Voices of Aboriginal Australia in Dublin *4pm Film *7.30pm Gig

by Ciaron O'Reilly - Catholic Worker/Plowshares Sat Jun 28, 2008 11:32

This film and gig look like a must see for anyone in Ireland interested in Australian aboriginal culture and struggle.

Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter are legendary aboriginal artists...Archie very much the voice of the stolen generation who were forcibly removed from the parents in a genocidal assimilation policy of the Australian government. A policy for Prime Minister Howard refuse to apologise and new PM Rudd recentl issued an historic apology

Interview with Peter Postlewaite ("In the Name of the Father" etc) on the film.....

http://screenwise.blogspot.com/2007/09/interview-with-p....html

by Ciaron Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:29

Well the film was excellent and from chatting to a bearded hip Peter Postlewaite his heart is definitely in it. He stumbled across the struggle of aboriginal Australia while staging a one man play in Perth. He was approached by scouser Bill Johnson who had been in the seminary with him way back when. Bill had moved to Australia, married and adopted 3 children. The aboriginal lad adopted, Louis St John, was murdered in his late teens by 3 English racists recently arrived in Australia. When the cops asked why they chose the victim, the response was "Because he was black!"

Postlewaite takes this response personally as an Englishman, seeing it as an attitude that runs directly from the early pastoralists encounter of aborigines. He hooks up with product of the Stolen Generation policy former street drinker now musician Archie Roach and former priest now Aboriginal activist Pat Dodson and takes us on a moving journey.

The film looks at Western Australian aboriginal deaths/killings in custody that the coroner continually writes off as "misadventure" and then an exploration of the stolen generation removal policy of aboriginal children to be integrated into white society. We travel to the victim's original family and outback community. The film then broadens out to analyse recent Australian government policy ignited by the racist One Nation/Pauline Hanson populism and adopted by the 11 year conservative Howard government rolling back the Mabo decision in the High Courts that for the first time in the courts recognised aboriginal occupation before British invasion.

The disappointment was the size of the audience (approx 25) for this free 4 pm Saturday screening. I only recognised one person form the Dublin activist scene and didn't detect any young Australian backpacker types. Not sure if this reflects on the passive racism of the young Aussie backpapers, disengagement of Irish activists who share a common history with the largest group of aboriginal artists to assemble in Dublin or bad promotion of the event.

The gig in the evening was excellent. Obviously a significant moment in the life of Australian muso Shane Howard (Goanna) and those indigineous Australians who had accompanied him to his spiritual homeland. Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter were brilliant making the connections between Irish and Aboriginal history...their songs were great. Mary Black, Steve Cooney and other Irish musicians were also wonderful.

Catch the film Liyarn Ngarin on DVD eventually if you can.
Check out the music of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter.
If you travel to Australia make an effort to engage its Aboriginal history and struggle

by Norman Hunter Wed Jul 02, 2008 02:55

It should be obvious from the Australian Aboriginal experience that unlimited immigration is always disastrous for the native population of the country being invaded/ colonised. Their way of life and culture are inevitably eroded. The same thing has happened to many European countries over the last thirty or forty years due to non European immigration. It has been happening in Ireland over the last ten years also. Irish people should be more concerned about the creeping threats to their own way of life and culture than the undoubted hardships suffered by a people half a world away.

by Ciaron Wed Jul 02, 2008 08:02

Archie Roach "Took the Children Away"
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ush_mailm&ei=UTF-8&p=...Roach

Archie Roach "Walking into Doors"
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ush_mailm&ei=UTF-8&p=...utube
Ciaron O'Reilly

by Amazon Wed Jul 02, 2008 08:48

The genocide of native peoples is ongoing in many parts of the world. Check out the link below showing what is happening in the Brazilian Amazon

http://www.survival-international.org/news/3389

by Ciaron - Catholic Worker/Ploughshares Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:26

OK at the risk of this being Norman "break ya legs" Hunter of the LUFC of the '70's I'll muster a repsonse.

Yes invasion and colonisation is always disastrious. Australian aborigines have 200 years of experience of it where as Dublin has had 800. The aborigines are less integrated and bought into it than the Dubs.

Migration is a fact of life. I myself am a product of intercontinental upward mobility as my dad left Clara/Offaly to seek work in London and then shortly after to Australia, I was fortunate that my Dad always saw the parralel with what was happening to the aborigines (Brisbane/ Moreton Bay was pretty much ethinicaly clensed of the local indigeneous) with what had happened to the Irish. On this basis he rejected the populist anti-aborigine racism/scapegoating that was present in the 1950's and is present today in Australia. This, what would seem obvious insight, is often missed by the Irish diaspora in OZ and the U.S.

The loss of monoculture is traumatic but doesn't have to be "disastrous". It's quite a shock for people to be migrating the other way into Ireland after many years of migrating out to other people's places. It's all about being a good guest and a good host. White Australians, with honoroable exceptions, have been both disatrous guests in therms of treatment of aboriginal people and the land and now are terrible hosts locking up refugees form war zones we have helped to create in outback gulags run by U.S. corporations like Wakkenuhut.
There are responsibilities as both a guest (to learn about and appreciate the local local culture) rather than to ghettoise and responsibilites that come with being a host ("to welcome the stranger" as the scripture implores us making people feel welcome, secure etc.)

The other response is of course based on fear and entitlement. The idea that our corporations and militaries can deploy anywhere around the globe to exploit resources and destroy communities and then criminalise the refugees who flee to the imperial centre. People can quickly get their identity from locality (see Wolf Tone) and multi culturalism does not have ot be a "creeping threat" but a joy to be hold.

Although I treasure my Irish identitiy, I'm grateful that I was raised in a multicultural society (after the not too subtley titled "White Australia Policy" collapsed in the mid-70's/ in my mid-teens). I'm about to have lunch with Uncle Bob Anderson an aboriginal elder from Brisbane who is over here to check out his Irish roots. I'm grateful that his has the dignity and compassion not to operate from fear and revenge and to define me out of existence as a white Australian enemy.

by Norman Hunter Thu Jul 03, 2008 02:34

To be a guest implies that you have been invited by your host. If you haven't been invited you are therefore a gatecrasher. Whatever about integration, multiculturalism is now a totally discredited doctrine. Even the ultra-liberal Dutch now realise their folly in pursuing this policy. Ireland should learn from the mistakes of others and not repeat them.