Bonjour,
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose- the more things change, the more they stay the same.Some years ago I read Bruce Pascoe’s ‘Dark Emu’. I couldn’t put it down. What a wonderful beautifully crafted piece of writing. What an interesting subject. After two centuries a readable denial of the denial. Thus it came to pass that Malthus’ consumers of loathsome worms were no longer universally seen as the primitive uncivilised barbarians who by having been consigned to the lowest ranks of human society had by default justified their mistreatment and the appropriation of their lands.
To me the most significant sentence in Dark Emu is “…then all of us must be alert to that greatest of all limitations to wisdom:- The Assumption…”
In the winter of 2012 Bruce Pascoe wrote an essay in the Griffith Review entitled ‘Andrew Bolt’s Disappointment’, it included “…we are looking at each other across a gulf of incomprehension…”
Very restrained was Bruce. Myself I perceive a “Grand Canyon of malicious ignorance”
Thus as the chorus of recognition for the book got louder so too the deniers of the denial of the denial counter attacked. Leading the charge is The Bolt Report, a TV programme on Sky News.
Bruce’s Aboriginality is being questioned. Pedantic questioning of bits of the book are being promulgated. Instead of enjoying the book as a fresh look at the history of the First Australians, we are now witnessing an obnoxious messy hate motivated argument. The trolls have been incited into action so that a staffer in Ken Wyatt (The current Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians)’s office resigned because she couldn’t cope with the anonymous vitriolic abuse on the phone and on line resulting from Ken Wyatt having sprung to Bruce’s defence.
Is it possible that Andrew Bolt’s obsessive attack on Bruce Pascoe is the result of him having had his nose put out of joint by Bruce’s 2012 essay? As they used to say in Dutch ‘Was hij op z’n pikje getrapt?’ (had he had his little dick stepped on?) Methinks Andrew’s response is disproportionate.
When Joseph Conrad wrote ‘Heart of Darkness’ was his English or Polish identity questioned? Was his entitlement to write about the Belgian Congo and about London questioned? Did his colleagues and friends cop abuse? Was a vicious campaign to discredit him and his book launched?I don’t think so.
So what has all this to do with Yuendumu?
Just as books like Dark Emu can bring out the darkest instincts in Australian Society, so too the very existence of remote Aboriginal communities seems to seriously bother a significant proportion of mainstream society. The First Australians and their descendants are either pitied or hated, both inappropriate and unfair responses to such as the proud Warlpiri Nation.
My Warlpiri friends and neighbours are a great bunch of people, and this is a great place.
I don’t know what it will take for the outside world to stop making assumptions and portraying and treating Yuendumu as this dangerous dysfunctional place inhabited by wild out of control violent black fellows, and brave white fellows facing dangers and privations so as to bring order, safety and civilisation to these colonial outposts.
I just hope that the tide is turned before this stereotype becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
A bientot
François
Dark Emu, heart of darkness…….Don’t be afraid of the Dark- Robert Cray….