Australia is a nation for the 21st century. Twenty one million people crowded into seven major cities; a modern technologically advanced society that sits perched on the perimeter of a vast dry interior occupied by an ancient, alien aboriginal culture.
One of the things I fret about a lot is otherness. The other day, when I posted about the link between the existence of Jews in England and the notion of terra nullius, beneath the posting lay fretfulness about people defining an individual as 'other' and shaping the way that person is treated by that definition.
I don't want to rant about it, but I keep having to restrain myself from ranting. The reason I don't want to rant is because I suspect that I'm as guilty as everyone else. The mote in the eye, and all of that. It's funny, though, because I'm quite capable of ranting about me being the 'other' and how it affects me. I can talk about Jewish hurt and I can talk about gender hurt and I can talk about the hurt of the chronically ill. That doesn't make me a universal font of wisdom, though. I don't know anyone who has no biases. I don't know anyone who doesn't slip up occasionally and say something that's quite, quite wrong.
It's a comfort thing. It's comfort that makes us resort to phrases that sound good but that flirt with stereotypes or establish our superiority or repeat what we 'know' from our childhood. Comfort reinforces the feeling that this is our world and that we belong here.
Some of the people I respect the most in this world are individuals who have had the courage to call me on my comfort levels and say "Gillian, that's a position of bias/privilege – please rethink." Some of the people I respect least tell me "You're white/Jewish/female and have so much more privilege than me that I can't respect you and I refuse to listen to what you have to say."
One of the most confronting and racist meetings I have ever attended was in Parliament House and was supposed to be improving in nature. It was the then-government's answer to a terrorist incident. The Canberra Jewish Community were the victims and we were made to feel as if we had asked for everything and were petulant and demanding and privileged in wanting to be physically safe. For years afterwards the press proudly announced "There have been no terrorist incidents on Australian soil." I asked a journalist friend of mine about the incidents I personally experienced and was told "That's not news. It's only news if Jews kill someone." I asked another journo and was told "Attacks on the Jewish community aren't terrorism – Jews aren't really Australian." The decisions made by the press (and probably the minister who ran the meeting) were based on stereotypes and presuppositions. The reality of our lives was secondary.
None of this is new. It's just stuff I live with. Lots of us have stuff we live with. Big stuff that only emerges when there are small triggers.
My trouble is recognising the small triggers of others. I thought that 'a vast dry interior occupied by an ancient, alien aboriginal culture' was worrying. I asked an Indigenous friend. "Does this mean I'm alien?" she answered. "Does this mean I don't belong in my own land?" Also, does it mean that any Indigenous Australians who are modern, live on the coast, have sorted out a balance between their ancestral traditions and the newer ones other Australians have with them, does this mean that they're somehow wrong and need to be changed?
Louis IX (Saint Louis to Catholics) burned many Talmuds in a reformist sweep. I think it was 24 cartloads. He didn't deny Jewish existence in France under his reign or commit mass murder of Jews or make wild accusations about poisoned wells. None of that. He was, after all, an enlightened monarch. What he argued (and why he burned books and did certain other things) was that Jews had to conform to his idea of what made a Jew. We had to be the Jews of the time of Jesus. Any religious writings since then were inappropriate. He wanted all his Jewish subjects to conform to his inner image of Judaism.
It's my inner image of the groups I assign individuals to that I need to discover for people. I'm lucky in respect of Indigenous Australians and this notion of an ancient alien folk who inhabit the interior. The vast majority of Indigenous Aussies I know (and all my friends) are coastal and rather more in the twenty-first century than I am. They respect their ancestry and traditions, and they're complex individuals. It's possible to do both, be modern and respect traditions. The Talmud helps Jews do that, in fact.
My friends and I talk about cultural respect and relationship to the land, because those values are part of my heritage and I love talking about them. If I have something to write that touches on their lives, I can ask a friend "Is this OK?" As I have here.
"a vast dry interior occupied by an ancient, alien aboriginal culture" is worrying. The people who are behind the words are good people and meant nothing wrong. It's still worrying. I don't know if the words were chosen for the beauty of the phrase, to reflect the innards of the volume or to show us the perceived shape of Indigenous Australia. It's not clear. All I know is that it packages and categorises people in a way that's potentially hurtful.
I wish I knew what to do in cases like this. I've been thinking about it since I first saw it. How does one deal with good intentions somehow communicating the wrong idea? I still don't know. I'm still lost. I'm caught between respect for Twelfth Planet Press and respect for my Indigenous friends. I wish that the former could have spoken to the latter before those words were sent out. TPP may still have used those words, but at least they would have known the effect of them. It would have been much easier to call it and to explain it. As it stands, I'm lost.
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