jkonopak wrote:
>
>Meanwhile, Michael Coughlan had joined the conversation
>
>> As another way of expressing the same thing I offer the following lyrics to
>> a song about white Australians’ plight in dealing with the guilt of our
>> inherited inglorious past - knowing full well that it was iniquitous,  and
>> that it made possible my wonderful life in this very fortunate land.
>
>> The title ‘Third Fleet’ takes its name from the fact that the British sent
>> out another 11 sailing ships  (the original white settlers in 1788 came in
>> two fleets) to commemorate White Australia’s bicentennial year - an
>> extremely kitsch event as it turned out, but the sentiments expressed in
>> the song remain.  To be read as an open letter to Australia’s indigenous
>> people:
>>
>> THIRD FLEET
>>
>> Eleven big ships left England one day
>> They’re going to sail in to Sydney Harbour one day
>> And all of the people with their skins black or brown
>> May well see it as a day to frown
>> And remember the day they lost their land
>>
>> But I’m  gonna be there when those boats sail in
>> I wanna feel the thrill and remember the day
>> That the white people came and paved the way
>> For people like me to be here and say
>>
>> I don’t expect you to cheer with me
>> But I’d like you to know that I’ve travelled the sea
>> I keep comin’ back to this land you see
>> Cos it’s the best that I’ve seen north or south
>> I wanna thank you for sharing this land with me
>> And mine
>>
>> I’m sorry we didn’t treat you right
>> We can all get together and make it right
>> There’s enough room for black brown and white
>> Can’t you see that I love this land
>> I’m no black Australian but I call this home
>> The hum of this land is a part of me
>>
>> Michael Coghlan.
>
>No offense, Michael, but I'd be interested in how well it sold among the
>indigenes. A lot of "black Australians" went around humming that little
>ditty, did they?

Not quite, but I have checked it out with a number of Aboriginal people and
they understand it. They appreciate and respect the conciliatory tone. They
are certainly not offended by it. It's a strange thing about racism that
enlightened victims of it feel less anger towards its exponents than many
whities do. It often makes me wonder if we are in fact being arrogant when
we presume to speak about something of which, in terms of first hand
experience, we know nothing. I'm more interested in Aboriginals' opinions.


It obviously made you feel swell, and I guess that's
>something, innit? A little like seeing how the lads look up to
>Paul"crocodile" Hogan out in the bush, taking on those drug lords.
>        I mean, it isn't a little patronizing, by half, is it? These folk
were
>hunted for sport until the '30s, werney? They were treated less well
>than koalas? Remember "Let me Abos go loose, Lew, Let me Abos go loose.
>They're of no further loose...so tie me kangaroos down"? Sounds a little
>like manumition, don'nit? Their children were taken away from them
>almost at birth, in some cases, and placed in "White" homes to
>assimilate them. Was Evonne Goolagong one of those? Or she was what we
>in the states call a mulatto?

This is all a little off track isn't it?


And this little bit of tin=pan alley
>doggerel, bugger it's accompanied by the whole Sidney Philharmonic
>(though it probably echoed with "quaint and haunting" strains from an
>amplified didgerree-doo),

No - but it does make quite an engaging reggae song.

This is gonna make it all alright? ?  Sounds
>like something out of bloody monty python to me.

 The Pythons never did anthing this serious. And if that's your reaction to
these lyrics they have obviously failed to make its point on you, or you
missed it.
>
>I mean,
>> I’m  gonna be there when those boats sail in
>> I wanna feel the thrill and remember the day
>> That the white people came and paved the way
>> For people like me to be here and say...
>
>Isn't that claiming a kind of pride for participation in events
>antecedent to your possible expereince of them? Is't this a claim that
>the singer is entitled to glory in the events that are being celebrated,
>even though those events initiated an absolute catastrophe for the
>"black and brown." Lost their land? Lost their land, their history,
>their living, their lives, and became sonsigned to the absolutely lowest
>rung of the culture. Invisible. Ant that's not the same as being able to
>vanish. How can you, in conscience celebrate the "positive" (from your
>perspective) without acknowledging responsibility for the rest of it? It
>is incomprehensible to me.

I agree with most of this, but there's no suggestion in this song of
abrogating these responsibilities. The song does in fact in its meek way
say sorry. As you may know it's extremely weird to grow up in a country
that has usurped the rights of its indigeneous peoples, feeling dreadful
about that, and at the same time knowing that the dust and the light and
the flora and the landscape of that same country are part of your very
soul. Some social theorists speculate in fact that this element of white
Australia's consciousness - a love of the land and its desolation and
mystique are in fact a consequence of contact with Aborigines.


It'd be like having a holiday celebrating the
>500th anniversary of the first slave debarcation in Charleston, and
>Randy Newman's song, Sail Away, be the anthem.
>
>It'd be worth doing a line-by-line exegesis on the song. Instead, allow
>me to recommend to all the wild colonial boys out there the book by
>Jamaica Kincaid, "A Small Place."
>
I'll look it up. But I don't think any wild colonial boys - if there are
any left - are gonna bother with it. They're too busy rounding up sheep on
land that was never theirs. In reference to Bill Bartlett's posting on the
current situation in regard to native entitlement to land, there are a few
pockets of light in this country where some farmers and local Aboriginal
people have agreed to share their lands.

We live in hope,


- Michael Coghlan.