GrumpyKoala's Views: 25 out of 5
I Have An Admission To Make
I didn't buy a copy of this book. Bronwyn (my partner) gave it to me as a gift.
And exceptionally grateful I am, as this is undoubtedly the most exciting book on Australian history I've read since I started reading when I was 3, 59 years ago as of October, 2016. Does this mean I'm some sort of unthinking leftie supporter? Nope, I don't reckon so. But then, I wouldn't, would I! |
Bill's work has presented me with material that could completely overcome my school-based understandings, and answer some questions I've had since primary school.
But, on the other hand, there are aspects of his theory I'm not entirely comfortable with, and which I believe require further consideration, research and analysis. And you'll find out what they are in due course! |
What's my right (or left?) to review history books?
The same right as you!
Is that all? Nope. Clickety clack here, and find out the rest of my yarn. Go on, it won't bloody bite. But I might!!!!
Is that all? Nope. Clickety clack here, and find out the rest of my yarn. Go on, it won't bloody bite. But I might!!!!
What makes a good historian?
Well, I'll just parade before the cameras for you, will I? No? Waddaya mean I'm horribly laughable? Oh, well, I guess I'm of some value then.
Anyway, to the point. a good historian is made of several elements. They're imaginative, able to examine existing facts and derive new stories from them, ponder new ways of thinking about a history with which we've all-too-often become overly comfortable, develop new theses, then do the dirty and often boring research work to prove their theses.
Then, when they reckon they've got a goer, they're prepared to put their heads on the academic chopping block, surrounded by the blood and gore of all those who have gone before, and put their work out for peer, expert, and public consideration.
And then the scared, the politically and economically invested, the professional attackers, the trolls of the academic and not-so-academic world, the reactionary, and all the other pathetic little minds, and many great ones, get stuck into the work
At the end of this, the theorist is sometimes literally dead, or their career is dead, or they've become so stressed they've walked away from the whole thing, and so it goes on.
And very often it's not until much later, all-too-often after they've died, that the theory is recognised for what it is, a brilliant step on the path to greater understanding.
So, is Bill a good historian. No!
Eh? Is that it? Not at all, dopey drawers. Click here to see what I mean.
Anyway, to the point. a good historian is made of several elements. They're imaginative, able to examine existing facts and derive new stories from them, ponder new ways of thinking about a history with which we've all-too-often become overly comfortable, develop new theses, then do the dirty and often boring research work to prove their theses.
Then, when they reckon they've got a goer, they're prepared to put their heads on the academic chopping block, surrounded by the blood and gore of all those who have gone before, and put their work out for peer, expert, and public consideration.
And then the scared, the politically and economically invested, the professional attackers, the trolls of the academic and not-so-academic world, the reactionary, and all the other pathetic little minds, and many great ones, get stuck into the work
At the end of this, the theorist is sometimes literally dead, or their career is dead, or they've become so stressed they've walked away from the whole thing, and so it goes on.
And very often it's not until much later, all-too-often after they've died, that the theory is recognised for what it is, a brilliant step on the path to greater understanding.
So, is Bill a good historian. No!
Eh? Is that it? Not at all, dopey drawers. Click here to see what I mean.
Orright, me old koala, why the 'ell are yer reviewin' a book tha's orready 5 year old?
Oy! 'oo're you callin' "old"? I'll 'ave yer know I'm only 62. Wait until you're 62, it won't seem old then! Tha's if yer live tha' long, callin' blokes like me "old"!
Okay, so why? That's right click here, and away you go, on a magic carpet ride to knowledge. Ain't technology great? When it bloody well works. I just wrote a whole slab of great stuff on the page you're going to, if you're smart and you click. Some of my best, in fact. But you will no doubt be absolutely devastated to know it all disappeared into the aether. Irretrievably lost somewhere between here and Timbuktu.
***Now, there's bugger all there until I feel the muse in me again. Or is that just a good big fart building up? Hmm ... only time'll tell!***
***Now, there's bugger all there until I feel the muse in me again. Or is that just a good big fart building up? Hmm ... only time'll tell!***
The Author - Bill Gammage
(In Brief!) [Well, as short as I can make it, but probably not as short as you would like it (!!), and definitely not a word picture of Bill in briefs!]
There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Sorry, Bill. I've reduced your career to a few hundred words. I guess you should feel better though when I summarise my career, it only takes 12 words: "A wobatd get ore use fro dead emu to a wombatLex's career was as ."
- Gained degree and doctorate at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
- Early career was strongly focused on issues concerning World War 1, particularly with regard to the soldiers’ experience, and including some work on soldier settlers (and I own up to a potential conflict as both my grandfathers were soldier settlers, one in Gippsland and one in the Wimmera).
- Taught at the University of Adelaide and the University of Papua New Guinea, before returning to the ANU, where he is now (2016) the Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the ANU’s Humanities Research Centre (whatever that means – just to illustrate the fact I’m not part of the cutthroat world of academia!).
- Awarded an AM* (Member of the Order of Australia) “For service to education and to the community in the area of Australian history through teaching, writing and historical research”.
- The latter part of Bill’s career has principally been spent researching and theorising about First Australian agricultural techniques, culminating in the book being reviewed here.
There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Sorry, Bill. I've reduced your career to a few hundred words. I guess you should feel better though when I summarise my career, it only takes 12 words: "A wobatd get ore use fro dead emu to a wombatLex's career was as ."
The Biggest Estate on Earth
What’s it all about, GrumpyKoala?
(And please be brief!)
(Don't worry, I'm not going through that again. I don't want to overuse all my best jokes too early!!??)
Right, so here goes! When whites arrived to settle Australia from 1788 to around 1850 or so, they saw a land occupied by indolent nomadic hunters and gatherers who made no effort to use the land for agriculture, mining, or anything associated with European ideas of civilisation. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Let’s rephrase that first point: “When whites arrived to settle Australia from 1788 to around 1850 or so, they saw a land occupied by a highly developed “civilisation”* working hard to develop and maintain the entire continent in immensely complex ways to best suit the ongoing existence of an equally highly complex society that could not have been more different to European ideas of civilisation.” *The inverted commas around the first use of "civilisation” in this quote are not an attempt to belittle, simply a note that some people reject this term as a “Europeanisation”, an invalid attempt to fit First Australian realities into white expectations or understandings. Over, very roughly, and depending somewhat on when they arrived and forced the First Australians out and/or "exterminated"* them, the next fifty to eighty years or so, the whites saw country that many wrote reminded them of the estates of the English "gentry"** of the time – extensive grassland with scattered trees.
*The inverted commas around "exterminated" indicate although it's a term the whites used, it's more usually used by Daleks, not humans. Sadly, that pretty much indicates how most whites behaved towards them - like Daleks. And often still do! The point is that when the gentry managed to obtain an estate, with the connivance of their tame parliament, they set about creating what they regarded as an idyllic bit of countryside, which sometimes also involved demolishing a local village or two. Thus, their ill-gotten gains were artificially manipulated to please the gentry.
The whites were mostly unable to understand, and didn't want to understand, as it most certainly didn't suit their purposes, that the lands they saw in Australia may have been equally manipulated to look as they did.
*"Natural" is in inverted commas simply because there's some debate about what is or is not the natural state of the bush.
*The word “estate” is another that's rejected by some as a “Europeanisation”. I use it, but am unsure of it, because to me it seems to have a greater degree of connectedness with a single owner than was the case across Australia. The First Australians were far from being a single entity. See *** below. The dominant technique for achieving environmental control was the use of fire. This was far from a simple process of burning areas of bushland every now and then. It involved everything from:
But it's important to understand this First Australian civilisation had many other elements in addition to what is sometimes called "firestick farming", although usually in a white cultural context meaning something that's not "real" farming. For example, the First Australians also had complex trade routes, along what are, in English, called “the songlines”, often across immense distances, involving both manufactured goods and raw materials, including:
Further, this civilisation had:
There's no doubt the First Australians' civilisation didn't have the administrative and authority structures of what Europeans called civilisations, either their own or that of any other society recognised by Europeans as a civilisation. For example, there were no:
And, if the Europeans couldn’t recognise it, it didn’t exist, as far as they were concerned. Click: A brief introduction to the reasons the whites were happy to publicise the "primitive", "stone-age", "savage" nature of the First Australians, and either ignore and/or expunge all alternative evidence. But of course they did. Exist, I mean. It was just that these various proofs of civilisation were totally different from anything known to the whites. And if there were similarities, well perhaps it was just easier to ignore them altogether. And, like most of the differences between the ways the First Australians did things, and the ways the Europeans did things, First Australian ways were significantly more useful in conditions as they existed in Australia than the European alternatives. Which may go at least part of the way towards explaining why the whites have made such a mess of the place in just 230 or so years! That's not to imply the First Australian land management systems were environmentally perfect, they almost certainly weren't, despite their great skill and knowledge. For example:
As I think I've indicated, there's argument enough about the evidence Bill's put forward. However, his proofs are very extensive. Bill's next step, however, was to pour a large bucket of perfumed water into the mosh pit of parties concerned with the issues connected to his theory. Well, as a supporter, that's what I felt, saw, and smelled. A massive step forwards in our understanding of the First Australians, in a way I believe to be beneficial to First Australians. Don't get me wrong, I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, but that's how I feel at present, noting, once again, the many limitations on my knowledge of several of the issues and people involved. However, it's interesting how mosh pit experiences can vary. Perhaps it varies depending on the drugs one has taken. Of course, I emphasise I neither drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or take other drugs apart from caffeine in the form of coffee and tea. So, it's not me taking the drugs! Whatever the reason, others in the mosh pit reacted as though a large bucket of used nappies from teething babies had been dumped on them. The cause? Towards the end of his great book, Bill steps out of what some (not me!) would regard as the "proper" role of an academic historian, and into that of pointing to the ways in which he believed (as do I!) his research and theory should alter current and future public policy. I'm not going to launch into an argument about the human causation of our planet's current disastrous climate change, let alone over whether or not climate change is occurring. Click: A discussion on climate change and the denialist spruikers. And many of the worst of these spruikers also drive poorly disguised racist agendas, currently targeted primarily at people of islamic faith. But always there's the attached belief in the nefarious actions of people of the Jewish faith, or even secular people of jewish heritage. And lurking behind that belief, always ready to leap out like a ravening marsupial lion, are those determined, like so many of their forebears, to at worst destroy all remnants of First Australians, and if that can't be achieved, keep them in a self-destructive state where they will ultimately destroy themselves. The idea First Australians are from a long line of clever achievers of not just survival on this continent, but the progenitors of what can easily be argued to be an inventive and highly successful civilisation, will be complete anathema to them. Why? I'm afraid that's a question that must be referred to them. Theirs is a psychology I can't even begin to understand. And sadly, I suspect they don't begin to understand mine. We really need, or perhaps I need, to find ways to contact them without appearing to want to belittle them and their intelligence. Of course, like good con merchants everywhere, the spruikers of these faulty and dangerous misunderstandings and beliefs convincingly deny their racism, and argue that their beliefs are founded on "fact" and any alternatives are founded on "speculation". Indeed, a popular word they use to describe themselves is one of the greatest lies of all - "truthers". They'll have convincing-sounding arguments, and tales of how they're really acting in First Australians' interests. But it's all bollocks. A little critical thought soon indicates the falsity of their position. Sadly, not enough people practice critical thought - or, at least, practice it well and consistently. Does this make those who do superior? Of course not. Does it make me superior? Definitely not! Just ask my partner and sons! Does it make educated, inner suburbanite, cafe latte scoffing, chardonnay swilling, bicycle riding, vegans superior? No sirree! Who do you think comprises the majority of anti-vaxxers who believe doctors are in collusion with drug companies to poison their children? Based on? Bollocks long since proven to be wrong, but spruiked by sociopaths determined to milk them of the price of their continual flow of so-called self-help books. And think about it. Just a little. Medical practitioners put themselves through years of gruelling study to become doctors. And the primary reason is rarely a commercial one, although there may be some thought of that, in which case many will be disappointed. No, usually they do this to themselves because they want to help people. I can only say, if you think otherwise you must only have met a very limited group of them. So, really, do you believe these people would actively take part in and successfully hide all knowledge of a plan to poison all our children just for the financial rewards? Can you point to one incontrovertible piece of evidence? That even one doctor is doing so? Let alone tens of thousands of them? Maybe hundreds of thousands around the world? I don't mind saying, while I'm completely opposed to capital punishment, I could come close to countenancing it for the buckets of shit, bins full of used condoms, and garbage cans full of teenage boys' used tissues, who take advantage of those who, for whatever reasons, are all-too-ready to believe this stuff. But back to Bill's great book. The thing is, even if we step away from the whole climate change kerfuffle, and even if the experts are wrong, just a logical look at the human use of our planet's finite resources should be telling us we need to cut back. At some stage, coal, oil, iron ore, every other useful mineral, every bit of useful land, every square metre of useable ocean we can possibly exploit will have been exploited. What then? That's not our problemo, say the sociopaths and psychopaths, and those persuaded to parrot them by their snake-oil salesman's patter. Pardon? Not our problem? But it already is, if the climate scientists are right. We're the ones who will be suffering by the hotter, more humid weather. The increasing droughts and crop failures, the increasing cyclones. I'm 62, and hope to have some 20 years left in me. The change up to about 2010/2012 wasn't all that noticeable, but the last 4-5 years certainly have been. What the heck're the next 20 going to be like? But if the climate change scientists are wrong, or if change is going to occur more slowly than they currently believe, it's okay to leave the problem to our children, grandchildren, great grand children, is it? Imagine a major crisis. The current disastrous conflagration in Syria, worsened by outside parties, not least the Russians, will be a mere comparative cakewalk to what the world faces as global warming worsens. And worsens. And worsens ... And if our continent proves unable to provide for our increasing several tens of millions of people, and runs out of raw materials for China, having already offshored all our manufacturing? Even without climate change, what are our descendants going to do? Quietly starve to death in the world's arsehole? Fight for survival? Where? And against whom? When we have no cash for arms? Maybe get on a boat? For where? Somewhere that won't tow us back here, or just push us back into the ocean? Or sink our boats far from land, out-of-sight of a largely uncaring world, all of which will have plenty of its own problems? Is that what you want for your descendants? To speak our names with the same anger and ferocity to which some people apply the words "fucking cunts"? Although why they use the word for one of the most pleasurable activities, at least, potentially, and another for the beautiful female organ responsible for so much of that pleasure, in such a context and in such a way, mystifies me. But that's a subject for another discussion. Back to the point. Or nearly! Oddly, one of the key arguments raised by those opposed to taking any major climate change reforms, let alone environmental reform, is that science will always save us from any problems. Why is this odd? Well, it's science that proves climate change is both rapidly occurring, and it's being caused, or at the very least worsened, by humans. And, therefore, it's science and various branches of scientists who feature at the top of almost every one of the absurd and dangerous hoaxes being perpetrated on those who believe such nonsense. But back to Bill's book. Australia's soils, principally for their age and yonks (that's a formal scientific measure of extreme lengths of time!!) of leaching by rain, ice ages and so on, are not only extremely thin, but are extremely infertile. Of course, there are exceptions, or areas that are more fertile than others, but in general our soil is not able to be put to European or Asian styles of agriculture without considerable use of fertilisers and water. The crops and animals we farm are non-indigenous, which evolved to be best suited to different environments than those existing in Australia. For example:
So, what does this have to do with a better understanding of First Australian agricultural techniques? Well, a couple of major things. In Australia, one of the principal results of our worsening climate has been an increase not just in the number of bushfires (or "wildfires"), but in their severity. There has been a major argument going on here for a very long time, principally between environmentalists and scientists on the one hand, and bushfire fighters, farmers, and anti-environmentalists of all sorts on the other. This argument has been over whether or not fire-prone land, mostly being national parks of one sort or another, should be burned with "controlled" burns on a regular basis to minimise the risk of fire and, if fire occurs, its spread. As is perhaps clear, Bill has stepped right into the middle of this seemingly endless and vitriolic fight. Subsequently, he's been greeted like a hero by some, and as satan by others. However, both sides appear to misunderstand Bill's work and his points, possibly in the heat of the fight, or, one can't help but suspect, possibly purposefully, in at least part. I'll discuss this more shortly. The other major point Bill makes with relevance to climate change policy is that First Australians made use of a considerable array of grain, fruit, vegetable, and animal sources of food which were either completely indigenous to Australia or, in the past use of bananas, for example, possibly introduced so long ago as to be considered indigenous, in the same way as the dingo (although not a food source!) is largely now regarded as indigenous. Being indigenous, these food sources were significantly more suited to Australian conditions than those introduced by whites, even those modified since to better suit our environment. Unlike the Americas, from which numerous indigenous food sources have made their way into the world's stomachs, Australian indigenous foods have not done likewise. Until recently, the only indigenous food to be widely commercialised was the macadamia. And that wasn't commercialised in Australia, but replanted and commercialised in Hawaii! There have been some increases in plant and, to some extent animal commercialisation recently, finger limes being an example. But indigenous food use is still miniscule compared to that of non-indigenous food sources. Contrary to the attempts of some to stretch Bill's theories to all sorts of extremes, mostly purposefully ridiculous, or to purposefully suit particular agendas, Bill's points regarding burning and food sources are actually quite simple. First, we need to examine First Australian burning techniques to see to what extent they can be adapted to meet modern needs, taking into account the changes that have occurred since white settlement. Second, we need to examine the possibility of using or adapting indigenous food sources to a greater degree to better suit the conditions coming in Australia, consequent upon global warming. Third, and finally, in extension of the previous point, we need to examine the possibilities of altering our farming techniques to better suit the coming environmental changes. Of course, we've already done this to a limited extent to minimise soil erosion. Regarding each of these suggested fields of study, Bill makes no recommendations, nor does he even suggest any extreme measures. Of course, this hasn't stopped some of the more populist liars from claiming otherwise. For example, some claim he's demanding a full return to Firtst Australian land management systems. Not only is the suggestion both wrong and bizarre, it's downright bollocks. There's no way such an approach could support our current 25 million population. Although I wouldn't put it past some idiots to claim Bill and those of us who support his views are demanding 24.75 million people be killed. Yep. We could choose names in the same way the Liberals chose which young men would be forced to join the army, to face the prospect of heading off to Vietnam to be horribly killed or maimed, physically and/or mentally. That's right, pick marbles out iof a barrel with birth dates on them. That's the way to go. Tattslotto, eat your heart out! If we don't take action, and those of us who believe in human-caused climate change are right, the future may demand very extreme measures if we're not to be "reduced", at least in the understanding of most of us, to living a life extremely similar to that of pre-1788 Australians. If those of us who believe we should be taking much greater effort to minimise and ultimately reduce greenhouse gases are right, any delay will require more and more extreme measures be taken in future. I hope to be around another 20 years, but could be here in 40 years time. My youngest son could well be here in 85 years. I don't want him confronting the possibility we may have to promote or even cause by some means a reduction in our population for humans to continue to survive on this continent. Hopefully, any such measures won't include a requirement that the population be reduced either purposefully or via starvation by 24.75 million people. But whatever the reduction required, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility the older you are by that time, the more likely you are to be on some list for enforced population reduction. After all, this is one of the things many First Australian groups had to do to minimise their over-population of this continent. They needed to do so in order to continue to successfully survive within the environment of Australia, with the technology they had access to, despite a number of very clever inventions to make survival easier. Why do we face this risk? Because of persistent refusal the majority of the public, led by the nose by self-interested braggarts and liars, to face the need for urgent changes in the ways we live to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases. In turn, our elected officials, given the responsibility to lead us, sycophantically follow public wishes in order to maximise their election chances, without regard for public need for leadership in a matter the public simply doesn't understand. This failure to understand is not because this large section of the community is comprised of people to dumb, redneck, or bogan to see the truth so obvious to us incredibly intelligent people. Such accusations help no-one and nothing. The problem is, concurrently with the climate change problems, and for many reasons, a heck of a lot of people are in a prime state to be misled by braggarts, ideologues, and liars. The same could happen to any of us. Remember the supposedly highly intelligent university-educated people misled by Hitler and/or Stalin! Or those of us on the left who failed to accept the truth, unusual as it was for the US Central Intelligence Agency to tell the truth, about Cambodia's Pol Pot, his Khmer Rouge, and their genocidal actions against their own people. At the moment we do not need our elected officials to be doing their usual and pandering to the proportion of the public who are being misled, just so they can win votes and elections. Rather, we desperately need them to force all of us to grab the climate change buffalo by the bollocks, to be dragged kicking and screaming to our survival. |
Opinion or Fact?
Sources & Not - Bill's Evidence
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia is a large book, albeit not massive. One of the very major reasons for its size is the extensive evidentiary material Bill includes. Bill pored over thousands of documents. Of these only a small part has been included in the book's bibliography, but that still comprises some 1500 books, theses, and articles.
Bill states his sources as being from "three main categories:
Put a little more broadly, this mass of material includes:
You will note, as some of Bill's would-be detractors have noted, Bill's sources don't include large-scale consultation with First Australians, nor does it cover all of Australia. Contrary to the apparent misunderstanding or limited reading of Bill's work, Bill notes "I had neither the time nor the presumption to interrogate people over so great an area on matters they value so centrally." (p. xv)
In other words, he spent 13 years collecting and considering the material he's used for this book. To undertake the work needed for anywhere near a full, capable and respectful consultation with all First Australians with an interest in and knowledge of relevant matters requires a skill-set different from Bill's.
This by no means should be taken to indicate Bill regards First Australian knowledge and beliefs to be in some way inferior to the sources he's used. Far from it. Rather it means he's used his skills to undertake a largely one-person effort to draw attention to the increasing material becoming available regarding pre-1788 Australia and especially the First Australian presence here.
I touch shortly on the reasons why Bill might be in a bit of hurry to publish his ideas and research before the whole immense task of data collection, collation, and analysis is finalised.
As Bill says in the dedication to his book, "To the people of 1788*, whose land care is unmatched, and who showed what it is to be Australian".
Sources & Not - Bill's Evidence
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia is a large book, albeit not massive. One of the very major reasons for its size is the extensive evidentiary material Bill includes. Bill pored over thousands of documents. Of these only a small part has been included in the book's bibliography, but that still comprises some 1500 books, theses, and articles.
Bill states his sources as being from "three main categories:
- writing and art depicting land before Europeans changed it
- anthropological and ecological accounts of Aboriginal societies today, especially in the Centre and north
- what plants tell of their fire history and habitats." (p. xv)
Put a little more broadly, this mass of material includes:
- a considerable range of photographic material with explanations of what Bill believes we’re seeing;
- before and after images, from various places around Australia, using white settler paintings and drawings for “before” images, and, after intense searching, photographs of the same places today for “after” images, with a discussion regarding accuracy provisos;
- white-settler written materials, including diaries and letters; and
- ideas and research from several leading experts, including historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, mostly from the last 50 years, and whose work in this regard has largely been overlooked, at best, or, more likely, ignored because it raises issues and questions with which most white Australians don't want to be bothered.
You will note, as some of Bill's would-be detractors have noted, Bill's sources don't include large-scale consultation with First Australians, nor does it cover all of Australia. Contrary to the apparent misunderstanding or limited reading of Bill's work, Bill notes "I had neither the time nor the presumption to interrogate people over so great an area on matters they value so centrally." (p. xv)
In other words, he spent 13 years collecting and considering the material he's used for this book. To undertake the work needed for anywhere near a full, capable and respectful consultation with all First Australians with an interest in and knowledge of relevant matters requires a skill-set different from Bill's.
This by no means should be taken to indicate Bill regards First Australian knowledge and beliefs to be in some way inferior to the sources he's used. Far from it. Rather it means he's used his skills to undertake a largely one-person effort to draw attention to the increasing material becoming available regarding pre-1788 Australia and especially the First Australian presence here.
I touch shortly on the reasons why Bill might be in a bit of hurry to publish his ideas and research before the whole immense task of data collection, collation, and analysis is finalised.
As Bill says in the dedication to his book, "To the people of 1788*, whose land care is unmatched, and who showed what it is to be Australian".
*Bill notes elsewhere in the book, he uses this term to refer to the First Australians whose forebears first settled this continent, and imaginatively, intelligently, and skilfully developed the means to successfully survive and thrive here in some of the toughest conditions anywhere on earth.
As he also says in his notes on his sources, "... I believe more is possible than this book offers. It is only a start. It merely offers clues on what to look for on the ground and in the records so that one day [white] Australians [and those First Australians educated in the white perception of pre-1788 Australia] might see more clearly the great story of their country." (p. xv) (My editorial additions)
Bill's Book: Just a Start
In essence, Bill has, for the first time, drawn together what is known or which has been theorised about pre-1788 First Australian land management, added it to his own research, and generated a very believable theory to trigger much more work on developing non-First Australian understanding of pre-1788 First Australian society, culture, skills, land management, and just about every aspect of the lives of these resourceful and clever people.
And why should that description surprise anyone? Whites believe their own ancestors and themselves to have been and to continue to be resourceful and clever, and apart from minor differences there's effectively no difference between us and our ancestors and First Australians and their ancestors. And the proof is in the ways they developed to survive and thrive in this continent, despite both its harshness all the changes occurring here over the 50-60,000 years they've lived here.
Bill's real task, however, is to try and maximise work on understanding First Australian life and agriculture, to enable first the reform of white Australia's centuries-old and deep-set beliefs regarding First Australians, and second utilise any knowledge and skills that might enable us to survive the global warming currently being experienced.
This is regardless of what or who has caused this period of global warming. Bill's moving past the current arguments and looking for practical ways to enable our species' survival.
Concurrently, this work will enable us to examine our understandings of past First Australians and the losses experienced by their descendants in ways that should alter perceptions and understandings of current First Australians and influence cultural, social, and political attitudes and policies regarding them.
Thus we shall move closer to all being able to claim to be fully fledged Australians. We will, of course, never all be the same, and thank goodness for that. But we should at least be able to live with one another in a greater degree of respect.
This won't just require whites to alter their perceptions and attitudes, but for First Australians to recognise the actuality of the past, in ways that will enable those who are currently lost in the mess of brutality, racism, disease, and addiction introduced by non-First Australians, mostly white, to see themselves in a light of respect earned for them by their ancestors.
Idealistic? Of course, but what's life without hopeful aims?
Okay, back to Bill.
Undoubtedly, there's much more work to do, apart from the immense task of interviewing and collating information from First Australians. Bill notes that the examples of white writings and images hidden away in libraries and archives alone is huge, and he's only been able to access what he thinks is possibly just a small proportion in the time available to him, and in turn has only been able to refer to a minority of those in his book.
In other words, there are perfectly good reasons for the apparent shortfalls in his book, which Bill himself recognises is a matter requiring attention, albeit by someone, or by far preferably, groups of someones with much more time than he has.
This is especially so insofar as the potential for ideas to help survive global warming is concerned, as it's rapidly advancing and we need to start thinking about survival techniques now. This is quite separate from arguments over the necessity or otherwise of minimising the global warming we're experiencing.
This great task of work will require input from many people, including reputable experts, First Australians, and anyone with positive ideas, who can add to or subtract from Bill's theories, ultimately providing so much supportive material at least some, if not all, his theories will be accepted as fact, or so much unsupportive material it means Bill or somebody else has to go back to the drawing board to attempt to deduce what the material means.
Minor Rights & Wrongs
Arguments over whether or not:
Bill's Book: Just a Start
In essence, Bill has, for the first time, drawn together what is known or which has been theorised about pre-1788 First Australian land management, added it to his own research, and generated a very believable theory to trigger much more work on developing non-First Australian understanding of pre-1788 First Australian society, culture, skills, land management, and just about every aspect of the lives of these resourceful and clever people.
And why should that description surprise anyone? Whites believe their own ancestors and themselves to have been and to continue to be resourceful and clever, and apart from minor differences there's effectively no difference between us and our ancestors and First Australians and their ancestors. And the proof is in the ways they developed to survive and thrive in this continent, despite both its harshness all the changes occurring here over the 50-60,000 years they've lived here.
Bill's real task, however, is to try and maximise work on understanding First Australian life and agriculture, to enable first the reform of white Australia's centuries-old and deep-set beliefs regarding First Australians, and second utilise any knowledge and skills that might enable us to survive the global warming currently being experienced.
This is regardless of what or who has caused this period of global warming. Bill's moving past the current arguments and looking for practical ways to enable our species' survival.
Concurrently, this work will enable us to examine our understandings of past First Australians and the losses experienced by their descendants in ways that should alter perceptions and understandings of current First Australians and influence cultural, social, and political attitudes and policies regarding them.
Thus we shall move closer to all being able to claim to be fully fledged Australians. We will, of course, never all be the same, and thank goodness for that. But we should at least be able to live with one another in a greater degree of respect.
This won't just require whites to alter their perceptions and attitudes, but for First Australians to recognise the actuality of the past, in ways that will enable those who are currently lost in the mess of brutality, racism, disease, and addiction introduced by non-First Australians, mostly white, to see themselves in a light of respect earned for them by their ancestors.
Idealistic? Of course, but what's life without hopeful aims?
Okay, back to Bill.
Undoubtedly, there's much more work to do, apart from the immense task of interviewing and collating information from First Australians. Bill notes that the examples of white writings and images hidden away in libraries and archives alone is huge, and he's only been able to access what he thinks is possibly just a small proportion in the time available to him, and in turn has only been able to refer to a minority of those in his book.
In other words, there are perfectly good reasons for the apparent shortfalls in his book, which Bill himself recognises is a matter requiring attention, albeit by someone, or by far preferably, groups of someones with much more time than he has.
This is especially so insofar as the potential for ideas to help survive global warming is concerned, as it's rapidly advancing and we need to start thinking about survival techniques now. This is quite separate from arguments over the necessity or otherwise of minimising the global warming we're experiencing.
This great task of work will require input from many people, including reputable experts, First Australians, and anyone with positive ideas, who can add to or subtract from Bill's theories, ultimately providing so much supportive material at least some, if not all, his theories will be accepted as fact, or so much unsupportive material it means Bill or somebody else has to go back to the drawing board to attempt to deduce what the material means.
Minor Rights & Wrongs
Arguments over whether or not:
- every small detail in Bill's book is right; or
- "civilisation" or "Dreaming" are the right words to use; or
- Bill spoke to the right people or used the right research; or whatever,
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For some Australians, especially, not only white, but including individuals from all immigrant groups (Second Australians? And Third Australians?? Hmmm), this bold statement is beyond shocking, beyond appalling. Goodness only knows why. Although, of course, that's wrong. The reason or reasons some will feel this way is nothing to do with "goodness", and everything to do with "badness".
Not that these people are in themselves necessarily "bad", although some almost undoubtedly are. Several factors are involved, not least being anyone who has undergone an Australian education, and those whose education has taken place in countries that bother to ever mention Australia, its people, and/or its history, has been grossly misinformed and therefore will be quite ignorant of alternative facts.
Facing unwelcome facts can take great bravery, especially for those who have taken those spruiking the untruths, mistruths, and outright lies as being correct, right, informed, and "knowing what they were talking about". And that needs to be brought out, but not by more badness, only by great work. And kindness.
Not that these people are in themselves necessarily "bad", although some almost undoubtedly are. Several factors are involved, not least being anyone who has undergone an Australian education, and those whose education has taken place in countries that bother to ever mention Australia, its people, and/or its history, has been grossly misinformed and therefore will be quite ignorant of alternative facts.
Facing unwelcome facts can take great bravery, especially for those who have taken those spruiking the untruths, mistruths, and outright lies as being correct, right, informed, and "knowing what they were talking about". And that needs to be brought out, but not by more badness, only by great work. And kindness.
GrumpyKoala's Opinion
My opinion? Well, as anyone who knows me will guess, I’m just bursting to tell you, in voluminous detail, but not only am I attempting, believe it or not, to restrain the volume of detail, I’m intending to restrain my full opinion, for what it’s worth, until later in this review.
But, don't misunderstand me. If you've been paying attention so far, you will no doubt have concluded I fully agree with the major basis of Bill's thesis.
Thus, I accept that, without clear and obvious contrary information, the First Australians had a great society, with at least most of the characteristics of a civilisation. The argument over whether or not it was, in fact, a "civilisation", is more than just a semantic matter.
Let me try to explain - that "try" reflecting the difficulty I have with the task, not your "inability" to understand, because I have no reason to believe you have such an inability (!?).
Okay, let's go. For at least some First Australians, use of the descriptor "civilisation" in reference to First Australian society is offensive, comprising an entirely inappropriate Europeanisation of First Australian society, and/or an equally inappropriate attempt to belittle First Australian society.
The former, the proponents of this argument believe, is a case of forcing a kangaroo into a cow's hide, when in reality what First Australians had was a quite unique society, incapable of being fitted into European understandings. And, by implication, for at least some of these proponents, what First Australians had was also better than the much spruiked civilisations which, as they can quite easily indicate, resulted in the hypocritically uncivilised behaviour of the representatives of white civilisation in Australia.
The latter concern with the use of the word "civilisation" is that whites will automatically create a scale of civilisations, with themselves at the top, and First Australians at the bottom.
In my incredibly inflated and inflatable opinion, there's truth and risk in both First Australian concerns. However, I have a problem.
The proponents of these concerns indicate First Australians neither need nor want the word "civilisation" applied to their forebears' society. Fair enough, and of course I wouldn't ordinarily have a problem with that. They feel offended by that use of the word, so why on earth would I subject them to offence when it's completely unimportant what word I use?
But in this case Bill, and indeed me (or should that be "I", and who the hell cares (?)), need a way to:
Remember, the current definition of "civilisation" is completely dependent on cultural interpretations of history. Every major civilisation Europe has encountered has had cities, temples, kings (or equivalent monarchs, dictators, or, at a pinch, things selectively described as "democracies", or oligarchies, and so on, with clear power structures), armies, and the like. Thus, without all that paraphernalia, the definition just doesn't include anything like First Australian society. Consequently, it appears as if First Australian society couldn't be defined as a "civilisation".
But language is a constantly changing feast. I know heaps of language conservatives just hate this, but the reality is no word has meaning unless humans have given it a meaning. Therefore, any meaning can be changed, added to, varied, replaced, and so on by a similar human act.
My opinion? Well, as anyone who knows me will guess, I’m just bursting to tell you, in voluminous detail, but not only am I attempting, believe it or not, to restrain the volume of detail, I’m intending to restrain my full opinion, for what it’s worth, until later in this review.
But, don't misunderstand me. If you've been paying attention so far, you will no doubt have concluded I fully agree with the major basis of Bill's thesis.
Thus, I accept that, without clear and obvious contrary information, the First Australians had a great society, with at least most of the characteristics of a civilisation. The argument over whether or not it was, in fact, a "civilisation", is more than just a semantic matter.
Let me try to explain - that "try" reflecting the difficulty I have with the task, not your "inability" to understand, because I have no reason to believe you have such an inability (!?).
Okay, let's go. For at least some First Australians, use of the descriptor "civilisation" in reference to First Australian society is offensive, comprising an entirely inappropriate Europeanisation of First Australian society, and/or an equally inappropriate attempt to belittle First Australian society.
The former, the proponents of this argument believe, is a case of forcing a kangaroo into a cow's hide, when in reality what First Australians had was a quite unique society, incapable of being fitted into European understandings. And, by implication, for at least some of these proponents, what First Australians had was also better than the much spruiked civilisations which, as they can quite easily indicate, resulted in the hypocritically uncivilised behaviour of the representatives of white civilisation in Australia.
The latter concern with the use of the word "civilisation" is that whites will automatically create a scale of civilisations, with themselves at the top, and First Australians at the bottom.
In my incredibly inflated and inflatable opinion, there's truth and risk in both First Australian concerns. However, I have a problem.
The proponents of these concerns indicate First Australians neither need nor want the word "civilisation" applied to their forebears' society. Fair enough, and of course I wouldn't ordinarily have a problem with that. They feel offended by that use of the word, so why on earth would I subject them to offence when it's completely unimportant what word I use?
But in this case Bill, and indeed me (or should that be "I", and who the hell cares (?)), need a way to:
- simply describe why First Australian society is, contrary to what we've been taught, important;
- make absolutely and, to whites, shockingly clear First Australian society before the arrival of the whites was a much more complex affair than has been taught to us for some 200 years;
- show what whites destroyed here was of much greater consequence than a primitive society of nomadic hunter gatherers living the same life their ancestors had lived for the last umpteen thousands of years;
- show First Australian society pre-1788 is due a significantly greater level of respect than has been accorded to date;
- show modern First Australians are due greater respect for what they've had stolen from them and destroyed by whites;
- show modern First Australians deserve much greater recognition of what they've had stolen;
- show modern First Australians deserve significantly greater regard than the ongoing begrudging recognition of no more than their right, and, frankly, even that is widely rejected, to an existence on the fringes of modern society; and
- disprove once-and-for-all that there's some sort of genetic weakness that is responsible for their high rates of imprisonment and petty crime, alcohol and tobacco addictions, need for welfare and other government-funded assistance, etc. etc..
Remember, the current definition of "civilisation" is completely dependent on cultural interpretations of history. Every major civilisation Europe has encountered has had cities, temples, kings (or equivalent monarchs, dictators, or, at a pinch, things selectively described as "democracies", or oligarchies, and so on, with clear power structures), armies, and the like. Thus, without all that paraphernalia, the definition just doesn't include anything like First Australian society. Consequently, it appears as if First Australian society couldn't be defined as a "civilisation".
But language is a constantly changing feast. I know heaps of language conservatives just hate this, but the reality is no word has meaning unless humans have given it a meaning. Therefore, any meaning can be changed, added to, varied, replaced, and so on by a similar human act.
So, while language change is quite possible, we need to note that for any change to the meaning of "civilisation" to successfully take root in the language, at least in Australia, requires at least general agreement:
Of course, we would never be able to get agreement from everyone. After all, there are many who still refuse to accept the Theory of Evolution, despite the stunning degree of evidence continually being found*.
- First Australian society comprised something as being generally definable as something akin to a "civilisation";
- we can extend the current definition in acceptable ways to include characteristics differing greatly from the traditional European understanding of a "civilisation", derived from examples such as the Middle-Eastern (Babylonian etc.), Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Islamic/Arabic, Chinese, Indian, and European "civilisations".
Of course, we would never be able to get agreement from everyone. After all, there are many who still refuse to accept the Theory of Evolution, despite the stunning degree of evidence continually being found*.
*Which is why I actually prefer the term "Reality of Evolution", as so many people apparently don't understand the scientific use of the word "theory" to apply to something that's actually proven.
Perhaps more to the point, there are still heaps of people who reckon US spellings are completely unacceptable, and plenty of US people who reckon any spelling but theirs is completely wrong! May they all be smothered by a big steaming pile of boiled dogs' bollocks.
But back to the discussion. Definition change isn't just quite possible, but quite reasonable. Unfortunately, there is a negative. Or, probably more correctly, at least one negative. First Australians would have to tolerate constant argument referencing persistently racist judgements usually by people denying they're racist and some of their best friends are First Australians, about pre-white First Australian society, with consequent put-downs of current First Australians. So I can quite understand if First Australians have problems with this option.
After all that immensely important and absolutely fascinating discussion, let's have a look at just one alternative. I'm sure there are others, but one'll do us, I reckon.
We could invent a descriptor other than the word "civilisation" which would:
This is neither the place nor time for a discussion attempting to define such a term, so in the interim I'm afraid I feel stuck with the word "civilisation". I apologise for the offence I'm causing, but I simply can't think of an applicable term that's better off the top of my koala-brained head.
If anyone can persuade me of a better term, even an existing word that's better o use or change to fit, please let me know. But I emphasise, it must contain a meaning that sets pre-1788 First Australian society on the same level, at least, as white and other societies (and I've purposefully emphasised "at least").
I recognise that if it's accepted First Australian society was far superior to that depicted in our white histories, modern Australia owes far more to modern First Australians than a mere apology, which I note was only addressed to the stolen people. We've not yet apologised to First Australians as a whole. "Sorry Day" doesn't yet, despite the best will of at least some of us, express full sorrow for what's been done to First Australians from 1788 up until now (2017, at the time of writing).*
But back to the discussion. Definition change isn't just quite possible, but quite reasonable. Unfortunately, there is a negative. Or, probably more correctly, at least one negative. First Australians would have to tolerate constant argument referencing persistently racist judgements usually by people denying they're racist and some of their best friends are First Australians, about pre-white First Australian society, with consequent put-downs of current First Australians. So I can quite understand if First Australians have problems with this option.
After all that immensely important and absolutely fascinating discussion, let's have a look at just one alternative. I'm sure there are others, but one'll do us, I reckon.
We could invent a descriptor other than the word "civilisation" which would:
- be acceptable to at least most First Australians, if not all;
- be capable of catching the attention, agreement, and acceptance of at least most non-First Australians; and
- be able to specify the civilisation-like nature of pre-1788 First Australian society in a way to gain the very high degree of respect not currently present.
This is neither the place nor time for a discussion attempting to define such a term, so in the interim I'm afraid I feel stuck with the word "civilisation". I apologise for the offence I'm causing, but I simply can't think of an applicable term that's better off the top of my koala-brained head.
If anyone can persuade me of a better term, even an existing word that's better o use or change to fit, please let me know. But I emphasise, it must contain a meaning that sets pre-1788 First Australian society on the same level, at least, as white and other societies (and I've purposefully emphasised "at least").
I recognise that if it's accepted First Australian society was far superior to that depicted in our white histories, modern Australia owes far more to modern First Australians than a mere apology, which I note was only addressed to the stolen people. We've not yet apologised to First Australians as a whole. "Sorry Day" doesn't yet, despite the best will of at least some of us, express full sorrow for what's been done to First Australians from 1788 up until now (2017, at the time of writing).*
*No, not that each of us needs to, in some way, admit to being "sorry" for things we played no role in, and, in the case of our many immigrants, their forebears often had no part in either. I could make an argument about that, in which I could indicate how our continued apparent support of government policy continues the wrongs of the past, but that would just distract from my point.
Click: A discussion of the meaning of "sorry" in this context, and why it's a necessary expression to ALL First Australians and Torres Straits Islanders.
Which is, if we're humane people, as so many of us like to claim (with little evidence of the fact, I'm afraid), we should surely feel sorrow for the disastrous state of affairs in which modern First Australians find themselves, through absolutely no fault of their own, and for the tragic tale of how they've ended up there. Whose fault this is, is another story. But can't we at least express sorrow for what has happened and is happening? Separate from the discussion about responsibility?
I know many whites will baulk at the idea First Australians do not simply cause their own problems. But put yourself in their shoes, as Atticus Finch said (To Kill A Mockingbird). Or, in an Atticus suggestion I prefer, put yourself in their skin. Imagine, for example, climate change worsens, and no effective action is taken.
And let's add another disaster, perhaps an extremely major solar storm, like the massive one that set telegraph poles alight in 1859 United States and Europe, blows out all our power and communication infrastructure, including all our satellites, fracturing a society already fragile consequent upon climate change problems, causing it to collapse disastrously.
It's more than possible a substantial proportion of our population would die from starvation, violence, looting, and disease.
And there's a strong chance the only solution available to many of us would be to ask to join rural First Australians as we attempt to revert to survival in pre-1788 Australia style.
Do we all just suck it up, head for the country, and join the First Australians. Remember, they would be quite within their rights to have nothing to do with us, pointing to the greater part of the disaster being entirely our fault and consequent upon the nature of our society, and we would have been able to survive okay if only we hadn't destroyed and mined Australia's natural resources, and lived in our over-large houses, with our over-large televisions, and our over-large cars, etc. etc. If only we had prepared for a disaster any blind, half-dead dog could see coming.
Well, maybe you would calmly seek such help, and maybe even talk your way into joining with a First Australian group, especially as, on the whole, their culture is not as brutally rejectionist as ours. No, I'm not saying it's perfect. Of course not. Nor am I saying they're all noble savages. Besides it being stupid, ignorant, patronising, and completely wrong, it would also probably ensure if I'm alive at crunch time I might well find it very hard to find any First Australians who would accept me.
But look around you. Do you reckon everyone else would do that, or even be able to successfully achieve it, or to survive more than a few days out in the bush?
There would be those who would try and dominate with violence, those who would sink into alcoholic and other drug-dependent imbecility, those who would fear First Australians, and those many who would be so psychologically harmed by the collapse and disappearance of everything and possibly everyone they held dear they would simply give up and commit suicide by self-negligence.
So, tell me, why the hell First Australians should be any different, considering the fact they've faced this for the last 200 years. Yes, they have a theoretical capacity to break out of their perdition, and some do. As First Australian jounalist Stan Grant importantly points out, there are now more First Australian university graduates than there are First Australians in prison.
To be honest, I'm unsure what Stan's statistic means. That First Australian success requires measurement in white terms, or requires First Australians to leave their land to achieve success? Nonetheless, Stan's point about First Australian problems being spruiked ahead of First Australian successes is a good one. Many of us could name at least one First Australian disaster settlement, but would struggle to name a First Australian settlement that's successful.
But there's no getting past the fact so many First Australians have the most appalling upbringings, in the most appalling places, with the most appalling peer pressures, and under the most appallingly ignorant racism, government policies, and social and cultural interference.
For young men, in particular, "the warrior" has no purpose. Not only that, but they have absolutely bugger-all opportunity to easily generate a purpose that doesn't require assimilating to at least a very large degree with white ways, possibly rejecting traditional beliefs and leaving traditional lands.
And, not to put too fine a word on it, the suicide rate among young First Australians, not to mention incarceration rates and experiences of First Australians, including an appalling number of children, is potentially yet another massive human rights crime being perpetrated by non-First Australians.
I write "potentially" in hope there will be a turnaround in the largely white governments either not taking practical attempts to minimise these problems, or actively implementing policies that make problems worse. Remember, those who vote for these governments are colluding in their potential crimes - and should be saying sorry in the sense of having personally done something to make First Australians' lives worse.
Anyone who thinks this would be easy is simply refusing, either from gross ignorance, and/or gross racism, to face reality.
Which is, if we're humane people, as so many of us like to claim (with little evidence of the fact, I'm afraid), we should surely feel sorrow for the disastrous state of affairs in which modern First Australians find themselves, through absolutely no fault of their own, and for the tragic tale of how they've ended up there. Whose fault this is, is another story. But can't we at least express sorrow for what has happened and is happening? Separate from the discussion about responsibility?
I know many whites will baulk at the idea First Australians do not simply cause their own problems. But put yourself in their shoes, as Atticus Finch said (To Kill A Mockingbird). Or, in an Atticus suggestion I prefer, put yourself in their skin. Imagine, for example, climate change worsens, and no effective action is taken.
And let's add another disaster, perhaps an extremely major solar storm, like the massive one that set telegraph poles alight in 1859 United States and Europe, blows out all our power and communication infrastructure, including all our satellites, fracturing a society already fragile consequent upon climate change problems, causing it to collapse disastrously.
It's more than possible a substantial proportion of our population would die from starvation, violence, looting, and disease.
And there's a strong chance the only solution available to many of us would be to ask to join rural First Australians as we attempt to revert to survival in pre-1788 Australia style.
Do we all just suck it up, head for the country, and join the First Australians. Remember, they would be quite within their rights to have nothing to do with us, pointing to the greater part of the disaster being entirely our fault and consequent upon the nature of our society, and we would have been able to survive okay if only we hadn't destroyed and mined Australia's natural resources, and lived in our over-large houses, with our over-large televisions, and our over-large cars, etc. etc. If only we had prepared for a disaster any blind, half-dead dog could see coming.
Well, maybe you would calmly seek such help, and maybe even talk your way into joining with a First Australian group, especially as, on the whole, their culture is not as brutally rejectionist as ours. No, I'm not saying it's perfect. Of course not. Nor am I saying they're all noble savages. Besides it being stupid, ignorant, patronising, and completely wrong, it would also probably ensure if I'm alive at crunch time I might well find it very hard to find any First Australians who would accept me.
But look around you. Do you reckon everyone else would do that, or even be able to successfully achieve it, or to survive more than a few days out in the bush?
There would be those who would try and dominate with violence, those who would sink into alcoholic and other drug-dependent imbecility, those who would fear First Australians, and those many who would be so psychologically harmed by the collapse and disappearance of everything and possibly everyone they held dear they would simply give up and commit suicide by self-negligence.
So, tell me, why the hell First Australians should be any different, considering the fact they've faced this for the last 200 years. Yes, they have a theoretical capacity to break out of their perdition, and some do. As First Australian jounalist Stan Grant importantly points out, there are now more First Australian university graduates than there are First Australians in prison.
To be honest, I'm unsure what Stan's statistic means. That First Australian success requires measurement in white terms, or requires First Australians to leave their land to achieve success? Nonetheless, Stan's point about First Australian problems being spruiked ahead of First Australian successes is a good one. Many of us could name at least one First Australian disaster settlement, but would struggle to name a First Australian settlement that's successful.
But there's no getting past the fact so many First Australians have the most appalling upbringings, in the most appalling places, with the most appalling peer pressures, and under the most appallingly ignorant racism, government policies, and social and cultural interference.
For young men, in particular, "the warrior" has no purpose. Not only that, but they have absolutely bugger-all opportunity to easily generate a purpose that doesn't require assimilating to at least a very large degree with white ways, possibly rejecting traditional beliefs and leaving traditional lands.
And, not to put too fine a word on it, the suicide rate among young First Australians, not to mention incarceration rates and experiences of First Australians, including an appalling number of children, is potentially yet another massive human rights crime being perpetrated by non-First Australians.
I write "potentially" in hope there will be a turnaround in the largely white governments either not taking practical attempts to minimise these problems, or actively implementing policies that make problems worse. Remember, those who vote for these governments are colluding in their potential crimes - and should be saying sorry in the sense of having personally done something to make First Australians' lives worse.
Anyone who thinks this would be easy is simply refusing, either from gross ignorance, and/or gross racism, to face reality.
The Naysayers, with some surprises
First Australians
Yes, that's right. Some First Australians are not too keen on Bill's book.
I can't speak for them, and wouldn't stoop to doing so, even if I could. Nonetheless, I'll attempt to inform you about what I have gathered in a quick survey of available material. If I make errors, or appear patronising, or whatever, please realise I've done so as an ignorant fool, not a poorly intentioned one.
I gather that some First Australians object to the ways "experts", mostly white, interfere in their society in all sorts of ways these First Australians perceive to be negative. Some interferers do so out of self-interest. Some mean well, but don't understand they're causing harm, and patronisingly won't listen to First Australians when they try to point some of this out. And some do so because they're driven to do so, for various reasons, from being religious zealots, to being pure arseholes, to wanting to prove theories the First Australians see as being negative towards them and/or their beliefs.
A group First Australians have learned to distrust are academic researchers keen to use First Australian knowledge and skill to big note themselves back in whitey's world. Perfectly understandably, not that they need any of my approval, First Australians distrust white researchers they perceive to want to glorify themselves at First Australian expense.
One of the concerns some First Australians have regards what some call "Europeanisation". I don't yet fully understand the First Australian argument in this regard, so I give a specific warning I may be misrepresenting its purveyors. If I am, please let me know.
A couple of the ways these researchers do this are:
This is an incredibly difficult matter. And I have no answers. As a historian, in a never-ending search for truth (yes, yes, I know there's no such simple thing), I regard scientists' similar searches for truth, especially those concerning historical matters, as being matters of primary interest.
Therefore, for example, I would ordinarily classify information regarding when and how the First Australians' ancestors arrived in what was to become Australia, and where they came from as essential information to be publicised.
Consequently, archeologists have blurted all over the world that First Australians' ancestors didn't always live here, with the earliest current record of their presence in Australia dating to around 52,000 BP. Further, DNA evidence indicates the people whose descendants were to become the First Australians came from Africa, via south-east Asia, arriving here around 60,000 BP. And, more recent evidence indicates an inflow of people with DNA matching that of people currently living in southern India several thousand years ago.
I find all this fascinating.
But, in repeating these findings here, I'm effectively stating quite clearly that First Australian creation stories are rubbish. It's true I'm an atheist, and I don't hesitate to criticise the various religions around the world for their resistance to accepting scientific proof of evolution and the non-deistic creation of the universe, while insistently believing in spiritual beings for whom there's no proof.
However, I don't openly criticise First Australian beliefs. They've suffered more than enough at the hands of know-it-all whites, they don't need me adding to it. On the other hand, I can't also deny my belief in the importance of archeological and scientific evidence, and the drawing-out of that evidence in theories of occurrence.
As I wrote, I have no solution, except to apologise for offending some people.
On the other hand, there have been exceptions, and these seem to have increased in the last decade or two in at least some fields, such as archaeology, this amazingly patronising attitude, and, believe me, I'm restraining myself here to quite a considerable degree, has really limited the value of research in every field involved.
Just one example: wonderful work in a couple of areas, involving archeologists and First Australians, has shown a great degree of "factual" (in white terms) content in at least some Dreamtime stories telling of major geological changes occurring to the continent.
Listening to these stories with open ears and minds can provide information supportive or otherwise of specific theories regarding precise events. In other words, the stories concerned provide the equivalent of eye witness evidence, albeit sometimes limited by a chinese whispers effect caused by the lengths of time involved. Mostly, however, the degree of correlation is stunning, and this has only been carried out with a few First Australian groups in a small part of Australia's area.
Of course, this work not only requires linguistic translation, but cultural interpretation as well, along with understanding of and sensitivity to current cultural matters. The involvement of First Australians in this work is crucial.
And what do First Australians get out of this? First, increased information about their people and land, although it's often information the First Australians already know, of course, or sometimes understandably might be reluctant to hear.
But crucially, second, while First Australians have no personal need to have white confirmation of the "accuracy" (in western terms) of their stories, which they've often tried, but have often given up, telling the so-called white "experts", they benefit from the sudden white realisation these "primitive", "stone age", "superstitious" people actually have something to offer them.
This begins a process of developing and building a level of respect whites, on the whole, have been loathe to give First Australians. In turn, this can surely only be of benefit to First Australians as a whole as they win back pride in their pasts and therefore themselves.
This criticism comes, I feel, from an unfortunate interpretation of what Bill has done, and the reasons he's done it. He acknowledges much more work needs to be done, in particular interviewing First Australians who retain at least some of the knowledge of their forebears (I stress"at least" to mean some may retain it all).
A relevant point to make here relates to another issue of great concern to First Australians, and that's the powerful tendency for white experts, from scientists of all sorts, to archeologists and historians, to ignore First Australian advice, assistance, stories, and histories.
But this isn't an experience only suffered by First Australians. For example, there's major conflict between scientists and bushfire fighters about minmising such things as overall bushfire risks, and specific risks to the firefighters themselves. I'll touch on this again a bit later.
However, back to the point. With this background, one can understand First Australian concerns at being apparently ignored by Bill. This was not, however, a matter of ignoring the potential for First Australian input, or using First Australian history and understandings for a white academic's benefit without reference to the First Australians. Bill is far from the same sort of researcher with whom all-too-many First Australians have had the great misfortune to become familiar.
However, he had a major story to tell, and it was one he not only wanted, but absolutely needed, to be accepted as authoritative by the people whose interest he required to be tickled for proper funding and effort to be put into the work necessary to achieve change in white understandings and attitudes towards First Australian history and therefore First Australians themselves.
With limited time and resources, noting he is not a young man (although, now I'm 62 I don't regard his age as "old", either!), Bill had to consider the kind of evidence necessary to attract the attention of his targets, and at least convince them this field requires much more serious and concerted attention.
I don't know Bill's thought processes in these regards, so I have no idea of the extent of specific planning or intent. Therefore I can't be absolutely definite about what follows. Nonetheless, the book and a number of Bill's statements about why he had to publish without undertaking research around the whole of Australia, especially the north, where so-called "firestick farming" still takes place, nor the extensive consultation required with First Australians across the continent, indicate there was at least some purpose in his decision-making process.
What follows reflect my assumptions about why this took place, and nothing else.
It appears Bill's choice of target group, or "groups", as it's turned out, was quite clever. First up were those whites completely ignorant of the evidence garnered by himself and other researchers from the last 40 or so years, along with the amazing material written by early settlers and explorers about their observations.
We now need to follow this through, and if First Australians want to achieve the benefits of significantly altered pulic perceptions of them and their history, they need to take to the "airwaves" to try once again to pass on their knowledge and understandings. In fact, it would be wonderful if First Australians took the lead in this whole area of work.
Mind you, I'm hesitant to write that First Australians "need" to do anything. However, as a historian myself, I would be enormously grateful if they could find themselves able to, if not forgive, but see past previous disastrous experiences with white "experts" in particular, and whites in general.
From the white perspective, it's essential these First Australian communicators and their beliefs and understandings be treated with respect. Unlike some of the people who have commented on Bill's work!
A wonderful book brought out recently by First Australian historian and author Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu, Black Seeds: agriculture or accident, is a great start to First Australian work in this area. And Bruce has literally hit the airwaves. I've heard several radio interviews and seen several news articles about his work. Further, he's experimenting with indigenous food sources to see what they can provide.
The fact is, folks, despite the ignorant, unacknowledged, and actively denied racism of many Australians, there's a whole heap of us who are actively trying not to be racist, and who are ready and willing to learn.
We know First Australians are under no obligation to help us. Indeed, any hesitancy they have or refusal they make comes out of an appalling history of white abuse, including massacres, very blatant and large-scale theft of their lands, active programs to wipe them out as a people, and active programs to mislead and miseducate generation after generation of people about them, their culture, and their history.
And that's just the start. The destruction of themselves, their communities, and their culture is an ongoing program of white governments, even in 2016. I note Western Australia's efforts to defund outlying settlements, for example.
However, the benefits that should accrue for First Australians from greater dissemination of this information, and greater research and analysis of the data, including interviews with their people, will hopefully help convince them to generate pride in the achievements of their forebears, and enable us all to step over a past for which most of us have no direct responsibility (indirect responsibility being another matter which might require at least consideration, and maybe acknowledgement), and which we absolutely recognise as appalling as regards white treatment of First Australians.
Of course, there's no way we expect them to forgive, and certainly not to forget, nor to accept white ways and beliefs. After all, many whites carry their own baggage of wrongs done to our forebears, which makes what they did to First Australians all the more disgraceful.
For example, the Scots among my forebears also had their land stolen. However, the Scots, not just the Highlanders, but very many Lowlanders, borderers, like my forebears, and Islanders, had their form of "Big Man" government, unlike the quite different governmental system used by the First Australians' forebears, much more suitable to the environment they found themselves in. Consequently, the Scots' tribes were headed up by "clan leaders", most of whom were made lords by either or both Scottish and English kings and queens.
Subsequently, these "lordly bozos began to feel different, separate from, and superior to their clanspeople, their fellow tribespeople, those who gave them their power and authority. Their primary role was initially as protector of the tribe. But monarchical power spread, and the clan leaders, become lords of the Crown, saw they were now getting both their power and in many cases their lands from the Crown. This led them to see their responsibility to the monarch, themselves, and their blood family, as their primary role, without responsibility for or to their tribe, which was only there to serve them.
Concurrently, the clan leaders started to see their tribal land as their own property, not the property of the clan. As time moved on, they corrupted the whole legal and governmental system, having the monarch and parliaments hand the clan's lands over to them. The clan no longer "owned" the land, although "owned" was a misnomer as much there as it was in Australia for First Australians.
The lord, the erstwhile clan leader, now owned, without inverted commas, the land. At least, for a time, unless the monarch took it away from them. But later, the monarch largely lost this power. Then, even worse, the clan leaders saw they could make greater personal profits if they got rid of their clanspeople altogether, and replaced them with sheep. To cut a long, terrible story short, thus occurred the great Scottish diaspora, which in later times brought significant numbers of Scots to Oz.
Oddly, when they arrived in Australia they, and/or their descendants, tended to be full-blown conservative monarchists. And, what's outrageously more, the immigrants' descendants glorified the descendants of the people who stole their land from their forebears, turning their forebears out of their land, and ultimately out of their country.
And worse, much, much, much worse, they often played an active role in the theft of First Australian lands. For example, the one-time Scots' hero of Gippsland, Angus McMillan, is now known to have been a murdering shitbag, whatever else he was.
Okay, back to the point. Bill's purpose in writing The Biggest Estate was informational, an introduction to the realities of the complexities of First Australian culture and society. The aim being to encourage people to demand more work in this field, and for politicians to be convinced there were strong socially, environmentally, and, most importantly, in the current political age, economically important reasons to allocate funds to such research.
But what seems to have been even more important for Bill was the need to whet the appetite of scientists, historians, agriculturalists, and a whole raft of mostly white experts. To trigger their interest in conducting more focussed research into what the story Bill has begun unravelling, which has been hidden for so long, could mean for us and our continent. And for this he needed a book that approached the matter in ways understandable by western-trained and thinking specialists of all sorts.
Bill makes clear this is not to downplay the considerable importance of First Australian input, or bushfire fighter input if it comes to that, simply that to achieve the best outcomes for all Australians, including First Australians, he had to pander to white prejudices and expectations (not, I hasten to write, he used those words, or anything quite like them!). By this means, he hoped to enable the essential discussions required with First Australians.
Bill, I'm sure, would have loved to have been able to conduct his research into all areas of Australia, and to have personally interviewed all parties involved and interested. But to do so was a far too difficult task for a single person to undertake in the sort of timeframe he believed he had. He couldn't afford to wait another 13 years, not if he wanted to influence debates going on right now.
A couple of debates, really. First is how we prepare for greater global action. Second is how we minimise ongoing environmental devastation. Third is how we minimise bushfire risks. Fourth is how we deal with recognising our white forebears stole this land, and the need to acknowledge that.
And finally, and related, how we educate Australians about the fact we've been completely falsely taught about First Australian life and society prior to 1788 - that is, prior to permanent white settlement, theft of the continent by the British, and/or the white invasion. In other words, whatever you call it, it happened and needs to be acknowledged and understood in full accuracy.
This has nothing to do with "black armbands", that offensive term coined by that once great historian and terrible social commentator Geoffrey Blainey, and spruiked by his follower, former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard.
Far from it, in fact. It is simply an effort to better understand what happened and why. I don't, for example, know enough about Angus McMillan to know whether he had a good side, but most humans, in fact, are complex creatures with many characteristics, both good and bad, the labelling of which often depends on the directions from which one is looking.
A better understanding of our history is not about allocating blame or destroying reputations, or whatever. It's about acceptance of what happened, making, where necessary and possible, reparations for any wrongs that might have been done, and moving on in knowledge of and learning from the past. It's about, at basics, being honest - with and to ourselves and others.
In this case, unless incontrovertibly proven otherwise, it means being honest about what was caused by, to use the best interpretation (although personally I thing "invasion" better suits!), white settlement of Australia. That what was destroyed, by whatever means, but largely as a consequence of the settlement (invasion?) was a well-developed economy, society, decision-making process, religion, culture, civilisation (in other words, whatever you want to call it), significantly more sophisticated than we've been led to believe.
And while some who will no doubt deny they're racist will deny whatever facts we come up with, Bill's theory could be a crucial part of the long awaited and much overly delayed debate regarding the recognition that the First Australians were here before the whites, and possessed this continent prior to the whites occupying it and removing them, by whatever means, from their place of effective ownership, even though that English word in no way properly describes their relationship with the land.
First Australians
Yes, that's right. Some First Australians are not too keen on Bill's book.
I can't speak for them, and wouldn't stoop to doing so, even if I could. Nonetheless, I'll attempt to inform you about what I have gathered in a quick survey of available material. If I make errors, or appear patronising, or whatever, please realise I've done so as an ignorant fool, not a poorly intentioned one.
I gather that some First Australians object to the ways "experts", mostly white, interfere in their society in all sorts of ways these First Australians perceive to be negative. Some interferers do so out of self-interest. Some mean well, but don't understand they're causing harm, and patronisingly won't listen to First Australians when they try to point some of this out. And some do so because they're driven to do so, for various reasons, from being religious zealots, to being pure arseholes, to wanting to prove theories the First Australians see as being negative towards them and/or their beliefs.
A group First Australians have learned to distrust are academic researchers keen to use First Australian knowledge and skill to big note themselves back in whitey's world. Perfectly understandably, not that they need any of my approval, First Australians distrust white researchers they perceive to want to glorify themselves at First Australian expense.
One of the concerns some First Australians have regards what some call "Europeanisation". I don't yet fully understand the First Australian argument in this regard, so I give a specific warning I may be misrepresenting its purveyors. If I am, please let me know.
A couple of the ways these researchers do this are:
- by explaining First Australian understandings in European ways, as though First Australian understandings are not just irrelevant, but wrong;
- by using European terms to describe First Australian concepts, ideas, history, society, achievements, and so on in ways that are misleading or wrong, either fully or partially; and
- treating First Australian understandings, concepts, ideas, history, society, achievements, and so on without regard to First Australian sensitivities, and without proper respect.
This is an incredibly difficult matter. And I have no answers. As a historian, in a never-ending search for truth (yes, yes, I know there's no such simple thing), I regard scientists' similar searches for truth, especially those concerning historical matters, as being matters of primary interest.
Therefore, for example, I would ordinarily classify information regarding when and how the First Australians' ancestors arrived in what was to become Australia, and where they came from as essential information to be publicised.
Consequently, archeologists have blurted all over the world that First Australians' ancestors didn't always live here, with the earliest current record of their presence in Australia dating to around 52,000 BP. Further, DNA evidence indicates the people whose descendants were to become the First Australians came from Africa, via south-east Asia, arriving here around 60,000 BP. And, more recent evidence indicates an inflow of people with DNA matching that of people currently living in southern India several thousand years ago.
I find all this fascinating.
But, in repeating these findings here, I'm effectively stating quite clearly that First Australian creation stories are rubbish. It's true I'm an atheist, and I don't hesitate to criticise the various religions around the world for their resistance to accepting scientific proof of evolution and the non-deistic creation of the universe, while insistently believing in spiritual beings for whom there's no proof.
However, I don't openly criticise First Australian beliefs. They've suffered more than enough at the hands of know-it-all whites, they don't need me adding to it. On the other hand, I can't also deny my belief in the importance of archeological and scientific evidence, and the drawing-out of that evidence in theories of occurrence.
As I wrote, I have no solution, except to apologise for offending some people.
On the other hand, there have been exceptions, and these seem to have increased in the last decade or two in at least some fields, such as archaeology, this amazingly patronising attitude, and, believe me, I'm restraining myself here to quite a considerable degree, has really limited the value of research in every field involved.
Just one example: wonderful work in a couple of areas, involving archeologists and First Australians, has shown a great degree of "factual" (in white terms) content in at least some Dreamtime stories telling of major geological changes occurring to the continent.
Listening to these stories with open ears and minds can provide information supportive or otherwise of specific theories regarding precise events. In other words, the stories concerned provide the equivalent of eye witness evidence, albeit sometimes limited by a chinese whispers effect caused by the lengths of time involved. Mostly, however, the degree of correlation is stunning, and this has only been carried out with a few First Australian groups in a small part of Australia's area.
Of course, this work not only requires linguistic translation, but cultural interpretation as well, along with understanding of and sensitivity to current cultural matters. The involvement of First Australians in this work is crucial.
And what do First Australians get out of this? First, increased information about their people and land, although it's often information the First Australians already know, of course, or sometimes understandably might be reluctant to hear.
But crucially, second, while First Australians have no personal need to have white confirmation of the "accuracy" (in western terms) of their stories, which they've often tried, but have often given up, telling the so-called white "experts", they benefit from the sudden white realisation these "primitive", "stone age", "superstitious" people actually have something to offer them.
This begins a process of developing and building a level of respect whites, on the whole, have been loathe to give First Australians. In turn, this can surely only be of benefit to First Australians as a whole as they win back pride in their pasts and therefore themselves.
This criticism comes, I feel, from an unfortunate interpretation of what Bill has done, and the reasons he's done it. He acknowledges much more work needs to be done, in particular interviewing First Australians who retain at least some of the knowledge of their forebears (I stress"at least" to mean some may retain it all).
A relevant point to make here relates to another issue of great concern to First Australians, and that's the powerful tendency for white experts, from scientists of all sorts, to archeologists and historians, to ignore First Australian advice, assistance, stories, and histories.
But this isn't an experience only suffered by First Australians. For example, there's major conflict between scientists and bushfire fighters about minmising such things as overall bushfire risks, and specific risks to the firefighters themselves. I'll touch on this again a bit later.
However, back to the point. With this background, one can understand First Australian concerns at being apparently ignored by Bill. This was not, however, a matter of ignoring the potential for First Australian input, or using First Australian history and understandings for a white academic's benefit without reference to the First Australians. Bill is far from the same sort of researcher with whom all-too-many First Australians have had the great misfortune to become familiar.
However, he had a major story to tell, and it was one he not only wanted, but absolutely needed, to be accepted as authoritative by the people whose interest he required to be tickled for proper funding and effort to be put into the work necessary to achieve change in white understandings and attitudes towards First Australian history and therefore First Australians themselves.
With limited time and resources, noting he is not a young man (although, now I'm 62 I don't regard his age as "old", either!), Bill had to consider the kind of evidence necessary to attract the attention of his targets, and at least convince them this field requires much more serious and concerted attention.
I don't know Bill's thought processes in these regards, so I have no idea of the extent of specific planning or intent. Therefore I can't be absolutely definite about what follows. Nonetheless, the book and a number of Bill's statements about why he had to publish without undertaking research around the whole of Australia, especially the north, where so-called "firestick farming" still takes place, nor the extensive consultation required with First Australians across the continent, indicate there was at least some purpose in his decision-making process.
What follows reflect my assumptions about why this took place, and nothing else.
It appears Bill's choice of target group, or "groups", as it's turned out, was quite clever. First up were those whites completely ignorant of the evidence garnered by himself and other researchers from the last 40 or so years, along with the amazing material written by early settlers and explorers about their observations.
We now need to follow this through, and if First Australians want to achieve the benefits of significantly altered pulic perceptions of them and their history, they need to take to the "airwaves" to try once again to pass on their knowledge and understandings. In fact, it would be wonderful if First Australians took the lead in this whole area of work.
Mind you, I'm hesitant to write that First Australians "need" to do anything. However, as a historian myself, I would be enormously grateful if they could find themselves able to, if not forgive, but see past previous disastrous experiences with white "experts" in particular, and whites in general.
From the white perspective, it's essential these First Australian communicators and their beliefs and understandings be treated with respect. Unlike some of the people who have commented on Bill's work!
A wonderful book brought out recently by First Australian historian and author Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu, Black Seeds: agriculture or accident, is a great start to First Australian work in this area. And Bruce has literally hit the airwaves. I've heard several radio interviews and seen several news articles about his work. Further, he's experimenting with indigenous food sources to see what they can provide.
The fact is, folks, despite the ignorant, unacknowledged, and actively denied racism of many Australians, there's a whole heap of us who are actively trying not to be racist, and who are ready and willing to learn.
We know First Australians are under no obligation to help us. Indeed, any hesitancy they have or refusal they make comes out of an appalling history of white abuse, including massacres, very blatant and large-scale theft of their lands, active programs to wipe them out as a people, and active programs to mislead and miseducate generation after generation of people about them, their culture, and their history.
And that's just the start. The destruction of themselves, their communities, and their culture is an ongoing program of white governments, even in 2016. I note Western Australia's efforts to defund outlying settlements, for example.
However, the benefits that should accrue for First Australians from greater dissemination of this information, and greater research and analysis of the data, including interviews with their people, will hopefully help convince them to generate pride in the achievements of their forebears, and enable us all to step over a past for which most of us have no direct responsibility (indirect responsibility being another matter which might require at least consideration, and maybe acknowledgement), and which we absolutely recognise as appalling as regards white treatment of First Australians.
Of course, there's no way we expect them to forgive, and certainly not to forget, nor to accept white ways and beliefs. After all, many whites carry their own baggage of wrongs done to our forebears, which makes what they did to First Australians all the more disgraceful.
For example, the Scots among my forebears also had their land stolen. However, the Scots, not just the Highlanders, but very many Lowlanders, borderers, like my forebears, and Islanders, had their form of "Big Man" government, unlike the quite different governmental system used by the First Australians' forebears, much more suitable to the environment they found themselves in. Consequently, the Scots' tribes were headed up by "clan leaders", most of whom were made lords by either or both Scottish and English kings and queens.
Subsequently, these "lordly bozos began to feel different, separate from, and superior to their clanspeople, their fellow tribespeople, those who gave them their power and authority. Their primary role was initially as protector of the tribe. But monarchical power spread, and the clan leaders, become lords of the Crown, saw they were now getting both their power and in many cases their lands from the Crown. This led them to see their responsibility to the monarch, themselves, and their blood family, as their primary role, without responsibility for or to their tribe, which was only there to serve them.
Concurrently, the clan leaders started to see their tribal land as their own property, not the property of the clan. As time moved on, they corrupted the whole legal and governmental system, having the monarch and parliaments hand the clan's lands over to them. The clan no longer "owned" the land, although "owned" was a misnomer as much there as it was in Australia for First Australians.
The lord, the erstwhile clan leader, now owned, without inverted commas, the land. At least, for a time, unless the monarch took it away from them. But later, the monarch largely lost this power. Then, even worse, the clan leaders saw they could make greater personal profits if they got rid of their clanspeople altogether, and replaced them with sheep. To cut a long, terrible story short, thus occurred the great Scottish diaspora, which in later times brought significant numbers of Scots to Oz.
Oddly, when they arrived in Australia they, and/or their descendants, tended to be full-blown conservative monarchists. And, what's outrageously more, the immigrants' descendants glorified the descendants of the people who stole their land from their forebears, turning their forebears out of their land, and ultimately out of their country.
And worse, much, much, much worse, they often played an active role in the theft of First Australian lands. For example, the one-time Scots' hero of Gippsland, Angus McMillan, is now known to have been a murdering shitbag, whatever else he was.
Okay, back to the point. Bill's purpose in writing The Biggest Estate was informational, an introduction to the realities of the complexities of First Australian culture and society. The aim being to encourage people to demand more work in this field, and for politicians to be convinced there were strong socially, environmentally, and, most importantly, in the current political age, economically important reasons to allocate funds to such research.
But what seems to have been even more important for Bill was the need to whet the appetite of scientists, historians, agriculturalists, and a whole raft of mostly white experts. To trigger their interest in conducting more focussed research into what the story Bill has begun unravelling, which has been hidden for so long, could mean for us and our continent. And for this he needed a book that approached the matter in ways understandable by western-trained and thinking specialists of all sorts.
Bill makes clear this is not to downplay the considerable importance of First Australian input, or bushfire fighter input if it comes to that, simply that to achieve the best outcomes for all Australians, including First Australians, he had to pander to white prejudices and expectations (not, I hasten to write, he used those words, or anything quite like them!). By this means, he hoped to enable the essential discussions required with First Australians.
Bill, I'm sure, would have loved to have been able to conduct his research into all areas of Australia, and to have personally interviewed all parties involved and interested. But to do so was a far too difficult task for a single person to undertake in the sort of timeframe he believed he had. He couldn't afford to wait another 13 years, not if he wanted to influence debates going on right now.
A couple of debates, really. First is how we prepare for greater global action. Second is how we minimise ongoing environmental devastation. Third is how we minimise bushfire risks. Fourth is how we deal with recognising our white forebears stole this land, and the need to acknowledge that.
And finally, and related, how we educate Australians about the fact we've been completely falsely taught about First Australian life and society prior to 1788 - that is, prior to permanent white settlement, theft of the continent by the British, and/or the white invasion. In other words, whatever you call it, it happened and needs to be acknowledged and understood in full accuracy.
This has nothing to do with "black armbands", that offensive term coined by that once great historian and terrible social commentator Geoffrey Blainey, and spruiked by his follower, former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard.
Far from it, in fact. It is simply an effort to better understand what happened and why. I don't, for example, know enough about Angus McMillan to know whether he had a good side, but most humans, in fact, are complex creatures with many characteristics, both good and bad, the labelling of which often depends on the directions from which one is looking.
A better understanding of our history is not about allocating blame or destroying reputations, or whatever. It's about acceptance of what happened, making, where necessary and possible, reparations for any wrongs that might have been done, and moving on in knowledge of and learning from the past. It's about, at basics, being honest - with and to ourselves and others.
In this case, unless incontrovertibly proven otherwise, it means being honest about what was caused by, to use the best interpretation (although personally I thing "invasion" better suits!), white settlement of Australia. That what was destroyed, by whatever means, but largely as a consequence of the settlement (invasion?) was a well-developed economy, society, decision-making process, religion, culture, civilisation (in other words, whatever you want to call it), significantly more sophisticated than we've been led to believe.
And while some who will no doubt deny they're racist will deny whatever facts we come up with, Bill's theory could be a crucial part of the long awaited and much overly delayed debate regarding the recognition that the First Australians were here before the whites, and possessed this continent prior to the whites occupying it and removing them, by whatever means, from their place of effective ownership, even though that English word in no way properly describes their relationship with the land.
Attackers & Supporters
– Some Surprises & Some Not
As one can imagine, with such an extensive revision of white views of First Australian history, there has been quite a bit of comment about Bill’s book.
1. Negative Comments
(1) Unpleasantness as argument
– Some Surprises & Some Not
As one can imagine, with such an extensive revision of white views of First Australian history, there has been quite a bit of comment about Bill’s book.
1. Negative Comments
(1) Unpleasantness as argument
Some comments take the usual form extant during the so-called and rather tired “History Wars” rhetoric about Australian history which have been running for the last couple of decades or so. In other words, name-calling and misrepresentations based around politicised understandings of history, which tell us nothing other than the political beliefs of the person spouting them. Unpleasantly-termed negative scientific comments To be fair, some of the unpleasantly termed comment has been much more constructive, raising questions that need to be answered by the proponents of Bill’s theory. Unfortunately, some (but I stress, not all) of it has also been presented in ways that could almost be called a “gloating” manner that attempts to prove a general theory completely wrong by referring to small elements of it, usually in terms of physical area. These comments at least attempt to use a scientific basis. However, the approach adopted to the data collection and its analysis too often appears to be based on preconceived notions rather than a genuine attempt to find the “truth”, whatever that is. Sadly, the idea of independent science doesn’t seem to have been taught to some scientists. I know I’m using a criticism often used by right wing commentators about environmental science, but I can only call it as I see it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with thinking a theory has holes, and setting out to see if that’s the case, and then putting out your findings in a manner that raises questions. However, to do so in a gloatingly negative manner that attempts to belittle the proponents of other ideas, or to set up the data collection process and analysis, or even the peer review process, in ways that raise questions of bias is unconscionable, and, I would argue, not just unscientific, but anti-scientific. Negative comments from left & right Interestingly, this type of objectionable negative comment has come from both sides of the History Wars’ principal political divide – left and right. However, at the same time, history warriors of the same factions also can be found among Bill’s theory’s supporters. And, I may say, they can also sometimes be as objectionable as their opponents. Okay. So let’s look at the opponents first. In very basic terms they fall into three camps. Unsurprisingly, two of these can generally be delineated by the old and rather outdated left and right paradigms. In this context, some from the camps I’ve labelled “left” and “right” may well not identify themselves as such, may object to such labelling, and may, in fact, be quite right to do so. But, guys, stiff titties. I’m writing this review and you’re not. Get used to it, this thing’s under my control and, however controlling you may be, I’ll bloody well call you whatever I damned well want! So there!! Left-wing opponents These very generally fall into the environmentalist camp. While they can very, very roughly be broken into “non-scientific” and “scientific” groupings, their concerns are similar. On the other hand, undoubtedly some are more extreme than others both in terms of their beliefs and the actions they’re prepared to take.
These environmentalists are much more comfortable with the traditional view that the bush was pristine and “wild” in its form when whites arrived, and all, or at least by far the greatest majority of, human-derived change has occurred since then. Thus, whatever is left must be preserved. And, if it’s true the First Australians did alter the environment, then for goodness sakes shut up about it! Environmentalists in general (scientific and non-scientific) draw this out to say that forest burn-off, mining, timber cutting and so on, interfere with the “natural” order of things, and cause risks to the greater biosphere that could be irreversible. In relation to burn-off in particular, they claim it has no observable benefits for the environment, and has the disbenefits of threatening the existence of rare animal, plant, and other species. I’m not going into any more detail on these beliefs, as this is a review, not a treatise. This group also includes those environmentalists who claim Bill is arguing that the whole of Australia has been altered by the First Australians’ use of fire, and that he is proposing the full-scale burn-off of bush land. Of course, as they would know if they read Bill’s book with open eyes, this is not the case. First, he does not claim the whole of Australia has been altered by fire. Clearly, there are parts that can’t be burned, or weren’t burned, for a range of reasons. That the burnings occurred in various ways across “the whole of Australia”, or at least so much of it for which Bill, in 13 years, has been able to both find white first-person evidence, and visit and check, doesn’t mean it covered every last square inch (whoops, sorry youngies, “square centimetre” for you). Bill is not, despite the apparent belief of some of his opponents, a drooling, ideologically mad, self-aggrandizing, self-publicising idiot. By writing, in several ways, that the burnings occurred in various forms across “the whole of Australia”, it’s clear Bill simply means that most, if not all, First Australians were locked into a burning regime of some sort and some extent wherever they were. Further, that this burning consequently covered much of the land for which each group of burners were held responsible, and that they dared not stop because of the religio-cultural requirements placed on them. I don’t want to be too outspoken, but it’s arrant nonsense to claim or repeat the claims of others, that Bill is proposing the continuation and extension of the wholesale burn-offs of the barely, if at all, scientific types currently conducted by various government authorities. Bill proposes no more than taking traditional knowledge into account, along with climate change issues, local white knowledge, and modern scientific knowledge to come up with a range of approaches involving all sorts of fire, at varied times, suitable to specific environments, incorporating consideration of all elements of the environment. Further, Bill points to the undoubtedly successful survival of First Australians for thousands of years, where whites have already started to run down the continent’s potential after only 200 years. In particular, this would entail better use of, for example, food plants that survive and thrive in low fertility soils, rather than pouring millions of tonnes of fertilisers on. Why? Well, apart from better using more suitable plants, these fertilisers flow into our rivers, lakes, and seas, causing, among other things, poisonous green algae plagues and the killing of the Great Barrier Reef, or at least large portions of it. Another example is the need to better use successful dry climate plants, which require much lower water supply, minimising the impacts of water withdrawal from our river systems, with consequent major downstream environmental damage. Oh, by the way, this doesn’t mean he’s telling us to stop the use of non-indigenous plants altogether, or not to use plants developed by scientists to better cope with our infertile and dry continent. Bill is just suggesting indigenous plants already successful in Australia would be a good point to start plant research, rather than, as is all-too-often the current state, starting with the exotic plants and attempting to fit them into our environment. In fact, it’s clear Bill is supportive of many of the environmentalists’ more sensible concerns, and if they could get out of the bunkers they’ve built to resist the fluoroantimonic acid* attacks of their opponents, and from which they generate their own fluoroantimonic attacks, they might understand that and move towards trying to achieve positive agreement rather than exscoriating all opposition, or whoever they regard as opposition, while Australia all-too-quickly dies around us. * Yep, I googled “strongest acid” and it seems to vary with scientific fiddling, but this little doozie, one of what are called “superacids”, is said to be 10 thousand quadrillion times stronger than sulfuric acid – and, yes, that’s about right for this descriptor!
Appallingly, there appear to be no points of agreement between these two camps. The ivory towerists argue anecdotal evidence, unsupported by scientific research, is a completely invalid and unacceptable basis for policy decision-making. The fire truckies make the point much of the ivory towerist research is carried out using computer modelling which inevitably entails subjective decision-making from design to analysis, therefore being subject to the biases of the models’ designers and analysts, and as those designers and analysts are “biased” against burn-offs, their models’ results inevitably come down accordingly. Further is the point that no model can possibly, according to the fire truckies, take into account every single field influence on fire outcomes, especially as we don’t yet properly understand them, so can’t possibly replace field experience. Communication between these two camps could perhaps best be described as vitriolic in the extreme. While “fluoroantimonic” may be an indicative descriptor, a more powerful superacid is undoubtedly needed for greater accuracy. It’s worth noting here that, if Bill’s theory is correct, the burning processes carried out by the First Australians were based on detailed analytical and observational data collected continentally across considerable periods of time. In essence, it was developed by the equivalent of “fire truckie” or anecdotal evidence. Its analysis, however, indicates a proto-scientific degree of ingenuity and precision. Right-wing opponents This lot tend to fall into the camp often labelled by their own opponents as “racist”. The members of this camp generally object to this description, claiming they’re not racists, just objective analysts of reality. Their concern with Bill’s theory seems to stem from their continued acceptance of the belief that First Australians are and always have been nomadic hunters and gatherers who have neither a “society” nor a “culture” worth the name, and definitely never had a “civilisation”. The objections of these people to Bill’s theory are rather obvious, so I won’t go into any detail. If there’s a stronger acid than fluoroantimonic, then it all-too-often comes out of these peoples’ mouths and pens. The proponents of this camp’s views are almost entirely unscientific, and immensely suspicious of anything to do with science. It might be said, they are also often key proponents of the view that humans are not primarily responsible for the current climate change we’re experiencing. However, having described them as “unscientific”, it also needs to be noted some scientists, often regarded as “rogue” by their colleagues, sometimes with no qualifications in any of the areas upon which they espouse belief, support this camp’s claims. The problem for the opponents of these rogue scientists is that being designated a “rogue” by the majority of the scientific community does not necessarily mean a scientist is wrong. Over the history of science it has not been unusual for “rogues” to be far ahead of colleagues who often set out to destroy their careers and sometimes take their lives (hopefully, only in the past!). However, very generally, this group of opponents is more than prone to never allowing the truth get in the way of their claims and opinions, and of purposefully misrepresenting the views of the people at whom they’re directing their calumnies. Mind you, their own opponents can sometimes resort to similar tactics – such as describing any scientific supporters of this group as “rogue”! First Australian Opponents Some of these could perhaps be given a label of the left/right kind, but that would be overly simplistic, and possibly patronising. These opponents are from the First Australian community, and appear to have two major issues forming the basis of their arguments. Note that I don’t want to indicate all First Australian opponents fall into the same camp together, or that they all agree with one another. That’s not the case. Just as it is the case that many other First Australians support Bill’s work. I also note some of these opponents are also rather prone to spraying fluoroantimonic acid-based language around. Mind you, I’m more inclined to accept it from them considering the brutal murder, rape, arguably genocidal attacks, personal and general insults of the crudest and most personally destructive kind, cultural and social destruction, dislocation, and on and on, they and their forebears have had to cope with for over two hundred years. And, disgracefully, still cop from ignorant areseholes today. You’re right, I don’t hesitate to be completely intolerant of certain matters. Sexual assault and gender equality are two. And racism is another. Don’t worry, I have others, but I’m putting these out as indicators. I can understand some of the rationales for, or at least causes of, racism, such as the US Soledad Brothers’ belief racism is a white construct, so blacks can’t be racist – that’s clearly in itself a racist concept. But the kind of racism extant in too much of Australia is incomprehensible to me. It’s unjustifiable, ignorant, and needs stamping on whenever any of its nasty little perpetrators stick their squeeking snouts out of the garbage tips they undoubtedly inhabit. Woo-hoo, that got a bit of acid out of my system. Whites in Australia are indeed fortunate superacidic words are all the First Australians spray around. However, while understanding where some First Australian concerns about white writings originate, I feel I also have the right to point out when I feel their ire is misdirected. Of the two principal issues they have, and of course I can’t cover all the potential ground here, so please forgive me if I’m overly brief, one appears not to be well-based, and the other, on the other hand, appears to be quite accurate. The not well-based concern This is the argument that Bill’s work interferes with the belief among some First Australians that what has made them particularly different from the whites is their forebears’ ability and preparedness to live within and look after their environment, rather than destroy it. Interestingly, I think this fits in with another thing often complained about so-called “do-gooding” whites. That’s the 18th century idea of the “noble savage”. This came from a lack of knowledge of non-European societies, and was an attempt to counter the negative stereotypes then circulating about non-European people, especially black Africans and Polynesians. The idea was, and is still among some people, that these people, while “savage” to European eyes, actually displayed all the kind, generous, humane characteristics humans originally had, but which the coming of “civilisation” has caused them to lose. While the “Noble Savage” gumph’s proponents didn’t have much of a concept of environmentalism, concern for and living with the environment is simply a 20th century extension. Many, if not most First Australians, understandably detest this stuff. However, some welcome the belief their forebears were “superior” to whites in this regard. I believe, however, these opponents have misread Bill’s work. It’s true he doesn’t appear to have time for the “noble savage” stuff, and he does postulate that the First Australians significantly altered the environment to suit their own survival. And this may have, and probably did, result in the extinction of quite a few plants, animal, and other species. In response, though, it would appear to be the case, on the basis of current evidence, that any such negative impact their forebears may have wrought was hugely less significant than that caused in just two centuries by whites. Further, Bill’s work indicates that First Australian management of the environment was carried out in a very careful way, intended not only to provide for their own well-being, but to also minimise any negative impacts on the general environment. Sadly, the same can’t be said in any way for the impacts wrought by the white settlers, and those still being wrought by white-dominated governments, farmers, and corporations. This doesn’t, of course, mean the First Australians were “noble savages”, simply that they were wise humans who understood the environment was essential to their ongoing survival in a harsh and very often deadly continent. Mind you, that didn’t forestall them from making mistakes. After all, they were human, and humans make mistakes. Where this becomes problematic is when the mistakes are either ignored, repeated constantly, not seen as mistakes, or continued for various reasons, particularly greed. This definitely seems to fit white activities far more than First Australian. After all, it was a white prime minister of Australia who, in the midst of a climate change crisis clearly largely caused by the over-use of coal, while opening a coal mine stated that “Coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity, coal is an essential part of our economic future, here in Australia, and right around the world.” Unbelievable, but sadly true. Of course, his real reason for supporting coal is in the second phrase of the above quote, “… coal is good for prosperity”. What he failed to mention is that:
But back to the First Australians. As I’ve already commented, despite the attitudes of some racists, they were, and, indeed, still are, humans. As they made mistakes, so also did they love, hate, farted, shat, and fucked. More importantly, they were just as intelligent, resourceful, and clever as humans anywhere. Bill postulates they weren’t lazy, ignorant buggers who just sat on their duffs for 50,000 years while people elsewhere got on with developing civilisations. In fact, if Bill is right, First Australians developed a complex civilisation, with a very wide range of characteristics whites have either ignored or wiped out of the historical record. The benefit of Bill’s work in this regard, if at least his basic analysis is proven, is to give back to First Australians knowledge of their forebears’ great achievements, and enable them to have a very well-based sense of pride in their past. By “basic analysis”, I mean that the First Australians had a complex and highly skilled society, one which he calls, and which I have been calling, a “civilisation”. Despite some misgivings with Bill’s thesis as a whole, I very strongly suspect that if this is not proven, it will certainly be supported by an analysis of such material and data we have. But Bill’s work goes further than this, although he doesn’t spell it out. It also enables a challenge to modern First Australians for the future. Prove your abilities. No, bugger it, that’s not the right terminology. You don’t have to “prove” anything. No, rather, like every student I had in my decade as a teacher, I would like to see as many of you as possible reach for, and hopefully achieve your potential. It’s there. You’re no different from the clever people who came before you. Having written that, however, I acknowledge that the task is undoubtedly made significantly difficult because of the disaster caused and still being caused by the white invasion of this land. I can only say, good luck. And I really mean it. In the same context, I, and hopefully all other Australians, although on the past and current performance of many Australians that’s possibly a rather vain hope, will not blame any who fall by the wayside. Just as I don’t blame those from other sections of Australian society who do so. However, I’m hopeful. You have a past of which to be proud, one that appears to have been, no, rather, has been swept under the carpet by white Australians. Even a brief look at the archeological record alone gives an indication of this. Remember, these past First Australians, the people who arrived here umpteen thousand years ago, and the people who ultimately became the people we now know as First Australians, were very, very largely, and possibly completely, cut off from technological and cultural developments in the rest of the world, possibly until some 7,000 years ago. Several developments are the earliest, or among the earliest, known anywhere. These include (and note that, this is very, very far from a complete list, and is only possible through archaeology which is unable to give a complete picture because it depends on such matters as what can still be dug up, where the archaeologists can and choose to dig, and how what is dug up is analysed):
As such, they deserve more respect. And they deserve to be given back the memory that their great forebears built a society that survived on what is probably the toughest permanently settled continent, successfully crossing great mountains of problems. Until, of course, white settlement finally presented a mountain over which they were prevented from crossing largely by the cruel use of gunpowder. The well-based argument This is that Bill didn’t undertake extensive interviews with those First Australians who retain at least some of the knowledge of their forebears. He thus perpetrated the on-going patronising know-it-all attitude of whites in general, and academics in particular. The basis of this argument is that while considerable quantities of knowledge have been lost in the cultural destruction wrought as a consequence of white settlement, not all has yet gone irrevocably, and not all losses have occurred equally across the continent. In fact, with more attention paid to First Australian knowledge and skill, the argument goes, whites may well “discover” a whole heck of a lot more than most of them suspect. But, while well-based as an argument, this is highly unfair as a criticism. Bill actually acknowledges the fact he didn’t undertake such research and interviews. The reason, he says, and it’s one that makes good sense to me, is he had to produce a work that would reach the acceptance and understanding of the greater part of Australian society, and by way of that point the way for further research. To achieve this, he had to aim his work at what is still, despite the rantings of various anti-refugee and anti-immigrant extremists, the very considerable majority of Australian society – white Australians. It’s an unfortunate reality that to do this, he needed to pander to the prejudices and current understandings of these people. In other words, his evidence had to be the kind that would best and most easily convince prospective white supporters. And this is what he did. It was the material most easily available to him in the universities and libraries of Australia, and it was the kind of material he needed for his purpose. He added to it by extensive work linking first white settler accounts and images with the current state in a wide ranging variety of places over much of Australia, with comprehensive comments concerning what he believed such images showed. This material was “proof”, or, more to the point, proof that would be most easily accepted by academic and lay person alike. While these days many of us would undoubtedly accept the anecdotal accounts of First Australians who still retain at least some of the knowledge of their forebears as valid evidence requiring examination, there are still many who would prefer more concrete “evidence”. This was, after all, one of the bugbears of one of the sides in the recent and, to some extent, still continuing, at least in guerilla skirmishes, so-called history wars triggered by the non-historian John Howard, the once great historian, but much less great social commentator, Geoffrey Blainey, and the pseudo-historian Keith Winschuttle. They claimed that if a proof wasn’t in a form pretty much acceptable to a court of law as evidence of a crime, then the proof was simply anecdotal or guess work and the event/s it evidenced didn’t take place, or was much less significant than claimed by the enemy side. These claims ignored one of the key roles of historians. Much of the past is not documented, or evidenced by archeology. And while one of the historians’ roles is to document what is known, another is to try to fill the gaps, creating a logical context within which to explain what is known. Guess work? No more than the deductions of a detective are guess work. The work of these historians is based on skill, experience, knowledge, and intelligence. In a process called “peer review”, the idea’s thrown to the wolves to pick apart. Some historians love attacking new ideas, because this tests their veracity. Oh, if only that were true of them all. Unfortunately, it’s more likely they want to belittle the idea’s proponent so they can grab their job. The idea’s proponent and/or their supporters, if they’ve survived the peer review process and/or the public becoming aware of their work, and all the pseudo-historians like Keith Windschuttle, now ridiculously claiming to be the editor of an intellectual journal which used to have some credibility prior to his appointment. As more material is found, and the valid concerns expressed and further ideas and information digested, the idea can be improved accordingly, possibly moving from idea or theory to generally accepted fact. “Generally accepted” because despite the belief in so much of society that history’s all about known facts, that’s very far from the case, and it’s far from unusual for at least some historians to keep heading along their own paths. Of course, it’s also not all that unusual for this process to cause a total re-think by the idea’s proponents or, not unusually, the idea to be given the old heave-ho out the door of a speeding car. So, if Bill’s book proves to have even a reasonably sizeable grain of accuracy, his work is of such an excitingly revolutionary nature he will have done to the whole of pre-white Australian history what Einstein did to pre-Einsteinian physics. Further, as Einstein’s work has proved useful again and again over the last century as it has explained new discoveries and pointed to new areas of research, many of which weren’t even thought of by the great scientist, so also will Bill’s work have flow-on effects far beyond those we can see at present. For example, the impact on First Australians of at last having an explanation of their past that can give them an intense sense of self-pride. And the impact Bill’s proof, if so it is shown to be, will have on relations between First Australians and those Australians whose forebears or themselves have arrived over the last 200 years or so. Just the possibility that First Australians had a great civilisation, or even a complex society and culture that developed complex means of maximising food availability (if you don’t like the word “agriculture” or “farming” as a Europeanisation) albeit of quite a different form from those of other continents, could finally force white Australia to take the knowledge and skill of First Australians seriously. This could be especially of importance as we face the alterations to our environment being wrought by climate change. Further, it’s likely there could be flow-on effects for First Australians and whites alike in their understanding of both the past and the present. I could go on and on, speculating until my pants fell down, but in respect for your aesthetic sense I’ll stop now. But, this isn’t the end of my review! I need to comment here that Bill’s theory was some thirteen years in the researching and developing, prior to its publication in his book in 2011. Clearly, if he had personally undertaken all the work this subject requires, including interviews with First Australians, his great- great- great-grandchildren might, but probably wouldn’t, finally be able to complete and publish it. This would create an obvious and possibly extremely deleterious delay in his work becoming public knowledge. In this context, it’s important to note Bill is just pointing the way. Others will have to do any follow-up work, although I suspect he won’t be standing still either. So while the criticism of these opponents is well-founded, it’s misdirected. Bill isn’t the enemy here, and it does surprise me a little that he’s seen as such by some people. This doesn’t seem to be a good way of either proving or disproving his theory. I also need to reiterate that vituperation is not a replacement for solidly-based evidence. And there’s nothing stopping First Australians from undertaking their own work in regard to Bill’s theory. In this regard, I know the wonderful First Australian writer and historian Bruce Pascoe has already brought out what I understand to be a great book in the same context as Bill’s book (Dark Emu – although I’ve not read it yet, I’ve just obtained a copy, and will hopefully review it in due course). The last I heard (mid-2016) Bruce is attempting to actually run live experiments on different crops. This includes trying to find millers prepared to process various grains for the making of breads and cakes. He is also experimenting with the ubiquitous beneficiary of First Australian burning, the yam daisy. I suspect Bruce is limited by funding, but why the heck isn’t the CSIRO working with some of these plants, as well as developing new forms of exotic plants suitable for Australian conditions. Oh, but I forgot, it’s had its funding slashed by successive Liberal governments. Positive comments from left & right Okey dokey. Time to look at some of Bill’s supporters. The Right These include many land owners, developers, miners, timber millers, farmers, and so on. These people have grabbed on to Bill’s work with glee, in the belief that if he’s proved First Australians changed the Australian environment, then there’s no such thing as a “pristine” or “original” environment in Australia. Therefore, there can be no valid argument to oppose any environment’s destruction due to “development”. What seems to have escaped them in the loud popping of Australian sparkling corks, or considering their false patriotism, more likely champagne corks, are two important elements.
This already evolved characteristic exists in a considerable proportion of Australia’s plant life, and has resulted in a dependent need for fire. For example, many plants require various types of fire to fertilise the soil with the consequent ash. Australia’s soil, generally, is incredibly infertile, with Australia being the least fertile permanently human-occupied continent. In addition, many plants require fire to bring on germination, or in some cases even enhance fertility. Not all plants, by any means. And of those that need fire, not all require the same sort of fire, or to be burnt within the same timeframe. It was these variations that were among the great, almost scientific observationally-based forms of knowledge exercised by the First Australians.
The glee expressed by some of these supposed supporters of Bill’s work is an outrageous attempt to greedily grab as much cash as they can. Any lie or misrepresentation is valid in their constant attempts to die rich. Their psychology is represented by an American bloke called Donald Trump, who saw nothing wrong with manipulating his companies into a billion dollar loss, and therafter not paying any tax, but still living the high life. What a hero! What a man!! Not!!! The consequence of their activities will be the stripping of all that is valuable, not in the financial sense, but in the cultural sense, out of Australia’s beautiful body, turning it into no more than a rotting carcase for those who follow. That’s if they’re not already all dead, or dying as a result of the climate change these people are blithely exacerbating. And they’re not doing this ignorantly, most of them. They know what they’re doing, but like psychopaths of all kinds, they just don’t care. Well, supporters of Bill’s work or not, these people can hopefully be transferred to an alternative dimension where they spend an eternity cleaning the toilets of giants with constantly running diorrhea. Ooh, a little acid, I know, but what the heck. I’m like everyone else, a little imperfect. The more positive crew These people come from a range of professions and backgrounds. Historians, archaeologists, environmentalists, land owners and other developers who see the sense in conserving the environment, scientists, people concerned about bushfires but desirous of preventing them by a sensible and workable combination of both environmentally and scientifically sound methods, utilising both anecdotal and experimental data, and so on. They’re not people blindly or ideologically accepting Bill’s arguments. Rather, most, if not all, of them are excited by his book, and wish to follow in the direction he’s pointed in order to undertake the work necessary to prove or disprove all or even part of Bill’s thesis. Good luck to them. My opinion, for whatever it’s worth You’ve probably guessed it by now. I stand in the camp of Bill’s supporters who are excited by Bill’s theory, but recognise we need more work to prove or disprove it. While I know Bill’s book is a great work of history, I have a questioning, sceptical, and sometimes (as you’ve seen) critical nature. Bill’s book is a big pointer, but, as I’m sure he would agree, more work is needed to completely blow away the racist attitudes that currently hold sway, link all the knowledge we already have, and that which will continue to come in, and refine Bill’s theory around the edges, and where necessary through the middle. But Bill’s given us a base from which to work. Putting himself out there as the prime target for the rotten eggs, he’s given us all a kick in the pants, telling us to bloody well get on with it and either prove or disprove his theory. Sitting on the fence ain’t a viable long-term option. So, yes, when I read this book, I felt shivers go up and down my spine. I knew this was an exciting work, one which doesn’t just challenge the traditional knowledge status quo about pre-white Australian history held by almost 100% of Australians of all sorts, but, if substantiated, will completely overthrow it. Mind you, I’ll admit I had to put the book down for a while when I became worn out working my way through Bill’s voluminous proofs! But thgey’re necessary for those who would like to just toss his work in the bin. Instead, they’ve actually got to do a bit of work to counter his theory. \ In doing so, it may be them who stumbles on the most likely explanation for the data Bill’s gathered. When they do, I would be stunned if a large part of Bill’s theory doesn’t stand the tests and shine forth as the great bit of analytical history Australia’s seen. Of course, some people can’t be convinced of truth when even massive amounts of evidence is extant. The rejection by so many of the fact of human-caused climate change is an obvious example. And look at evolution. There are huge numbers of people who still reject it despite the constant mountain of proof being produced every year. But by the time I finished The Biggest Estate, I knew, at last, something I’ve not been able to understand since being told at school that what were then in polite society called “aborigines”, and still, by quite a few when in less polite company, niggers, boongs, gins (women), and lubras (women again). According to my teachers, these people were on the verge of becoming extinct because they hadn’t been able to adjust their “primitive” understandings of the world to “civilised” ways. No-one tried to tell me these aborigines were subhuman, although I was aware some held that view. “Aboriginal” Australians were accepted as full members of the human family, but ones that had to taken by the hand and led to assimilation with white “civilisation”, starting at the bottom until they “learned” how to live a modern life. The result, of course, was appalling. Stolen children who had “white” blood, the placement of young people as servants and labourers in places where they knew no-one and had no caring, loving support. Is it any surprise many took to the grog – both the children and their mourning parents? The destruction of First Australian men’s reasons for existence led the same way, suicide and early death from violence, alcohol, and dietary causes. Even winning proper wages from the stations where they were stockmen just led to the greedy, gutless, spineless, usually absent, often foreign station owners to sack the lot, with no help for their future. After all, profits have to be maintained, or the family might have to change to only buying a new European car every two years, instead of annually. What a disaster. And many, if not most Australians seem to reckon First Australians have brought all this on themselves. It’s not, of course, pity they need, or bleeding hearts. Just plain understanding of what’s been done to them to make this “our” country, and what’s been taken from them. And what’s owed to them, not financially, although that would help, but in understanding. But when I was a kid, and I heard this stuff, I wondered, pretty much as soon as I was old enough to wonder about things other than where my next meal was coming from and whether or not my teddy bear loved me, if these “aborigines” were as human as me, how could it be they sat around for tens of thousands of years without displaying any of the creative, inventive, imaginative, world-changing characteristics displayed by almost all, if not all, people elsewhere on earth? I didn’t know it, but the answer was sketchily provided by several historians over the next 40-50 years, but although a historian this was not my area of study or interest. Yes, I know, not much of an excuse, but I’ve got no other. But finally, some 50 years after I first started wondering, Bill’s book, putting together this earlier work with his own considerable research and impressive supportive evidence, presented me with the obvious answer. And it blew my ears off. Well, not literally, of course, but you know what I mean. I hope. I suspect I wouldn’t be so keen on the book if my ears had actually blown off!! And the answer? They didn’t. It’s as simple as that. Two words, or perhaps more accurately, one word and one contraction of two words, but who the hell but picky bloody grammar nasties are counting? That’s right, they didn’t. Sit on their duff, I mean. They just developed down different, and quite possibly, in several ways, better paths than other major civilisations. That’s presuming, of course, Bill’s work stands up to the tests now being chucked at it. I think it will, in at least large part, but as I just wrote, this isn’t my area of expertise. If Bill’s right, the First Australians adapted to the changing environments over all the time they’ve been on this continent, and survived well, if not necessarily easily, at times and in places facing some of the toughest conditions confronting humans anywhere. And they’ve done it for a bloody long time! Although how long is a matter of some contention. Bill’s book, therefore, should be a must on any major history curriculum, and needs to be a compulsory part of history education at all levels. It’s time we reversed the common beliefs about the First Australians and started giving them all the credit to which they’re undoubtedly due. |
And fairtrade organic Rooibos tea, like the wonderful Dragonfly organic AND fair trade Rooibos tea.
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