Post
by Stephen Whiteside » Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:05 am
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.