Well my friends, our story drifts on again, leaving the pleasant dusty outback of South Australia behind as we drove upwards and onwards into the bowels of Oz. Here is where we left off:
We crossed into the Northern Territory, and had no idea what was coming. Of course, whatever it was, we were going to get there soon...
Mustafa kicked hard into overdrive and we gunned hard north towards Alice Springs. The landscape was rocky and brown, the dust fiery red, the unhindered wind built walls of sand against bleached bones littered near the road.
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I was planning on posting this entry as per the last, images spliced with jibes, a diary of whatever. But the Northern Territory is home to such an appalling social situation that I feel like skipping the pleasantries.
Look, I'll be blunt, Australia is a pretty racist country. It's not hidden, or considered shameful, but compared to Canadian attitudes it's brutal. We get reminders daily in the paper, or through the odd, picked-up conversations, that the attitudes of most Australians are about thirty years behind common Canadian sensibilities. The interaction points out the perhaps comical extremes to which majority Canadian "PCing" goes, but it's a sad situation when the current status of the Canadian First Nations is touted as a role model for future Aboriginal negotiations. I should clarify that this issue has nothing to do with Canada being "better", but with racism, as I had forgotten it existed.
So in a general way, it's easy to pick up on the slightly hidden racism of Australia. Slightly hidden, because until the mid seventies the country had a "White Australia" policy for immigration, coupled with residential schools (like we are familiar with) beefed up with policies for actually
stealing aboriginal children from their parents in an attempt to breed out the population. There are no Aborginals in Melbourne. The problem has been dealt with.
I'm sorry for the vitriol, it isn't polite, but since we landed the sheer audacity of this situation has grated on us every day, and I'm finally communicating what the real vibe of Oz is. I find myself writing, deleting, and re-writing whole chapters of furious ranting, my own proof positive of what evil can actually look like when written on the faces of the twenty first century.
What brought about this confession is simple, once we hit the border into the Northern Territory the subtlety went out the window. Alice Springs is the closest society to apartheid I could imagine. I was not allowed to eat outside in Erldunda because "Aborigines would steal my plate". What Aborigines? There isn't a single fucking person in sight for five hundred kilometers, in the middle of the blazing desert, and the bartender, having met me for fifteen seconds, feels comfortable extolling on me his views on the native owners of this land being just a
shade below Homo Sapiens.
To the French hitchhikers we picked up, threats that should we sleep outside the campground, Aborigines would arrive and
beat us with sticks. We met a couple of nice gents from Canberra, tackling the desert on a pair of BMW's. Helped us with our engine, had a beer with us, really felt like they bonded with us Canadians and our First Nations, who, you see, aren't as
greedy as Aborginals, who are "always trying to screw us for everything we got".
In Alice Springs, you will not be served food if you are black.
You cannot purchase alcohol unless
you can prove you are white.
These measures are being hailed as
progressive, as the Australian government has just begun a military intervention into the Northern Territory, to "save the Aboriginals".
As I write this I feel the howls grow in my chest. I pound this keyboard without mercy, the closest victim for my abusive rage. It is important that I don't try to vent ten months of anger in this one-day space, so I'll just chill a bit, and make it through the tale.
In Alice Springs Jess and I learned that Bhutto had been killed, felt like sinking this whole damn place into the sand, headed north to a watering hole to camp. The sunset didn't care about misery though, and put on a beautiful show none the less. Drove south to Uluru the next day.
Uluru is epic. To see it up close is magnificent. But the rock had only partly to do with what, for me, has been the best moment I have experienced in Australia. We made our way with determination to the Aboriginal Visitor Centre, and met Martha, a beautiful woman who understood not only the pain Jess and I were trying to express, but the sensitive struggle of communicating an issue for which you have no right to anguish. The oppressor, seeking salvation. We talked, and shared stories, and I can actually say that I have felt the oft-touted experience of a soul being
lightened, a dialogue which brought me such peace I cannot forget.
I'll stop here, at a moment of calm. Jess and I watched the sun set on Uluru. Moments of my life which I will never repeat, those sent straight to the memory for recollection, the time I saw the sun set on Uluru, the stereotype of my existence.
I am weak with the days of compromised indignation here in Melbourne. Saturday is Australia Day, the original dwellers of this land call it Invasion Day. Visitors to Uluru bring in $400 million dollars a year, and the anangu receive
nothing. There was a story yesterday that the children of the Aboriginal nations who "co-manage" the land are swimming in sewage to stay cool, the government has shut down the project for swimming pools...
"...always trying to screw us for everything we got".
The end of the trip to follow, life to follow after that. I've got to retire for now, maybe swing by my local supermarket and pick up some of the "Jap Pumpkins" they have on sale.
Nick.
p.s. Here are the photos I was going to include, rocks easy to include, human misery difficult. Take 'em with a grain of salt.
