ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Well said Heather dear! Well said !!


Bob

I love this Country. I'm grateful for Her nurture, diversity of nature and I'm proud of the achievements of Her people.
Does that statement make me a patriot?
More importantly, does it put me in the "Cronulla" camp?

I think Manfred that some people have strayed from patriotism being the refuge of a [/b]scoundrel to the notion that patriotism is the mark of a scoundrel. A leap of post-modernist unreason. So when John Howard made a remark about regulating immigration to suit our choices he was portrayed as being " patriotic ", proof positive that he was a scoundrel.

So according to my statement, I'm a scoundrel ??

For those who think that the only virtue left for western culture is self-loathing, the answer is probably..yes.
It's a pitiful state of affairs Manfred. I think that our old mates, the Bulletin bush poets would be utterly astonished.

Speaking for myself, I would never agree that you are a scoundrel. I'm with you in your sentiments.

Manfred we are all scondrels it is just some more so than others

bill you know who

I assume the latte-sipping self-loathing post-modernist references are primarily directed at me, so I suppose I should respond.

So much to say.

Firstly, I don't think there is anything particularly postmodern about self-loathing. Nor would the bush poets be so surprised by it. There seems to a thread of self-loathing in the psyche of most poets - most of the good ones, anyway. Henry Lawson for one. Probably Dennis also. Certainly Barcroft Boake.

I'm venturing a little beyond my field of expertise, but I think it works something like this. Take some early childhood traumas - in Lawson's case, for example, financial hardship, domestic conflict, deafness. These generate a degree of anger. Unless this is resolved in some way, it becomes directed back at the individual. It has to go somewhere. This process becomes heightened in particularly sensitive, intelligent minds.

Am I guilty of self-loathing?. Probably, some of the time. Certainly not all of the time.

Patriotism. I enjoy it when Australia wins sporting events. But I do often feel the celebrations are overdone, particularly in the popular media, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Sure, Australia does well at sport, but so we should. And, at the end of the day, it's just sport.

Black arm-band. This is another word that annoys me. What does it mean? I see it as a highly emotional pejorative term that is often directed at people whose only crime is to seek the truth.

I speak especially of our contributions to the displacement of the Aborigines. Too often emotional reactions to historical events are linked to the events themselves. In other words, if news comes to light of a particular massacre, and it makes us feel too uncomfortable, then we would prefer not to know, and if we can damage the credibility of he/she who bears the news by affixing the tag of 'black arm-band' to them, then so much the better.

I'm just interested in unearthing some of these astonishing stories from our history. Whether it makes me or anybody else feel ashamed or not is utterly irrelevant.

Very few people are aware, for example, that there was an Aboriginal mission very close to Healesville, now about an hour's drive from Melbourne. It was called 'Corranderk', and it ran from about 1862 to 1920 (from memory).

It is a very interesting story. The Aborigines, led by Simon Wonga and, later, William Barak, were told that they were required to act like white people, inasmuch as they were expected to stay in one spot, till the soil, and harvest crops. So they decided to do as they were told.

They proved to be extraordinarily successful. They grew a range of vegetables. In particular, they grew hops which won prizes, and was of export quality. Initially, they were allowed to keep the profits. Later, however, this was disallowed.

The infamous 'Half Caste Act' eventually deprived the mission of most of its workforce, and this marked the beginning of the end.

These days, we like to tell ourselves that 'blackfellas' are prone to 'walkabout', and can't be relied upon. Yet, the Aborigines under Wonga and Barak proved themselves perfectly able to farm in the 'whitefella' way. We forced failure upon them, and we now deride them because it suits us to do so.

There are a number of direct descendants from Corranderk living in the Healesville district today. I don't think it's unfair of me to suggest they represent something of an underclass. If we are to find a way to engage with them, and help them to enter the mainstream, we are going to have to acknowledge some rather unpalatable historical facts. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Am I a 'black arm-bander' for talking like this? To be honest, I don't really care. But it does seem to me that the term is used to shut conversations down, and I do think that is very unhelpful.

'Black arm-band'. That's another phrase that annoys me.

The black arm bands I recall were associated with funerals and mourning, particularly amongst the Italian community. Is that another 'hijack'?

PS. I like my morning cup of latte ...

It's interesting what you say about the Christians. For a long time I had a very negative view of the missions, as I suppose most people still do. Yet the simple fact of the matter is that without them there would have been no refuge at all from the squatters.

When I started working in Aboriginal health about twenty years ago I saw a completely new side to the missions. Many of the people I was involved with were young, and really struggled with their identity. They knew they were Aboriginal - dark skin, etc. - but often knew nothing about their ancestors. Some had been adopted by white families and told they were 'Indian'. Others had been brought up in institutions. There was a lot of confusion, and still is.

I sat in on a large group discussion about origins one day. There were a few who could trace their lineage right back to a particular mission, and they were as proud as punch. These lucky few could confidently field any queries about the 'genuineness' of their claims of Aboriginality, and knew exactly where they were from. For them, the missions gleamed like bright lights on the horizon.

A lot of my preconceptions were turned upside-down that day.

Stephen Whiteside wrote:self-loathing post-modernist references are primarily directed at me,

NO STEPHEN NOT AT ALL.

Please remind me if I have failed to do it, but if I am referring to any person in particular I intend to make that clear and not hide behind generalities.
Self-floathing is a term that I think refers mainly to a mood that seems to pervade social discourse that assumes superiority for all things other than "western" heritage. Case in point the UN.

A few years ago the NSW Police were issued with a small pamphlet advising them how to act properly towards people's religious sensitivities. For some reason Christianity was not listed in the pamphlet. That's the sort of thing.

That reminds me of a word that I dislike for it's misuse.." ethnic "
Ethnic simply means national identity. It gets used as if it means alien or foreign.
Us Australians are ethnic. We are ethnic Aussies.