Boomerang - Australian race, identity, nature and horse thieves

Chapter One Nature’s Gift

Paul Keating

Redfern Speech (1992)

PRE-READING: 1. In groups look up key facts about a. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation b. ATSIC c. cThe Mabo Case court decision (including the concept Native Title) and reactions to the ruling.

Based on your research, prepare a 3-4 slide Powerpoint presentation called ‘Australia moving towards reconciliation?’

2. Do some online research on Paul Keating and note down facts you think might be important to bear in mind when reading his speech about reconciliation with the country’s indigenous people.

3. Find the speech on YouTube and listen to it while you read along.

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Redfern Speech

Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating held this speech in Redfern Park, Sydney, on December 10, 1992 as a way of launching Australia’s programme for ‘International Year of the World’s Indigenous People’. Consequently the speech is popularly known as The Redfern Speech. At the time, Redfern was an area where indigenous people lived. Today it is a gentrified Sydney neighbourhood. The speech was held not long after the Mabo Case court ruling about Native Title (see xxx) Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here today at the launch of Australia’s celebration of the 1993 International Year of the World’s Indigenous People.

It will be a year of great significance for Australia.

It comes at a time when we have committed ourselves to succeeding in the test which so far we have always failed.

Because, in truth, we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the indigenous people of Australia - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to say to ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social democracy, that we are what we should be - truly the land of the fair go and the better chance.

There is no more basic test of how seriously we mean these things.

It is a test of our self-knowledge.

Of how well we know the land we live in. How well we know our history.

How well we recognise the fact that, complex as our contemporary identity is, it cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia.

How well we know what Aboriginal Australians know about Australia.

Redfern is a good place to contemplate these things.

Just a mile or two from the place where the first European settlers landed, in too many ways it tells us that their failure to bring much more than devastation and demoralisation to Aboriginal Australia continues to be our failure.

More I think than most Australians recognise, the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all.

In Redfern it might be tempting to think that the reality Aboriginal Australians face is somehow contained here, and that the rest of us are insulated from it.

Redfern Speech

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launch lancering settler nybygger plight svær situation dispossessed at være frataget land og ejendom venture vove den påstand stark klar bearing indflydelse standing anseelse intractable svært at behandle Social Darwinism psedovidenskabelig ide om mennesker og etniciteters naturlige placering i et hierarki. indefensible uforsvarlig famine sult persecution forfølgelse prosperous velstående just retfærdig beset plage degrade nedværdige custody politiets varetægt devastating knusende fractured splintret shortage mangel på forge smede equity fairness heritage kulturarv conceit fejlagtig forestilling pastoral græsningsarealer til især får frontier grænsen mellem opdyrket land og vildnisset feat bedrift diminish formindske capacity evne realm område insular isoleret emerge vokse ud af epic meget lang descendant efterkommer resilience hårdførhed cataclysmic voldsom omvæltning decade årti

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But of course, while all the dilemmas may exist here, they are far from contained.

We know the same dilemmas and more are faced all over Australia.

That is perhaps the point of this Year of the World’s Indigenous People: to bring the dispossessed out of the shadows, to recognise that they are part of us, and that we cannot give indigenous Australians up without giving up many of our own most deeply held values, much of our own identity - and our own humanity.

Nowhere in the world, I would venture, is the message more stark than it is in Australia.

We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. Even if our own conscience allowed us to, I am sure, that in due course, the world and the people of our region would not.

There should be no mistake about this - our success in resolving these issues will have a significant bearing on our standing in the world.

However intractable the problems seem, we cannot resign ourselves to failure - any more than we can hide behind the contemporary version of Social Darwinism which says that to reach back for the poor and dispossessed is to risk being dragged down.

That seems to me not only morally indefensible, but bad history.

We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that Australia once reached out for us.

Didn’t Australia provide opportunity and care for the dispossessed Irish? The poor of Britain? The refugees from war and famine and persecution in the countries of Europe and Asia?

Isn’t it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and remarkably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians - the people to whom the most injustice has been done.

And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.

It begins, I think, with that act of recognition.

Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.

We brought the diseases. The alcohol.

We committed the murders.

We took the children from their mothers.

We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice.

And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.

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Redfern Speech

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With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds.

We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?

As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.

If we needed a reminder of this, we received it this year.

The Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody showed with devastating clarity that the past lives on in inequality, racism and injustice.

In the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians, and in the demoralisation and desperation, the fractured identity, of so many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

For all this, I do not believe that the Report should fill us with guilt.

Down the years, there has been no shortage of guilt, but it has not produced the responses we need.

Guilt is not a very constructive emotion.

I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit. All of us.

Perhaps when we recognise what we have in common we will see the things which must be done - the practical things.

There is something of this in the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.

The Council’s mission is to forge a new partnership built on justice and equity and an appreciation of the heritage of Australia’s indigenous people.

In the abstract those terms are meaningless.

We have to give meaning to “justice” and “equity” - and, as I have said Redfern Speech

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several times this year, we will only give them meaning when we commit ourselves to achieving concrete results.

If we improve the living conditions in one town, they will improve in another. And another.

If we raise the standard of health by twenty per cent one year, it will be raised more the next.

If we open one door others will follow.

When we see improvement, when we see more dignity, more confidence, more happiness - we will know we are going to win.

We need these practical building blocks of change.

The Mabo Judgement should be seen as one of these.

By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the basis for justice.

It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever been the case in the past.

For that reason alone we should ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and hostility of the past few months.

Mabo is an historic decision - we can make it an historic turning point, the basis of a new relationship between indigenous and non-Aboriginal Australians.

The message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.

There is everything to gain. Even the unhappy past speaks for this.

Where Aboriginal Australians have been included in the life of Australia they have made remarkable contributions.

Economic contributions, particularly in the pastoral and agricultural industry.

They are there in the frontier and exploration history of Australia.

They are there in the wars.

In sport to an extraordinary degree.

In literature and art and music.

In all these things they have shaped our knowledge of this continent and of ourselves. They have shaped our identity.

They are there in the Australian legend.

We should never forget - they have helped build this nation.

And if we have a sense of justice, as well as common sense, we will forge a new partnership.

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Redfern Speech

As I said, it might help us if we non-Aboriginal Australians imagined ourselves dispossessed of land we had lived on for fifty thousand years and then imagined ourselves told that it had never been ours.

Imagine if ours was the oldest culture in the world and we were told that it was worthless.

Imagine if we had resisted this settlement, suffered and died in the defence of our land, and then were told in history books that we had given up without a fight.

Imagine if non-Aboriginal Australians had served their country in peace and war and were then ignored in history books.

Imagine if our feats on sporting fields had inspired admiration and patriotism and yet did nothing to diminish prejudice.

Imagine if our spiritual life was denied and ridiculed.

Imagine if we had suffered the injustice and then were blamed for it.

It seems to me that if we can imagine the injustice we can imagine its opposite.

And we can have justice.

I say that for two reasons: I say it because I believe that the great things about Australian social democracy reflect a fundamental belief in justice.

And I say it because in so many other areas we have proved our capacity over the years to go on extending the realms of participation, opportunity and care.

Just as Australians living in the relatively narrow and insular Australia of the 1960s imagined a culturally diverse, worldly and open Australia, and in a generation turned the idea into reality, so we can turn the goals of reconciliation into reality.

There are very good signs that the process has begun.

The creation of the Reconciliation Council is evidence itself.

The establishment of the ATSIC - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission - is also evidence.

The Council is the product of imagination and good will.

ATSIC emerges from the vision of indigenous self-determination and selfmanagement.

The vision has already become the reality of almost 800 elected Aboriginal Regional Councillors and Commissioners determining priorities and developing their own programs.

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Redfern Speech

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All over Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are taking charge of their own lives.

And assistance with the problems which chronically beset them is at last being made available in ways developed by the communities themselves.

If these things offer hope, so does the fact that this generation of Australians is better informed about Aboriginal culture and achievement, and about the injustice that has been done, than any generation before.

We are beginning to more generally appreciate the depth and the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

From their music and art and dance we are beginning to recognise how much richer our national life and identity will be for the participation of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

We are beginning to learn what the indigenous people have known for many thousands of years - how to live with our physical environment. Ever so gradually we are learning how to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes, beginning to recognise the wisdom contained in their epic story.

I think we are beginning to see how much we owe the indigenous Australians and how much we have lost by living so apart.

I said we non-indigenous Australians should try to imagine the Aboriginal view.

It can’t be too hard. Someone imagined this event today, and it is now a marvellous reality and a great reason for hope.

There is one thing today we cannot imagine.

We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through fifty thousand years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation.

We cannot imagine that.

We cannot imagine that we will fail.

And with the spirit that is here today I am confident that we won’t.

I am confident that we will succeed in this decade.

Thank you.

Source: Paul Keating’s Redfern speech - Creative Spirits, retrieved from https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/paul-keatings-redfern-speech 26

Redfern Speech

COMPREHENSION: A. In pairs: 1. Divide the text into 6-7 parts and find a suitable headline for each part that clearly indicates what it is about.

2. Search online and find a picture for each part of the speech. Write 1-2 lines about the picture.

B. Form new pairs and take turns asking each other the questions below: 1. What does Paul Keating mean by ‘the past lives in us’?

2. Why does Keating see the current moment as a test? And a test of what exactly?

3. What similarity does Keating see between the European settlers and Aboriginal Australians?

4. According to Keating, why is the Mabo Case court decision important?

5. What else is mentioned as significant turning points?

6. How have indigenous people contributed to building Australia as a nation?

7. What is Keating referring to when he speaks of murders and children taken away?

8. Why should Australians not feel guilty?

9. What does Keating suggest Australians should do instead of feeling guilty?

10. What plan for reconciliation does Keating propose?

11. How does Keating perceive Australian identity?

12. Why might it be harmful to Australians and Australia if they do not take further steps towards reconciliation?

Redfern Speech

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Topic

Audience

Speaker Intention

Language

Circumstances

WORKING WITH THE TEXT: CIRCUMSTANCES: • Why does Keating make a speech like this in December, 1992?

• In the speech, Keating comments on his choice of Redfern Park as the place to deliver his speech. What could his reasons be? Discuss if these reasons make Redfern Park the perfect location rather than for instance the Parliament or an Aboriginal site such as Uluru?

SPEAKER: • Go back to pre-reading exercise 2 and reconsider which facts about Keating proved important now that you have read the speech. What exactly did they add to your understanding of the text?

• Does hearing and watching the speech on YouTube (see pre-reading xx) add anything to your understanding of the text? If so, what?

Consider for instance words accentuated by Keating, his tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures and the interaction from the audience.

TOPIC: Look at the list of themes below and try to add a few more themes of your own. Discuss which themes you consider to be most important and rank them accordingly: Guilt, the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, reconciliation, Australian Identity, progress

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Redfern Speech

AUDIENCE: Considering the questions above, does Keating primarily seem to be addressing Aboriginees, non-indigenous Australians or a world audience? Find quotes in the text to support your answer.

LANGUAGE: • Characterise Keating’s language. Is it primarily formal or informal?

• Comment on Keating’s choice of words in the speech. Find at least three words that stand out because of their connotations, because they are particularly strong or surprising. What is the effect of these words?

• Analyse Keating’s frequent use of the words fail/failure and success/succeed. Discuss the effect of this antithesis.

• Find at least three examples of anaphora in the speech and discuss their effect. Why do you think Keating uses anaphora? Give reasons for your answer.

• Which modes of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos) does Keating employ? Which one is the predominant one and why do you think he has focused on this one?

• What does Keating do to break down the Us-Them dichotomy and to create unity instead? Discuss the effectiveness of his attempt.

• How and why is ‘dispossession’ in the history of Australia mentioned

by Keating?

INTENTION AND CONCLUSIONS: Have a classroom discussion in which you discuss the questions below. Use the discussion vocabulary to the right.

• What is Keating’s intention with the speech?

• Is it a mistake that words like apology, sorry and regret are not used in the speech?

• Should Keating have been more specific and given details when he mentions ‘the murders’, ‘taking the children’ etc.? If so, what information might he have added? If not, why is it better the way it is?

• Is Keating downplaying reactions to the Mabo Case ruling when speaking of “isolated outbreaks of hysteria and hostility of the past few months.” And is that strategically wise?

• In his speech, Keating talks about various turning points in Australian history. Do some online research to find out whether others

Redfern Speech

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regard Keating’s speech as a turning point? Discuss if and how words can make a difference?

BEYOND THE SPEECH: Keating stressed the importance of doing something, of turning the abstract into something concrete in his speech in 1992. In 2020, Australian historian Stuart Macintyre concluded that “More than thirty years after it began, the search for reconciliation with Indigenous Australians is no closer to completion.” Do some online research and see if you can find examples of concrete results of the reconciliation process. List these and discuss to which extent they are symbolic or significant.

INNOVATION: Keating speaks of future goals in rather abstract terms. Imagine you worked for Keating and suggest three concrete steps that the government might take in order to improve conditions for Aborigines and/or improve the relationship and mutual understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. Make your plan as elaborate as possible, give reasons for your suggested course of action and present it in a 5-slide PowerPoint including images to illustrate your points.

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Redfern Speech

Gregory Melleuishbry

No longer tied to Britain, Australia is still searching for its place in the world

PRE-READING: Choose from the list below and insert the missing words correctly in the blank spaces.

For a long time, England send __________ to America, but the American War of Independence put an end to this. Consequently, England had to find a new place to send the prisoners, and New South Wales in Australia became the new destination, a ________ that turned Australia into a _______ colony. The __________ convicts were generally not _________ criminals, and the transports _________ children as young as nine years of age, who were shipped to the other side of the world for crimes like __________ theft.

All convicts, the children were not __________, had to work hard under ____________, and if they ___________, they would be punished __________, regardless of their ________. After their sentence, some children managed to learn a _____________ and live free and successful lives. misbehaved - included - petty - convicts - surveillance – severely – destination– penal – excepted – age – trade 1. How is Australia usually portrayed in media? Think of films, books, tourist ads etc. that you have seen, or do a little online research on Australian stereotypes.

2. In groups, look up information on Australia Day and find facts about what people tend to do on the national holiday. Find three pictures related to Australia Day and write your notes below the relevant pictures.

3. Remain in the same groups and now search for information on the debate about Australia Day and why especially indigenous people find the celebrations controversial.

Now, find three pictures about this aspect of Australia Day and write your notes below the relevant pictures.

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No longer tied to Britain

It is worth noting that Australia Day commemorates the dumping of a cargo of the outcasts of Britain on the shores of the Australian continent. It was not an act of escaping religious oppression, as in the case of America, or the founding of a new political order, as in France.

British Australia was the creation of an imperial decision. This meant that strong links to Britain, and the British monarchy, continued well into the 20th century. There were occasional republicans who advocated a so-called independent Australia, particularly in the 19th century, but, if anything, enthusiasm for the British Empire increased in the first half of the 20th century.

Australians were Australians, but they were also British. There was the proud boast that Australians were more “British” than the inhabitants of London. This, of course, was probably true given that London attracted people from all over the empire and was cosmopolitan in a way that Australia was not.

The early settlers were British in a very Australian way. Australianness was embedded in their Britishness; the two were not in conflict. In celebrating Australia Day they were celebrating themselves and their peculiar Australian way. Such celebrations could not be construed as indicating a desire to be rid of the monarchy or the empire. […]

Moreover, Australians felt a great deal of solidarity with their British cousins. Consider the following quote: Australians know that our future is linked with Britain, not only by ties of race and kinship, but because of hard, practical reasons. […]

Witness the massively popular reception of the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth, when she visited Australia in 1954.

In 1950, Britain was still taking 38.7 % of Australia’s exports, which dropped to 26 % by 1960. Even in the 1950s, a strong connection between Australia and Britain made a lot of sense.

By that time, though, it had become clear that the British Empire was no longer a going concern, and that Britain’s time as a significant world power had come to an end. The old relationship between Australia and Britain was changing, and Australia was turning its political allegiances more to the US and its trade to Asia.

There was no reason before the second world war to presume that, 25 years later, there would no longer be a British Empire and that Britain would be seeking to “join Europe”.

I think that it can be argued that it came as a shock and that the history of Britain over the past 50 years can be understood, at least in part, as an attempt to deal with its loss of “greatness”. Last year’s (2016) Brexit No longer tied to Britain

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commemorate mindes outcast udskud shore kyst oppression undertrykkelse founding grundlæggelse cargo last republican folk der ønsker uafhængighed fra monarkiet advocate tale for boast pral cosmopolitian med folk fra mange lande embedded rodfæstet i peculiar ejendommelig construed fortolket be rid of slippe af med kinship slægtsskab a going concern igangværende virksomhed allegiance troskab presume formode decline aftage i betydning cut adrift overladt til sig selv refashion omforme heritage arv trade ties handelsforbindelser diminish mindske puzzle undre come to terms forlige sig med sober seriøs donning at tage en beklædningsgenstand på vigorous energisk bush ballad sang/digt om livet, menneskene, landskabet i den australske vildmark The Bulletin politisk tidsskrift – med satire beyond udover

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vote indicates that the British have not yet come to terms with their new place in the world.

The shock of the post-war decline of the British Empire was also great for Australia. Cut adrift from empire, it had to refashion and remake itself. It most certainly continued to have a political, social and cultural heritage derived from Britain, but it was moving away and increasingly forming its own, separate identity.

Trade ties were diminished and large numbers of immigrants from many parts of the world arrived, reshaping the country. The bonds of solidarity with Britain so obvious to Chifley in 1948 would only puzzle a young Australian in 2017.

Again, like Britain, much of the history of Australia over the past 50 years has been an attempt to come to terms with the end of empire.

Many solutions have been proposed, and tried, ranging from the new nationalism of the Whitlam years, to multiculturalism, to the idea that Australia is part of Asia. Or even a mixture of all three. And then, of course, there is the continuing issue of the place of Indigenous Australians.

Australia has still not worked out its place in a post-imperial world. It knows that it cannot be another US; Australia doesn’t possess the resources to support 300 million people. It knows that the ties with Britain will only get weaker over time. There appears still to be much anxiety about where we belong, when what is needed is a clear, sober and realistic approach to the past and the present.

Australia Day celebrates the origins of British Australia and, in a sense, can be understood as an imperial creation. In more recent times, it has become a celebration of Australian popular culture, marked by barbecues and the donning of clothing marked by the Australian flag. Is this a sign that the day has lost its relevance?

Perhaps one of the most attractive elements of Australian history since 1788 is the fact that so many of its people, at least in the early days, were the cast-offs of British society who had to make their way in an alien world that they were forced to call home.

Perhaps because of this, Australia developed a vigorous popular culture from the bush ballads to The Bulletin and beyond. There is a lot to be said for celebrating Australian ordinariness, which surely goes beyond its imperial roots. https://theconversation.com/no-longer-tied-to-britain-australia-is-stillsearching-for-its-place-in-the-world-70407 42

No longer tied to Britain

COMPREHENSION: True or false? Your teacher will read out the statements below. If you believe the statement is true, you sit on your chair. If you think it is false, you remain standing next to your chair. See if the majority is right?

1. Australians have traditionally seen themselves as more British than the British.

2. The republican independence movement in Australia gained momentum in the early 20th century.

3. Australia Day is a national holiday celebrating the Queen’s birthday.

4. After World War II, the British Empire begins to fall apart.

5. Politically, Australia has turned its allegiance to the US rather than Britain.

6. Britain, however, is still taking the bulk of Australian exports.

7. Some believe Australia ought to be considered a part of Asia.

8. In the future Australia might try to become like the United States.

9. The author sees ordinariness as something positive.

10. The author is ashamed that his country was settled by criminals.

11. According to the author, Australian identity is not merely formed by the country’s imperial past.

No longer tied to Britain

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WORKING WITH THE TEXT: 1. Using the Internet, look up information on the writer, Gregory Melleuish, for instance his profession and his political views. Discuss what this means for the author’s ethos.

2. How many of the stereotypes you found (see pre-reading xx) are evident in the way Australianness is described in the article? Are they presented differently in the article? Explain how or why.

3. In which ways does Gregory Melleuish think Australia is like and different from other countries? Fill in a table like the one below with examples.

Similar to Britain

Different to Britain

Similar to the USA

Different to the USA

Similar to other countries

Different to other countries

4. Contemplate your table above and discuss to which extent Melleuish thinks Australian history and culture are unique.

5. In conclusion, what exactly ties Australia and Great Britain together? Are Australia’s connections to Britain and Britishness mainly political or cultural?

6. Does Melleuish use generalisations, comparisons and/or repetitions in his argumentation? What is the effect of this?

7. Characterise the way the empire, convicts and Australians are described, respectively, in the article and consider the choice of words.

You might for instance look for adjectives with positive or negative connotations.

8. What does the choice of words reveal about the author’s bias?

9. How and to which extent does Melleuish address the most important aspects of the Australia Day debate?

10. Who do you think is the intended audience?

11. Considering the Australia Day debate (circumstances), the sender, and the intended audience, try to characterise Melleuish’s intention with the article.

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No longer tied to Britain