Truth telling was the theme of this year\u2019s Garma festival, held in northeast Arnhemland on the first weekend of August. It\u2019s also a crucial element in the Statement from the Heart made by the indigenous National Constitutional Convention at Uluru last year but rejected by the Turnbull government.<\/p>\n
Telling the truth should be a simple matter, shouldn\u2019t it? Yet when it comes to the nation\u2019s history, for those in positions of power it seems to be the hardest ask. No government has yet given it a place among the much-vaunted but ill-defined \u201cAustralian values\u201d. Kevin Rudd said sorry for the stolen generation, but didn\u2019t go so far as to address the issue of the British invasion.<\/p>\n
Politicians of both major parties are at fault. They hold that the Australian electorate will not support recognition of indigenous history. I believe they are wrong. A simple constitutional change, recognising the millennia of prior occupation of the land and Aboriginal culture, would have majority support in all states when put to the vote. The main proposal of the Statement from the Heart \u2013 for a Makarrata (\u201ccoming together\u201d) Commission to bring about agreement \u2013 does not require a vote, just leadership.<\/p>\n
Most nations that consider themselves \u201cWestern\u201d have a long way to go in confronting their history. Neil MacGregor, former head of the British museum and now inaugural director of Berlin\u2019s Humboldt Forum, which opens next year, has found modern Germany to be a \u201cpainfully admirable\u201d exception. Unlike the British, he says, the Germans \u201care determined to find the historical truth and acknowledge it however painful it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cultureheist.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/1200px-Mounted_police_and_blacks.jpg\")
The Slaughterhouse Creek massacre of 1838<\/p><\/div>\n
Compare that approach with the furore that greeted the opening of the National Museum of Australia in 2001 when then Prime Minister John Howard, his cronies and the Murdoch press attacked its \u201cprivileging\u201d of Aboriginal history. Howard, who labelled invasion stories the \u201cblack armband\u201d view of history, stacked the board with his mates to pull the museum back into line \u2013 and into denial of the origins of modern Australia. (Despite this, the National Museum has gone on to produce some first-rate exhibitions, such as Margo Neale\u2019s Songlines <\/em>last year.)<\/p>\n Meanwhile millions have been expended on the War Memorial (which director and former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson believes should have a limitless budget), on memorials overseas and on war propaganda in schools, but nothing on the history of the battles on Australian soil.<\/p>\n In fact the country\u2019s true history is now well established and is increasingly understood by thinking Australians \u2013 even though, like the science of climate change, it\u2019s still denied by Neanderthal politicians, bigots and the self-interested.<\/p>\n “It is a terrible story,” novelist Richard Flanagan said in his eloquent speech to the Garma festival<\/strong><\/a>, “but it is my story as much as it is your story, and it must be told, and it must be learned, because freedom exists in the space of memory, and only by walking back into the shadows is it possible for us all to finally be free.”<\/p>\n There are two crucial lines along which historical understanding has developed: one concerns the 60,000 years of pre-colonial civilisation, the other the British invasion.<\/p>\n What kind of society did the occupying colonists destroy? Even many historians who rejected the official theory of terra nullius <\/em>continued to believe that the indigenous peoples were \u201cStone Age\u201d hunter-gathers. This view has now been overturned. ANU historian Bill Gammage wrote in his 2011 book The Biggest Estate on Earth <\/em>of the \u201cmajestic achievement\u201d of Aboriginal land management.<\/p>\n In 2014 Bunorong\/Yuin writer Bruce Pascoe took this appreciation a huge step forward with his book Dark Emu. <\/em>It draws on both recent archaeology and the records of early explorers to show the extent of indigenous achievements in agriculture, craft and construction as well as land management. Dark Emu <\/em>is now the subject of the most recent dance performance by Bangarra Dance Theatre, has been re-published in the UK and is being translated into European languages. This week Pascoe is in Scotland as an invited speaker at the Edinburgh Writers\u2019 Festival, and then goes on to Berlin.<\/p>\n Dark Emu<\/em> and Forgotten War <\/em>are both essential reading for anyone who cares about Australian history. They should be on the syllabus of every high school and tertiary institution in the country.<\/p>\n There is a strong tendency in this country for good writing to sink into oblivion. It mustn\u2019t be allowed to happen with these books. As to why it happens at all, I don\u2019t buy the facile answer that Australians prefer sport. A recent panel on ABC-TV\u2019s The Mix<\/em>, led by author Sunil Badami, raised the question of why so many books are forgotten. The speakers came up with some excellent reading-list suggestions, but the question itself remained unresolved.<\/p>\n I believe the collective amnesia has to do with the fact that writers and artists point us to the hard truths about society. Think Katharine Susannah Prichard, Judith Wright, Nene Gere, Randolph Stow and a host of others. More recently has come a great outpouring of indigenous voices \u2013 to name just a few: Alexis Wright, Kim Scott, Leah Purcell, Melissa Lucashenko. These writers give better expression to our unresolved history than all the government reports put together, and they should be celebrated.<\/p>\n I took a break from this blog over the winter in order to focus on subjects more elevating than the dire state of arts policy in NSW. Matters have not improved in the meantime.<\/p>\n The scandal of the Powerhouse Museum ball, in which $215,000 of public money was spent on a fashion industry event, pales in comparison to what happened next. Director Dolla Merrilees resigned, when Arts Minister Don Harwin should have, and his department announced that there would now be no director but instead a CEO with property and construction experience to oversee the hugely controversial move to Parramatta.<\/p>\n Merrilees and the museum\u2019s Trust bent over backwards to accommodate the NSW Government\u2019s ambitions for the move. Now Merrilees has been sacrificed, the Trust has been sidelined and the needs of the priceless collection, which no longer has a qualified head of conservation, are completely ignored. A major museum has been effectively taken over by NSW Inc as a pawn in its property dealings.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to imagine this happening anywhere else but in real-estate- and money-obsessed Sydney where colonisation began in 1788. The government\u2019s decision has already made it the laughing stock of the museum world \u2013 see the recent coverage in the London-based Art Newspaper .<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The well-informed professionals of the\u00a0Powerhouse Museum Alliance<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0continue to campaign against the ludicrous move, and the Upper House Inquiry into Museums and Galleries has been asking all the right questions about what dirty property deals have been done, first by Mike Baird\u2019s Government back in 2015 and more recently by Premier Gladys Berejiklian\u2019s Cabinet. The parliamentary Inquiry\u2019s reporting deadline has been extended yet again, to 17 October. But the reasons for the Government\u2019s obstinacy, in the face of expert opinion and public condemnation, remain shrouded in secrecy.<\/p>\n Truth telling? Not in Macquarie Street.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, across The Domain, the Art Gallery of NSW is still waiting for approval of the much-contested Development Application (DA) for its grandiose Sydney Modern building project. Curiously, there was no mention of it in the \u201cSports, arts and culture\u201d section<\/strong><\/a> of Treasurer Dominic Perrottet\u2019s budget, delivered last month. Could it be that a rethink is on the cards \u2013 or is the Government simply trying to avert another public brawl, to add to the Powerhouse and stadiums controversies, in advance of the State election on 20 March next year?<\/p>\n One of the few good things I\u2019ve heard about the AGNSW\u2019s plans in recent months is the promise to give more prominence to Aboriginal art in the hypothetical new building. But then, why not build the extension in Western Sydney, where most of the city\u2019s Aboriginal people live? And why not make it part of a broader museum of indigenous history and culture?<\/p>\n It would take a government with vision to back such a plan. But it would be just what this society needs \u2013 a fresh approach that puts truth telling front and centre. To quote Neil MacGregor again: \u201cThe great thing a museum can do is allow us to look at the world as if through other eyes.\u201d It\u2019s time we looked at our world that way.<\/p>\n SPECIAL OFFER<\/strong><\/p>\n To purchase a signed copy of Culture Heist: Art versus Money <\/em>at a reduced price, click HERE<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cLest We Forget\u201d \u2026 the longest war<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cultureheist.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/imgres-1-1.jpg\")
For almost 40 years historian Henry Reynolds has been writing about the frontier wars \u2013 Australia\u2019s longest war, fought across the continent. His 2013 book Forgotten War <\/em>is an excellent summary of his extensive writing on the subject. The conflict involved at least 500 massacres of indigenous peoples; they have now been mapped by his fellow academic Lyndall Ryan. \u201cLest We Forget\u201d, says Reynolds, should apply to the heroes who fell resisting the invasion, but in Canberra the motto seems to be \u201cBest<\/em> we forget\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cultureheist.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/dark-emu-front2.jpg\")
Perhaps truth tellers, like prophets, are not without honour save in their own country.<\/p>\nThe culture heist in NSW<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cultureheist.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/imgres-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n