Friday, December 13, 2002
Today I think that the law sucks, really sucks. My heart goes out to all those of the Yorta Yorta diaspora. What is WRONG with this country when even the High Court has the attitudes, and command of history, of white shoe wearing real estate agents on the Gold Coast? "Washed away by the tide of history?" – bullshit. The fact is that the land, the title deeds, the children were stolen. Developers of all ilk have an obvious vested interest in denying this; but what is less apparent is what I would term the aesthetics of denial.
Almost every settler generation in this country (of which there has only been eight or nine) has started afresh, building wise. Given the rate of house gutting and demolition taking place in "old" Melbourne these days, the dwellings of white Australia seem wilfully blind to their own impermanence.
In truth, we live in humpies, wurlies and gunyahs – whether they be faux-Tuscan, or whatever. Our "history" is the preserved facade, or other token from the demolition of the previous incarnation – and scarily enough, that's it. Our memories, our meaning, our attachment to the land. Never mind that collectively, these two-to-eight layers of demolition are a pancake-flat record of almost nothing – and absolutely nothing when compared to the living land beneath.
Almost every settler generation in this country (of which there has only been eight or nine) has started afresh, building wise. Given the rate of house gutting and demolition taking place in "old" Melbourne these days, the dwellings of white Australia seem wilfully blind to their own impermanence.
In truth, we live in humpies, wurlies and gunyahs – whether they be faux-Tuscan, or whatever. Our "history" is the preserved facade, or other token from the demolition of the previous incarnation – and scarily enough, that's it. Our memories, our meaning, our attachment to the land. Never mind that collectively, these two-to-eight layers of demolition are a pancake-flat record of almost nothing – and absolutely nothing when compared to the living land beneath.
