has been a change of heart. But it looks rather like the latest in opportunistic backflips.

A different inclination

I am not entirely inclined to believe that everything about governmental response to problems in remote communities is just cynical politicking.
Though I was bemused to watch Minister Brough touring the Territory this week. I imagine that he would regard it as a (media) success.
At one point where he was trying to make the point about the denuding of the landscape that had gone on because of people congregating at the boundaries just outside where the dry zones are. Here the people sit, drinking booze, they chop down the trees and make fires.
Brough observed that this had denuded the landscape. It made marvellous TV.
The Minister in the bush totally exasperated, throwing his hands up in total despair.
Yes but....his aboriginal supporter was trying to say...
Helluva price to pay, the Minister declaimed.
Yes but ....the young guy tried to get his word in
But the Minister was having none of it. It was his moment.
As they all left the scene of this desolation. You could hear the young man still trying
Yes, but this didn't happen overnight. It's happened over thirty years.
But the Minister wasn't paying any heed at all.

It is not easy stuff. But let's not play the self-righteous game and assume that we have suddenly seen how awful this is.
Someone (us) needs to ask the question...If this has gone on for decades why has nothing been done about it before now.
I am not entirely cynical, just a little bit.