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A vibrant history of the alternative movement Rainbow Dreaming: Tales from the Age of Aquarius, edited by Harsha Prabhu and Graeme Batterbury Luis Feliu
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t’s a rare thing indeed when a book, a song, a poem, or a film comes along which enhances or cements your sense of identity and place, of who you are, of where you live and why you live there. Rainbow Dreaming, a collection of over 100 anecdotes and images exploring the history of the alternative movement and its social impact on Australia since the Aquarius Festival held in Nimbin 40 years ago, does that by putting it all in perspective. It’s a must-have pictorial book for anyone living on the north coast to understand the communities that make up what is affectionately known as the ‘Rainbow Region’, centred around Nimbin and Byron Bay. But others around Australia will also be inspired by the thoughts of a diverse array of cultural and social visionaries and how people power can transform communities and ways of doing things for the better. The book comprises the work of scores of some of the region’s bestloved and -known photographers,
we could go to’ in order to raise the Club Med development issue in parliament. ‘So it’s ironic that 20 years later here we are having a festival and launching a book about the alternative movement when we took on a multinational corporation and took them to the courts and won,’ she said. Ms Barham said she was also honoured recently in parliament when she managed against the odds to put on the record what the Aquarius Festival movement had achieved and marking its 40th anniversary. She said that much to her surprise, MPs encouraged her as she read her mark of respect for the festival onto the parliamentary record, by saying ‘go on Jan, tell us more’, and the next day parliament supported it.
last Saturday could not have been lost on those present, and it wasn’t. The event was the culturally rich Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. The site was once the battleground for a David and Goliath fight where an environmentally enlightened Byron Bay community succeeded in stopping a multinational corporation from developing it into an exclusive five-star resort not in keeping with the locals’ vision for their town.
First Greens mayor One of the photos from the book, captioned Beyond Beef Festival, Nimbin, 1992. Photo Elk Anstey
writers, poets environmentalists, filmmakers, musicians, activists and other thinkers and doers who were at the forefront or background of dynamic social change, then and now.
Sustainable living And as many contributors agree, their legacy has much more relevance today than it ever has, with demands for a lifestyle committed to sustainable living. The alternative thinkers, labelled ‘hippies’ by the rural communities they were quickly becoming part of as they streamed into the
north coast during and after the 1973 Aquarius Festival, were a microcosm of a movement of people around the world sick of the old destructive ways of living and hoping to stimulate change for the better.
Significant launch Another visionary of the time, John Lennon, described them as being ‘dreamers’, but ‘not the only ones’, and of course, hoping many more would join them. Ironically, the significance of the site, the event and the person chosen to launch Rainbow Dreaming
And it was the first Greens mayor in Australia, Jan Barham, now a NSW MP, who did the honours, having also contributed to the book. The former Byron Shire mayor, after acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, told the crowd that the Aquarius Festival was the first event which paid such respect to the Indigenous people. Ms Barham said it had been a guiding influence for the alternative movement since and ‘part of the collaboration between the black and the green’. She also acknowledged ‘other inspirational people’ who had inspired her in politics, former north coastbased MLCs Richard Jones and Ian Cohen who were in the crowd, saying Mr Jones was ‘the lone voice
On the record ‘So it’s on the record, their support and recognition for 40 years of who we are on the north coast and the alternative movement, and that felt great to do, a coming of age.’ The book is available via bookshops and retail outlets and online at www.rainbowdreaming.org. All proceeds from its sale go to power Nimbin’s Sustainability Hub.
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The Byron Shire Echo August 6, 2013 9