Of course it was inevitable that I would have to write at least one entry on the subject of cross cultural understanding, given the history of the English settlers and their treatment of the Aboriginal natives.
I have already noted how very conscious Australian media and politics seems to be of its past, and the sense of shame which gangs in people when they talk about it. And people talk about it a lot. It's in art galleries, museums, films, architecture. There is a constant fight, (it seems) to redress a balance so violently dismantled all those years ago. Aboriginal art is displayed quite self consciously in the government buildings in Sydney. Every art gallery has a whole section of Aboriginal art, which makes sense because it is different and beautiful, but also, quite often, several pieces which comment on racism, old and new. It is a hot topic. And it will, I think, continue to be.
Clearly, mistakes were made. The European settlers' actions eventually meant that, as one sombre guide in an art gallery in Melbourne will tell us later, there are no pure blood Aboriginals left. Of course some of that is perfectly consensual intermarriage, which is fine. But there was a fair amount of driving back and forcing out, which cannot really be told in any nicer sounding way. Of course, the question which remains unanswerable is whether the current Australian population should be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors. Politicians gave variously refused to engage, given speeches stating that they believe it is ridiculous to apologise for something that happened generations back, or, famously, made a public apology. My own feeling is that the apology was the better move, not only politically, but because I rather suspect that the point is not whether the apologiser still holds the guilt, it is the acknowledgement that such treatment happened, was a mistake and will not happen again. Sometimes an apology is more than an excuse for an action.
Regardless of political treatment, it seems to be a human condition to feel sadness or even shame for the actions if ancestral tyrants over whom you had no control, either chronologically or even if you really had been around at the time. Speaking to a German couple in Dalat they described a widespread sense of guilt among civilians in Germany for actions taken by Hitler during the second world war. I see the same sense of sadness here, and I have felt it myself everywhere we have learned of the history of a country and found it be littered with self satisfied English explorers who exploited the land and the people on it. And I would genuinely characterise that feeling as a sort of, albeit rather displaced, guilt. I am sorry for the actions of my predecessors and I scour my soul for any evidence of a similar attitude, just in case it is somehow ingrained throughout all English born children.
Which is all very well. But does it broker peace? Does feeling guilty led to anything positive?
Mostly I think it does. Later in our trip we will see the mosaic floor of the courtyard at Fed Square, built to recapture not just the lost Aboriginal culture but the landscapes which went with them, and which have also been lost in the name if progress. There is plenty of work being done to ensure that surviving Aboriginal culture and communities are not marginalised and we see this pattern reflected in Germany, in the constant urge not to repeat old patterns and in the UK in respect of the racism once so much more deeply inherent in society, and, worse, so casually tolerated.
On the other hand this focus on past exploitation can lead to a resentment in sections of society, a sense that the tables are simply being turned, rather than equalised. In turn this leads some people to try to fight back, keeping the old enmities alive. It is possible that these people would have clung to their views regardless, and I think it is certainly not worth curving efforts to make right past wrongs, but there is also another effect, in that the constant focus can further embed a sense of otherness, an 'us and them'.
"Aboriginal artists don't like to be known as Aboriginal Artists nowadays," comments our guide in a Sydney art gallery, "they just want to be called 'Artists'."
It stands to reason.
But the main impulse behind this great activity remains, primarily, to remember. And by remembering we hope we can prevent a recurrence. But can we?
The method used by the settlers to defeat the Aboriginals was a gradual process of dehumanisation. An art work in the gallery uses six words, gradually fading in colour to reflect the effect on the Aboriginal people and on the perception of them by the new settlers. The words are 'dismay, displace, disperse, dispirit, display, dismiss.' The media at the time portrayed the Aboriginals as heavy drinking, dirty and lazy. They displayed them in their dispirited state, and made them less in the eyes of their fellow inhabitants. If you push a certain association, it will stick. And having done that, it dehumanises and allows for human beings to engage the double think for which they are famed - and tell themselves it is OK to oppress.
We walk to the Rocks in Sydney and learn of its history. Once inhabited by sailors and a certain lower income type of family, the richer powers wanted to develop it, there by evicting and marginalising its current residents. It did this successfully, in the end, though there was a bitter fight for it, and the sailors were characterised in the minds if everybody else, especially those with the power to object, as heavy drinking swindlers.
Even in Madama Butterfly last night, which was amazing and beautiful, the central theme is still the idea that certain types of people are not really human. Madama Butterfly is considered a play thing. Her European suitor, right from the beginning, makes reference to going back to England, and take a 'proper wife'
We dehumanise. I think, for two reasons, one, because it simply suits us, but more often, because the group we are looking at are different to us and the difference is hard to understand - and thus terrifying.
And fear leads to fight. And once you fight, somebody (or maybe everybody) loses.
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