by Quentin Cockburn

Hanging Rock and Fashionable Fascism – a postscript.

There is a fundamental difference between German fascism as practised in the 1930’s and the current platform of economic rationalist Thatcherite fascism touted in Australia today.  And that difference is about landscape and nature.

Hanging Rock, if it were in Germany, and had a longstanding tradition of deep spiritual significance, (other than the 40,000+ years of indigenous reverence) would be out of bounds to any developer.  The Nazis were nuanced in their hatred of culture.  They deplored the degenerate trends of modernism yet yearned to be at one with ancient traditions and landscape, a sort of folk dancing version of Pol Pot.

The Germans as a nation revered their landscape.  In Germany, then as now, there are places along the roadside set aside for quiet contemplation, no interpretive centres, no public safety warnings.  The German love for their landscape is a sacred tradition bound up in teutonic legend and genuine engagement with natural history and traditions of deep seated health and wellbeing.  Wellness for Germans is not to attend a seminar or be pummeled under the para protestant pullulations of Pilates, but to take off their clothes and go for a walk in the forest.  It’s a deep inner pagan tradition, of nudity and self absorption in nature that christianity could not bludgeon.  Though kitsch, the Nazis through such organisations as ‘Strength through Joy’, and the youth hostels movement, the Hitler youth and the BDM, (a sort of psycho fascist girl guides) were intent upon personal experience and bonding through an association with their landscape.  Trekking, singing songs and rejoicing in nakedness, the exhilaration of swimming in sub alpine lakes, more walking, the transcendent mystery of the forests and the adoration of the clouds adorning the peaks.  Wagner used this common affinity to superheat his vision of the Germanic hero.  Hitler utilised the landscape as the wild, tamed, and sensuous source of human dignity, and for the oppressed urbanites the concept of Wildgarten, gave them a taste of the paradise, eternal, that nurtured and sustained that forest derived eternality, of goth, and knight and king.  Their buildings were oppressive, overblown and ugly, yet their landscape derived works, still stand, (bridges, walking paths, and hostels) to enrich and endure.  The Germans prior to World War 1 were considered to be the great romantics of Europe.  From then on a new stereotype emerged, but even in the darkest days of nazism the idea of clear felling an ancient forest, of cutting a road through wilderness, mining in a park, or demolishing an ancient village for a subdivision would be anathema.  Like Ed Maggs description of the London Masterplan of 1944, the Germans ,(like the English) had such a profound love of landscape they ensured that the best bits, (not the really poor areas, as part of it was to quarantine ‘nice’ country from poor bits) of it would be protected, (and we’re talking about a whole range of landscape types here) into perpetuity.

In Australia we inherited perhaps the deepest cultural association with the land on earth We dismissed it as rubbish.  We actively eradicated the original inhabitants claim to dignity, humanity, land and displaced it with a worldview of assimilation and acclimatisation.  We still think that way.  As a nation our association with the landscape has devolved.  Between One hundred and fifty years ago (this is arguable) substantial tracts were set aside as national parks, to be preserved as national capital.  Since then those wise heads have been replaced by those who seek only monetary capital.  They regard the land as worthless and dangerous.  How can you expect them to understand an eco system as complex and tiered as Australia’s?  It requires active engagement and a willingness to look, listen, touch, feel, and study.  Instead, they destroy what they do not know.  Australia has ignored the great tradition of landscape appreciation we acquired, and has not been able to replace it with another.  Our view of land is defensive and exploitative.  We are the real nazis as we have shown an ideological incapacity to accept anything beyond a very narrow determinist viewpoint.  This tendency is increasing.  And the paradox is that the more we abuse it, the more it will bite back, the more we will burn and crush and destroy in our fury, because rather than listen we dictate!  And expect the land to do as ordered.  Ultimately our insecurity increases, and the drift moves further to the right.  Eventually eco systems that supports us will cease to function.

It’s ironic. We only have ourselves to blame.  But the blame will likely fall on the original custodians instead.