Australian history and literature do reveal the many tensions that have gone into the making of the Australian nation. These are the tension between the old country of England, the metropolitan coIonial centre and the new country of Australia on the antipodean margins of the British Empire; he tension between the settlers and the indigenous Aborigines; the tension between early waves of settlers and more recent immigrants; the tension between the old language, images and literary forms of British literature and the idiom, images and literary forms taking root in the new environment of Australia. All these tensions shaped the themes and forms of Australian literature.
Most of the histories of Australia written in the past neglected the experience of Aboriginai peoples, women and members of other ethnic or racial minorities. They ignored the fact that the so-called ‘settler society’ was; in actuality the product of white invasion and dispossession (Davidson, 24). The Aborigines were not considered official citizens of Australia and their numbers were not even counted in official censuses. I1 was assumed that they were a part of the population that would soon be extinct or become fully assimilated into the white population. Selective Immigration policies sought to ensure that Asians would not be admitted into Australia or allowed to settle down there in substantial numbers. One of the early acts of the Australian colonial government was to introduce the ‘White Australia policy which controlled the right of settlement for Europeans only. This policy was supported by all the groups and parties within the political spectrum and reflected the predominantly white population profile they wished to maintain for the island-continent.
Aboriginal land had been forcibly taken by the State-Federal government without compensation From the time of the arrival of the colonizers. Aboriginal people were physically and often violently removed from the land they had previously freely roamed and kept segregated in government reserves or church missions. Their children were forcibly taken away for adoption by white foster parents or placed in institutions that were supposed to guide them towards the goal of assimilation – becoming part of mainstream Australian culture and thinking. They were denied land rights or titles – they could neither own nor till the land. It was then argued by some government officials and policy makers that Aborigines were not advanced enough to be granted freehold land. The racist attitude of the response of Mr. Ken Tomkins – the Queensland State Minister for Aboriginal and Island affairs-when asked to cominqnt on the Aboriginal struggle for land rights in October I982 is quite evident:
Blacks do not understand freehold tenure and are not used to a lot of money. They live out in areas where they don’t use it much. They catch birds and goanas and fish and this sort of thing . . .. The women do not wear ‘very expensive dresses’ and neither do the men. The fact that they drink a lot now doesn’t do them any good. They just can’t do it. Years ago when they didn’t want to drink they were very good people . . ..’ (Ward and Robertson, 340- 41)
Meanwhile the Aborigines had begun to organise against the official government policies of paternalism – which assumed that the Aborigines as a race needed to be taken care of like children – and assimilation in the 1950s and 1960s. The movements for land rights and empowerment were led by leaders like Charles Perkins from the late 1960s onwards. Soon this mobilization began to bear fruit in terms of social reform, greater civic rights and a greater public awareness of Aboriginal issues. On 10 May 1962, the national vote was given to Aborigines. In 1962 the Institute for Aboriginal Studies was established and in 1965 reforms such as the establishment of the Aboriginal Welfare Conference was put into force.
The 1967 referendum granted citizenship rights to Aborigines, allowing them to be counted for the purpose of the national census. There was however strong resistance, to this kind of social reform that empowered the Aborigines, from vested interests in the state governments of Queensland and Western Australia, as well as from mining companies and the landed rural population. This was because in these regions it was felt that these kinds of reforms would ultimately lead to the land being returned to Aborigines. Since farming and mining were very important in these areas this was a big threat to the while people involved in these business.
Australian short fiction developed through the centuries. What began as records, diaries, annals, journals of the early settlers later transformed and flourished as various genres of writing like short fiction, novels, biographies, autobiographies and annals. At the time of the first historic landing on Botany Bay in 1788, the men and women of letters were concerned with the immediate landscape. The environment- its differences/similarities to the home country, the seasons, the flora and fauna and the local inhabitants formed their main themes.
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Even within this vast body of writing some were promoting emigrations to Australia while others were decrying what they believed to be the harsh, hostile environment. When more people from the home country came to inhabit the land, other issues became more serious. As most of the transported men and women were convicts, several tales on the convict system were written. Amongst the free settlers were often poor people/ lower class people who would earn their keep as servants. These people particularly the women needed to be taught the values of a good Christian, hence, several didactic stories came to be written. Then the original inhabitants of Australia- the Aborigines were another theme that prompted writing. They were often looked upon as “noble savages” or as sub human beings. As we shall see later on several stories about the capture of white women and children by the Aborigines and vice versa came to be written as well.
The strange twists of fate that occur because of Ursula’s fevered love for the little child seem almost to happen in the realm of madness. The rescue of the child and the flight into the Bush is also a flight into hysteria and delirium. When alone, tired and thirsty with the stiffening child, she cannot even make herself steal one egg from an emu’s nest. She imagines that “the robbed bird was standing disconsolately over … its nest” and she restores the egg. The meaning of her life is bound to Andrew’s baby and its death makes her lose her hold on reality until Andrew and an Aborigine save her. Interestingly the drama of her hysteria, in a stream of consciousness mode, happens in the space of the Bush where ‘nature was frankly brutal”. Baynton’s carries the idea of maternity further by delineating it as an instinct that may transcend even natural laws. The maternal instinct may rise as in Ursula’s case “like the spring sap in a young tree” even for a child that is not her own.
Australia’s early history of British colonisation and the relations between the white Poetry (1901-1970) settlers and the native Aborigines have been major concerns in many novels. Treated as savages in nineteenth century fiction and poetry, there has been a change in their portrayal although they are still seen as a mysterious and unfathomable people. However, a more realistic and credible portrait of the Aborigines has emerged from the writings of the Aborigines themselves. The first major work by an Aboriginal in English was Kath Walker’s (now known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal) volume of poems We Are Going (1964).
Her poems as well as those of others often express a vehement revival of self-respect and a demand for opportunities (including land rights) previously denied to them. After the 1960s, there has been an acknowledgement of Aboriginal rights – they were granted full citizenship, the right to vote (1 967) and in the same year, included for the first time in population statistics.
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