Culture Wars Counter Attack: Remembering Aboriginal Resistance to the Invasion : Melbourne Indymedia

Australia has been involved in a viscous culture war over the past 2 decades that has been conducted by a small but influential clique of reactionary historical revisionists who enjoy a great deal of support in the Federal Cabinet and Murdoch's flagship in Australia - The Australian. This war has been fought to undermine gains made by indigenous Australians, the trade union and community based orgnisations. They have succeeded in their efforts to undermine the gains made by people who have been oppressed for generations.

Ironically, while historical revisionists that deny the Holocaust occurred are correctly marginalised and ridiculed, those in Australia who deny the reality of the colonisation process in this country are lauded, are given a voice by both the Federal government and influential sections of the corporate media. The formation of a group that is willing to take these historical and cultural revisionists head on, is long overdue.

The best way to tackle the lies and misinformation that is currently doing the rounds, is by publicly commemorating significant events in our past, by erecting memorials, plaques and statues to physically mark these events, by putting pressure on local councils to establish and maintain these memorials and encouraging them to hold seminars and information days to inform the residents of their municipalities about these significant events and to put pressure on the government of the day to ensure that these important stories are told in the National Museum, the National Library, the National Art Gallery and most importantly of all, the story about the indigenous resistance to white colonisation is told in the Canberra War Memorial.

If you are interested in joining and supporting the 'CULTURE WARS COUNTERATTACK', keep reading the Anarchist Age Weekly Review and listening to the Anarchist World This Week [3CR Wednesdays 10am] to find out what is planned for the rest of the year.

PERSONAL OBSERVATION

I first came across the story of Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay in a second hand bookshop 4 or 5 years ago. I'd heard about the first executions that had occurred in Victoria in the early 1840's, but knew nothing about them. It was one of those fortuitous meetings that happen once in a while. In the bottom shelf of the Australian History section was a copy of Jack of Cape Grimm which has been written by Jan Roberts as a bicentenary subject. She wanted to do a TV series, nothing came of it, now her book, like the bones of Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay rotting underneath the Queen Victoria Market, have joined the community's collective unconsciousness.

I've been thinking about organising something to mark their execution for 2 to 3 years. It was only late last year after a little bit of prodding from a friend - Bill, that the Anarchist Media Institute organised a commemoration. Even if 3 or 4 turned up, the event would stir up a few leaves in the collective amnesia of the city of Melbourne.

Saturday was the hottest day for over a year, temperatures soared around 40degrees. The spot - corner Franklin & Bowen Streets is bare asphalt, workmen were trying to get in and out of RMIT in their utes. About 30 of us made a circle, a few talked about the significance of the events, for an hour we remembered, we had blown life into this city's forgotten history. Although the media had been invited, no one came, no one called. I didn't expect anybody to bother; they had bigger fish to fry - what was happening at Ramsey Street, the cricket and 101 other meaningless events to cover.

It doesn't matter, we have started a tradition which will grow and grow, a Steering Committee was appointed - ‘THE CUTURE WARS COUNTER ATTACK' was born kicking and screaming. It is amazing what happens when we try to make the ideas in our heads a reality. Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay's deaths are not forgotten. People had tears in their eyes as I recounted their stories. A bunch of flowers, an A3 poster and a leaflet were taped around a tree, someone else will come across their story, maybe, just maybe, they will take the trouble like you to join us next year.

AUSTRALIAN RADICAL HISTORY WHO? (from Anarchist Age No 643)

Every Australian knows about the Ned Kelly gang, how many Australians are familiar with the story of PLANOBEENA, PYTERRUNNER, TRUCANNINI, TUNNERMINNERWAIT and PEEVAY - Fanny, Matilda, Truganni, Jack and Robert - 5 indigenous Tasmanians who fought an effective campaign against the invading European settlers on the Eastern outskirts of Melbourne in the late 1841.

Their exploits rival those of the Ned Kelly gang. One group has been ignored and forgotten, the other immortalised in Australia folklore Three military expeditions were launched against 5 of the 17 Tasmanian Aborigines that had been brought across from Tasmania by the Aboriginal ´protector´ Robinson - for the purpose of aiding in the civilisation of the Aborigines of Australia Felix-the remnants of the Tasmania tribes who had fought a 34 year battle against the invasion of Tasmania by European settlers were once again conducting war against the invaders, this time in Victoria.

All 5 were familiar with firearms and the ways of European settlers. The invaders held no fear for them and they were able to evade 3 military expeditions that were sent to kill them.

They raided station after station from Dandenong to Cape Paterson. They stole firearms and burnt down stations, trying to avoid unnecessary deaths and gunfights. They killed 2 whalers, Cook and Yankee, wounded 5 settlers, burnt down numerous farmhouses and evaded capture for 8 weeks. Although they set out to drive the settlers from the bush, they didn´t harm women or children and only fired at those that fired at them. Considering the outrages that had been perpetrated on them and their families in Tasmania, it´s extraordinary that they didn´t kill many more settlers when they had the opportunity to even up the score.

They were finally captured near Anderson´s Inlet, not far from Cape Patterson, after an exchange of gunfire with an overwhelming party of soldiers, police, settlers and black trackers, who were used to pinpoint their position in the bush. In 8 weeks, this small band had sent a shiver down the spine of the 15,000 Europeans who were living in Melbourne and its environs in late 1841.

The Aboriginal prisoners arrived in Melbourne 6 days after they were captured in chains and under military escort on the 21st November 1841. All the defendants were charged with murder, they appeared in court on the 20th December 1841. Mr. Redmond Barry, the standing Defence Counsel for Aborigines who represented the 5 in court, was the same man who presided over the trial of some of the miners who were involved in the Eureka rebellion in 1854 and the judge who sentenced Ned Kelly to hang in 1880.

Barry conducted a very skilful defence, Robinson gave character evidence for the fire, and later the same evening the jury took half an hour to reach a verdict. The men were found guilty of murder, the women were found not guilty. The jury made a very strong plea for clemency for the men ´on account of general good character and the peculiar circumstances under which they are placed´.

The next day Judge Willis sentenced the 2 men to death and the 3 women were discharged into Robinson´s care. The jury´s plea for mercy was rejected by the Executive Council of New South Wales. There had never been an execution in Melbourne since it was founded in 1836.

It´s ironic that the first 2 executions were of indigenous resistance fighters. The execution was carried out on the site of the current Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology on the 20th January 1842. 5000 people, a quarter of Victoria´s white population turned up for Melbourne´s first public executions.

Tunnerminnerwait faced the execution calmly, Peevy was terror struck and had to be dragged up to the gallows. The gallows were poorly built, the execution had no previous experience, the trap doors opened, both men only partially fell, ´the 2 twisted and writhed convulsively in a manner that horrified even the most hardened´. A spectator kicked the piece of timber holding the trapdoor partially opened, Robert slowly choked to death.

Jack and Robert were buried outside the Melbourne cemetery (under the current Victoria Market). Aboriginal armed resistance continued in Victoria till the 1850´s.

SOURCE OF MATERIAL FOR ARTICLE: Jack of Cape Grim by Jan Roberts, Greenhouse Publications 1986, ISBN 086436007X

Yes, that's how proper scholarship works, historical or otherwise: decide what you think, then put the facts together to justify it. Invent stuff that reflects 'a truth' if you have to. Anybody who disputes your thoughts, whether they have used the same reverse methodology or not, need to be discredited personally, shunned, ridiculed and ignored - preferably crimininalised - as opposed to examined and then responded to (and I mean genuinely examined - not just for the purpose of vitriolic refutation).

Then call it a war if you like, a culture war. Because once you feel you're engaged in warfare, whether it be race or class or sex, then you will feel more justified in approaching scholarship in reverse like this. The cause becomes more important than enything you might ever actually discover, so you can blithely take on board everything that backs up your already constructed position and discard anything that contradicts it. It would be treason otherwise.

Fortunately, I think there will always be scholars either brave enough (or mischievous enough, or egocentric enough) to take on the canon. After all, that's how you can tell a canon's healthy.

viscous
adj.
1. Having relatively high resistance to flow.
2. Viscid; sticky.

I have just discovered your comments about my book about the early days of Melbourne and Aboriginal Resistance. It is fantastic to find my book has not totally died but is still making ripplies.
I am still very active, wrote a book on the international diamond trade and human rights called "Glitter and Greed" that the Independent called "truly brilliant, enthralling and the product of hair raising research " - this started with me being smuggled into the Argyle diamond mine by aboriginal people...!

BUT - I want to get Jack of Cape Grim back into print - and now have ways to do so. I was horrified when the previous publisher let it die.

I have a publisher willing to scan it and republish - but I need a good copy and am in the UK... My only copy is water damaged. Does anyone have a copy of my book they could send me - I would replace it with the new...

I am also seeking good copies of my other books on the Aboriginal struggle - namely -
Massacres to Mining: the colonisation of Aboriginal Australia
The Mapoon Books (3 volumnes - especially vol 2 of which I have no copy at all)

I also made a film about the international diamond trade, De Beers and human rights, called The Diamond Empire. The ABC withdrew the film 3 days before it was due to be transmitted following legal threats from De Beers - but this was highly cowardly. It was not withdrawn by the BBC in the UK where it went out on BBC2 at prime time.
It was shown across North America as a Frontline Special as well - and as you will see this is a film I now sell from my website - http://www.sparkle.plus.com - for I am determined not to be silenced. I have also road-showed it inside De Beers mines in South Africa - and up in the diamond fields of the Canadian Arctic - and at the local Indimedia cinema in Bristol , UK, where I am now living... it got a great audience response...

I also co-produced Munda Nyuringu with Robert Bropho - on the Aboriginal struggle - this won an unanimous best documentary nomination back in 1984 and rave reviews.... but again is now not being used....

Any help you can give me to getting my work back into circulation, would be wonderful
Jan (Janine) Roberts

AND if you have or can get hold of good copies of my books - I would love you for it and pay all costs...!!
with every good wish , Jan Roberts

re the COMMEMORATION of the execution of the freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay.

I agree. We need to remember and bring this history into consciousness. So good on you for organising it. But I think the commemoration needed to also be for Trugannini and the others in the group of fighters, too. Otherwise you consign them to a role as traitors; you collude with the divide and conquer tactics of the colonisers;

I read about Timmy and Pevay in Robinson's journals: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020340b.htm

some years back and continue to be amazed at the represssion of history in Australia; It's also in Robert Cox's book: Steps to the Scaffold: http://www.abc.net.au/tasmania/stories/s1091882.htm

Maybe Joseph Toscano can clarify for me : i thought the hangings were close to or on the site of the State Library of Victoria. I am making a documentary film as a doctorate at UTS, Island Home Country, and have a sequence re Truganini's revolt- which also refers to the capture and the hangings and how, as a nation we need to make commemorations like this...bring it into the present; my blog has some references to the film and process of making....
http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com/